Mental fog & headaches when eating less?

IdLikeToLoseItLoseIt wrote: »

You're not alone! This happens to me when I'm in a calorie deficit, too, and I've played around with many of the great suggestions given above with no luck. My headaches abate after 2-3 weeks, but the mental fog seems to creep in and get worse with time. Eating at maintenance for a few days reverses that and I feel back to normal.

Interesting! I mean, it sucks, but like some people don't seem to even experience mental fog to know what it is (jealous!). Someone thought it sounded like anxiety (which can create a lack of focus but it's not the same thing...).

From people's feedback, if it's anything I can control I'm thinking it might be more that I went sharply from eating like 2000 to closer to 1200 and now I'm increasing to 1400, the lack of water & veggies, and timing. My natural timing seems to be different from other people's.

From what I've seen in my past couple days of experiments, I can delay breakfast to about 10 or 11am depending on the day, as long as I drink tea and water when I get up. If I wait longer I feel headachey/foggy, etc. I can then wait until 1 or so to eat again, but I can get away with eating something smaller, as long as I eat again before 3, and that has protein. The muffin and apple yesterday - not good. Today's protein bar and apple went better. I also ate a large meal at 4:30ish rather than 5:30. That made a difference. And I was much better about drinking water! Again though I'm not hungry after my large meal. I know that if I eat a large breakfast or lunch I will be more hungry through the day.

I'm hoping going forwards I can use this info, and what ppl have shared. And if I'm running into more chronic issues - definitely a few days at maintenance aren't hard to do :P But I honestly haven't been at a deficient long enough rn to be experiencing that.

I think I'm going to try to take the multi as well, although I'll have to pack it with me to take it at lunch or smth. Maybe dinner? idk.

Thanks again everyone!

staraly wrote: »

It sounds like you might have some kind of other issue going on in the background that you might not realise is having an effect. Allergies and / or histamine problems are well known causes of brain fog. Your reaction to coffee could also be connected to histamine. Eating a lot of junk food causes your body to release a lot more histamine than is normal or desirable. If you suddenly stop junk food and eat healthy you will have a sudden decrease in histamine. We do want lower histamine but sudden drops in it, or low levels of it, can cause brain fog. If you think this could be the problem, you could try slowly changing your eating habits over a couple of months to allow your body to adapt and balance its neurotransmitters better.
One other thought. I see you are aiming for 20% protein as per MFP default macros. I find this too low for me and I end up craving carbs. I've been trying 30% protein with a bit of variation in carbs and fats of 40-50% & 20-30% respectively. I find as long as I'm hitting the protein amount, I can have variation in the other 2 and not get cravings.

Interesting! I’ve had allergies done before and when I did describe this to my doctor she didn’t think it was unusual or anything to be concerned about. I really think it’s just not knowing meal timing & composition. I’m only allergic to dust and some weeds in the spring.

But I’ll take the protein suggestion - it’s on a handout I have from a few years back about avoiding migraines. I don’t really know how to increase my protein without increasing everything else and just eating more food though lol. But something to work on.