some eggs nuts and cucumber, any others

i could never avoid all of those things. are you kidding? there would be nothing left to eat. i ea chicken, fish, red meat (all organic when poss), eggs, cheese, nonfat plain yogurt and basically all fruits and veggies except bananas and potatoes. obviously, you can' t eat corn at every meal but once in a while i'll have a corn tortilla. if you avoided all of those things you would have to live in a bubble and eat air.

I just am wondering why exactly all of those things have to be eliminated. Kefir? I would hope that unsweetened homemade kefir would be ok. I'm interested to know why.

That's an OLD list. It was designed ONLY for the most extreme forms of this problem, the dreaded saw-tooth curve. Basically, that list shows you all POSSIBLE problems you could be having, it doesn't mean you have to avoid them. It was mainly for people who wanted the quickest results, but it isn't easy. But also, if you're still having trouble after a long time (say around 6 months), that list will help you locate possible trouble foods. But I must ask, WHY does everyone keep referring to my OLD diet!!!!!!!???????? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY THE DIET YOU NEED TO BE READING IS NEAR THE TOP OF THIS FORUM!!!!!!!! READ IT!!!!!!! NO MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS OUTDATED GARBAGE I WROTE!!!!!!!!!!

haha...ok ok

The problem with such a list is that if you avoid all beans, all grains and all pulses and if you can't eat fruits (I don't tolerate even 1 piece of fruit, only just half but I do tolerate whole wheat pasta) you're let with no carbs in the diet.

There's no way one can get more than 60 grams of carbs from just veggies and from my experience nothing is worse for hypoglycemia than a low almost-ketogenic diet.

I know this we aren't supposed to talk anymore about this life but I wanted to point out the problem for anyone wanting to attempt it in an attempt to have a quick cure. The very low amount of carbs and the fruits would actually delay the cure for me.

Many people nowadays are tempted to believe that Atkins, Protein Powder, Bernstein and other low carb or ketogenic plans are the answers, but everything the low carb gurus says about their diet and insulin, glycemia and fat loss is not true and just hype. Their diets don't work for hypoglycemia.

Yeah, then why did it work for me? I did NOT say you can't have grains, if you can tolerate them, fine, but READ MY FREAKING DIET FIRST BEFORE COMMENTING. That list is old news and only made to point out POSSIBILITIES. And it's quite easy to get a normal level of carbs with vegetables, I don't know what you're talking about, have you actually ever calculated what's in what? What kind of fruit have you been trying? Unless you have an allergy there is always some type you can tolerate.

I have tried apples, berries, pears, oranges, tangerines, persimmons, figs, cantalupe, peaches, nectarines, plums, grapes, grapefruits, pineapple.
I think many here know the effect of eating bananas. Whatever fruit makes me the same effect of eating 2-3 bananas.

I'm not allergic to them and I'm negative for fructose intolerance. But my body is not reacting badly to the 50% of fructose in fruits but the 50% of glucose in them.

Most vegetables like artichokes, lettuces, spinach, asparagus, broccoli, cauliflowers, cucumber, green beans, onions, mushroom, bell peppers, tomatoes and zucchini contains on average 3-4 grams of carbohydrates per 100 grams.

So I would need 4 pounds of vegetables to get 60 grams of carbs.
I'm not the only one (among diabetics too) whose reading confirm that very low carb ketogenic diets play havoc with our sugar metabolism and worsen the condition.

But I agree that what doesn't work for my body might work for someone else. I like your updated diet better and I think it might give quicker results. Very low carbs gave me no results at all except worsening my sugar metabolism to its limit.

I have been explained that what happened is that my body didn't like ketones. And indeed after a month I was the most tired, weak and depressed I have ever been in my life. Hence my body started craving proteins. Proteins were being converted to glucose and extra insulin were used to send the glucose into the cell. Glucose from protein metabolism is like simple sugar for the body. Besides protein themselves increase the need for insulin as it is needed for its metabolism. Even like that the pathway was slow and I felt tired and spacey but had higher insulin responses and rollecoaster BGs which was too low most of the time.

