Here's what I've tried:
Atkins diet (phase 1) which is extremely low in carbohydrates: This works amazingly well. You feel terrible for the first 4 days or so then suddenly feel great. You cannot cheat even with one crumb of bread. It only works if you give up caffeine as well. After about 7 months I started going nuts becuse you have to restrict many vegetables and have no fruit at all, which means you must take heaps of nutritional supplements. I am not convinced this can ever be as good as a varied diet.
countrygirl said:
I found hypoglycemia to be a major problem and would become suddenly close to collapse as a result. After many years, I have solved the problem very successfully by following a very low carbohydrate diet. It miraculously and rapidly cured both my bloating problems as well as the hypoglycemic attacks. I have found no other way of keeping it under control, but by diet, I'm afraid.
Hypoglycemia is driving me crazy.
I had a glucose tolerance test where my blood sugar dropped to 26 after 2 hours and I lost consciousness, suffering also post exertional malaise for three weeks after.
I have like dozen of drop a day and everything I do, the body compensates to make me feel worse.
For example if I don't eat often I get lows in between meals, if I eat often then I get more lows in a lesser space of time. If I eat every three hours I get a low after two hours. If I eat every hour I get a low after 30 minutes.
Another example: when I eat in the morning I have more drops the all day. But in the late evening and night I feel better, my sugar is more balanced and I don't have lows. So I tried to not to eat in the morning or eat only meat and veggies before 4 pm. And what happens is that then I get lows and huge drops late evening and at night too.
Whatever I do my body makes up for it, as in an attempt to prevent any balanced blood sugar.
Low-carb and Atkins didn't work for me.
I usually become neurotic with restless legs while on such diet.
I tried many times, following them for 2-3 weeks but no adaptation occurred.
I felt more and more sad without a reason and more fatigued than usual.
It's actually seems my body is not good at creating energy from proteins or fats, eating 1 pounds of meat gives me no energy at all to me and it feels like fasting.
The weird thing is that the low-carb diet improves the "reactive" aspect of hypoglycemia, so that I seem to get lows less as a reaction to what I eat.
But on the other hand the "hypoglycemia" itself gets worse. It's like as if low-carb diets turns momentarily my "reactive hypoglycemia" into a "fasting hyoglycemia" or "chronic hypoglycemia".
Anyway, without a source of sugar, even after the so called adaptation period, my mood sucks and CFS is bad enough without adding in the inability to laught, be self-ironic and smile.
Eating whole food (like whole grains, whole bread and whole pasta) doesn't work for me. Whole stuff and grains have a lot worse effect on my blood sugar than white flour. Indeed they have an higher glycemic load. Also I don't tolerate foods that have liquid with them; so soups and broths don't work for me. Maybe the liquid makes the sugar absorption faster.
I tried the Paleo diet but didn't work.
What worked a little was the Zone diet although I couldn't tolerate the "mathematical restrictions" and it was very hard to compile a meal.
Maybe a variation of the Zone diet would work.
Another good resource is "Life Without Bread"
The author suggests 70 grams of carbs per day from whatever source including chocolate bars.
He shows graphics of glucose tolerance tests of people with reactive hypoglycemia, to show how the hypoglycemia disappeared after 1 month on the diet.
I actually seems to tolerate things like eggs, lasagna, pasta, meat pie, hamburgers, breaded meat, sausages, ravioli.
What I don't tolerate is lean meat, expecially game meat or lean steak as they have an identical effect as a high-sugar dessert to me, soups and broths, beans (unfortunately) fruits (except small pieces or few strawberries or grapes) high-volume veggies as when my stomach is filled with fibers it feels like I ate something low-fat and high-sugar (in fact a big meal has the same effect on an high-sugar meal to me, I read it's called the "chinese restaurant effect") dried fruits, oats (old fashioned, the food that scored the highest of any food in raising my blood sugar) corn (corn has a terrible effect on me)
