Question
About 5 years ago I had a glucose tolerance test (5 hour blood sugar test) and by the end my blood sugar was down in the fifties. Tonight I tested my sugar after I ate dinner (a nice big steak) and it was only at 93. I have always felt that being hypoglycemic, I could not survive without SOME sort of carbs. I mean, I am not eating ANY carbs at all. No brown rice, no baked potatoes, NOTHING! And to tell you the truth, I am getting very sick of meat! And I am so sick of eating salad with lemon juice! It is absolutely gross!
I know it is only for 2 weeks, but for me that is a very very long time. I have only been doing this for 4 (almost 5) days, and it feels like 4 years.
Does anybody know about carbs causing auto-immune disorders such as sjogrens. My dr said that if this diet was going to help me, all of my symptoms would start to get much worse within a few days (NOW!) of starting it. Well, it has almost been 5 days, and the 2 reasons that I started this diet, severe, dry, allergy eyes, and sinus headaches, have not been any different at all. Not one bit. So does this mean that it is not carbs that are giving me my eye problems and my sinus problems? I personally do not subscribe to this therory at all, and I cannot wait to prove my dr wrong.
If you ask me, I am just having a normal reaction to not having any carbs. ANYBODY who has to go without eating any carbs will feel tired and lightheaded after a few days. Mine is just made worse by the hypoglycemia. What I'm saying is, I feel like that these are just normal symptoms of low blood sugar, and they don't have anything to do with withdrawl from carbs. I mean, I am Jewish, so when I can do it, I try to fast on Yom Kippur. I am getting the same exact symptoms now that I get then, only a hundred times worse. And yes, I am eating. Today I have had 4 bananas, half of a pineapple, 1 apple, 1/4 pound of chicken breast, and a huge steak. My stomach hurts too much to eat anything more. I am full in the tummy, but at the same time my head feels very dizzy and light, and sick, like I haven't eaten all day. I don't care what anybody tells me, it is not healthy for me to be feeling like this. Nothing is helping to bring my blood sugar up. If I eat too much of the meat or chicken, it really makes me nauseous and I want to throw up.
Oh, and I cannot have onions. In fact, here is the entire diet:
Lean Meats (beef, veal, lamb, pork, etc...), Poultry (turkey, chicken, cornish hens, duck, etc...)
Fish, and the following vegetables:
asparagus, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, celery, chicory, escarole, okra, parsley, radish, young string beans, squash, watercress, spinach, turnip greens, mustard greens, collards, kale, chard, alfalfa sprouts. Any green leafy vegetable may be added.
And I am allowed 2 of the following fruits per day:
bananas (he said I could have up to 4 if I need it), 1/2 pineapple, grapefruits (allergic), and 2 pears
That's it. This is all I am surviving on. NO seasonings, spices, oils, no onion, and no garlic. No grilled foods, and only fresh green herbs.
Nothing other than the foods I have listed must go into my body. No brown rice (usually a staple in high protein diets), no potatoes, no grains, no dairy, no bread.
I am calling my dr tomorrow and telling him that if he doesn't add some carbs, (brown rice or a potato would be fine) I am not continuing with this nonsense. I am getting too sick from this. Today I almost passed out from low blood sugar, even though I had just eaten plenty of protein. I cannot do this anymore.
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oh, and this stupid diet is messing w/my period real bad, too. One day I have it, the next day I don't.
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Hello purple2067,
If you stop now you will not be able to find out what foods you may be allergic to that are messing up your bowels and causing other symptoms. Maybe this was not ausing all of your problems, but it may have been the source of many that you described.
You will get plenty of carbs from the vegetables and the fruit you are allowed. Believe it or not, they are in there. Carrots are loaded with sugar, munch on those for snacks, all you want. Bananas and pears have plenty of carbs too. Don't over do with the protein, but eat more vegetables and fruit.
You seem to be addicted to the sugars, and that is not healthy for anyone. I know the withdrawals are painful, but hang in there! I have done this before and I never felt better.
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Purple,
What your doctor is trying to do is cleanse your body so you both can start from scratch and see exactly what foods are causing you to have the bad symptoms. He will eventually (after the 2 weeks) introduce you again to certain foods, and then you will then see exactly what you need to permanantly stay away from. Sweetie, I know it's hard. But hang in there.......I promise you will be really glad you did.
Hang in there....you only have 9 days left. Just make sure you drink, drink drink.......lots of water.....as for the salad........ask your doctor if you can use plain vinegar so you can at least switch every day.