Stopping the ketogenic diet helped a lot.

How did you determine the bad reaction and what happens exactly? And I'm pretty sure fruit ONLY contains fructose, not glucose so I don't know where you got that data. Green vegetables have lower levels, yes, but squash does not, which you didn't mention. A cup of butternut is more than enough for one sitting, but there are tons of other vegetables you can have, you only list greens. Below 60g is not a good idea, but this is the definition of low, anything between 60 and approxmiately 150g of carbs per day is normal. What diabetics are you talking about? What readings? Show me data. I don't accept hearsay, because I've had plenty of people say such things but it turns out to be random info they got from negative sites, nothing from professional medical articles or actual test results, just opinion. So how long did you try this diet? What was your carb intake? What kind of protein were you eating? How much? Most bodies don't function well on ketones, that's why my diet is NOT ketogenic, it's just lower carb. And what are you talking about protein and extra insulin? Do you know how the body works? I thought you were eating protein? So you craved more on a ketogenic diet? You were doing something wrong then or were eating a diet too high in fat instead of protein. Insulin need for metabolism? Where are you getting this? Protein digestion is catabolic. If stopping helped, fine, but what exactly do you have? What have you been tested with and what were the results? I NEVER recommend protein powder either, that's why I stress that this is NOT an Atkin's type diet, that diet has many problems with it that I've figured out how to overcome. Powders have too many additives, not to mention the system stress they create. And it's not hype, if you've paid any attention on this forum you'd see how many people I've helped get better with the very diet you claim gives no results. And the thread you started makes it seems like, well, you're not really getting anywhere. I used to have to eat a ton, but now I only eat once every four or five hours on the very diet you claim doesn't work. I have more energy and am HEALTHIER than even before I originally got sick. I fear you may have fallen into the classic trap where people who get this think their diet is going to work in a week or even a month. IT WON'T. It takes at least up to four months to see significant results and sometimes longer depending on severity. If you gave up in two weeks, you didn't push hard enough and you're not going to get any further on the diet you're trying. I've been there, I know what it does and I've done the research using reputable medical sources, not internet sites.

See for example: (under crbohydrates)
An apple contains 35% glucose.
Other fruits contains even more glucose to fructose but all fruits contain both.

The diabetic I'm talking about is a friend of mine so I don't have his readings to show but on a moderate carb day he would suffice 15 units of insulin but on day with higher protein and higher fats and very very low carb he needed as much as 20 units.

Insulin is needed for a lot of body functions. Even amino acids require insulin.
If one waters fast for two weeks his/her body will keep producing a good amount of insulin nonetheless. But what is more important is that whenever the body creates glucose from proteins (which is what happens on very low carb diets) the body releases insulin.

My carb intake in the diet was like 40 grams so I was on a ketogenic diet.
I believed it was as simple as carbs = insulin and no-carb = no insulin until I researched better and found out why I wasn't doing any good. The body was still reactive and the hypo was worse than ever. I stayed in the diet for 7 weeks before reintroducing more carbs in the diet at which point my hypo and blood sugar control improved. On the ketogenic diet my insulin levels were 9 unit/ml which is higher than what they have always been.

I consumed 140 grams of proteins but I was explained that as I cut carbs to ketogenis levels my body wants more protein to create glucose. But the glucose created will in turn raise bgs and spike insulin. So removing carbs is not the solution to lower insulin or lower BGs. A balance is. Proteins I liked were eggs, fish, shellfish, chicken, ground meat and home hamburger.

You said your diet WAS (I'm talking about the old diet) not ketogenic but as far as I know the brain needs 70 to 90 grams of glucose to function without ketones.
The old diet removed so much foods that it looked like an Atkins diet to me and I think it would still be hard to get enough carbs from buttern nut squash.

I'm absolutely convinced that your revised diet does give great results!
It's the old diet I'm skeptical about because you removed so many carbs that it is very low carb or almost ketogenic and ketogenic diets don't work well for hypoglycemic at least not for many of them. Don't get me wrong the new revised diet is a good diet.

