I got a little pressie from my ex-in law’s, Dorothy and Simon. How cool is this! A perfect little replica of a ration book keyring 🙂 I’ve hung it on my bag with the “Equality Now” keyring that my youngest Hobbit Em bought me from the recent “Can’t Stop The Serenity” event in Halifax which unfortunately I had to miss…
Yesterday, my Hobbits spent the day in the city as their Dad had his commitment ceremony with his partner Deborah. This involved 5 + hours of driving back and forth and was such a busy day that my evening meal consisted of a dry toasted bagel from Tim Hortons and fruit on the go..I had a huge lunch earlier though of spinach, raw cauliflower, tomatoes, kidney beans and raw peas
Today, I have felt literally sick with hunger, I even had to nibble food during the night. I ate fruit first thing, a large bowl of porridge oats with ground flax seed and apple puree mid-morning and a large slice of wholewheat bread an hour later. Then it was time for “Week 6 – Run 1” of my “Couch to 5k” program. This session looked pretty easy compared to my last run (which was 20 minutes running non-stop) and consisted of 5 minutes brisk walk, 5 minutes running, 3 minutes brisk walk, 8 minutes running, 3 minutes brisk walk, 5 minutes running and finally 5 minutes brisk walk. This time I decided to increase my walking a running speed by 0.5 mph. So I walked at 3.5 mph and jogged at 4.5 mph on the treadmill at a 2 incline..
It started off well enough.. 3.5 mph is a perfect walking pace. The first 5 minute jog at 4.5 mph went well, it was tough but was fine. After a 3 minute walk it was time to run 8 minutes. The first few minutes were OK and then I began to feel really quite sick, like I was going to throw up. I’d never felt like this before, I drank water and pushed through it but I think I possibly looked green… after another 3 minutes walk I did a further 5 minutes jogging at 4.5 mph, it wasn’t so bad but still felt nauseous…
It was the TOUGHEST run I’d done to date when I wasn’t expecting it and the only thing I can think that may have made me feel this way was low blood sugar. Maybe my metabolism is going through a hyper phase!
Needless to say that once I’d cooled off and ate a HUGE lunch I felt 100% better!!
Roll on the weekend- I wanna go hike! Not sure where yet but I’ll find somewhere!
Take care, if you’re feeling tottery or bleh 🙂
I like the Ration Book keyring!
xx
I will, it was the first time I’ve ever felt like that xxx
Hi Carolyn, I tried posting twice, but the message just disappeared. Maybe it was too long? This can be a trial run.
Okay, short message went through, so I’ll be as concise as I can, and maybe do a couple of sections.
It often takes a while for our bodies to get used to a new dietary pattern, whether veganism or Atkins, and during this period, it’s common to feel sick. It’s called Atkins flu amongst extreme low-carbers! It may well be that we need time for our bodies to shift from relying on the sugar in our blood to pulling fatty acids out of storage for energy, so some people do better, especially with raw veganism, with a gradual transition into the new regime. I looked at your meals, and you actually got very few calories – the spinach, raw cauliflower, raw peas, and tomatoes, may well have ended up giving you nothing after you subtract the energy used up in chewing. Beans and other legumes need to be eaten with fat if they’re to be properly digested. The oats, apple, and bread, were mostly sugar and starch, which raise a fast high insulin spike, which in turn rushes the sugar out of the blood and into storage, so you get ravenous very quickly and, if you’re burning a lot more energy than you’re getting in, dizziness and nausea kick in. Protein and fat blunt the intensity of the spike, especially if eaten at the beginning of the meal. I’ll try posting this now, as it’s already a lot of characters.
Next up for suspicion for the nausea and dizziness: salt shortage. We really do need salt to regulate fluid (both too much and too little salt can cause dizziness by interfering with the fluid balance in our inner ears), to help us sweat properly while preventing us from getting too dehydrated, and to keep our stomachs properly acid (the chlorine in the salt becomes hydrochloric acid in our stomachs) so that we can break down and digest proteins. Salt has gotten a very bad rap, but the most recent studies are showing that only a small percentage of the world population is prone to salt-sensitive hypertension. The rest of us can eat salt without getting high blood pressure. Rehydrating/sports drinks contain quite a lot of salt along with the sugar, and endurance athletes even chug salt tablets. I find that in the early stages of migraine, when the nausea is just kicking in, that the saltiness of chicken broth often eases it.
Veganism presents a lot of challenges, and raw veganism even more. Humans are not biologically adapted to a vegan diet. Our massive brain requires a lot of energy, and our shrunken guts (much smaller than that of a frugivore like a chimpanzee or herbivore like a gorilla; we also lack their huge sacculated colon, where much of their energy is liberated from fibrous foods) are not very good at extracting it from raw foods, so it takes attention, and the right metabolism, to do well with it longterm. Humans need medium and long-chain saturated fats to support our immune systems; vegans can get good quality medium chain fats from coconut oil, so a blob of that on the beans would do two good things at once! A shortage of essential fatty acids can cause nausea and vomiting, like “rabbit starvation” among the Inuit.
Flax seed is problematic; some people don’t have the enzymes to convert om ALA to DHA; most are inefficient converters, at less than 1%; and if the seed isn’t freshly ground at the time of eating, the oil may be rancid, which destroys its nutritional value and is correlated with cancer. Industrial seed oils, which become rancid during the extraction process and then are bleached and deodorized to make them pleasant to the eye and acceptable to nose and tongue.
Oooo thanks for all of these and I can see straight away that I do need some extra fat…. I know I get all the proteins, calcium, iron, fibre, vitamins etc I need, I am very careful with this but FAT is too low for sure..
Saying that I do use a squirt of hemp oil on my salad at lunch everyday in addition to the large portion of ground flax and I do have a handful of nuts every day too. I maybe use a teaspoon or margarine but basically that is it
Calorie wise my lunch time salads are about 600 cals as I always have at least a cup full of beans or lentils added to an absolutely huge plate of raw spinach or romaine, some raw cauliflower or broccoli, tomatoes, a little vinegar dressing and quite often I’ll have a baked potato or baked sweet potato.
Breakfasts including oatmeal, apple puree, ground flax seed and a non-dairy milk
Evening meal can be a substantial 1940s meal with pastry sometimes especially if I have a pudding but if I don’t have pastry then I get very little fat…
In addition to this I have some fruit and at night a hot chocolate
Looking at everything I can see that I don’t have much fat and unless I eat a dessert, a pretty low in sugar diet too
Thanks for all your advice 🙂
C xxxxx
Hi, I will add to what Suzanne said, and say that you need some fat to get the benefit of the fat-soluble vitamins in your diet. Like Suzanne, I suspected an insulin spike and crash because of the porridge followed by a piece of bread. I think a handful of nuts would have been a better chaser, as the protein and fat would have given you more sustained energy.