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I'm almost positive I have candida overgrowth, as well as hypoglycemia, so those could be the causes. I'm not sure. I get brain fog when I eat carbs. When I eat low carb (and eat coconut oil) I can feel energy flowing through my body.

What's the deal?

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Brain fog, energy flow, and almost positive are pretty subjective. But 6' and 142 lbs is not. You're borderline underweight. I'd recommend gaining 20 pounds and see if the fog lifts. And visit a doctor to get another opinion. – thhq Aug 2 2011 at 13:42
My case, exactly. I ended up supplementing with about 100g of coconut oil every day, every 4-5 hours. – prowler Aug 2 2011 at 13:51

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Whats the question? You've discovered what makes you feel good...just go with it baby!

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Well, I wonder the cause. I feel terrible and hot from eating sugar, too. Maybe thyroid, candida, hypoglycemia? I don't know. I have non-genetic hair loss, and I think how I feel must be related. – orangepeels Aug 2 2011 at 0:30
Also, I am 6 feet tall and 142 pounds. Hopefully, the diet will be sustainable? – orangepeels Aug 2 2011 at 0:49
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 Well I look at things from more of a wellness/holistic perspective than to break it down the way your looking at. Basically you have found a way to eat that increases HEALTH. Anything that improves your bodies ability to adapt and maintain itself is desirable. If you have some of those issues you speak of, I would say you need to be even more strict on continuing to pursue a healthy lifestyle and are not fortunate enough to have "cheats" or "planned indulgences". At least not until your body resolves its issues. – JayJay Aug 2 2011 at 1:00
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I agree with Jay and +1'd his post, but that said, it just occurred to me that your post sounds very similar to something I went through (and am still recovering from) - hair loss and everything. So that leads me to ask, is it possible when you up your carbs you are adding something you are allergic to? Eggs? Gluten? Dairy?

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funny, ive gone through something similar over the last 6 months (been hardcore paleo over 1 year and 2 months). I assumed it was because I dropped my carbs to less than 30 grams each day (before they were at close to 100). What worked for you and what happened? – Chase Aug 2 2011 at 2:14
Thanks for the response. I definitely up my eggs when I'm lower carb I think. When I'm higher carb, it's mainly potatoes and a little gluten free bread. I've been off of gluten and soy for a year and a half now due to feeling nauseous and terrible since about 2006. I feel much better now, but I still have seborrheic dermatitis, hairloss, and hypoglycemia (which is alleviated with vitamin d). I feel like I'm on the right path, but am missing something. I don't want to lose my hair :( I'm really thinking about doing a food sensitivity test. – orangepeels Aug 2 2011 at 2:21
Well, it's a far longer story than I have room for here. I am planning a post at some point to tell the entire tale. Basically the short version of the story is I lost a ton of weight on a low carb diet and felt AWESOME for the first time in my life. I got down to 160 (I'm 5'10) and was all toned and looked great. Then I moved cross country and during the drive I was eating rest stop food and whatever. I knew it wasn't good, but I had no idea what it was going to set off. At the new place friends would come over and we'd BBQ and "oh I'll just have one cookie today, no biggie" (more...) – A at Grain Free Diet Aug 2 2011 at 2:24
And that continued over the next few months and I just felt sicker and sicker. My hair started falling out - I lost about half of it. My gut swelled to the point where my belly button ripped open a few times. And the sicker I got, the more I said "well I feel bad anyway, who cares what I eat" Got diagnosed with everything from a bladder infection to endometriosis. After 2 years and thousands of dollars in medical bills with no real answers I thought back to where it all started and realized - it was the gluten. I eliminated it and every symptom disappeared. The docs never even considered it. – A at Grain Free Diet Aug 2 2011 at 2:29
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 I should mention that none of their diagnoses were correct. At one point they even ran out of ideas and stuck me on low dose birth control that almost killed me. Oh and Cipro that kicked the heck out of my tendons. Fun times. All because of the damn gluten. – A at Grain Free Diet Aug 2 2011 at 2:32
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Whilst I commend the quest for health and paying attention to feedback from your body, I must say I do question the "if it feels good, go for it" paradigm. Whilst this has merit in certain walks of life, and certainly has its use in finding that which makes you happy, it doesn't necessarily correlate to the most healthy thing for your body.

Think cocaine.