And yes I have problems with my diet but the main problem is that I'm not able to control the amount of food I eat at each meal. I'm supposed to have a snack at each meal but I end up having a full meal. I don't know ... I need some help figuring out food portions. I focused so much on counting carbs that I lost track of amount of food and calories.

Can you help me with that?
My carb intake now is 140 grams and my body responds to it way better than when it was 30-40 grams. My body though tolerates starches from grains better than simple sugars from fruits for whatever reason.

Thanks

fyi... fructose breaks apart into 2 glucose molecules. sucrose breaks apart into 1 glucose molecule, and a second one that takes a bit of "processing" to become a glucose molecule.

I tried a no carb/extreme low carb diet and it wreaked havoc on my body. But I don't think i would have been able to steadily reduce my carb load, i needed to eliminate carbs entirely and then slowly add them back in. now that i'm stable I've been following a modified dysglycemia diet...

http://www.functionalmedicine.org/content_ management/files/ifm_Dysglycem_Diet_091503 .pdf

Hey Moral
How much total grams of carbohydrates per day do you have in the Dysglycemia diet?

Your insulin response is too sensitive right. If you eventually reach stasis eating grains, it could take way over a year to see results, so keep that in mind. You were eating totally wrong, below 40g of carbs per day for ANY hypoglycemic is the first big rule that you must not alter. NO lower than 60g per day. Thanks for the info, I just thought it was fructose, but something that is interesting about it is that fructose does not affect insulin production as much as grains do, so it's strange you can't have any, but it makes sense since you're currently eating grain. And 140g of PROTEIN!!!!!??????? HEAVENLY GOD!!!!!! I'm not making fun of you or anything, but that's TERRIBLE. Unless you body build that was way too much. You need about 1g of protein pery every TWO pounds of body weight. If 140 pounds, 70g is ALL you need. You raise it a little, maybe 20g or so on this diet, and more depending on activity (I weight lift so I eat a little more than that). No wonder you were sick. God, that's way overboard. Have you ever tried eating a diet like mine with lower carbs but a reasonable level of everything in general? The old diet, again, had that list as a list of POSSIBILITIES. It achieved quick results ONLY for the saw-tooth curve, that's what it was for, which I originally stressed in the notes I wrote on it. Please don't refer to it anymore, though that list still stands for determing possible problem foods. If you're eating that many times, you absolutely need to measure out everything. You're getting sick because your body is receiving shocks of glucose every time you eat. Glucose peaks in 1.5 hours after eating, and eating every two hours will make this ridiculous, I found this out quick when I tried a higher carbohydrate diet, and even suffered through it for six months before I said screw this crap. 30-40g was just not enough, so you don't know how you will respond to, say 60-100g. You might want to try it, but do what you think is right. Even on my old diet though I was getting around 70-80g per day. And I see now what you mean by the protein, but the reason there is you were absolutely starving an already stressed system, it's going to crave it because it's all you're giving it. Way too low there, that's why I don't approve of Atkins at all, but lower carb diets are fine, in fact that's how our bodies were originally designed to eat and it's still the diet of many tribal societies who have been living the same way for thousands of years. No = problems, but I can assure you that low carb = less insulin, my readings prove it whenever I eat a little more carbohydrate.

Thanks for your reply and help Stan
I have a saw-tooth curve too since in the first hour of my GTT my sugar went so low that I lost consciousness.

I'd like to redesign my diet according to your principles and personal experience.
It's important to me not go into ketosis, I want to avoid that at all cost.
So let's say that to be sure I will consume 100 grams of carbs a day.

How many meals you suggest I eat daily?
How often should I eat?

I'm still at a loss figuring out how get 100 grams of carbs without consuming grains or ungodly amount of veggies. Can you tell me what foods you suggest me to get my carbs from and how much of these foods to eat at every meal to get enough carbs for that meal?

I will consume 70 grams of proteins

This mean my diet will be around 15/20/65 (proteins, carb and fats)
How do I get 65% of my calories (around 130 grams) from fats?
Nuts? Avocados? Butter?

How would you approach exercise?
How much and when? What pre-workout and post-workout meal?
Do you suggest to have something to eat/drink in the middle of the workout too?

