I’m hoping for some insight. I attempted going keto last November (in solidarity with my husband). After 2-3 days I would end up with hypoglycemia in the mornings upon waking. BG would be 45/50/55 and I was shaky, exhausted, nauseated which endedin vomiting for hours in two occasions. So I went to my doc and all his tests were normal, so he sent me to an endocrinologist and all HIS tests were normal. The Endo diagnosed me with reactive hypoglycemia.
Now I have two thoughts on this. The first is that RH is basically early T2D. The second is that the Endo isn’t very smart since I never have hypos after eating I only have them when waking.
I did a round or Whole30 in January. Not one hypo, and I was tracking my BG. I was frequently in the 60s but felt fine.
I decided to try keto again as I want all the amazing benefits and nobody can find anything wrong with me. I started in March 1st, and have been pushing the sodium and magnesium. I felt great! Until this morning on day 7, woke up shaky and nauseated. My BG was 50. So I added about. 1/4 sweet potatoe into my breakfast.
Any ideas? Any help?
I know this lifestyle is important to my wellbeing- mainly for cancer resuction.
Do I just go slowly? Is it possible my body just doesn’t do GNG well?
Hmmmm. I am not sure. Hopefully someone with more smarts on this will turn up. The only thing I can thing to suggest is to maybe ease in a little slower if having a bit higher carb stops it? Does the sweet potato help? Maybe smaller and smaller amounts of similar if it does?
I also have reactive hypoglycemia. After the hours long test I was well below 50. Before I knew that I would binge on sugar and then crave a triple cheeseburger, it always helped level me. I used to think simply staying away from processed sugar and simple carbs would be enough. I ate high protein and whole grains. I would wake up groggy and need coffee, Red Bull, and protein to kick start my day.
I started Keto on Jan 1 this year. 7-10 days in I woke up with the sugar crash feeling. I had a few days of shaky misery. I started digging into the literature and learned that proteins also eventually metabolize as sugar. I was shocked! Sugar is sugar, carbs are sugar, protein is eventually sugar, but FAT… pure energy.
Personally lowering my protein made a huge difference. I have all the symptoms of fat adaptation now. I shoot out of bed wide awake and forget to eat and get coffee out of habit! I have not felt a drastic hypoglycemic drop in weeks. It was worth pushing through.
In the first week, you’re still adapting to making and using ketones which would offset the symptoms of low glucose.
It may be that your body doesn’t have large reserves of fat and you need to increase fat consumption? Can you give us an idea of what you’re eating, and when, on a day before you have the problem?
Thanks Everyone,
I posted while very upset yesterday morning and still fuzzy headed. I think I figured out the issue from yesterday. On Monday my breakfast got cold before I could eat it and it was gross (cold eggs and spinach- ugh) and I wasn’t hungry so I just had my BP coffee and skipped eating breakfast. It was a super busy day and I don’t recall if I ate lunch. I know we sat down to dinner and I had rib eye, butter and broccoli. So I do think my fat consumption was super low on Monday and that caused my crash.
Interestingly I felt fine by lunch yesterday, a little tired but not hypoglycaemic, and my BG pre-lunch was reading 45-50. I’m hypothesising that I ate enough fat at breakfast to help increase my ketones without needing more carbs at lunch to stop FEELING hypo.
Hi Daisy!
The sweet potato was minimally helpful, pulled my sugars up to about 55-60 and I was still feeling nauseated and shaky. So I had 2 Saltine crackers (10g sugar for 7 crackers) and felt better in about 10 minutes with my sugars up at 70. I don’t know if my sugars would have pulled up in those 10 minutes with the sweet potato or not… I was trying to avoid vomiting up everything I ate and ending up with an up and down roller coaster terrible day,.
Hi Patrick!
I’m taking 2 t of Natural calm a day, spread out, for Mg. I liberally salt my food with either pink salt, or lite salt. So I do get K from my salt sources. I also eat Avos like a champ. I didn’t have Avodados from Sun-Tues because the ones we bought this weekend were not ripe. I did have a 1/2 an avo with breakfast this am and will have at least another 1/2 later.
Hi Andrew!
It is GREAT to hear your story. What kind of fat did you use? and did you use any carbs (ie sweet potatoes or the like) to get through any crashes?
Hi Carol!
I do not have huge fat reserves, more moderate ones. I’m 5 ft tall and 133lb when I started (again) on 3/1. I was 128.6 lbs this morning. I am not very muscular at this point in my life and am estimating my LBM at around 100 lbs. I would love to up my LBM but first steps first with fixing my diet.
Typical day is:
Breakfast BP coffee, 2 eggs cooked in butter or CCO, with 1/2 or so of veggies (spinach, cauliflower, broccoli rotating).
Maybe a second BP coffee mid morning
Lunch: left overs from dinner (chili, burgers, salmon, carnitas, skon on chicken thighs) with 1/2-1 cup cuciferous veggies drowned in butter. 1-1/2 avocado when we have them in the house
Dinner: same as lunch since Lunch is leftovers.
I’ve also been having at least once a day - equal parts CCO, Coconut milk, and almond butter wizzed up as a fat bomb.
I’m supplementing with: prenatal vits, Vit D3 when I remember, 2t natural calm for Mg, and salting with Himalay and pink salt and lite salt
I rode out the crashes with cream cheese fat bombs. I used an entire thing of cream cheese mixed with an entire block of Kerrygold with about 1/4 cup of diced strawberries and some stevia drops. The only carbs I had besides were incidental from greens. I was drinking sugar free Red Bull but personally got paranoid about the carbs and stopped. I also had a few fat bombs with fresh ground peanut butter. I’ve gotten pretty strict since.
As far as fat I love Kerrygold butter on EVERYTHING! Fatty cuts of meat make my day!
I’ve been focusing on fat and my BG seems to have satablized. I’ve started treating CCO almost as a nightly supplement. Morning BG is between 58-65 and I’ve been feeling fine at those numbers.
