Day 15: Why do I feel like crap?

[RebKA14]

Hoping y'all can help me to trouble shoot this. I have been feeling icky for days now—achy and tired—and I've been Whole 30-ing for a little over 2 weeks now. Where's the tiger blood? 

 

A little background: I have Type 2 diabetes and am on an insulin pump. My insulin needs have drastically decreased in the last two weeks, which is awesome. I'm down to less than 20u a day. 

 

Prior to starting this, I gave up all alcohol and tobacco over 7 months ago. I have been sugar and grain-free for over a month before starting the Whole 30, and was following a keto diet for much of that time. So, the biggest dietary switch for me was eliminating dairy and soy for the Whole 30, adding back more vegetables (20g total carbs didn't allow for much veggies) and using carageenen-free almond milk in my coffee instead of HWC. (I did not feel any better on keto, actually initially felt much worse with the carb flu).

 

I'm not hungry at all, which is awesome. But my entire body aches and I could crawl under my desk to sleep at any minute. 

 

For breakfast, I typically eat either 3 eggs or some bacon or both, with coconut oil and ghee in my coffee. 

For lunch, I generally eat a salad with EVOO and some kind of protein. 

For dinner, I will cook something, like curry chicken or salmon and broccoli, and eat it for a few days in a row.

I usually have some almonds or macademia nuts in between.

I am avoiding most fruit and starchy carbs to keep my blood sugar and insulin needs down. 

I think I am getting enough fat between the "bullet" coffee, the nuts and the fat I'm cooking with. 

 

I went to bed at 8:30 last night and had to drag myself out of bed at 6am this morning. I want to start exercising, but could only muster the energy for a 20 minute walk around the block, during which it felt like every inch of my body hurt. 

 

Also, since starting the Whole 30, I have had stomach issues, which I think is dairy withdrawal. Multiply crampy BMs daily, finally starting to taper off. 

 

Anyone experience this? Any suggestions? Thanks in advance! 

 

PS: I'm wondering if the Almond Milk has something in it? See label, attached. 

[ladyshanny]

Hi; thanks for reaching out.  The first thing that I want to say is that "tiger blood" is somewhat misleading and for people with underlying medical conditions such as you have, expecting it within 14 days may be unrealistic.

 

Second, that almond milk is fine.  Not great, but technically compliant.

 

As far as feeling achy and exhausted, one main thing stands out to me and that is your elimination of starchy veggies.  We recommend that most people, unless they know better from personal experience, have at least one serving per day of starchy veggie.  I would recommend you add back at least one serving (fist sized) of starchy veggie and see how you feel.  Sweet potato, regular potato, carrot, beet, parsnip, turnip etc.  Starchy carbs eaten with protein and fat shouldn't have a major impact on your insulin needs but give it a try.  It's possible that you will need to balance slightly more insulin for that starch intake in order to feel better.  (not a doctor, this is not medical advice)

 

You could try eliminating the nuts as they are common culprits in digestive distress (a la "multiple crampy BMs").  I remember when I used to eat macadamia nuts, I had horrible stomach pains and terrible bowel movements.  Along with the fact they could be irritating your stomach, we do not want you eating handfuls of nuts as snacks between meals that may have been too small.

 

Which leads to: I think your meals are too small and/or not properly composed. It's possible that you just didn't list out everything but based on your outline above, your breakfast is missing 1-3 cups of veggies, your lunch salad, unless it's a wheelbarrow full or includes other cooked veggies, is not big enough and your dinner appears to be lacking fat.

 

Check out the meal template linked below for proper composition and create meals that will keep you going without the need for snacks, for 4-5 hours.  Add some starch, ditch the nuts (and the almond milk if you're having a lot of it....as a nut product, it can hurt your stomach too).

[Karen_Suep]

I know for me as a pwd, I do better with some starch (not a lot but some) and some starches do better for me than others. (Wheat spikes me, but I can eat a seemingly large portion of potatoes with the same amount of insulin....) you don't need to add a lot. Maybe a fist sized every other day? But if you were feeling poorly with Leto, I'd suspect that your body needs a bit more carbs. Not a doc but definitely something to look into and maybe discuss with your endo

[RebKA14]

Thank you Ladyshanny!