Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Hypoglycemia and the Ketogenic Diet

Foods Eaten: egg yolks; clarified butter; lard; brie cheese; 35% cream; instant coffee; chicken stock; duck fat; chicken
Cal: 1951 Fat: 168 g Carb: 13 g Fibre: 0 g (wow, I think that's a first) Protein: 94 g
Weight: 156 lbs

It occurs to me that I don't think I've ever really successfully gotten into ketosis. I have bad breath almost all the time, (or at least I think I do - no one's ever complained, but I often have a stale taste in my mouth) so it's impossible for me to know whether it's ketones, or just bacteria. I ordered ketones strips online once, ages ago, and tried them and even when I was very very low carb, I never lost weight and the sticks never turned colour unless I hadn't eaten in hours and hours. I think I have a hard time getting into ketosis at all. I have no idea why. But I'm going to try again. This time with a higher level of fat and less protein than I've ever tried before, which may help my cause.

It also occurs to me that I've never trialled dairy in a ketotic state. Most of the symptoms I get from dairy are hypoglycemic ones (and the resulting irritability). I wonder if on a ketogenic diet I'd tolerate dairy better because my mood would be better and I'd be less likely to get all hypoglygemic and anxious. It's worth a try! I'll reintroduce full fat cream and cheese only, but no milk or half and half cream or lighter cheeses like cheddar. I hope it works, because it could mean I could have optimal ice cream again (with no sugar, of course... but still - yay!). Oh my GOD I hope it works. I miss cream!

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Thursday, April 27, 2006

Dairy Trial Continued...

Well, I wanted to see how long I could go until I started to really get hungry after having my creamy milk this morning. I ate breakfast at 9 am, then ran out and bought the cream at 10:30 and drank some of that just before 11 am. I felt fine, if not completely satisfied (drinking cream or milk always makes me just want to drink more for some reason - I am never really satiated). I stopped myself, though and went on with my day.

Went out for a very brisk walk at lunch and halfway through started to get a pounding headache. Once I got back to work and sat down again, the headache disappeared.

Around 3 pm, started getting quite hungry and a bit weak. Couldn't wait any longer and had another glass of cream at 3:30pm, due to some weird hypo symptoms (head rushes, blurry vision, anxiety).

I'm not jumping to conclusions, as I sometimes get these hypo symptoms even without dairy being involved. I did, afterall, go almost 5 hours without food, which is never a very good idea for me. The real test will be after today is done and I can observe symptoms over the next 2 or 3 days. This is the first time I've really had dairy and purposely avoided grains at the same time, so hopefully nothing horrible will happen and I will be able to reintroduce it. The hypoglycemia is very annoying and plays havoc with my mood, but if it means being able to eat dairy in moderation on occasion, I may have to live with it.

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