Hello-
Thanks for all the help I've gotten from my previous posts--y'all are a friendly bunch. We are starting the diet today--and I am still on coffee--can't imagine giving it up and carbs at the same time. If anyone has destroyed their adrenal glands it is me--thanks to my "jack daniels for dinner and coffee for breakfast with a few bites of food in between diet "of my early twenties-ha! Here is my fear-- about a year ago we tried the carbo addicts diet which is structured like S.P. basically but allowed a reward meal once a day which was basically anything goes--as long as you didn't your binging didn't last over an hour. Here's the problem-we lasted about 6 days--and my energy level was horrible!unless I was gorging on carbs of course.I haven't read the second book which I understand goes into some more detail?During the carbo addict diet I talked with my friends that were doing low carb diets and they said that low-carb diets are only good for those with a lot of weight to lose-and I was "too skinny" to be on low carb,which is why I felt like crap...Admittedly, I don't have a lot of lbs to lose,but I have a disability which means that those few extra pounds make it extremely difficult to walk on my crutches. I really want to make this work-- and would love some advice/feedback.
Thanks-
Kayte

Sounds like a lot of nonsense to me, Kayte! Many folk eat low carb who have no weight to lose at all, so I'm afraid your friends were misinformed.

Were/are you taking any supplements? When you first start LC, you lose a lot of water which can also leach out minerals and electrolytes. I haven't read Schwarzbein, so I don't know what she recommends, but in general, most of us need a multivite, potassium and calcium & magnesium.

And how much water were/are you drinking? Dehydration can make you feel pretty awful, too.

You mentioned IBS in another thread. If you haven't already, have a look at our "Candida, Yeast and IBS" forum, where you'll see many folk, such as my DH whose IBS symptoms have largely disappeared with low carb.

Rosebud

Thanks for the reply! I was drinking water, but no supplements.. As I mentioned in another post, I hate water but am forcing myself to drink more. Do you think a daily supplement would be sufficent?

Hi Kayte,

A daily multivitamin is sufficient, but you'll need to take more potassium, calcium and magnesium than is provided by a multivite.

Calcium and magnesium are best taken in the one tablet in a 2cal:1mag formula. You'll need a total of 1000:500mg daily, unless you are post menopausal, in which case 1500:750 is best. Do split your doses, as calcium doesn't last more than about 12 hours. I believe you can get 330:167mg tabs in the US. So 1 with each meal is easy to remember.

Potassium can be taken in tablets (99mg each) or as potassium salt, such as No Salt. You'll need 400mg daily. Take the tablets with meals or they can irritate your tum.
And anyone who takes diuretics or BP meds should check with their pharmacist before supplementing with potassium.

HTH!

Rosebud

Hi Kayte:

I don't see that SPII & CAD are similar at all. SPII relies on balancing your food groups whereas CAD allows an abundance of carbs for one meal. In terms of hormonal balance, both plans would behave differently, especially if you have adrenal fatigue.

SPII is a healing program designed to balance your hormones first. Weight loss is a secondary effect of healing your metabolism. There's no reason why anyone wouldn't/shouldn't be able to follow it, providing they are following the correct program for their metabolic type.

Rosebud made a good suggestion to check out the IBS forum. You can also check out the Schwarzbein Principle forum for more feedback about energy levels while on SPII.

HTH & good luck,
Wanda