Loss of Appetite = Danger?
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arsieiuni
Manifest Member
Joined: 15 Jul 2008
Posts: 125
Locality: Alabama
Sat Jul 19, 2008 1: 31 am    Post subject: Loss of Appetite = Danger?
Hi again all...
I have a serious question...
This is kinda preemptive but I wanna make sure...
I ' m seriously losing my appetite as I go further with this.
I ' m feeling like I don ' t want to eat most of the time...
Maybe I ' m just used to feeling like I DO want to eat most of the time and it ' s weird to me that I don ' t have that kind of cravings right now?
Or maybe it ' s because of the swap in my diet from largely no meat to largely all meat making me feel blah about my options?
But all in all... I haven ' t wanted to eat much. Now I ' m kinda a little hungry but it ' s kinda just barely there... not like when I was on carbs and it would hit and I ' d KNOW it was time to eat because I ' d feel bad... Just... bleh. I could eat. Maybe should... dunno. Might in an hour or so.
And I haven ' t felt " You NEED TO EAT " pangs since ketosis set in... but all in all I don ' t feel much like eating.
What do I need to know here? What ' s safe and what becomes dangerous?
I ' m just trying to keep my thoughts flowing to supportive, knowledgeable people who can help keep me on track til I get the hang of this... I ' m just not feeling wonderful right now and it ' s making me distress a little...
Thanks!
Shei
KypDurron
Senior Member
Joined: 30 Jun 2008
Posts: 427
Post: Wisconsin
Sat Jul 19, 2008 2: 56 am    Post subject:
You ' re supposed to not want to eat as much on the Atkins diet, or supposedly I guess.
I always feel like eating but I ' m pretty active brawny wise and my body is always screaming at me to eat more protein.
I did however lose the cravings for the naughty stuff very fast on atkins. What you ' re feeling right now is just fine.
arsieiuni
Celebrated Member
Joined: 15 Jul 2008
Posts: 125
Locality: Alabama
Sat Jul 19, 2008 6: 24 am    Post subject:
Thanks Kyp... I ' ve read several of your posts and you seem like a very logically sound diagnostic.
I do a lot activity wise also, but today was a kinda blah day. My husband didn ' t feel very good so we didn ' t go moving like normal and I felt bad most of the day about eating... ( as in physically ) and then when we did walk a bit, I ate a little when I came back in and felt better.
I don ' t really have bad cravings for anything bad... I ' m happy... I don ' t want cookies or cake etc... I ' m craving FRUIT or Veggies that I can ' t have... lol which isn ' t so bad right? I mean to crave, not to give in to... Just kinda a good sign that those are my week spots I think.
But there ' s lots of fruit in the house for the baby and I haven ' t touched it, so all is good. I ' m not even tempted. I want to lose weight.
Thanks again!
Shei
KypDurron
Senior Member
Joined: 30 Jun 2008
Posts: 427
Post: Wisconsin
Sat Jul 19, 2008 12: 28 pm    Post subject:
Best thing to do in the next week or so is ascertain a few foods that you CAN have but which kind of feel like cheating, or as i call em, atkins friendly cheating.
If you can have a few of those around and you feel like oh to hell with it, i ' m going to go have a cookie, snag one of those instead.
I keep sugar free jello around and heavy cream, if I feel like cracking I put some in a bowl and rain some heavy cream on it. Works like a charm.
robbie1687
New Member
Joined: 19 Jul 2008
Posts: 7
Sat Jul 19, 2008 2: 27 pm    Post subject:
Hi arsieiuni. I ' ve been keeping my carbs below 25g per day for three weeks now, and I feel the same way you do. I scarcely get hungry and when I do, it feels different. It ' s not a craving anymore. I ' m aware of it but it ' s easy to ignore, and if I don ' t eat, the hunger goes away.
Like you, my main cravings ( during the first two weeks, they ' ve stopped now ) were chiefly for fruit.
I think this is good, normal, and healthy. It ' s the old feeling to which we ' ve become accustomed - - hungry cravings - - that are actually unhealthy.
On high carb diets, the body needs a constant supply of carbs for blood sugar. Blood sugar tends to go up and down a lot, and when it goes down, the brain puts out a panicky demand for more carbs. But on low carb diets, the brain and body get all the fuel they need from fat and protein, so those panicky urgent cravings aren ' t necessary anymore.
