Drop Sugar, Gain Headaches?

People on low carb get this even after the start. Most times it is electrolyte imbalances, sodium is a big culprit. Eating low carb (150 carbs or less) is like being on diuretics, you need to up your electrolytes.
Mine were fine for 2 months after the first week. Now the headaches have come back

Ming1951 wrote: »

This is how it was explained it to me.. http://www.cancercenter.com/discussions/blog/natural-vs-refined-sugars-whats-the-difference/

That's super oversimplified so not entirely correct. You can look up the facts I stated above (like that fruit does not only have fructose, but also glucose, sucrose, and other sugars in various amounts and that sucrose is just fructose + glucose). Even so, if you actually read that article closely, you'll see that it's not actually different sugars are different, but sugar from fruit and veg come with fiber and the fiber slows digestion.

Why that's incomplete is, of course, sugar in milk doesn't come with fiber and can be digested quite quickly, and sugar added to a higher fiber food (like oats, rhubarb, even a tomato sauce with meat and lots of veg) will also be "processed" by your body more slowly. And, on the contrary, some fruits don't have that much fiber and will be digested quite quickly -- there is a reason why people eat bananas right before/after a race.

Also, whether it matters if things are digested quickly is that it is being assumed (weirdly, IMO) that they are being eaten alone, and that for some people -- not all -- this makes them not filling. It's not really about health unless you end up overeating.

IMO, a much bigger factor is that most added sugar people get is from hyperpalatable sweet foods that don't have much nutritional benefits but are delicious and not that filling, so easy to overeat. (I was not hungry after dinner yesterday -- took half my dinner home, in fact -- and yet when offered a bite of dessert by a friend who ordered it I enjoyed it and realized I easily could have eaten dessert because it tasted good and wasn't that filling and was a sufficiently different taste from dinner. Eh, but I just had a bite and we ended up with half the dessert left because she also exercised self control.)

Anyway, I totally agree with a decision to cut down on added sugar if one eats a lot (although focusing on the specific items and not deciding that you can't add any to oats if you like it -- I don't, but I never added sugar to foods like that so need a hypothetical -- makes a lot more sense to me). I also think experimenting with no added sugar can be valuable -- I did it myself. What I object to, because it's just not true, is pretending like the sugar themselves are meaningfully different, and not what they come with (you know, the foods).

To your body, and therefore, if we are talking about physical reaction, sugar is sugar (and sugar is a carb, basically), as anyone doing keto no doubt knows. Your body will easily treat any starch or sugar as sugar. Cutting carbs may have an effect, obviously, but not cutting added sugar while continuing to eat plenty of other sugars and carbs. Not physically. Mentally? Who knows.

Try adding sugar and see if the headaches stop.

Agree with others it'll go away in a few weeks.. but. Try stevie in your coffee.. I've replaced my sugar with that delicious...

Good you figured it out! That's so interesting, and yeah, you know what to avoid.

trigden1991 wrote: »

Sugar is not inhernetly bad for you. There is no reason to cut it out.

Whilst I agree with this. Things we eat are either poisonous or not, it's too much of some things that causes issues. I was however reading just yesterday an article regarding altzeimers and possible connections to sugar consumption over a Lifetime (refined sugar/processed foods, in the modern interpretation of processed). I knew I needed to cut down on things and eat more freshly prepared food before...Now I really really want to.