Take care and god bless
Stefanie
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Stefanie Stefanie
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I know I am being stubborn (I REALLY did not want to do this, he just sprung it on me at the last second and I was not at all prepared for the anxiety that would come with the withdrawl!). But aren't there other ways to find out exactly what I am allergic to or what is causing my food sensitivity? Under the skin allergy tests??? What about eliminating one food at a time for a week, and then adding it back? That is how we did it in the past and it worked fine. I am going to try to stick with it as long as possible, but this is really WAY too radical for me. I am at the point now where I am so sick of all of these foods that I do not even WANT to eat anymore. As soon as he tells me I am allowed to have bread, I am gonna go out and get myself a nice salami sandwich (that is ALL I have been craving all week. I am even starting to smell it!) LOL!
And let me restate that the ONLY, and I mean ONLY reason that I agreed to do this diet was because he said it would tell me which foods are causing my very severe eye problems. So far it has not told me anything about that. All it has done is confirm that I am hypoglycemic and that I get gas from eating too many veges. (have had that since I was born, so he can't tell me that I was born with a carb addiction!). My sinus problems have not gotten any worse or better since starting (how long should it really take for all of the symptoms to come out?), and neither have my eye problems. Which as I stated before, was absolutely the ONLY reason that I agreed to try this. Yes, I do want to loose weight, but heck, I can go to a nutritionist for that! Or weight watchers! I don't need to be starved.
Plus, getting back to the eyes, my ophthalmologist, who I would trust with my life, absolutely does not agree that it is foods that are causing my eye allergies. Here is another thing that i forgot to mention before that may be relevant. I live in Staten Island, NY, about 35 minutes away from ground zero. My eye problems did not start until a few days after 9/11. So I truly believe that it really has something to do with all of the debris that was floating around in the air that could have irritated my eyes. When I was a child i had some very very minor eye allergies (maybe for 1 or 2 weeks out of the year my eyes would itch), but now I have them 24/7/365, and they are a hundred times worse than anything you can even imagine. I said it before, and I'll say it again, this diet has not made them better or worse.
I appreciate all of the advice very much, and I love you gus for it and I thank you for caring so much. If I sound angry it is just because I am using this partly as a place to vent my frustrations about this whole stupid diet (there I go again venting).
Thanks so much,
Elyse
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I know I am being stubborn (I REALLY did not want to do this, he just sprung it on me at the last second and I was not at all prepared for the anxiety that would come with the withdrawl!). But aren't there other ways to find out exactly what I am allergic to or what is causing my food sensitivity? Under the skin allergy tests??? What about eliminating one food at a time for a week, and then adding it back? That is how we did it in the past and it worked fine. I am going to try to stick with it as long as possible, but this is really WAY too radical for me. I am at the point now where I am so sick of all of these foods that I do not even WANT to eat anymore. As soon as he tells me I am allowed to have bread, I am gonna go out and get myself a nice salami sandwich (that is ALL I have been craving all week. I am even starting to smell it!) LOL!
And let me restate that the ONLY, and I mean ONLY reason that I agreed to do this diet was because he said it would tell me which foods are causing my very severe eye problems. So far it has not told me anything about that. All it has done is confirm that I am hypoglycemic and that I get gas from eating too many veges. (have had that since I was born, so he can't tell me that I was born with a carb addiction!). My sinus problems have not gotten any worse or better since starting (how long should it really take for all of the symptoms to come out?), and neither have my eye problems. Which as I stated before, was absolutely the ONLY reason that I agreed to try this. Yes, I do want to loose weight, but heck, I can go to a nutritionist for that! Or weight watchers! I don't need to be starved.
Plus, getting back to the eyes, my ophthalmologist, who I would trust with my life, absolutely does not agree that it is foods that are causing my eye allergies. Here is another thing that i forgot to mention before that may be relevant. I live in Staten Island, NY, about 35 minutes away from ground zero. My eye problems did not start until a few days after 9/11. So I truly believe that it really has something to do with all of the debris that was floating around in the air that could have irritated my eyes. When I was a child i had some very very minor eye allergies (maybe for 1 or 2 weeks out of the year my eyes would itch), but now I have them 24/7/365, and they are a hundred times worse than anything you can even imagine. I said it before, and I'll say it again, this diet has not made them better or worse.
I appreciate all of the advice very much, and I love you gus for it and I thank you for caring so much. If I sound angry it is just because I am using this partly as a place to vent my frustrations about this whole stupid diet (there I go again venting).
Thanks so much,
Elyse
