Three weeks ago, I made some significant dietary changes. I’ve been gluten-free for several years and have now eliminated alcohol, dairy and most sugar from my diet. Other than a week-long headache the first week, I’ve been feeling much better: depression greatly reduced, clearer thinking, better sleep, emotiionally more even, able to get more exercise. It’s been great and I haven’t missed any of those foods at all.
So, week one, headachey, a bit grumpy but improving. Week two: feeling great. Ready to singe-handedly conquer Europe.
Now week three: Still sleeping well but I’m EXHAUSTED all the time. Nine, even ten hours of sleep is not enough! What the hell? I’ve been too tired to ride my horse (now that’s tired!).
Anyone have any insight to what’s happening? Is this a re-adjustment phase, like the headache during the first week?
Did you eliminate caffeine? that would give you a headache and cause fatigue. Cutting out sugary sodas and coffees would, obviously, cut out caffeine as well.
Simply cutting out dairy and a candy bar here and there shouldn’t cause any physical symptoms. Alcohol withdrawal symptoms are very different.
What exactly are you eating?
A few guesses. The first one would be that if you recently cut out alcohol, dairy, and sugar, that’s potentially a lot of calories, especially in carbs. Is it possible you’re just not getting enough calories, or if you are, that you’ve cut out too many carbs and you need to replace some of those sugars with other carbs to get your energy up? Figure out what your resting metabolic rate is, figure out many more calories you need for your activity level and see if you’re meeting that. If you are, see if your macronutrient levels are appropriate for your body type and activity and make appropriate adjustments.
Second, a bit harder, is do you have some micronutrient deficiencies as a result of this diet change? There are plenty of micronutriets that are more difficult to get with certain diet changes, particularly without dairy, like iron, calcium, vitamin D, etc. That could also explain the delayed onset as it can take time for micronutrient deficiencies to manifest. If you’re not taking a multivitamin of some sort, give that a shot, or better yet, see a doctor and consider getting your micronutrient levels tested and he might be able to tell you straight up where there are flaws in your diet.
In short, start tracking your diet, because you’re going to need to know what you’re eating and how much no matter what the issue is.
Another possibility is that it’s also partially or entirely caused by other changes. Often when people make diet changes, they also make activity level changes. Did you start a new workout regimen recently? Maybe you have allergies and they’ve just started kicking in. Even people with very minor allergies will often feel weaker and sluggish until their bodies adjust to changes in pollen. Or it could just be ebb and flow related to stress in your personal life, work life, love life, or whatever. Consider all of this sort of stuff too when you’re looking at it if diet doesn’t explain it.
Good suggestions from all. I am eating lots of veggies, fruit, and some meat, much like I always do, but I have cut out a lot of carbs, so that bears looking into. I have not changed my caffeine consumption, which isn’t very high, at all. Because of my Addison’s Disease, I’m very sensitive to foods that create inflammation. I didn’t realize that dairy was one of those, and I had been been having GF cereal with milk for breakfast and indulging in ice cream (a lethal combination of two inflammation producing foods, dairy and sugar!) every night for a few weeks. And, yes, because my pain was reduced, I did start execising more.
I re-started my B-12 supplement yesterday and feel better today, though those two things might be unrelated. More likely it’s because I had a wonderful lunch of Indian food yesterday, with rice, so I got some carbs into me. I will get a multivitamin, since I think the micronutrient suggestion was very good.
Thanks for the input. I can always count on the Dope!
Humans have a remarkably low dietary need for carbohydrates (a single piece of fruit has more than you need per day), but if you cut out a huge chunk of calories from carbs you need to replace it with more fat.
It is possible you are developing “rabbit starvation” which is a condition that occurs when people eat a low-fat, low-carb, but relatively high protein diet. The timing and symptoms fit quite well. A week or two in, headache and fatigue. If you continue the diet, eventually you die.
What kind of diet are you trying to follow? Most active people do great on a 1/3 diet, namely they get 1/3 of calories from protein, 1/3 from healthy fat, and 1/3 from healthy carbs.
For weight loss, a lower carb level is better, but you have to increase fat intake. Many people report resolution of diabetes and/or excellent weight loss with an extremely high fat and extremely low carb diet with moderate protein.