Help--Fall asleep after eating!
 

Hello friends-- hoping for some advice here.

Took eating to a new level 4 days ago. Decided to try eating just one meal a day. THis is day 5, meal 5.

No food during the previous 23 hrs. Only water, no sugar free drinks. Maybe slew of vitamins with water.


Ate a medium size salad sauteed, a few nuts, 1/2 turkey thigh. large section turkey skin, shrimp with diced cuke in mayo, 2 lg red grapes, 1 cup ricotta with 5 lg blackberries.

Ate from 1-2 . Took my vitamins just before 2.

Started to feel groogy, and fell asleep!!! This isn't supposed to happen.

ps. was worried this would happen today, as I started to fee l a little "tired" after yesterdays meal, but not as strong as today.

Sorry I cannot offer an explanation. More fasters complain of insomnia than of being knocked out when they eat. Could you roll with it by having your meal later in the day? This effect may pass off eventually.

Thanks for chiming in.

Have you checked your blood sugar after eating? Even eating a relatively small amount of carbs it is possible that your blood sugar goes high enough to cause you sleepiness. I am really just speculating here since my grasp of the science isn't very deep but it strikes me as a possibility. Perhaps your body will adjust to this change and the sleepiness will go away.

Jean, the spike in BG is also my thought. In CAD, this is not supposed to happen. Eating in order, salad then main meal then starchy/dessert is supposed to be protective. Perhaps one meal a day screws up the response .

ALso DANDR clearly indicates a crash after a higher carb meal is normal and expected---a story about the man who fell asleep driving his car when he stopped at a red light is lazered into my memeory.

In CAD this isnt supposed to happen....

Sometimes theories are contradicted by experience.

lol. yes, that is true.

However the entire CAD plan is based on tricking the insulin response. sigh.

To test your theory, I Will go LC for a few days and see if that changes the response.

Hi. I have that problem, too. I would never have anything sugary/starchy with a meal unless I was planning on trying to fall asleep within an hour. I actually use this to my advantage when I'm working an odd shift and I otherwise might not be tired early enough. Your meal wasn't terribly high carb, but that would definitely put me to sleep.

I even get sleepy if I eat too large of a LC meal. It's not fun at work. I've had to cut my lunch breaks short and get back to work early because I start nodding off at the table. There's not much I can do but keep the meals modest, even if I think I could eat a horse.

One theory I heard is that with any substantial food intake, your body has to rather suddenly increase circulation to your stomach and intestines. With less blood flow to the brain, you get sleepy.

I've recently been having a similar experience - I'm going to have to take notes on my sleepiness to see if I'm eating something that's doing it. I eat 2 meals & it's only after my afternoon meal that I get sleepy - but not every day. It's odd, because I've been pretty wide awake with lc.

Its like ying and yang--- full of peppy energy, then zonked out. Is this narcalAepsy???? just kidding.

Again I only know with certainty that Atkins says to not binge on carbs after a time on lc. Causes a spike in insulin, then a characteristic crash in glucose.

My concern is that the RM is exactly that.

I wonder if it's in part due to being omad right now? The balance/control of insulin from the Heller's plans comes in 1) not eating more often than every 90 minutes, 2) being done eating within 60 minutes (you get a second wave of insulin release at 70 minutes), and the balance of the rm is to control the amount of carbs your body is processing (my interpretation). If you are only doing omad and it's a meal not well balanced as per calp (which I prefer as it was the result of further research they did), I wonder if that was enough for this carbo-fog?

I follow the RM rules when I eat OMAD. Trying to recreate Rachels one meal a day that was so sucessful for her.

Bringing this over..

When I first started fasting with OMAD, if I got up too quickly from a sitting position I felt dizzy. It didn't last very long though. Maybe a few days and then my body adjusted. Hopefully, yours will adjust to it as well.

I suspect the is liniked to too high carb level and I will never be able to do CAD, or true OMAD.

Basically limited to DANDR one meal a day.

Another CALPer PM'd---

Definitely cut out any high carb foods, no sweets, , and trying for a meat and a green salad with nuts, or cheese or , dang, cant remember, a tomato in a husk .....

Still having milk issues after eating.

IMO this is complicated by not getting good sleep.

Today was chicken with skin,2 timato berries, kerry cheddar, large green salad, oo, vinegar, and ......felt sleepy, mildly but noticeable.

I have to say that I had the same sleepiness when following the CAD. I seem to do better on straight low carb. The reward meal affected my insulin more than I thought. Dana Carpender the famous low carb recipe author had the same experience when trying the CAD. She said she fell asleep in front of guests that were over for dinner and she realized that straight low carb kept her blood sugar more even.

THank you.....confirms I'm not completely abby-normal, lol.

Ultimately I have stopped following CAD. I suspect one reward meal now and then works for me. I tried a month of 2 RM a week, and I was still leary of a true full on sugar treat, so kept to lower carbs and seemed to get away with back to back days with eating all my carbs in one meal ( OMAD) but that seemed to stall weight loss depending on the components of the meal.

Weight loss is tricky business!

I had a little surprise about spiking BS a while back. It was after eating McD fries and catsup, not even a sugary dessert, although the catsup does have sugar. I was shocked to see my spike because on LC I am usually totally in the normal range, or so I thought.
I took the initial reading, then kept sticking over the next hour and a half, finger after finger until it went to normal again.

Meme, fyi, no two fingers the same, lol. Learned that from a friend today. As a type 1, she must check two fingers. Well maybe this is because it is a no prick method.

I know it works for a lot of people. I think its great for people who are just starting out on low carb, or can't just give up carbs. And I know because I have to take my wheat and sugar addiction day by day, but I use the CAD as a sometime meal when I'm at a wedding or party or something at work. I was going to experiment with using it as a 'maintenance' diet when I lose the rest of my weight. I am hypoglycemic, so I can't even do intermittent fasting. I asked Dr. Fung and he said no way. I have to eat to keep my blood sugar even.

We are each unique--and it definitely takes years to understand all the details of our biochemistry. I like the OMAD and the CAD, and use it to push the limits. Unfortunately it cannot be a daily event--somehow it causes low sugar which can either become a very sleepy event or a drive to eat more aka binge..... still working out my understanding of these two events.

Low carb or keto if you can do it, is the best and healthiest diet!! I believe low fat had a big hand in my mother's demise because she refused to try Atkins.

Oh I eat plenty of fats. Mostly meats and vegies, some fruits occassionally.

One meal a day sometimes, just not hungry. Other days, several meals. Weight loss is slow. Still want to know the biochem of what is happening with sleepiness and how to avoid that drop in blood sugar.

Isn’t it the turkey? All that tryptophan?
Tray again with chicken or fish?

Oops — sorry, didn’t check the OP date. I’m late to the party.

Hello Blue, happy to hear your ideas. Tryptophan in turkey has been debunked the last I heard.

I often fall asleep in my chair in front of the TV after supper RM. Did not think it was a problem.

Hi!!

Have come to this conclusion:

Falling asleep after a meal is generally regarded as due to spike in insulin. So I stopped CAD as I want my blood sugars even and not spiking. Too many health issues connected to extra sugar in the blood..... so, ya, I keep to low carb as much as possible.