Eating frequently, needing vitamins

[SickOfSickness]

I get hungry quickly. Even if I feel stuffed after a good sized meal, I am ready to snack in an hour, or eat a mini meal in 2 hrs. I consider it part of the illness. I think my body is needing certain vitamins and when I constantly snack on vegetables, it's like I'm doing my own natural vitamin drip on myself. Seems like it happens even if the meal was balanced with good protein, carbs, and everything. Sometimes it's a real pain that I have to eat so frequently. Just wanted to hear any thoughts on this. It's probably common for PWCs?

One reason I ask is I'm applying for disability, and I considered writing about the hunger in some way. I think healthy people would not understand. They would think I could get by with 3 meals a day, if I had to or wanted to, and not see why it's a problem.

 

[November Girl]

I think that we depend on recently-consumed food for much more of our energy than most people. I do much better snacking every 2 or 3 hours. Sometimes I manage to eat real healthy stuff, other times not

The other thing with the hunger is that if I badly overdo, I am so hungry I crave food. Not anything in particular, just feel I need to eat non-stop. I could easily eat a week or two's worth of food on one of those days. My digestive system would of course feel horrible!

 

[SickOfSickness]

I think I'm deficient in some things. Sometimes I feel like I'm grabbing more from the fridge 2 minutes after I just had my previous mini snack. I'm pretty sure I am dehydrated most of the time too.

 

[xchocoholic]

You may want to check out the thread on electrolyte sachets. A lot of us are dehydrated.

I have to eat every 3 hours too. I have chronic hypoglycemia, from hyperinsulinemia, proven by gtt with
Insulin. But I.m also a celiac who just found this out at 50 years old so there.s no telling how much gut damage I have.

Dr myhill says that most of her cfs patients have food intolerances and chronic hypoglycemia. She recommends the paleo diet.

The low carb paleo diet is a common diet for treating hypoglycemia. I feel better with a med carb diet tho.

At this point the paleo diet, no caffeine, certain supplements, and rehydrating throughout the day are helping some of my symptoms.

 

[alex3619]

Hi SickofSickness, I have had similar thoughts over the years. I strongly suspect that subtle nutritional deficiencies are linked not only to the hunger cravings in ME, but for a subset of obesity and overeating issues in general. The body is screaming that it needs something, but we have no idea what.

As November girl points out, eating regularly can help with the energy side of the issue.

However, subtle nutritional deficiencies can involve many dozens of nutrients and not all of it is really understood in the research, and no one person knows all the research.

There is another side to this equation though. Many many things are going subtly wrong in us. Our bodies may not be able to distinguish between them very well, so we just crave. Our body is looking to food for a solution to the issues, what we just ate wasn't it, so it makes us search for something else. I believe there are several something elses that can help sometimes, for some of us, but quite often no such thing is going to be found - our body/brain is just forcing us to look.

Deficiencies that are not easily fixed by diet if you have a problem, no matter what foods you eat, include CoEnzyme Q10 and folate. You should read up on the methylation threads. Folic acid is not a vitamin but a vitamin equivalent, a precursor, and except for beef heart or similar no food contains much CoQ10. Methyl folate (MTHF) is made from folic acid in several steps, or from leafy green folate in fewer steps. CoQ10 is mostly absorbed from vegetables for many of us, in the form of CoQ9 which has to be converted. The only exception to this is very high protein diets which often contain more than normal CoQ10 - CoQ10 is an animal only nutrient I think.

These two are not an exhaustive list of such substances, just two that are common in ME.

When I eat I often crave citrus fruit, which will stop the cravings. This could be because of vitamin C, bioflavinoids, or something else - however a wedge of any citrus fruit will sometimes stop my cravings, and I can usually tell if the craving will respond to citrus, it has a slightly different quality.

Bye,
Alex

 

[caledonia]

I seem to need fats especially saturated fat. Beef, coconut milk, and butter are all good, as are sunflower seeds.

 

[ahimsa]

One reason I ask is I'm applying for disability, and I considered writing about the hunger in some way. I think healthy people would not understand. They would think I could get by with 3 meals a day, if I had to or wanted to, and not see why it's a problem.

I don't doubt that this symptom is a problem but I'm not sure whether mentioning it would be helpful when applying for long term disability (whether social security or some private or ERISA claim). I think the response would be that you could accommodate this, at least with most types of jobs, by eating lots of snacks during the day.

The advice that I remember from applying for social security disability (although it was a while ago...) is to focus on how symptoms make you unable to do your job. How do your symptoms prevent you from being able to do work related tasks like sitting upright at a desk, concentrating on a project, and so on?

A good resource for long term disability issues is the yahoo group DISINISSUES (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Disinissues/ ). The traffic is a lot lighter these days than when I used it but I think there are still enough folks reading that they will any questions that are posted. Best of luck to you!

 

[Esther12]

I think I've gained recent improvements from taking in an extra meal (thanks to bonus disability benefits!). I'm still really skinny, but always have been, despite eating more than most other people (some of my more podgy friends were pretty outraged about how much I eat).

 

[SickOfSickness]

Yeah I think it's all kinds of imbalance or deficiency / hypoglycemia and dehydration. Sometimes when I eat more nutritious things, I feel more hungry instead of less. It think it's because of being deficient to something for days or weeks prior.

With disability, yeah it would be a minor mention only. Just because they want to know what I'm doing all day. I don't even know where a lot of my time goes, but yesterday I realized, if someone has 5 (small) meals and 6 or more snacks a day, that's bound to take more time and effort (and probably money) than someone eating 3 meals and 1 snack a day. I know some healthy people get by with 2 meals and 0 snacks.