I plan of doing some jogging, swimming and body weight exercises.

Any other specific advice?
Not eating before to bed, which foods are expecially good for blood sugars, when to eat something, when to avoid something, supplements ...

Thanks a lot!

Do you still have your results? I can't remember if you posted them, post them here again if you did so I can see them. That will help you decide, but you if you have saw-tooth curve, it means you probably are having your drops every 1.5-2 hours, so you should try to eat around every two hours. Breakfast should be bigger, obviously. To give you an example, I eat two eggs fried in organic, cultured butter, a bowl of sheep's yogurt, an avocado, one apple, a large slice of pineapple (been hooked on these recently), a small handful of walnuts or an almond cookie (YES, you can have cookies, make them using almond flour, something most people don't know exists, it's just ground up almonds), a tablespoon of brewer's yeast, a glass of water and my vitamins. I've also been having 'bacon' recently, which is just made for me from slices of salt pork. Organic is best, but if you don't have a Whole Foods around good luck finding it. You can find it at most stores though, it's just pork fat with a little meat preserved in salt. You can cut off slices like bacon and it tastes like the same thing. I eat that or a large slice of cheese as well. That keeps me fine for at least 4-5 hours, but I can go longer. So you might not need to eat THAT much. How do you handle peas? Green peas have a good amount of carbs in them, and are usually, based on Atkins, one of the vegetables avoided and then first added back in. You can maybe try them, they'll give you carbs real quick, and I myself could never get sick of eating them. How do you handle butternut squash? It's AWESOME to boil until soft, mash up, add butter and xylitol or stevia, bake and then eat. INCREDIBLE. Lots of carbs too, so there's a possibility. If you can handle root vegetables, they're a good choice as well, but it would be better if you ate them within 1 hour of working out so you can burn off any extra energy. Jeez, by that system you wrote up that's too much fat. Don't want that much, just the opposite of ketogenic and probably worse. I forget what that diet is called, it's used in extreme cases of epilepsy with good results though. How did you calculate those numbers though? Just curious. For working out, you should probably do a very small amount for now. Not sure what you used to do, but for me, I cut my weight lifting and kung fu down to 3/4 of what I used to do. Slowly, I would add more reps or time to see how my body handled it over 2 weeks and then more as time went on. It's probably better to do it closer to the evening between 5-9PM or so, because your sugar will be highest then, but you can do it a little earlier I suppose. I do not recommend doing it in the morning at first. I have a normal meal before I work out. Usually that consists of a can of tuna mixed with organic mayonnaise, a large chunk of smoke salmon, a large salad with cheese, tomatoes and fresh greens, a chunk of cheese, half an apple, a meat snack of some sort perhaps, almond cookie or something else I can eat, glass of water and my vitamins. Usually that's about 1 hour before I eat, to make sure major digestion is done. 30 minutes before working out, this applies if I've eaten earlier, I eat a whole orange, works GREAT. You can add that with a meal, but obviously it's a problem for you, so I suppose increase your carb intake at this time to be at least 20g in ADDITION to your normal load. If you plan on working out A LOT, you're going to need to increase your carbs slightly and your protein a little more. It's hard for me to say because I don't know your weight, body type, how much you're used to working out or anything, but to give an example, I do HEAVY lifting for about 2 hours, running, kung fu and that's about it. But I do that at least 6 days a week, so I'm very active. I'm probably eating around 100g of protein a day right now and around 120g of carbs or so. My fat intake is probably around, hmmm, 30g? Not sure about that, I stopped measuring once I got really good. You should eat around 1hr before going to bed. Any closer and you might be waking up a lot. I usually keep my carb intake lower by evening and don't eat any fruit for my final snack/meal. Hmmm, other advice. Let me see. Avocados, I'm sure you know, are great. Apples are good too, but you have problems with those. Buckwheat is supposedly the best 'grain' for us because it's actually a seed, not a grain, and it has a large amount of carbohydrates, but I have yet to add it back in. Waiting until Summer for that. Have you tried it? They make flour, pastas and tons of other stuff out of it. Brewer's Yeast is supposedly good for us, but I mainly use it for carbs and just for weight lifting since I can't handle protein shakes. You should also be taking a GOOD, organic, vegetarian mult-vitamin. NOT something like crappy Centrum, which you might as well flush down the toilet. Don't worry about getting 100% from everything in one of those either, cut it in half, 35% is plenty or whatever. I also take 1g of vitamin C per day, I suggest you do that as well, it lowers insulin levels and is great for the body as you've probably heard. In addition, look for a good calcium/magnesium/zinc supplement. I also take saw palmetto, which can keep hormone levels for guys balanced. It also has other effects you may learn of in time... And also you need to look into getting some fish oil capsules. Look for Spectrum Naturals, they have a variety with little fish on the label and it will say that the oil is from small, wild caught fish, that's what you want. Two of those a day is plenty. For digestion problems, yogurt is great, but if you can't handle it look into something called Primal Defense. Ask away, I'm sure you have more questions.