Now, I may be lagging on this subject a little, but it wasn't long ago I read some bits and pieces on low carbing and the adrenal/cortisol systems. If I remember right, the short of it was that chronic low carbohydrate diets (without periodic re-feeding of carbohydrate, relative to the amount of physical activity performed) can increase the release of catecholamines (think adrenaline, cortisol etc), which are involved in some of the metabolic pathways needed to create energy in a low carbohydrate environment.

From http://180degreehealth.blogspot.com/2010/06/catecholamine-honeymoon.html

These hormones, when released, cause a rise in body temperature, a rise in mitochondrial activity, an increase in mental acuity, cognition, and alertness (or at least the feeling of being sharper even if you really aren’t), a huge rise in physical energy, the release of fat tissue from fat cells, a drop in appetite, and weight loss while feeling not only good – but far better than normal.

This isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but catecholamines can create subjective feelings of energy, clarity etc. As with any hormonal system, they function entirely using feedback loops. If you flood the system with catcholamines for an extended period, they down regulate, reducing your sensitivty. This might not bode well for your long term feelings of wellbeing and could mess things up pretty bad.

So, whilst these hormones make you feel ace, if you don't have periodic resting periods (carbohydrate feeding), you may burn out in the long run. Something to consider, especially when equating subjective experience to health gain, which I think most of us paleo types fall for on this quest at least once.

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Addendum: I don't know enough about 'adrenal fatigue' to really say "this will happen with certainty"; but, for sure, subjective states of 'well-being' could be created by less than desirable hormonal profiles (at least in the long-term). Just throwing that out there for consideration. – ZenFire Aug 2 2011 at 12:32
ZenFire, Matt Stone's contains several bloopers. He starts off by claiming Atkins induction (VLC) can cause lean tissue loss. Numerous studies have shown this to be untrue.Young, et al, 1971: ajcn.org/content/24/3/290.short Phinney, 1983: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6865775 Hoffer, 1984: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6707202 (especially interesting because of the caloric restriction). Sufficient protein seems to handle any lean mass issues just fine -- in fact, VLC seems to outperform low-calorie, HCLF diets in that regard. – Rose Aug 2 2011 at 13:36
And Stone cites no evidence for his claim that low-carb diets "overstimulate" the production of adrenal hormones. The one bit of research he cites is Ancel Keys' starvation experiment! Furthermore, his own experience is at ~100g of carbs a day. There are numerous differences between a moderate-carb diet and a VLC one, most especially ketosis. There's a solid chapter on this topic in Volek & Phinney's Art and Science of Low Carb Living. See also this PH thread: paleohacks.com/questions/25449/… – Rose Aug 2 2011 at 13:43
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 That is a fair point Rose - there indeed are no very satisfying references. It seems to be a theme with some anecdotal frequency to it, but perhaps these symptoms occur for reasons other than the so called 'adrenal fatigue'. – ZenFire Aug 2 2011 at 15:57
My best guess as to the origin of some of these anecdotes is that there really is a transition period required to adapt to ketosis, and that the fatigue and ass-dragging reported by a lot of folks is due to dipping in and out of deep ketosis, since the worst reports seem to come from folks who are between 30 - 100g of carbs, on average. Just a guess. Stephen Phinney, the researcher whose focus is ketogenic diets, has said that intermittent deep ketosis is harder than just going for it whole hog. (I say "deep ketosis" because almost everyone goes into ketosis overnight.) – Rose Aug 2 2011 at 16:45
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If you want to get rid of the "I'm wondering" aspect, go and get yourself tested. There are tests for Celiac disease and yeast levels, which would clear up any ambiguity.

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Yes and no. If he's been off gluten for that long, there is a good chance the test will come back negative even if he is Celiac. When we sent a member of my family in for the Celiac blood test, that person's doctor said if I feel better off gluten to just stay off gluten because the tests are highly inaccurate anyway. – A at Grain Free Diet Aug 2 2011 at 18:43
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have you looked into whether you have an iodine deficiency, hypothyroidism or something related? hair loss, skin issues and sluggishness usually raise alarms with it being something related to the thyroid. just throwing something else out there.

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Everyone is saying something about Iodine. I've never heard much about this. I will have to check it out. Just got a real Thyroid panel done. – orangepeels Aug 4 2011 at 15:49

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