Hypoglycemia And Being Constantly Hungry

[zergcoffeebean]

So I've been gluten free for a while. I think that I get hit with low levels of gluten from the things around me. I haven't got that down yet. But my main concerns at the moment are feeling hungry all the time and getting hypoglycemic.

I have had issues with low blood sugar, usually when having a lot of pop and not eating anything, for a long time. However, going gluten free seems to have changed that. I used to drink a lot of pop. I still drink some. I've been cutting back the last few days to see if it helps with my blood sugar, it doesn't seem to affect it at all. I am a chronic migraineur as well, and hypoglycemia is one of my triggers. Typically getting hungry, then faint, irritated, adrenaline soaked, and just bat-poop crazy feeling when hypoglycemic gives me a migraine attack.

Prior to going gluten free, I did not get hungry much. I ate two meals a day at most, maybe a snack. The rest of my calories would come from pop (bad habit). I had (and probably still have) some really bad eating habits. I've always looked more or less healthy so my diet was never a concern to others. My chronic conditions never responded to diet changes in the past (going vegetarian, going vegan, going organic, going dairy free, going caffeine free, etc). The only thing that helpped was going gluten free. And that has eliminated my IBS symptoms, but everything else has flared back up again.

I have no doubt in my mind that eating gluten is bad for me. Not sure if I have celiac, or non-celiac gluten intolerance. But I do know, for the first month being gluten free, I felt awesome.

My problem now is, I'm poor. I live in a household with 5 other gluten eaters. But mostly, my bloodsugar constantly crashes and I'm always fricken hungry. I have been eating much more meat/protein and vegetables. I do not eat a lot of complex carbs because corn seems to bug me, and rice doesn't seem to fare much better. I eat nuts and things when I can afford them, fresh fruit, and dried fruit. But again, these things are expensive. I am feeling really sad because I don't know what to eat that I can keep eating because it's affordable.

I mentioned it to my new doctor (recently moved), he said because my old diet had so much refined grains and sugars that my body is still adapting to this diet. If that is the case when do I stop feeling like ass and start feeling normal? I don't think it's that simple, I think there is something wrong.

Some medical history:

Migraines since 12, chronically for the last 10 years or so.

Fibromyalgia dx almost 3 years ago now.

Low iron since age 12 (did not respond to supplements)

Low hemoglobin since age 24 (did not respond to supplements)

IBS since age 16 that magically disappears when going gluten free

lactose intolerant since age 16 (I have trouble mostly with milk and icecreme, fresh cheeses. Older cheeses and yogurts don't bug me much.)

I've lost 15 lbs since going gluten free, all in the first month.

Example day of eating.

Today I had:

1 apple

bowl of yogurt

1 hour later I had an ensure meal replacement

20 minutes later I had a decaf-tea

20 minutes after that I had 2 scrambled eggs with cheese

I napped for 4 hours.

upon waking I had 1 nectarine

1 hour later I had a glass of coke

10 minutes after that I had a boiled egg

20 minutes later I had a handful of almonds

20 minutes after that I had another nectarine.

20 minutes after that I had another bowl of yogurt.

1 hour after that I had another glass of coke (last of the day if I can help it)

Because my family is having hotdogs for dinner I kind of have to fend for myself. I get some french fries and salad. But I'll be eating those in about an hour.

If it helps, I've been inside all day, the most strenuous thing I've done is go up and down the stairs a few times.

Really, how much should I be eating? what should I be eating? I feel like poop, I must being doing this wrong. GAHH I'm so confused.

Because I have fibro and migraines (attacks nearly every day) I don't get out much. I am pretty sedentary. But I still am flexible and relatively strong. I try to exersize twice a week for 20 mins. Being so hungry all the time kind of puts a damper on that.

[Rebecca Madrid]

I can't really help you but I hope some one responds. I'm exactly the same way though. If I don't eat as soon as I feel hungry, the migrane will hit within half an hour.

Good luck

[Mack the Knife]

It sounds like you are not eating enough carbs. No wonder you are hungry all the time.

