Remember me talking about all the energy I had during the first five days or so? Yep, that wonderful euphoric feeling that some people get when they switch to low-carb is amazing! My mood was fantastic, stress level was zero.
I had so much energy I finally got some deep cleaning done in my house. I would stay up until the wee hours of the morning, go to bed, get four or five hours of good, deep sleep, then wake up and repeat.
Three days ago it just vanished. I woke up and I felt different.
Where was my energy? I had gotten ten...TEN...hours of sleep but felt like a zombie. I still ate my healthy breakfast, a few hours later than normal, and still exercised. Even exercising didn't boost my energy.
I went from feeling really great to a zombie. A cranky zombie at that. I even laid down later and took a three hour nap. I just felt exhausted.
I'm not sure, but I think it could have been a combination of things.
1. I was taking in a lot less carbs and my body was having a hard time making the switch to fats for food.
2. I was exercising and working out every day, and while it was only maybe an hour total, it was a big change from never exercising.
3. My blood sugar could have been higher than it had been. For a few days I didn't have a way to check my sugar at home, so I played it safe and didn't take my diabetes medication. I didn't want it to get too low.
No matter how sluggish I felt, I still stuck to the plan; eat right, drink enough water, and exercise.
My boundless energy still hasn't made a return but I am patient.
Now the other high and low I have to talk about and is very important, is blood sugar.
I found that within just a couple days my sugar readings were a lot lower. I aim for less than 30 grams of carbs per day. Others may go lower, some have a higher target. It's up to you.
But monitor your sugar!
Yesterday I came to my parent's house and checked my sugar for the first time in 2 days. It was the highest it had been since I started the low carb life...214! Yikes!
So I ate three scrambled eggs with cheese, took my medication, exercised for 20 minutes, and checked it again two hours later. It had dropped to 71!
At first I felt great.
Then as I was mixing some Keto Chocolate and Peanut Butter cookies, it hit me. I broke out into a cold sweat all over my body and my hands started to shake, then my arms and legs.
Crap. That was my alarm system. I had to get my sugar up. I ate some peanut butter and within fifteen minutes I was feeling better.
But it showed me just how effective this diet, along with my medication, could be at keeping my sugar down. It is very important that your sugar readings don't get too low. For me, 71 is a danger zone. Just a week ago, a typical reading for me was 214. Now the average is about 130.
If you are travelling or doing a lot of activity, even if you don't think you are, like raking leaves, make sure you have a snack handy to combat low sugar.
No comments:
Post a Comment