 

[SickOfSickness]

Oh yeah, I think I'm usually not getting enough good fats. Half of the time, not enough protein. How much I eat varies a lot. Sometimes I can eat so much in one meal. Could be a bit related to food sensitivities/allergies. Sucks to spend the time/money/energy on a meal and feel like you're so hungry 1-2 hours later.

 

[undcvr]

SickofSickness, maybe you can consider looking at it another way ? Are you putting on weight given how much you are eating ? It does not sound like you are otherwise you would have mentioned it. Do you notice what you are grabbing for ? Are they mostly carbs and mostly refined foods ?

If they are, I would like to suggest that your gut flora is so out of whack that harmful bacterial and yeast have out populated the beneficial bacteria. They are making you hungry because all the carbs that you consume go to them and not you. Very little nutrients is left to get past the gut and into your system.

I know that several bacterial species and Candida ( a yeast ) can trigger feelings of hunger in the host so that they can get to the nutrients they want, which is mostly sugar and carbs.

 

[Valentijn]

It's also likely that our bodies are not properly converting the food we eat from glucose into ATP. This can result in too much glucose in the blood, which triggers a bunch of insulin, which removes the glucose and turns it into fat, causing a low-blood sugar spike and hunger in the process.

You can avoid blood sugar swings by either eating small amounts every hour or two, or avoid eating most carbs and high glycemic-index foods.

 

[kaffiend]

It could be a sign of reactive hypoglycemia. I'm particularly prone to this in the morning and therefore don't eat ANY carbs with breakfast. I'm also finding out how much it's related to hypocortisolism, or a deficient cortisol response to low blood sugar.

 

[SickOfSickness]

Could be many things

I do eat too much sugar, most days, but I don't crave carbs unless I have had almost none for days in a row. I had a glucose tolerance test with fasting for diabetes which was negative. I feel like I get hypoglycemic symptoms.

Oh, and a friend said if you eat foods you are allergic/sensitive to, your gut might not be able to absorb the good parts as well. Mixed in with the allergic parts. I am sensitive and allergic to too many foods. It would be better if I could afford good organic food.

I definitely prefer to eat little bits throughout the day. It's hard to go more than a couple hours without eating something.

I'm not overweight or underweight. I think it's common for us to need more food and faster

 

[kaffiend]

It sounds similar to my food problems. Since cutting morning carbs, I haven't had a hypoglycemic reaction in almost 8 months. I used to have them daily, or "close calls." I couldn't go out to eat without bringing food, because the in time it would take to order and get the meal, I would be facing hypoglycemia.

I get reactive hypoglycemia to some very low glycemic index foods, so I think food sensitivities play a role. The link below shows a rotation diet that's helped me solve food sensitivities and hypoglycemia. It's pretty bland but following it for two months made a big difference. Earlier this year, I had become "allergic" to almost everything I ate, with twitching, spasms, head pressure and severe brain fog. This is gluten/wheat/dairy/corn free and can be done on about $10 a day.

Example rotation diet

 

[SickOfSickness]

Most days I think I eat less than 1/4 of the carbs most people eat. With some days eating as much as normal, like if I have 3 servings of pasta. Should probably eat more of the good ones and less sugar, but have a lot of trouble with getting enough as is. I mean it's hard to spend more time and energy and money than I already do. Someday.

 

[undcvr]

Maybe you can try and avoid carbs on somedays and see if you feel any better or any less hungry on those days.

Also if you think you have allergy/sensitivity issues, avoid foods containing Gliadin (Gluten) and Lectins for awhile and see how that goes.

 

[u&iraok]

I had that starving feeling all the time, too. I would still be hungry after I ate, craving some nameless thing, going through the cupboards trying to find it. I even had pica, when I was at my worst--that's when you crave things that aren't food, like pregnant women do. I didn't crave any non-food items, but I wanted weird things like dry spaghetti.

Carbs like pasta were like minus stew for me--from the children's book, The Phantom Tollbooth, where the more you ate the hungrier you got.

I found out I was deficient in nutrients and I wasn't getting enough fats and I wasn't absorbing enough protein. Partly it was caused by not making enough stomach acid and my gut being messed up so I wasn't absorbing the nutrients. I fixed my major gut problems, took betaine hcl for the stomach acid problem, took vitamins/minerals, enzymes, whey protein and protein at every meal to get enough protein, and good fats.

Now I only get that starving feeling after I've had a virus or during PMS.

 

[bertiedog]

It sounds similar to my food problems. Since cutting morning carbs, I haven't had a hypoglycemic reaction in almost 8 months. I used to have them daily, or "close calls." I couldn't go out to eat without bringing food, because the in time it would take to order and get the meal, I would be facing hypoglycemia.

I get reactive hypoglycemia to some very low glycemic index foods, so I think food sensitivities play a role. The link below shows a rotation diet that's helped me solve food sensitivities and hypoglycemia. It's pretty bland but following it for two months made a big difference. Earlier this year, I had become "allergic" to almost everything I ate, with twitching, spasms, head pressure and severe brain fog. This is gluten/wheat/dairy/corn free and can be done on about $10 a day.

Example rotation diet

So what do you eat for breakfast and snacks?

Thanks

 

[SickOfSickness]

I'm sure I am deficient in some things too, and probably not getting enough good fats. I am normal weight but have a "high metabolism". I think the metabolism is because of lack of absorbed nutrients.

Another thing, which I find odd, is some foods give me like a sour cramping feeling, which is similar to the hunger feeling, and I would usually eat to try and make it go away. So I got in the habit of eating more volume.