Low bloodsugar, dizziness and fatigue during prolonged fasting

(Andreas) #1

Hi! I had an odd event that I wish to share With you in hopes of getting some sensible feedback. I’ve been in ketosis for about 4 months, and I have done regular intermittent fastings almost every day (I normally eat dinner around 4pm and conclude my eating for the day around 7 or 8 pm). This pattern of eating suits me quite well.

Yesterday I decided to not eat at all because we are going on a holiday trip for the weekend, and my husband and I decided to having “eating days” while there. There is gonna be icecream, I’ll tell you that :wink:

So to prepare, as I said, I wanted to fast from wednesday evening at 6 pm to saturday morning. This is not something that is unusual for me, and I didn’t expect anything out of the ordinary. However, on thursday evening, I was feeling faint, Dizzy and fatigued. I almost fainted when standing up from the couch. I have an aparatus to check my blood sugar, and it showed 3,2.

I have to add that I did an hour of excersise earlier in the day With 30 minutes of strenght and 20 minutes of relatively hard cardio (puls around 160-180 for the duration).

I thought my body would replenish the blood sugar needed when in keto by gluconeogensis. Why did my blood sugar drop so low?
I also Wonder why it mattered so much since I heard about a study in the 50’s that administered copious amounts of insulin to People in ketosis, and the dramatic fall in blood sugar didn’t seem to affect them at all. Why did I, on the other hand, feel so poorly?

I ended up going to bed early and had a good 7,5 hours sleep (I normally sleep less than 7 hours). I woke up feeling fine, but decided to break the fast at lunch time. Had 2 Slices of grilled rib With creme fraiche. I didn’t want to push my body any further this time since it obviously wasn’t coping too well With the prolonged fast.

Looking forward to Your analysis of my experience.

Sincerly, August

(LeeAnn Brooks) #2

That really sounds like you need sodium.
It helps elivate blood pressure. I get dizzy spells when my BP drops, and salt usually fixes it. The exercise you did may have dehydrated you more than you thought.

(Andreas) #3

I have a soda streamer both at home and in my Office, and I use a teaspoon of high quality sea salt in almost every bottle I drink. One bottle is just short of 1 liter, and I drink probably 4-5 bottles during a day. I also ad a little bit of apple cider vinegar in the water, both for Health benifits and for the taste (I like it).

Do you still believe it is related With salt deficiency?

(LeeAnn Brooks) #4

It sounds like low blood pressure, which extra salt can alleviate.

But there’s a simple test. Next time you start to feel dizzy, lick some salt right from your palm or suck on a couple salt crystals. If that’s the case, it should go away almost immediately. If not, at least you can rule that out as a cause/remedy.

(LeeAnn Brooks) #5

I have naturally low blood pressure, so doing Keto if I’m off even a little on my electrolytes, I get these dizzy spells a lot. I had to sit down coming up the stairs or I was going to pass out once and another time my husband literally had to hold me up for what seemed like minutes (though it probably passed faster than that).

I talked to my doctor about it and he didn’t seem worried at all. From doing some reading, there isn’t much harm from low blood pressure and even dizzy spells aren’t looked at with too much concern. All my doctor told me was up my salt levels, which is already what I was trying to do.
But adding exercise, especially with heat, can really make it difficult to get enough.

(Andreas) #6

Hmmm… I thought I was already being vigilant about my salt intake. I bet I eat at least double the amount of salt than any of my friends. I Guess a teaspoon of salt is about 0,6 grams of salt, and then I add generous amounts of salt to whatever it is i’m Cooking. However, I didn’t eat anything yesterday, so even if I drank 6 bottles of salted water that only amounts to a little more than 3 grams of salt. Add in the mineral loss from training and the heat, and I can see how I got deficient yesterday. On fasting days I Guess I will need to add two teaspoons of salt from now on :smile:

(bulkbiker) #7

My sugars go pretty low when fasting… down to the mid 3’s but if you aren’t used to being at that level then the first few times can feel a bit odd… I imagine that is what you were feeling when at 3.2.
I remember the first time I got to 3.5 I felt really weird which was why I tested and got the low reading. When your body is used to running at higher levels (which it will be when eating) it sends out a “this is odd” signal.

(Championsidewinder) #8

Yes anniegirl9, thank you for your reply, that’s why I’m dizzy now, I waiting too long to eat and didn’t drink enough water in the morning and I ate 4 pieces of bacon two avocados and two chicken thighs the after getting dizzy I took two swigs of pickle juice and ate one pickle, but not real carbs yet, but a half inch slice of a banana with a teaspoon of peanut butter, just waiting to feel better, I get Keto Flu after I eat now n then but my friend bob never gets any Flu symptoms :slightly_frowning_face: