Paleo Diet and Paleolithic Diet Questions & Answers

Question

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I have been doing Paleo for 4 weeks now. I eat zero grains, dairy or legumes, low carb, plenty of grass fed/wild meat and fat. I have one cup of coffee a day with butter and coconut oil. I am 44 yo, female, perimenopause and my starting weight was 227. I weighed in this morning and I am now 216. I have lost a pretty steady 2 pounds a week. I felt great the first 3 weeks and found out I am lactose intolerant and have a wheat allergy so the diet was a huge help.

My third week I went from having some PMS and a 3-4 day period pre-diet to no PMS and a 7 day heavy period. I have spotted for another week. This week my energy plunged along with my appetite. No food sounded good and I went from 3 meals a day to coffee for breakfast and lunch and supper to coffee and 1 afternoon meal. 2 days ago I had my only fall off the wagon and got a chicken sandwich and coleslaw and a small lemonade. I needed to eat but couldn't drag myself to the kitchen to cook.

So after searching around on here and the web the biggest thing I am seeing as a possibility is that all the fat loss is dumping loads of estrogen into my system and causing a hormone imbalance. So what do I do? Try to slow down the weight loss? Add carbs? Ride it out and hope it stops once I lose a certain amount of weight? I am stumped. Zero energy and a never ending period make it almost impossible to cook 3 meals a day from scratch.

edited Sep 2 at 1:12

asked Sep 1 at 22:58

Aisling
844●9

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Check your stats - 227 to 116? Low energy probably indicates that you're not eating enough carbohydrate, and possibly not enough food in general. Add some starchy carbs and see how you do. – Crystal Sep 1 at 23:33

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That is 216 sorry! Serious brain fog here. – Aisling Sep 2 at 1:11

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2 lbs a week isn't bad by itself. I wouldn't freak about cooking everything from scratch. Do the best you can to put good things into you, but many whole foods markets have good prepared meals. It's not an all-or-nothing thing. You might be experiencing some aspect of low-carb induction flu. Unless you are really intending to try low-carb, adding some starchy carbs might help your energy. You'll have to experiment with how much works for you. – Man With A Middle Sep 2 at 1:27

I plugged in an average day's meal on Fitday (prior to this week's drop in appetite) and came up with 2672 calories, Fat: 214, Carbs: 74, Protein: 131. – Aisling Sep 2 at 1:44

What is your "normal" activity level? Are you hitting the gym hard or doing a lot of running/bicycling? One thing about low carb is that it is difficult to sustain high intensity activity while doing it. Moderate walking I can keep up all day (fat burning covers the energy expenditure) but if I hike or run I need to up the carbs or suffer the consequences (low performance/energy). – Man With A Middle Sep 2 at 1:57

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tinamonster · Answer 1 · 2012-09-02 21:10:10Z UTC

At first I experienced a feeling that felt like hitting a wall when I got seriously low carb enough to go into ketosis. I then added a generous amount of salt to my next meal and made sure to salt all of my other meals and I quickly started to feel better.

But it can also be really exhausting at first to be constantly cooking. Can you take a bit of time one day do some preparing? Bake off several chicken breasts and legs and keep them in the fridge. Hard boil some eggs. Sear a couple of big steaks and cut them so they are all ready for snacking or meals. Then you can add the cold chopped meats and/or eggs to salads or eat a meal of a little of this, a little of that which I personally find most appetizing when I'm not hungry. Also, if you can muster the energy to roast a whole chicken, reserve the meat and then put the bones to simmering, bone broth is easy to sip when you don't have an appetite, easy to add salt to and aside from the initial preparation step and packing up for storage, pretty darn easy to make.

Since the correct carb amount varies from person to person I can't say if eating carbs will help you out. But why not give it a try with something starchy? Maybe roast a sweet potato while you are roasting the chicken and add a bit here and there to your meals to see if it makes a difference. Better to lose weight more slowly than to feel awful and chuck the whole thing as a result.

Aisling · Answer 2 · 2012-09-04 22:05:41Z UTC

Ok so here's what I have done that seems to be working, I figured I would put an answer up here since I know this is not an unusual reaction to the diet. First I started using wild yam cream. After doing a lot of reading on estrogen, progesterone, thyroid, adrenals, etc. I decided the most likely culprit was an overload of estrogen. So far after 4 days of 3 times daily wild yam cream application the period is finally ending. Yay!

I upped my carbs to 150 grams a day. My energy has been bouncing all over the place and so have my emotions which is a real pain the butt but hopefully it will level out soon. I have found the best time for the carb increase is an early dinner or lunch. If I have it too late I don't sleep as well and feel sluggish in the morning.

I am planning on going to the Doctor and getting a full work-up on my hormones and everything else. I will update this if anything major stands out.

Losing weight too quickly?

2 Answers