Low carb diet = MASSIVE HEADACHE?!?! Need advice please!

I started around 2weeks ago, keeping my carbs under 40g my cals between 900-1200 but the odd day i have gone high on purpose. I have lost 9lbs.

I had a headache, its normal for low carber's, please keep the water up and drink slowly all day long.

It works so don't listen to people who are pushing the diet that works for 'them', we are all different and putting weight back on all depends on how we go about our habits in maintenance.

I lost 4stone in 3months 2 years ago doing a 800cal per day diet (shakes low carb), let me tell you i have maintained give or take 5lb and i have never felt better. I didn't mess up my metabolism, i didn't put all the weight back on. Im here to finally lose my last 30lb, im doing low carb because its quick enough to keep my motivation up and i feel great on it. We as humans began to eat too much unrefined carbs with every meal, we don't need it.

Crystal Light has Aspartame in it and that can cause migraines.

She would have figured that out long before starting the diet last week surely ?

I did not know untill recently that aspartame could trigger migraines. Only found out cause I had to research it. Why? Because since going on my Heath kick I started drinking Coke Zero, started getting more than double my usual migraines and wanted to figure out why.

we are here to lose weight not take a spelling class. i was on south beach diet for 2 yrs. lost a ton of weight, very easy to do but can not bring myself to go through the first 2 weeks of program. gained weight back when i quit work to take care of my mother but it was a pleasure to do and am so happy i did it.. i suffered from headaches at first on the diet but just added some more caffine and would eat some cheese sticks

The headaches are a normal side effect of the transition to Ketosis. It is called the Adkins Flu. It will happen every time you go off the diet and back on. Sometimes taking decongestants helps. Otherwise you suffer through it. You can increase your carb intake a bit and it will be less severe, but it will last longer. Yours went away because you got through it. If you have a carb/sugar binge and then go back to low carbs it will be extremely severe. It can be debilitating. It lasts two or three days. Then you are golden and the weight comes off like there is no tomorrow. I lost 40 pounds in two months on Adkins. Dr. check up weekly during that time and he said I was healthier than ever, but he did not like the fast weight loss. You cna control the wieght loss. Virtually no carbs = lose fast, some carbs = trickle it off. If you do not maintain at least a semi low carb diet, you will gain weight back. The nice thing is you can always suffer through the headace again and lose it again. I have been on and off adkins for years.

You have to take a ton of vitamins and drink TONS of water. your body requries more water to process protein than to process carbs.

Although you could have an alergy to adkins product, it was probably jsut timing. Your headache ended becuase you went throught eh process. You might want to give the adkins bars a try again. THere are not many snacks available to adkins dieters. I like most of the adkins product, but I go light on the bars. They are not chemical bars, they are mostly food products like whey protein. I drink a lot of shakes and those pop tart sort of things. I also like the little carmel nut chews as a snack. The choclate bars and the crunchy things (sort of like granola) will upset your stomach and give you extreme gas. If you have Kroger or a kroger related grocery store, they sell low carb yougurt. That makes a decent snack and a good breakfast. I usually eat two of them and an adkins shake for breakfast.

In general on adkins my digestion is better, I sleep better and I have more energy. The headache part is hell (have it right now).

My problem staying on the diet is my family eats almost all carbs. Anyhting adkins requires preparation. Other than the bars and snacks (and yogurt) there is really nothing that you cna open and eat (except raw veggies which are not my favorite) Thus, I come home from work and they is a giant pot of spagetti with sugary sauce. I am very hungry and it will take 15 minutes to half an hour to prepare something adkinsish. Often there is nothing left inthe house that i cna make. I have to go to the store, buy some meat or veggies, coem home, prepare it. . . . It is very easy to just say what the heck and eat the spagetti. The adkins snacks help a lot with that. Grab a shake and not too hungry anymore.

why are you eating so little?
these crazy "diets" aren't good for you. if your headaches are insanely painful, that's your body's way of telling you to stop.

all you need to do is eat clean, eat within your caloric range for weight loss, track you cals and exercise. i eat 5x/day, i am never hungry or feel "deprived" and i have lost pant sizes and gained incredible muscle tone.

OK, I know this is an old post but maybe this will help a current reader. I have a master's in biology with a specialty in biochemistry so if I may...

To clear up the "calorie concept" of dieting, a person on a low carb diet doesn't have to worry about calories. A person ONLY need worry about calories when on a low fat, moderate protein, high carb diet which is most diets like weight watchers, nutrisystem etc.

Here's the reason: Your body has two basic metabolic pathways that it uses depending on what you feed it:

1. If you eat predominantly carbs, your glycolytic (aka glycolysis) pathway (the carbohydrate burning pathway) is the default and beta oxydation (the fat burning pathway) is the reserve.

2. If you cut out carbs to 50 or less, beta oxydation becomes the default pathway and glycolysis becomes pretty much shut down.

When you cut out carbs you force your body to use beta oxydation (the pathway that burns fat) predominantly, and fat loss is the ONLY macromolecule lost. You do NOT lose muscle on a low carb diet because it is metabolically impossible to lose muscle on a low carb diet. The pathway that burns protein for energy is the DING DING DING...glycolytic pathway. Sooooo if the glycolytic pathway is shut down it CANNOT breakdown muscle to burn for energy. This is absolutely a solid truth. Current studies show that low carb diets preserve muscle while low fat, high carb diets lose on the average about 25% muscle and 75% fat across the board no matter which low fat diet is chosen.

Bottom line is this: the reason people's metabolisms slow down when on a low fat diet is because they lose muscle on these diets, (roughly 25% EACH time they go on one of these diets) and the amount of muscle you have determines your metabolism. The more muscle you have the higher your metabolism. The only diet that will preserve 100% muscle is the low carb diet.

Regarding headaches:

Two reasons actually:

1. fluid loss, and electrolyte loss. Get at least 3000 - 4000 mg of potassium and sodium per day. Make sure you eat potassium foods like avocados and sunflower seeds. I eat sun seeds like they're going out of style and it took care of my headaches which were a sodium potassium problem. The diet is very diuretic so if you don't eat high potassium foods and high sodium foods AND take a calcium supplement you will get headaches. TAKE A CALCIUM SUPPLEMENT when on a low carb diet.

2. Your 900 calories per day is causing you to burn a TON of fat and that produces ketones. What could also be happening, and this also happened to me, is that the ketones are building up in your head faster than your brain is adapting to them, and it's kinda like sniffing fingernail polish remover. LOL! One of the ketones IS acetone which is harmless if diluted. You WILL pee and breathe out excess ketones, but make sure if you're only eating 900 calories that you DRINK A LOT OF FLUIDS to get those "nail polish fumes" out of your head. You may not be drinking enough to flush out the incredible amount of ketones you are producing. Harmless...but most likely an additional source of your headaches.


Sooooooo....1. your increased ketone production combined with 2. not enough fluids combined with 3. the dehydrating component of the diet flushing out electrolytes, you need to either 1. up your calories so you stop producing so many ketones at one time which will make your head think it's sniffing paint thinner, or 2. drink a LOT more fluids that contain electrolytes.

I DO NOT recommend straight water as this only flushes out more electrolytes. I recommend BOTH water and either low cal gatorade or Vitamin Water Zero Fruit punch which has 800 mg of potassium in it in one large bottle and does not use aspartame as the sweetener...OR I make a protein drink and add 1/6 tsp of NuSalt to it which is 550 mg of potassium. NOTE: the vitamin water states it has carbs in it. Ignore this number...they are not metabolizable carbs, and produce no energy. Notice the calories on the bottle say "zero." The carbs listed should really not be listed and I am trying to get this corrected with the company.

Hope I've helped.

Grab a cup of grapes or a few clementines with a handful of almonds. Real food is MUCH better for you than a processed bar or shake and it's just as convenient!

yes! too much processed stuff.

also, i'm 5' and if I ate 900 calories a day I would have an endless migraine and I'd probably go on a homicidal rampage.

i myself love smoothies, and you can fit a bunch of calories in a not too big smoothie. my favorite is soy milk, frozen bananas (they make things creamy!), some protein powder, and some other kind of fruit.

I started doing a low-carb (not Atkins, just trying to reduce my carb intake) about 4 days ago, and today I have a headache, however I'm also prone to them. Although I haven't done any super research, low carb diets are ok, and it seems that from all the research I've done at my University's library, that Western diets are high carb and filled with foods that are terrible for us. I've also read and been warned to expect headaches for about two weeks while my body adjusts to the new diet, which is reasonable to assume.

That being said, let yourself have a cheat day, maybe a bit of extra carbs per day? I've managed to cut out a lot of processed foods, but I still have a bit of rice or a banana here and there, and I've still managed to lose 1kg in the 4 days.

