Hello Low Carb Dieters,

My name is Rodney Robbins. I'm eating lowish carbs to help control a rare medical condition called Periodic Paralysis. Due to faulty ion channels, my potassium doesn't stay in the right place and I get weak or paralysed sometimes. Standard treatment is to cut carbs to 60-80 grams per day. I feel WONDERFUL at that level. My problem is that when I keep my carbs that low, I just plain don't eat enough calories and end up with a nasty crash.

Last time I had my carb grams that low, I did great for a little while, lost 10+ pounds of fat without a hitch and then, SLAM!! I would have attacks of horrible weakness and paralysis, not from low potassium (I was taking tons), but from low calories causing a release of adrenaline or glucagone or cortisol or something (I'm not completely sure what) but these were horrible, painful, terrible crashes. When I added up my calories, I was only eating about 800 per day (way light for a 185 pound male).

So, here's my problem: How can I keep my calories up over 1,500 or ,2000 while keeping my carbs under 80?

Sure, sure, eat more protein and fat, but how can I work that in? With such low carbs, my blood sugar was very stable, I had great energy, no attacks of weakness so no signs of being hungry. No hunger, no eating; no eating, no blood sugar; no blood sugar, big crash! ;-(

Anyone else run into this? What did you do? What do you think I should do?

Thanks for your help and best wishes,
Rodney Robbins

Hi Rodney! The answer is fat. Double up your intake of good fats - flax seed oil, butter, home made mayonnaise, butter... Everytime you use one of these fats, use double the amount.
Also, high fat dairy products - whipping cream, high fat cheese like brie, Camembert, Cambozola, St. Andre, etc. Raw macadamia nuts are a good source of fat as well.

There is an interesting oil called Udo's Oil that some of us like to sip or use mixed with olive oil in salad dressings. You can read about it here.

Let us know how it works out.

Karen

Welcome to the forum, Rodney. Glad to have you with us.

Karen's given you some great advice; fat really is your friend One of the side effect of cutting down on the carbs is loss of appetitie. Helpful in some respects, but it creates it's own problems. For this WOL to be successful you must have a constant and consistent input of calories (generally 10 - 12 times your body weight); this is why planning is so important.

Using more olive oil, frying in butter, eating the skin off your chicken, doubling up on salad dressings and mayonnaise, throwing some nuts / seeds / olives / avocados in with your salads. All these things help.

Cheers,
Nat

Rodney, I'm very sorry you have this condition. I hope you find a way to add calories (adding fat is the best way). Double or triple the oil, mayo, butter and you are on your way. Eating higher healthy fat foods, salmon, avocado, macadamia nuts, whitefish, nuts, nutbutters, mackerel, olive oil...all good choices.

What does your daily menu look like NOW?

Nancy