Day 3: Blood Sugar? Naps? Flexibility?

[bailey.derby]

I am on Day 3 of my whole 30 and already having some inconvenient symptoms.

Yesterday I woke up feeling very faint and even a little queezy. It took me a while to realize that I was hungry. Not just hungry, but starving. I quickly made some eggs and spinach and felt better, but throughout the day I would go from feeling fine to suddenly feeling like I hadn't eaten in days. I was in class when one of these (blood sugar drops?) occurred, but I couldn't get home to eat for over an hour. By the time I got home, I felt sick and every food I had available just seemed so unappetizing. Has anyone else ever experienced this? Drinking a green smoothie with coconut milk helped but it was still hard to get down. Does anyone have advice on how to combat this besides just eating constantly?

Today I felt fairly good, no raging irritability yet, but I was very tired (as is to be expected). I took two power naps and wanted to recommend an app to anyone else who is curious about monitoring their sleep. There's an app called Sleep Cycle that monitors your movements while you sleep at night, and judges your sleep level by that. It's really interesting to see how certain things effect your sleep quality. The same company also makes an app that I think is called Power Nap... It has three nap levels to choose from, power nap being the shortest, lightest sleep. This nice thing about these apps is that they (try) to gently, gradually wake you up when they sense you are in a light phase of sleep, so you don't wake up in the middle of deep sleep and mess up your hormones.

One last weird thing I noticed today was that I was more flexible. I know that sounds random, but every day I've been trying to do some yoga stretches, and they've been especially stiff and difficult lately. But today, I reached down and touched my toes easily for the first time in a while. Has anyone else experienced this?

Also, please let me know if this is not the appropriate place for posts like this... I'm still trying to figure this all out.

[jmcbn]

I'm guessing that the sudden hunger & queasiness is coming from not eating enough.

Could you post what you've eaten over the last few days so we can take a look and maybe point out some tweaks?

The tiredness is fairly normal in the early days with many people taking naps or going to bed much earlier than usual. YOur body is going through a lot of change so tiredness is to be expected.

 

Make sure you're drinking the recommeded half an ounce of water per pound of body weight, and salting your food appropriately.

[ShannonM816]

It's hard to tell you what might be going on without knowing what you're doing. Could you list a couple of days' worth of food (including approximate portion sizes), water intake, exercise, sleep, and anything else that you think might be pertinent? We can take a look and see if anything jumps out at us.

 

You don't have to eat constantly, but you need to eat consistently. Three meals a day, following the meal template. That means:

• 1-2 palm-sized portions of protein (length, width, depth of your palm), or if eggs are your only protein, have as many whole eggs as you can hold in your hand.
• 1-2 thumb-sized portions of fat, or a heaping handful of olives or coconut flakes, or 1/2 to a whole avocado, or 1/2 a can of coconut milk, or a small handful of nuts.
• fill the plate with vegetables -- at least one cup, aim for more like three cups, and if you have just raw leafy green stuff, go for even more as they tend to break down to nothing and not stay with you as long.
• Occasionally, if you want to, have some fruit. Try to have not more than two servings a day, and always with meals, not by itself, and you never have to have it if you don't want to.

For best results, do this three times a day, starting with your first meal within an hour of waking up. Ideally, you'll be able to comfortably go 4-5 hours between meals. At first, as you're figuring this out, you may not be able to get that long between meals. That's okay, if you're hungry, go ahead and eat, but make it a mini meal of protein, fat, and vegetables, or at least two of the three. Even once you get it figured out, if you have really long days, you may need a fourth meal or a mini meal, and that's okay -- you should never really be hungry until you're getting close to time for you next meal.

 

Most people find they feel best if they have at least one serving of starchy vegetable each day (sweet potato, potato, any type of winter squash, root vegetables, jicama, plantains). People who are very active, who have a history of depression or anxiety, and women who are nursing, pregnant, or in the week leading up to their period often find they need more than one serving a day.

 

As for why you're more flexible, maybe just that you've been working on it? I suppose it's possible you're already seeing some reduction in inflammation, although day 3 seems a little early for noticeable changes.