Also, once the body gets used to a low carb diet, it ' s able to use stored fat for fuel to a greater degree. We all have plenty of stored fat from our years on high carb diets. The body * should * want to use up its existing fat supply. If it ' s doing that, then it has very little need for food. I think this is a sign of health.
The * really * unhealthy thing is being hungry while your body has a lot of fat. That means the body is unable to use that fat for nourishment. That is considered normal, but really it ' s a sign of metabolic illness that is very common for people on high carb diets.
arsieiuni
Down pat Member
Joined: 15 Jul 2008
Posts: 125
Bearings: Alabama
Sat Jul 19, 2008 4: 08 pm    Post subject:
Kyp
I ' m not having bad enough cravings for anything to cave. My biggest craving so far: To be thin!
When I think about " Oh that would taste good... " I tell myself two things...
1. It wouldn ' t taste good for long....
2. Being thin would taste BETTER!
And in consequence, I don ' t cave. [ / icon_smile. gif]
Robbie
Thanks SO much for division confirm that this is the way it goes... I feel better after review you guys distinct similar behavior in yourselves.
Now today is a little different because I went to pillar on a largely empty stomach last night... I didn ' t want to eat right before laying down so I ignored it and just went to sleep. I was tired anyway. Then this morning, I ' m hungry. Actually really hungry as compared to other days so far... but NOT like on carbs. My stomach is just grumbly and empy feeling.
But all in all this is WORKING! I ' m down 6 pounds as of this morning! woohooowooo!
Thanks again both of you!
Shei
robbie1687
New Member
Joined: 19 Jul 2008
Posts: 7
Sat Jul 19, 2008 5: 44 pm    Post subject:
You ' re welcome! Actually I was very glad to see your original post because I came to this forum today to see if anyone described how it feels to be hungry after sticking to a low carb diet for a couple of weeks. Your post was exactly what I wanted to read.
I ' m finding the feeling to be fascinating. I wanted to see what other people say about it. Hunger feels completely different for me since the end of my second week on really low carbs. For example, right now I haven ' t eaten for about 18 hours delete for tea with a little half and half in it, and I ' m not hungry. My stomach feels very small - - I can feel that - - but the sensation doesn ' t bother me and I have zero enthusiasm to eat. Probably a want to eat will arise within the next couple of hours but it will be weak, and if I ignore it, it will probably go away again. This is completely different from how hunger " normally " feels on high carbs, which of course isn ' t really normal at all - - high carb diets are only possible if you eat unnatural foods like grains and potatoes that were created by human technology after the falsehood of agriculture.
One reason why I was curious was because a few days ago I read " Good Calories Bad Calories " by Gary Taubes which is a huge book summarizing a lot of specialist literature about carbs and diet and obesity.
Then yesterday I read every critical review of that book I could find on the Web. I was inspirited to see that one of the main attacks against Taubes ( and also against Atkins, since they are saying the same thing ) is that it ' s not proven that appetite shower on low carb diets.
As I read these attacks on Taubes and Atkins I thought, " Hmm, this may not have been proven in rigorously controlled specialist studies, but anybody can see first - hand with two weeks worth of crack whether their appetite diminishes. "
It seems so tremendously straightforward to me that a low carb diet changes the whole appetite mechanism - - at least this has been true in my case - - that I wanted to see what other people said about it.
arsieiuni
Celebrated Member
Joined: 15 Jul 2008
Posts: 125
Whereabouts: Alabama
Sat Jul 19, 2008 9: 05 pm    Post subject:
Robbie,
That is fascinating! I have only been on the diet for 5 days as of this morning and I began to feel that way yesterday! My hunger is near to nothing! It ' s amazing...
What I do want to say is, though you seem very knowledgeable and I don ' t mean to be telling you your business or anything... be very careful about going THAT long without eating. I read on the Atkins plan you are not supposed to go more than 6 waking hours without eating.
