What do you eat? How do you do with fat vs carbs etc?

[ChookityPop]

Is there a general concencus on what to eat with cfs? How are you guys doing on carbs vs fat? How strict are you?


I eat nose to tail carnivore diet. Im very strict with the diet since I feel better on it. I did eat about 50-80g raw honey a day as carb source this summer and felt great after including it into my diet.

Added in rice as well and after a while my stomach got super bubbly and it didnt matter what I ate, my stomach was making lots of noises and I felt like shit. My stomach have calmed down now after cutting out the carbs, but I want to add in honey again since I felt the most robust Ive been since I got sick again last year.

Im thinking of eating zero carb for my first meal of the day and carbs/honey for my dinner. So that I am in ketosis before I wake up the next day again. And I fill up the glycogen stores with the carbs.

Or cycle it..

I did this today and tested my blood sugar 1 hour after consuming over 50g of raw honey and my bs levels was 4.4 mmol. Is that normal? I thought it seemed a little low, but its not a good sign to have elevated bs levels hours after eating so I guess this is a good thing.

 

[Wolfcub]

I am not sure if eating carbs and honey for dinner would put you in ketosis by morning...?

But...that kind of intermittent overnight fasting (for at least 12 hours, better if you make it 14) can be helpful for many. It is fantastic for the small intestine, because when fasting, there are movements through the whole intestine which can help to keep it as healthy as possible, and this only happens apparently during fasting periods (sleep etc)
I have done that intermittent fast for at least 40 years.
Unfortunately it has made no impact at all on my ME/CFS or symptoms.
But it is probably a pretty healthy habit depending on whether or not there are blood sugar or other problems going on, in which case -probably not.

During the intermittent (overnight) fast, I never entered ketosis, as I tested re: urine sample just out of interest.

But raw honey is so good for you nevertheless! And tastes so good. I always feel honey is a medicine, a very special food, and a great blessing.

 

[xebex]

4.4 is ok, it’s what you’d be aiming for on a zero carb diet. My concern with eating zero carb but then having very fast influx of fructose from the honey would could cause some major blood sugar crashes and it could get too low so I’d monitor it, you don’t really want it to to go much lower than 4.1 I’d say, 3.9 can be life threatening.

I tried keto for 10 months and I got worse and worse on it, and it was giving me crazy histamine issues as well as major electrolyte imbalance which I just couldn’t fix. I upped my carbs to more moderate level around 75g a day and seemed to do ok on that (no real improvement in ME but sleep was better) but histamine issues were still there. Now I am doing 70% plant based diet so probably 150g carbs (I’ll work it out in a bit) and I’m considering adding raw honey to my morning herbal tea, i make sure I don’t eat any histamine foods on an empty stomach and eat lots of beans and whole foods carbs. My histamine issues are much better but sleep is suffering. So frustrating. For me major issues in diet are gluten, processed foods and added sugar. Not eating carbs after 6pm help my sleep and as I said no histamines for breakfast (and that allows me to be relaxed with histamine the rest of the day) also helps. Still no real improvement in the actual ME though.

 

[ChookityPop]

I am not sure if eating carbs and honey for dinner would put you in ketosis by morning...?

During the intermittent (overnight) fast, I never entered ketosis, as I tested re: urine sample just out of interest.

But raw honey is so good for you nevertheless! And tastes so good. I always feel honey is a medicine, a very special food, and a great blessing.

Maybe Im a little too optimistic with being in ketosis the next morning. I know some people like Ben Greenfield eats his first meal low carb and last meal with carbs and manages to be in ketosis when he wakes up. He works out a lot, so that may play a role. But I will test my blood ketones when I wake up tomorrow and see.

I agree with intermittent fasting. I feel so much better doing it this way.

Yes me too, I love raw honey!!

Also love doing bone broths and chicken broths. Im going to get an instant pot do make low histamine broths soon, cant wait.

 

[ChookityPop]

4.4 is ok, it’s what you’d be aiming for on a zero carb diet. My concern with eating zero carb but then having very fast influx of fructose from the honey would could cause some major blood sugar crashes and it could get too low so I’d monitor it, you don’t really want it to to go much lower than 4.1 I’d say, 3.9 can be life threatening.

