Did anyone experience frequent hunger and bouts of hypoglycemia when on induction?
Hi guys. My sister finally decided to do the low carb thing. She is a MAJOR sweets & carb addict, so this is more difficult for her than it was for me (I wasn't a true blue carb addict, I was physically addicted to them only by circumstance; I don't enjoy or crave carbs much at all). She is fairly thin however, she only wants to lose about 15 "vanity" pounds.
Anyway, I am at a loss because so far her experiences with induction are completely different from mine were. The moment I began induction it was like a light went off, and I realized that the way I felt my whole life was abnormal because of my diet. I no longer craved food insatiably, I just felt physically "normal" in every way (normal moods, normal hunger, and what I now recognize as bouts of hypoglycemia went away). On induction I felt sick ( so much so that I could hardly eat without feeling as if I would vomit), my concentration was shot, and I was very weak, but that is all I experienced. I lost 12 pounds after 2 weeks.
My sister's experience is totally different. She doesn't find her appetite diminished, but it actually increased. Not only that, but she told me that she wakes up feeling "shaky". I told her that feeling is probably hypoglycemia. Other than that, she feels fine. She has way more energy than I did on induction, oddly. She even ran for an hour.
This confuses me; when she was eating carbs she never got a hypoglycemic episode like that, but why would she have them on atkins, upon waking up - a time when insulin should be relatively low and ketone concentration high?
Also, she is becomming discouraged because she's only lost a pound so far. I tell her just to stick with it, that it will work eventually, but I understand why she feels discouraged. I don't know how I can assure her that she will have as good of a time with this WOE if her experiences so far are totally different from mine.
I think the hypoglycemia might be caused by all the splenda sweetned drinks she's drinking. She drinks the diet soda all day, and I think the sweet taste might cause her body to release insulin. This didn't cause a problem before because her blood sugar was high from all the candies and carbs, but now that she's not eating them any more its causing her blood sugar to drop too low. This is just speculation though. To be safe, I told her to cut them out a bit and to only drink them with food.
As for why she is hungrier, I have absolutely no idea why that could be. The only thing I can think of is that her body is so anemic from lack of adequate protein and fat, that it is using what she is eating for repairs preferentially. She ate almost no protein and fat before. Again, this is just speculation.
Did anyone else experience these symptoms, and if so, what did you do about them? Did they go away eventually, and did you have a fair time losing weight? Are these problems indicative of any medical problem?
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