My dear friend who got me pointed in the Atkins direction is a very heavily studied medical practitioner working toward certification to be a naturalist doctor ( gal already has a doctorate in science ). Queen told me to eat before 3 hours passed, even if it was just a little bite of cheese or a slice of deli meat because your body ' s metabolism stays up best if you give it something to do constantly. Dame climactically went on to say that if you let it go past 3 hours your metabolism starts to decline and eating just before 3 hours each time keeps it at optimal performance. Butterfly also told me that doing this will keep your body from going into starvation mode where it tries to hang on to all its fat. Just so you know and if you have your own reasons for doing as you are, and I ' m certainly not animated to know. ^ - ^ Just trying to help.
This morning I was really hungry like I said and I only ate 2 slices of fried bologna, 1 large lettuce leaf, 2 egg whites with a thin slice of cheddar on it and a little mustard on the bologna.... It looked smaller on the plate than it sounds... 8 carbs for breakfast because I was REALLY hungry. Now it ' s on to lunch and I ' m gonna eat decently again because I ' m trying to stick to that " breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper " thing. I had a snack of a string cheese right as we went out for our walk and I had a slim jim ( one of the small ones... 4 sticks = 2 carbs ) at the store to give me some energy for the walk back. Now I ' ve had a COLD shower and I feel FANTASTIC.
Thanks again for the info! It ' s great to learn more about this. I love learning about the science behind this diet!
Shei
robbie1687
New Member
Joined: 19 Jul 2008
Posts: 7
Sun Jul 20, 2008 1: 02 pm    Post subject:
Hi Shei,
Thanks for the warning! I think there ' s some truth in what your friend said, but it has been stretched here to the point where it becomes misleading.
What I think is true is that large, infrequent meals can be dangerous to people if they have diabetes or severe metabolic syndrome especially if they are eating sugar or carbs. The reason it ' s dangerous it that these meals ( with sugar or carbs ) make blood sugar surge. This is why ( for example ) the American Diabetes Association advises small, infrequent meals. Edit: Oops, that was a bad typo. I meant " small, frequent meals. "
It ' s also true that if you stop eating for a long time your body starts to conserve energy. This makes weight loss slow down. For healthy people, this is a * good * thing because it extends life span, but if you are trying to lose weight, it ' s a bad thing because it makes your fat disappear more slowly.
I happen not to be in either of those two groups. I ' m only about five pounds overweight ( a small amount of very stubborn visceral fat ). I ' ve been on a low - carb diet for about two years. What ' s new for me about this three - week experiment is that it ' s the longest time I ' ve tried to hold my carbs to as close to zero as possible. I did it partly to see if I could get rid of the visceral fat but mainly to see if it would elminate my migraines. ( They ' ve been reduced but not eliminated. )
> She basically went on to say that if you let it go past 3 hours
> your metabolism starts to decline and eating just before 3 hours
> each time keeps it at optimal performance
Yes, but optimal in what sense? Keeping your metabolism as high as possible is optimal for weight loss, which of course is extremely important to many people here, but not for health. There has been a ton of research for decades ( with many species of animals but not humans ) that if diet is reduced, and if metabolism slows, lifespan is tremendously extended. There is a tremendous amount of evidence that a slower metabolism is the healthier one.
Many people believe you can get the life - extending benefits of permanently reduced diet by intermittent fasting, i. e., going a day or so without eating every now and then.
If you think in evolutionary terms, this makes sense. Humans are primarily carnivores. Before agriculture was invented, humans were hunter - gatherers. Such people eat irregularly. They don ' t have a constant food supply. It would have been normal for them to eat one day but not the next. Their bodies ( and therefore our bodies ) were designed for this kind of existence.
Some people ( Arthur de Vany, for example ) believe that irregular eating of this sort is essential in order to trigger the expression of certain genes which we need for health.
One other thing I ' d like to point out is that after you ' ve restored yourself to health - - after you ' ve broken your carb addiction - - at some point, your appetite becomes a reliable signal again. As long as you ' re addicted to carbs, you can ' t trust your appetite to tell you when to eat because your body craves sugar even though it has many pounds of fuel locked away in its adipose tissue. But once you ' re healthy again, the appetite becomes a reasonable guide to when and how much you should eat.
Robbie
Last edited by robbie1687 on Sun Jul 20, 2008 4: 40 pm; edited 2 times in total
KypDurron
Senior Member
Joined: 30 Jun 2008
Posts: 427
Location: Wisconsin
Sun Jul 20, 2008 2: 16 pm    Post subject:
No offense rob... but this isn ' t the LC restricted diet california life extension forum.