.

Wow, I didnt know that. I guess I have to track more! Thanks for the heads up.

I sleep better with a little carbs and know that a lot of low carb folks get benefits from adding some carbs in terms of sleep.

How do you treat your histamine issues besides diet? And what are your histamine symptoms like? I have also histamine issues, Im doing Aerius atm and Im planning on trying ketotifen or cromolyn as soon as I can get a hold of it.

 

[xebex]

I don’t have classic histamine symptoms and I’ve not been tested. I don’t get hives or rashes or anything like that but I do get sinus pressure and silent migraines and a feeling of all over body weakness which I do believe is caused by blood vessels over dilating in response to the histamine. I have tried vitaminC aspirin and quercetin together as suggested by a website i forget the name of now, and it did nothing. I tried low histamine diet and while helpful it still didn’t go away. Recently I have had much less symptoms and here is what I did. I cut milk out of my diet all together (haven’t cut other forms of dairy) I quit caffeine because tea is gross without milk. I stopped eating histamine at breakfast it seems like not eating histamine on an empty stomach is important for me and I started eating more plant based with lots of beens (a lot more fibre). BUT number one thing is that I accidentally ate ALOT of rancid pumpkin seeds which gave me a HUIUUGE bout of diarrhea and it has been better since then. I’m considering trying the other things again to see if the histamine issues come back be, it’d just my luck that it was the rancid seeds that’s sorted it out and not the diet! I hate when you’re doing an experiment and then something messes it up so you don’t get clear results.!

 

[JES]

I'm skeptical about going in and out of ketosis on a daily basis. Fasting and not eating for 12 hours is a good idea for several reasons, but that normally doesn't bring on ketosis. For me it takes at least 2-3 days going from a low-carb diet to max 50 gram carbs before I can feel the ketosis settling in. A variant I would consider is being six days in ketosis and once a week do a reset with moderate carbs, switching constantly seems counter-intuitive. I actually found ketosis wipes me completely out in a matter of a week or two, but other people with ME/CFS do well on it.

 

[Davsey27]

Ezperimeting with mostly gluten free,resistant starch,high carb,low protein,moderate fat

 

[Tammy]

I eat high carb (healthy carbs as in fruits and veggies) and a little bit of animal protein. I can't do high fat................I'd never survive Keto diet! I'd be nauseous all the time. Gluten and dairy give me inflammation big time. I now make flatbreads with gluten free flours.

 

[xebex]

@ChookityPop i literally just found this which seems to describe my histamine issues, I do believe it’s more about my digestive tract rather than a pure issue with histamine, as I respond worse to histamine releasing foods that actual histamine and, as I said, if I eat a non histamine breakfast that makes the rest of my day easier, it’s like it lines my stomach or something very non sciency http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=dailytip&dbid=246

 

[Wishful]

Is there a general concencus on what to eat with cfs?

No.


Really, we're all individuals and our responses to ME and to all the various factors vary greatly. Some do well on minimal carbs, and others do well on maximum carbs. I do about as well on all carbs as I do on mixed diet. It's up to us as individuals to figure out by trial and error what we should eat and what we should avoid. I even suggest not putting much weight on theories about what we should eat, since we don't have any good theories about what ME involves, and thus what PWME should eat.

 

[PatJ]

I need high carb because I have such problems with regular low blood sugar. I can eat a meal with fat, fiber and protein but without slow burning carbs my blood sugar will drop much sooner, sometimes within 1 to 1.5 hours.

I'd be nauseous all the time

Taking lecithin with a fatty meal might help by emulsifying the fats and reducing the burden on your liver and gallbladder. Fat digesting enzymes might help too.

 

[Tammy]

I need high carb because I have such problems with regular low blood sugar. I can eat a meal with fat, fiber and protein but without slow burning carbs my blood sugar will drop much sooner, sometimes within 1 to 1.5 hours.



Taking lecithin with a fatty meal might help by emulsifying the fats and reducing the burden on your liver and gallbladder. Fat digesting enzymes might help too.

Thanks Pat. As long as I stay low fat I'm OK..................and my liver loves me for it.