(0 min: 95) (60 min: 49) (120 min: 99) (180 min: 56) (240 min: 99) (300 min: 91)

So basically you suggest I get my carbs from vegetables, fruits, squashes, carrots and peas ?

What can I do for night lows and morning lows. Morning is an hell for me.
I start feeling terrible in the morning and as the evening approach I feel way better.
In the morning I'm so sensitive to everything that I live constantly within a brain fog. Should I eat immediately when I wake up?

I used to go to the gym and all the time I was on the verge of passing out.
Now I plan to do body weight at home. Let's say daily workouts of 30 mins each.

You say that you eat 120 grams of carbs and 100 grams of protein and 30 of fats.
But that would be 1100 calories which as far as I know are not even enough for a very small sedentary woman. That's why I think you're eating much more fat.

I calculated my numbers considering I need around 1800 calories a day.
So 100 grams of carbohydrates would be 22% of calories and 70 grams of proteins would be 15% of calories. This leaves out 1120 calories that must come from fat.
But maybe I need more than that like 2200 calories which would mean even more fat (around 160 grams)

I see breakfast is bigger than the other meals but how big are the other meals?
Let's say I out every 2 hours, I don't think I should eat a normal meal every two hours. So I should have small meals or even snack. But how much food is a snack or a small meal? Can you make examples?

So you think cheese is okay? I live in Europe and I can get very good cheeses like fresh gorgonzola, alpine ricotta, buffalo mozzarella, goat pecorino and such.

Thanks again for your precious help

Yeah, that's a NASTY curve right there. That's what I do, but if you can't handle fruit, try working with the grains you have been. I'm just telling you that if it's a year from now and you have no results, it's the grain. The morning lows will be an annoyance for awhile, I assume you mean AFTER eating or just when you get up? Which one? You should be eating within 30min of waking I'd say, at least to start, and speaking of that you should have yourself on a consistent time table, or at least try to be on one. This means you try to sleep and wake up at the SAME times every day. Keeps the system consistent. The meal should be fine based on what you say, just take it easy, start out SIMPLE and increase as time goes on. How are you calculating this stuff? You can't just go by grams I give you. A piece of chicken, say a breast, has like 300 calories where as a steak can have upwards of 1000 calories. Where do you get these numbers? I figured it out before and I know I'm getting like 3000 calories a day. I eat like three pounds of meat every day or so. Once you figure out your total for the DAY, take out breakfast. Then, evenly distribute the meals for the rest of the day. You might want to make the meal after breakfast a little large than the others, but otherwise make them the same amounts for the rest of the day. Before bed is more of a snack than a meal. An example of what I used to eat would be around, let's say, 1 cup of green beans, 1/3 a chicken breast, an apple slice, handful of nuts and that's about it. More like half a handful I suppose. Just take what would be a normal two large meals for a normal person and figure out how to separate it into 7 meals. A snack is more like a hard boiled egg, bit of yogurt and a bit of nuts. Cheese should be fine, I eat a lot of it, and in Europe you guys don't have to worry as much about factory farming, especially if you live out in the villages somewhere.