You don't have to eat grains to get carbs. Potatoes are a good, cheap source of carbohydrate and you should incorporate them into your diet. Sweet potatoes are especially good because they are low GI. You can roast them, bake them, mash them, etc just like regular potatoes. Pumpkin is good too as are most root vegetables like yams, turnips, swedes, etc. Root vegetable soup or potato and leek soup are great, satisfying meals

Try to have a serve or two a day. It's pretty easy to have a side of mashed potato with your meal or do a baked potato in the microwave. Potato hash browns are great for breakfast with an egg on top. You can make them in advance and freeze them.

Maybe you could try eating more legumes and pulses. They're a cheap source of protein and quite filling. Baked beans make a good breakfast and it's pretty easy to tip a can beans into a salad.

[Mari]

Hi - sorry for your problems. When I was younger I use to get weak and shaky after eating sweets, pancakes and syrup really sent me into a downward spiral. I learned that if I ate a high protein food when I had something sweet or hi carbs that helped a lot, ice cream and peanuts was one of my favorites. When craving sweets I found just walking around for a while and doing something - not strenuous exercise - the weakness and craving would recede. Look at the Specific Carbohydrate Diet - I have found it to be a good food guide. Some people with intestinal yeasts develop an overgrowth of Candida in their gut and people with that problem crave sweets. Drs have some treatments for that but many people choose to treat it with herbs and diet and claim it is more effective. Antibiotics in the past and a hi carbohydrate diet might be a cause especially if you have had Candida in the past. Curezone has a forum which might help you.

[Takala]

I am so glad you have written out a list of what you actually ate, this makes it much easier. This is going to be easy to fix.

I am making the assumption that the soda pop is the kind with sugar in it, if it is not, please let me know.

Drinking pop is a very expensive way to drink sugar water and chemicals. Or worse, sugar and CORN SYRUP water with chemicals. With blood sugar problems already, it's very detrimental, as it spikes your blood sugar quickly and then you crash because your diet is way too low in fat and fiber and high in fruit sugars. If you have to have the caffeine, and I sympathize, as caffeine helps fight the grogginess that being glutenned causes, and it also helps with some headaches, start to use something else cheaper to get it, such as hot tea, and start using whichever brand of artificial or substitute sweetener that you can tolerate. I'll go thru them by the color of the packets they come in. Pink stuff, aka saccharin, is not that expensive and is less likely to cause a migraine. Blue stuff, aka aspartame, "Equal" is not good for people with sensitivities, allergies, or headaches/migraines. Yellow stuff, sucralose, aka "Splenda," is okay. There is also stevia, which is a plant extract, but is is of the family that is related to ragweed, so if you have hay fever, you may want to use caution.

see also Open Original Shared Link

You can also use smaller amounts of honey or agave nectar, but agave is pretty pricey. While a cup of tea might taste sweet with one teaspoon or 10 - 15 calories of sugar, a can of soda pop can run 180- 250 calories or more- all of the calories being from sugar - it's crazy.

High fructose diets - big no-no with people with problems with blood sugars.

Right away I see this diet is very high sugars from the pop and fruit and very sadly low in fat and vegetables. (most people would be aghast at the lack of grains, not me, I did the SCD for awhile, at first. ) You need to eat good forms of fat to give you slow burning fuels so you don't feel hungry, and you MUST eat more vegetables if you are going to pull this off with no grains. Vegetables, besides providing bulk that is slower to digest, helps hold moisture in your gut longer and helps those beneficial bacteria in the gut that are digesting your food for you.

If you want to add carbs without grain you can try potatoes or well drained and rinsed beans, both, when some olive oil is added, last a very long time and sate hunger. You can also put yogurt on both potatoes and beans as a topping.

Now let's talk about the old way that people counted servings. It went like this, 3 to 4 of everything a day. Since we're talking low carb and not doing the bread, we will substitute that.

So, 4 fruits, 4 vegetables, 4 proteins such as egg/fish/meat/nuts, 4 dairy calciums such as milk/cheese, and some fat such as olive oil, coconut milk, or avocado or nuts for the fats.

So you've got:

__________________

dairy calciums 1 2 3 yog yog chee

fruits 1 2 3 ap nec nec

vegetables..... not until dinner, then 1 salad . you're way short

proteins 1 2 3 ens, eggs

fat just 1 nuts. maybe the salad dressing and some from the potato. Need more

carb just 1 from potato.... need more

__________________

You need to get more vegetables in there. Your new goal is to eat vegetables at least twice a day or even 3x a day, but always by lunch. Preferably green ones.