Also, thank you to all the other posters that are keeping it positive I have a few nay-sayers in my social circle ("Oh you're just losing water weight" or "Low carb is so terrible for you, you should stop"), and it's nice to see support from members towards other members

Good thought. Which chemicals should I avoid? I was kind of thinking the same thing. Any suggestions for an alternative bar or shake? Specifically, brand names?

My advice is to avoid all chemicals. Just thew word should give you the willies when it comes to ingesting them.

Also, I recently had similar symptoms, although I'm eating waaaaaaaaay more than that and still in Keto. I just had to start adding Himalayan pink salt to my food, and my legs cramps went away and I feel much better, and I'm losing weight (my ticker doesn't say so but my scale does)

OK, I know this is an old post but maybe this will help a current reader. I have a master's in biology with a specialty in biochemistry so if I may...

To clear up the "calorie concept" of dieting, a person on a low carb diet doesn't have to worry about calories. A person ONLY need worry about calories when on a low fat, moderate protein, high carb diet which is most diets like weight watchers, nutrisystem etc.

Here's the reason: Your body has two basic metabolic pathways that it uses depending on what you feed it:

1. If you eat predominantly carbs, your glycolytic (aka glycolysis) pathway (the carbohydrate burning pathway) is the default and beta oxydation (the fat burning pathway) is the reserve.

2. If you cut out carbs to 50 or less, beta oxydation becomes the default pathway and glycolysis becomes pretty much shut down.

When you cut out carbs you force your body to use beta oxydation (the pathway that burns fat) predominantly, and fat loss is the ONLY macromolecule lost. You do NOT lose muscle on a low carb diet because it is metabolically impossible to lose muscle on a low carb diet. The pathway that burns protein for energy is the DING DING DING...glycolytic pathway. Sooooo if the glycolytic pathway is shut down it CANNOT breakdown muscle to burn for energy. This is absolutely a solid truth. Current studies show that low carb diets preserve muscle while low fat, high carb diets lose on the average about 25% muscle and 75% fat across the board no matter which low fat diet is chosen.

Bottom line is this: the reason people's metabolisms slow down when on a low fat diet is because they lose muscle on these diets, (roughly 25% EACH time they go on one of these diets) and the amount of muscle you have determines your metabolism. The more muscle you have the higher your metabolism. The only diet that will preserve 100% muscle is the low carb diet.

Regarding headaches:

Two reasons actually:

1. fluid loss, and electrolyte loss. Get at least 3000 - 4000 mg of potassium and sodium per day. Make sure you eat potassium foods like avocados and sunflower seeds. I eat sun seeds like they're going out of style and it took care of my headaches which were a sodium potassium problem. The diet is very diuretic so if you don't eat high potassium foods and high sodium foods AND take a calcium supplement you will get headaches. TAKE A CALCIUM SUPPLEMENT when on a low carb diet.

2. Your 900 calories per day is causing you to burn a TON of fat and that produces ketones. What could also be happening, and this also happened to me, is that the ketones are building up in your head faster than your brain is adapting to them, and it's kinda like sniffing fingernail polish remover. LOL! One of the ketones IS acetone which is harmless if diluted. You WILL pee and breathe out excess ketones, but make sure if you're only eating 900 calories that you DRINK A LOT OF FLUIDS to get those "nail polish fumes" out of your head. You may not be drinking enough to flush out the incredible amount of ketones you are producing. Harmless...but most likely an additional source of your headaches.


Sooooooo....1. your increased ketone production combined with 2. not enough fluids combined with 3. the dehydrating component of the diet flushing out electrolytes, you need to either 1. up your calories so you stop producing so many ketones at one time which will make your head think it's sniffing paint thinner, or 2. drink a LOT more fluids that contain electrolytes.

I DO NOT recommend straight water as this only flushes out more electrolytes. I recommend BOTH water and either low cal gatorade or Vitamin Water Zero Fruit punch which has 800 mg of potassium in it in one large bottle and does not use aspartame as the sweetener...OR I make a protein drink and add 1/6 tsp of NuSalt to it which is 550 mg of potassium. NOTE: the vitamin water states it has carbs in it. Ignore this number...they are not metabolizable carbs, and produce no energy. Notice the calories on the bottle say "zero." The carbs listed should really not be listed and I am trying to get this corrected with the company.

Hope I've helped.

You helped me out, thanks!! I'm going to start a calcium supplement as well, even though I eat a lot of cheese and have full fat dairy.