Your method may work, I ' ve read up on it pretty extensively, but it ' s 100 percent completely contradictory to anyone ' s goals in this section of the world.
Just some FYI.
The evidence supporting significant life extension in humans on the restricted diet so far has been pretty ambiguous, to say the least. Walking around advocating in any way not eating for 18 hours while drinking some tea, or poo pooing metabolism boosting is in my personal opinion, a bit irresponsible here.
As for me, between the motorcycle, the vagaries of life, and the Large Hadron Collider, I seriously doubt I or probably many people are going to live out their natural lives in this generation, so frag it, I ' m havin some bacon with my eggs this morning.
robbie1687
New Member
Joined: 19 Jul 2008
Posts: 7
Sun Jul 20, 2008 3: 06 pm    Post subject:
> Your method may work, I ' ve read up on it pretty extensively, but
> it ' s 100 percent completely contradictory to anyone ' s goals
> in this section of the world.
I think you ' re arguing with a strawman here, not me. I said that if your goal is to lose fat tissue, then you should probably eat small frequent meals.
I was replying to advice that was given to me personally and explaining why it doesn ' t apply to me personally.
> so frag it, I ' m havin some bacon with my eggs this morning.
Perfectly healthy ( except perhaps for the carmelized sugar in the bacon ). I had two eggs myself. [ / icon_smile. gif]
KypDurron
Senior Member
Joined: 30 Jun 2008
Posts: 427
Location: Wisconsin
Sun Jul 20, 2008 4: 01 pm    Post subject:
There isn ' t carmelized sugar in my bacon. You apparently haven ' t familiarized yourself with my posts yet. I ' m meticulous in what I eat.
Rob sez
" What I think is true is that large, infrequent meals can be dangerous to people if they have diabetes or severe metabolic syndrome especially if they are eating sugar or carbs. The reason it ' s dangerous it that these meals ( with sugar or carbs ) make blood sugar surge. This is why ( for example ) the American Diabetes Association advises small, infrequent meals. "
That ' s not conducive to metabolic increase.
Rob sez
" Right now I haven ' t eaten for about 18 hours except for tea with a little half and half in it, and I ' m not hungry. My stomach feels very small - - I can feel that - - but the sensation doesn ' t bother me and I have zero desire to eat. Probably a desire to eat will arise within the next couple of hours but it will be weak, and if I ignore it, it will probably go away again "
also not conductive to metabolic increase or weight loss.
Kyp sez... game set match.
KypDurron
Senior Member
Joined: 30 Jun 2008
Posts: 427
Location: Wisconsin
Sun Jul 20, 2008 4: 03 pm    Post subject:
In any case, if atkins is still up in the air because of long term studies being lacking, then definitely the Restricted Calorie life extension diet is suspect for the same reason on a much greater scale.
I think the point im trying to make is that you don ' t put the cart before the horse, and you definitely don ' t put the retirement of the family farm into the grandchildrens name so that you can go open a soda shop in San Franscisco and talk about the good ole days before the cart before the horse, by which i mean that it ' s probably better to lose 100 lbs before you start thinking of doing a metabolistic slowdown life extension diet.
And yes, i mean you in the figurative sense.
robbie1687
New Member
Joined: 19 Jul 2008
Posts: 7
Sun Jul 20, 2008 4: 54 pm    Post subject:
KypDurron wrote:
There isn ' t carmelized sugar in my bacon. You apparently haven ' t familiarized yourself with my posts yet. I ' m meticulous in what I eat.
I eat bacon too, but since it ' s cured with sugar and has been smoked even before I heat it, it ' s a safe bet that it contains carmelized sugar. How do you avoid this? Do you buy sugar - free bacon?
KypDurron wrote:
Rob sez
" What I think is true is that large, infrequent meals can be dangerous to people if they have diabetes or severe metabolic syndrome especially if they are eating sugar or carbs. The reason it ' s dangerous it that these meals ( with sugar or carbs ) make blood sugar surge. This is why ( for example ) the American Diabetes Association advises small, infrequent meals. "
That ' s not conducive to metabolic increase.
That was a very bad typo on my part. I meant to write " small, frequent meals. " As for metabolic increase - - I didn ' t say anything about metabolic increase in that paragraph. That ' s not what that paragraph is about. It ' s about why diabetics would want to avoid going 18 hours between meals.