But you don't want to . It's a cultural thing. I used to eat like that, it just takes retraining. Vegetables can be rinsed under the tap, placed in a bowl, and microwaved and a minute or two later there they are, ready for their olive oil, gluten-free mayonnaise, yogurt, salt, or whatever. I save some all the time from dinner for breakfast or a mid morning snack.

For what you spend on pop and ensure, $$$, certainly you can afford a bunch of broccoli and a bunch of leafy greens or green beans or snap pea pods or something each week, buying whatever is in season and cheaper. Do you have a farmer's market anywhere to shop at ? Can you plant some greens in a garden or tub ?

Canned vegetables. Beans, on sale, drained, rinsed, are very nutritious and filling. Or you can take dried ones, pick them over, rinse, cover in boiling water, let cool, dump the water and cook them again in water. Pumpkin. This canned pumpkin stuff can be used in many different ways, (it's wonderful in chile) is delicious mixed with yogurt and cinnamon, can be baked into puddings, and very filling.

Beans and rice are a classic, CHEAP, filling gluten free combination. This can be put together quickly with canned beans and minute rice, but even regular rice doesn't take that long to cook.

If you can afford rice pasta, canned tomato puree and paste can be made into spaghetti sauce to go on it. Or you can put it on rice to make a type of stove top casserole. Classic stove top casseroles that aren't expensive can be a can of tomato puree, a can of well rinsed beans, a can of corn, and a can of beans with some tabasco sauce, seasoned with a bit of vinegar and cumin, served over rice. This makes a lot of food for not much.

You can also make curry. Saute vegetables in oil, add spice, add yogurt to make sauce, serve over rice. A classic curry is pea and potato with yogurt. You can fry up some onion and garlic, add the curry spices, then some frozen peas or other vegetables, and a chopped up baked potato and some yogurt, and there's dinner.

If you can tolerate peanuts or peanut butter, find some and that is a great source of fat and protein at the same time. If you're eating semi vegetarian like you listed above, you MUST combine proteins better or you'll starve. For example, peanut butter and cheese on a rice cake, or with rice on the side. But this is a very hard diet to do vegetarian, and unless you have some sort of ethical objection, I'd be trying to find a cheap meat source such a chicken thighs or hamburger, or a whole chicken on sale, and cooking some servings up and keeping them on hand for the week. Or this is a bit more expensive, Buddig, for instance, makes gluten free turkey lunchmeats.

The cheapest and best gluten free salad dressing is you buy a very large jug of high quality olive oil that lasts a very long time, and a big jug of pure apple cider vinegar, and you put some of each into smaller bottles and sprinkle it onto your salads with some seasonings. Lemons can also be substituted for the vinegar.

For fat, you can also buy a can of coconut milk and put a bit in your tea every day and a can will last a week. This is a great substitute for milk and it is filling.

If you google search "bun in a cup" you can find some microwave quick bread recipes. I adapted one here and make quick gluten-free bread in a bowl in the microwave that is cheaper than store bought. (I can't eat much or I blimp ). I found that I could substitute the gluten free flours easily, and had to add a spoonful of oil or it became too dry. But basically you take an egg, some oil, some vinegar, and about a half to 2/3 cup of any mix of gluten free flours or nut meals, add a dash of salt, some baking soda, and enough water to make a batter, stir well, and it cooks in a cereal bowl in the microwave and turns into bread in about a minute and a half. ( microwave settings vary. be careful. my first attempt was a hockey puck that tasted wretched because I really did not need to cook it that long. (This was when I discovered that not only did flax meal not sit right with me, I really do not like the taste of it, and am not going to miss it. Ick. ) These bun cup recipes can also be done with almonds. I grind my own in a dedicated blender, I buy the nuts in big bags at the farmer's market, (being in CA helps, nuts all over the place ) so it works out I'm getting my almond meal for about $3 a pound so it's much cheaper. I can make muffin bowls in the morning by adding a bit of sweetener to it, and some fruit peel, and make 2 servings. (when I measure out ingredients I do more than one, so it's like a homemade pre - mix in a baggie or cup just waiting for the liquids. ) One of these high protein muffin like things is very long lasting, esp. if made of nuts and seeds with oil added.

