Paleo Diet and Paleolithic Diet Questions & Answers

Question

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I'm a hardgainer (i was very thin before starting paleo and now im really skinny) and i just wanted to know your opinion on eating nearly no carbs/no sugar. im practicing this since 2 months and im out of energy all the day and feel very dizzy. Im eating only high quality food (lamb, beef, 50 eggs a week, veggies, nuts, every now and then a fruit) but my body does not respond in the positive way it should.

Any ideas?

flag	asked Nov 14 2010 at 18:43 Jakob 51●2

	What did you eat before starting Paleo? Do you get enough fat? Did your doctor make a check up recently and is everything OK with you? – Kikilula Nov 14 2010 at 19:21
	7 per day ? Damn boi :D – Ikco Nov 14 2010 at 19:35
	Im 21 years old and was in a quite good condition before starting paleo, so i skipped the doctors check. i just wanted to unleash my full energy with paleo. i ate SAD before paleo, so nothing special. i had no eye on getting enough fat, i just ate everything that was not able to dodge my mouth :P – Jakob Nov 14 2010 at 20:30
	I'm just confused about why you have gone so low carb if you're a hardgainer, as LC is often used to lose weight. If you don't have insulin resistance or other metabolic derangement, why go so low carb? Why not eat more veggies, including sweet potato, squash, etc (the things that those of us who are trying to lose weight avoid), and dairy? If you're not adversely affected by dairy, why not add some grass-fed dairy back in? Try moderately increasing the carbs through veg/fruit/dairy but still keep it under 100-150. And consume the carbier foods post-workout. – Suzanna Nov 15 2010 at 0:37

Ed · Answer 1 · 2010-11-14 21:01:12Z UTC

50 eggs a week--whoa, cool hand Luke!

Seriously, not everyone can tolerate ZC/low carb. If it was just "induction flu", you would probably feel better by now.

Consider adding more veggies and starchy tubers back into your diet until you feel better.

As far as being a "hard gainer", adding some carbs may help you there as well. Insulin is an anabolic hormone. In fact, one of the most popular mass gaining diets is "GOMAD" (gallon of milk a day), which is a high insulin strategy (and definitely not paleo).

On the other hand, once you dial in your optimal carb intake for health and energy level, you may want to go with more of a Leangains muscle-building approach, which ideally does not involve gaining fat along with the muscle.

Restore your health and energy first, then move on to muscle gains.

(Note: I'm not advocating GOMAD, just using it to illustrate the anabolic property of insulin.)

ben61820 · Answer 2 · 2010-11-15 15:35:56Z UTC

Remember that paleo does not equal low-carb necessarily. True, many of us (me included) do eat in a lowcarb range but others do not. Anyway, when i started VLC i would say i had the "carb flu" or whatever you wanna call it for prolly a whole two months (though it came and went). It really did last a good amount of time. All i can say is that i know that after a full three months of essentially zerocarbing (i ate solely animal products, no plant matter at all) i feel absolutely fine. No more moments where i have no motivation to do anything. Really, i would say give it maybe another month.

But still, like others have said, there really is no reason for you to go zerocarb, unless youre just selfexperimenting, which is what i was doing. Eat more salad-y veg, eat sweet potatoes, etc. If youve been skinny for a while i think it will be very apparent as soon as you start to gain weight, be it muscle or fat. Sounds vain but i find a daily morning and then night full length mirror check with your naked self is all it takes to monitor closely. No scale, no calipers. Just look at yourself naked and see what looks different. Then amend the diet accordingly.

SnowDog · Answer 3 · 2010-11-14 21:01:49Z UTC

Just for the hell of it, I would try meat and water only, for two weeks. This may do some amazing things for you. Also, check if you're in ketosys. You may not be looking for a ketogenic diet, but if you go into ketosys, you should find yourself with lots of energy.

Ultimately, you may want more carbs and vegetables in your diet. Gardner's study indicates that people who are insulin sensitive, (which sounds like your case), might do better on an Ornish type diet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eREuZEdMAVo

NoGluten · Answer 4 · 2010-11-17 02:32:22Z UTC

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Food intolerance is a possibility. Not a fad, alas!

answered Nov 17 2010 at 2:32

NoGluten
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Bill · Answer 5 · 2010-11-15 18:53:09Z UTC

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Your body is not responding because this is not a good way to eat. Eat a variety of foods. balanced diet is the best. Find out if you are allergic to any foods and avoid those, but otherwise, don't eliminate grains! Its a fad.

answered Nov 15 2010 at 18:53

Bill
31●2

Any proof for "It's a fad" ? – Ikco Nov 15 2010 at 19:14

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Wow, your breadth of understanding about these fad diets is incredible! I've never even heard of "Adkins", and must bow before your clearly superior depth of knowledge of human nutrition. Voegtlin could have learned something from you before he published his book, but alas. – pfw Nov 16 2010 at 12:14

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WOW, your command of sarcasm is breathtaking. Pardon while I bow to your superior command of that method. Notice though that my list of diets was not intended to be comprehensive. Did you notice that? And I never implied you didn't know about the other diets. I didn't know Dr. Voegtlin back in '75 when he published his book. There was a lot of crazy stuff being published back then. I guess I was busy running long slow distances and eating lots of pasta. What would he have thought of me!? I was in excellent shape by the way.Ate lots of beans and rice and salads and drank lots of beer. – Bill Nov 16 2010 at 18:28

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Proof was the keyword and you didn't provide that. I think we are open to new ideas but calling something a fad diet and not backing up your words with any science, is not really a way to win someone over. – Ikco Nov 17 2010 at 11:45

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If you're going to pretend like you have some superior knowledge (which you implicitly do with your naked assertions of how "this is not a good way to eat"), it would help your credibility if you didn't misspell "Atkins". Unfortunately, there's not really any way for you to recover from saying that paleo "used to be 'Adkins'", given that paleo as a concept existed for at least twenty years prior to Atkins publishing his book and gaining popularity; your apparent belief of something about Paleo which is fundamentally false implies that your conclusions are inherently flawed. Well played sir! – pfw Nov 17 2010 at 19:09

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Zero carb for hardgainers?

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