KypDurron wrote:
Rob sez
" Right now I haven ' t eaten for about 18 hours except for tea with a little half and half in it, and I ' m not hungry. My stomach feels very small - - I can feel that - - but the sensation doesn ' t bother me and I have zero desire to eat. Probably a desire to eat will arise within the next couple of hours but it will be weak, and if I ignore it, it will probably go away again "
also not conductive to metabolic increase or weight loss.
I didn ' t say it ' s conducive to either of those things. What I said was, I personally am not seeking metabolic increase or rapid weight loss because I ' m only about five pounds overweight. What I ' m seeking is increased insulin sensitivity and fewer migraines.
KypDurron wrote:
Kyp sez... game set match.
I ' m not interested in arguing for the sake of arguing. If you want to really listen to each other and have a discussion, I welcome that. If you ' re looking for a sporting event, you ' ll have to find somebody else to fight with.
KypDurron
Senior Member
Joined: 30 Jun 2008
Posts: 427
Location: Wisconsin
Sun Jul 20, 2008 5: 31 pm    Post subject:
Oh I ' m not fighting with you, im just commenting on the fact that you ' re doing the functional equivalent of posting in a child abuse recovery forum about where the best place is to find pictures of abused kids.
I fail to see where your comments have any relevancy to Atkins weight loss.
robbie1687
New Member
Joined: 19 Jul 2008
Posts: 7
Sun Jul 20, 2008 5: 44 pm    Post subject:
I made those remarks because Shei warned me that it might be harmful to me personally to go 18 hours without eating. I was explaining why, although it may be harmful to some people, I don ' t think it ' s harmful to me.
KypDurron
Senior Member
Joined: 30 Jun 2008
Posts: 427
Location: Wisconsin
Sun Jul 20, 2008 6: 29 pm    Post subject:
It may not be harmful to you, but it ' s not what we do around here.
Also I get my bacon fresh from a butcher, chuckles.
arsieiuni
Established Member
Joined: 15 Jul 2008
Posts: 125
Location: Alabama
Sun Jul 20, 2008 7: 34 pm    Post subject:
Guys... I think you ' ve had a misunderstanding elapse between you...
Robbie was responding to me directly and his answer is completely understandable... He wasn ' t advising other Atkins dieters to do it his way, Kyp. He was telling me why he had let himself go 18 hours without eating when I told him that going more than 6 was an Atkins no - no.
Kyp, I ' m sure you don ' t mean your comments to come off as an attack, but the attitude of them is very harsh. You ' re incredibly logical and I believe, very intelligent, thus it seems quite difficult to keep trace of your thought pattern at times, but I think you may have taken that argument to a bit of a tangent. Robbie doesn ' t seem to be trying to promote his diet style to this forum. He seems, rather, to be learning about Atkins and it just happened that I said something to him that prompted an explanation of his current way of eating. Please don ' t be agitated by this! [ / icon_smile. gif] It was all innocent conversation!
Please let this fall to peace, gentlemen... It was a misunderstanding that set you at odds... There is nothing more to it. [ / icon_smile. gif]
Shei
BacktoLowCarb
New Member
Joined: 30 Jul 2008
Posts: 10
Wed Jul 30, 2008 3: 16 pm    Post subject:
After two weeks of Low Carb I got so concerned about my loss of appetite I started trolling WebMD - type sites just to make sure nothing was wrong with me!!! [ / icon_biggrin. gif] Last night I got home from work, did the gym thing, then went to the kitchen to make dinner and realized I just wasn ' t hungry - at ALL. So I had some water and some almonds and called it a night on the eating. Woke up this morning and had to force myself to eat some breakfast.
This is just WEIRD. I ' m coming back to Low Carb - I did it many years ago and lost a significant amount of weight, but found it very difficult to maintain over the long term. But I ' m in a different place now ( and also heavier! ), and I think I ' ll be okay making this adjustment now. I ' ve always been a huge protein person anyway, and when I added weight - training to my workouts a couple years ago it seems my desire for protein just increased naturally anyway.
But the appetite thing is blowing my mind. I would have described myself as a Carb Addict a few weeks ago, but now I have no desire for them whatsoever.