If you add some amaranth flour to things, it makes it more mold resistant and I have kept some things I've baked in a more conventional way, either in cast iron with oil like a cornbread is done, or in the oven, in the refrigerator up to a week.

Hopefully this will give you some ideas, and you can get yourself feeling better soon.

[frieze]

yup, need to "can" the coke, pun intended....

and too much fruit! that dried stuff is concentrated sugar!

and citrus can be a trigger for migraines, if you have that issue....the steriotypic "red wine" H/A....stay away from citrus, peanuts, broad beans, hard cheese, chocolate, bananas, vanilla (real)....hm i am sure i missed a few. Try this for a week, good luck.

[zergcoffeebean]

Thanks everyone for the replies. I'm still reading through them and soaking them up. I just wanted to let you know I am paying attention lol.

A note on caffeine. I drink it because it helps with migraines. But if I drink too much (like in a cup of tea or coffee) it makes me feel all shakey and anxious. It's really uncomfortable. I'm not sure why coke does not do that, but it doesn't. Unless I drink a lot at once (like 1.5 liters).

Artificial sweetners are a migraine trigger for me. I've tried all the diet ones, they give me migraines within a few minutes of drinking/eating them. Stevia is ok, but I don't really like it. I don't actually need something sweet. I don't crave sweets (at least not any more than once in a while). I just drink coke to manage my migraines (which are pretty much daily). I went off of caffeine for almost 6 months before, I had more migraines even after the withdrawal period. Gonna have to switch that up, but I am not sure how yet.

I did the whole migraine elimination diet. My dietary triggers are red wine, beer (not that I can have that) and artificial sweeteners. My main triggers are muscle tension, changes in the weather, changes in my blood sugar, changes in my sleep patterns, sinus congestion, all of my allergies, tmj, and when people or I touch certain parts on my face and scalp and neck, bright light, strong smells, loud noises (like listening to loud music for a few minutes or standing near someone who is yelling.) As you may have guessed already, I'm a total shut in.

[frieze]

Thanks everyone for the replies. I'm still reading through them and soaking them up. I just wanted to let you know I am paying attention lol.

A note on caffeine. I drink it because it helps with migraines. But if I drink too much (like in a cup of tea or coffee) it makes me feel all shakey and anxious. It's really uncomfortable. I'm not sure why coke does not do that, but it doesn't. Unless I drink a lot at once (like 1.5 liters).

Artificial sweetners are a migraine trigger for me. I've tried all the diet ones, they give me migraines within a few minutes of drinking/eating them. Stevia is ok, but I don't really like it. I don't actually need something sweet. I don't crave sweets (at least not any more than once in a while). I just drink coke to manage my migraines (which are pretty much daily). I went off of caffeine for almost 6 months before, I had more migraines even after the withdrawal period. Gonna have to switch that up, but I am not sure how yet.

I did the whole migraine elimination diet. My dietary triggers are red wine, beer (not that I can have that) and artificial sweeteners. My main triggers are muscle tension, changes in the weather, changes in my blood sugar, changes in my sleep patterns, sinus congestion, all of my allergies, tmj, and when people or I touch certain parts on my face and scalp and neck, bright light, strong smells, loud noises (like listening to loud music for a few minutes or standing near someone who is yelling.) As you may have guessed already, I'm a total shut in.

Open Original Shared Link

[zergcoffeebean]

Open Original Shared Link

Thanks for the link. This is something I tried a few years ago. It was a very very tiny component of my migraines. And only red wine (or beer) would trigger a migraine attack for me.

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Thank you for your very indepth and thorough reply Takala. I have read it a few times. I've got this thread bookmarked. I'll admit I probably should have known all this stuff, but when you cut out gluten and are hungry all the time, I guess I just sort of paniced.

I have trouble with grains, and beans, but I might try bean things again. Thank you again.

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Mack the Knife, thanks for your suggestions. I am interested in trying pumpkin, because I love it. Thank you again.

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Mari, thanks for your reply. I could ask my doctor about the candidia thing. I don't think that's an issue, but you never know I guess. I've never had a yeast infection before (anywhere), just C.Diff last year (it was omfgawful, I was sick for WEEKS). I've already been cutting back the pop (going cold turkey was a little difficult. I'm down to a glass a day, and it seems to be helping.

Thanks again everyone!