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!

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.

Odds and Sods

Foods Eaten: Potatoes; egg yolks; egg; clarified butter; Napa cabbage; leeks; celery; chicken fat; chicken
Calories: 1448 Fat: 125 g Carb: 29 g Fibre: 2 g Protein:55 g
Weight: 152 lbs

Well, last night I certainly wasn't as deliriously happy as I had been during the day. I started to get a bit snarky around 7 pm and remained so for the duration of the evening. It may have been an amine reaction from the chicken skin or it could have been that I was hungry and hypoglycemic. I did start to get a headache in the afternoon which does spell amines, (plus, I've had horrible heartburn since yesterday afternoon, too) but I was very weak and hungry in the evening, which spells hypo. I've been trying to reduce calories and have been in a bit of a state of deprivation lately, especially in the evenings when the calorie-reduction catches up with me. I ate a small lunch around 2:00 pm and didn't have a chance to make anything for dinner until 7:15 or so. That may not seem like a long time to your average person, but with my reactive hypoglycemia still in effect, 5 hours without food can be enough to still send me into a tailspin. I even went 6 hours between breakfast and lunch and didn't feel as icky.

I am still totally confused by this hypoglycemia. It simply shouldn't be there anymore. I eliminated dairy because I suspected it was making my situation worse (and dairy has never given me a real sense of satiation anyway), but I really expected that my hypoglycemia would have gone away by now. Honestly, I haven't been testing my blood sugar lately - I'm just going by symptoms - so I'm not actually positive that my blood sugar is dipping too low. I have a very good feeling that it is, though, from all the classic symptoms I've been having.

For instance, right now (11:15 am) I am feeling hunger pains, even though I ate breakfast at 8:45 am. Considering the breakfast contained 4 egg yolks, 2 tbsp of clarified butter and only 1/3 cup of potato, I shouldn't be hungry. There was plenty of fat in that meal. If anything, I used up more than a third of the calories I allot myself in a day, which is troublesome because it indicates that I will be hungry all day long. Is it the potato?? My God, I've already given up grains and dairy... am I supposed to give up potato too??

What the crap is going on here? What on earth am I supposed to eat? Am I just not supposed to have starches or sugars of any kind? I certainly can't load up on vegetables, instead, because of all the bullsh*t in them. And just not eating any carbs is incredibly difficult on the long haul. I get depressed when I don't eat any carbs and I find my weight loss slows down without that occasional boost of serotonin. Plus, I get nauseated at the thought of food if there's absolutely no carbohydrate involved - especially eggs. Lately I've been mixing in a tiny bit of mashed potato into my eggs before scrambling so that the texture isn't quite so... eggy and sickatating. I don't usually find eggs gross - only when I'm forced to eat them all the time, like I am now. The great thing about potatoes and eggs is that they soak up fat like nobody's business, unlike, say... chicken, which will just swim around in the fat. Aside from eating chicken swimming in fat with a spoon (ugghhhh), there's no way to get all the fat necessary to keep my ratios appropriate. The egg yolk and potato mixture, on the other hand, absorb the fat and make it easier to get it down. But eggs alone make me gag lately. Oh who knows!

I'm sick of experimenting. I just want to be able to stick with what I've been doing but not feel hungry all the time. 1400 calories isn't exactly at the 'starving yourself' level, so I shouldn't feel so hungry. I'm a little dumbfounded here.

Hypoglycemia and Milk

Ok, I don't know if I'm noticing a trend or if things are coming together in a way to make me believe something that isn't really happening.

I think milk gives me hypoglycemia.

This is what tipped me off to going off dairy in the first place, actually. When I was waiting for my daily servings of milk, I'd get incredibly agitated, shaky and lose anything resembling concentration. So last night I had my first glass of goat's milk and seemed fine for the rest of the night. This morning, I had a half a cup with my breakfast and this afternoon had a bad case of hypo. Now, granted, I had gone a number of hours without eating. But so had all the other people I had been with and they were all totally fine. What is up with that?? It can't just be the carbs because I've had some pear over the last few days and was totally fine for hours afterward. Plus, even when I got hungry, I just got hungry, like regular people do. I didn't turn into a spastic, slurry, irritable bitch. I guess I should have laid off the goat's milk if I was doing a proper dairy elimination. Ok, the goat's milk was only $2.50, so I won't lament it too badly. I'll just start fresh.

I wonder if I clarify my butter if I'll be doing anything worthwhile, or if it's just as dairy-ish, either way. I'll have to look that one up. The butter thing is killing me the most - not only is it one of the only failsafe animal fats, but it also has to be one of the most deliciousifying things in the world. Simply everything is yummier when cooked in/spread with/bathed in butter. Butter is the only convenience I have when it comes to Failsafe/ON. It keeps me going. It's available everywhere and it's healthy. Anabelle <3 Butter Forever.