do you get shaky/weak between meals?

[familyfun]

lately i am getting hungrier and hungrier and despite eating 3 meals a day plus fruit/biscuit inbetween i am so hungry by mealtimes i am literally shaking. what could cause this?

I would really recommend looking at the Radiant Recovery website which I linked to in my post upthread.

If you are bf'ing, it says you should eat (and that means protein + carbs) every 3 hours - so 3 meals a day, and a mid-morning, mid-afternoon and pre-bedtime snack. It has made a HUGE difference to my physical / mental / emotional wellbeing. DH has started eating more protein at lunchtime and is amazed that he's not half as sleepy in the afternoons now.

The plan is designed so that you make changes gradually, and you don't try to do things like swap to wholemeal straight away, as that often just sets off more cravings for white carbs and you end up bingeing on sugar again. You stabilise your brain before making those changes - and it makes it much easier. I gave up sugar once before, but it had no effect on my energy levels. Now I've reduced my sugar intake through the plan (not got as far as cutting it out yet) and it's made an incredible difference.

The proteins I currently eat are: sunflower seeds, hemp seeds (nuts are good too), eggs (3 eggs for one meal for me, but how much you should eat will depend on your bodyweight), beans (including baked beans), lentils, cheese, meat). My out-and-about snacks are hardboiled eggs, seeds, cheese sandwiches or even a milkshake with cottage cheese & fruit in it.

Filling carbs include brown rice, wholemeal pasta, wholemeal bread, potatoes with skin on, grains like quinoa and polenta, beans and lentils. Adding vegetables (rather than fruit) will slow down your digestion and help reduce the swings in your blood sugar levels.

AFAIK Most sugar replacements are supposed to have the same effect on the brain as actual sugar, and they cause you to continue to crave sweet things, so they may not help.

The other thing to watch out for is whether you are getting enough sleep. I find I get especially hungry if I am tired. I tend to eat peanut butter (not the added sugar and fat type though!) on wholegrain bread with a glass of skimmed milk as my pick me up. It's nice and fast and easy to keep in the house without being too expensive.

I find there's definitely a correlation between sleep & food. If I'm not eating right, sleep deprivation has a HUGE effect on me. If my food's good, I can be seriously sleep deprived but it has a much smaller effect.

And when I'm lacking in sleep, I definitely crave chocolate and sweets more.

I had this for years.Tthe trick I use is if I want sugar, I eat protein, fat and then complex carbs. The nuts idea is great, as are dairy, eggs, meat, brown rice, quinoa, chickpeas and lentils (also v cheap so great if you've got a budget to stick to like I do!).

sleep often broken by dds waking.
still bf 5 or 6 times a day which id like to be less.
will try and drink more water and cut out junk.

Thanks for this thread - I've also been getting the low blood sugar shakes recently and it's just because I eat so much sugar. As of yesterday I've made a conscious decision to cut back and eat better. That Radiant Recovery website is very interesting! The cookie question I was nodding my head ...

If you are still breastfeeding that much it's most likely that you just aren't eating enough for to feed your baby and for yourself too.

Marking my place because this is ringing many bells with me.

My only concern is, if you are trying to cut down your sugar intake, do you find you end up eating a lot more foods with artificial sweeteners in? I find that I am very sensitive to the taste, of aspartame in particular I think, and so the prospect of cutting out sugar to exist on these is a little depressing :(

What everybody else said. More protein, less sugary carbs (no bloody biscuits ) but mostly just EAT MORE

Even whole organic wheat grains are not nec. good for everyone (check the thread on here about it). You could try different rye breads and crackers or spelt (you'll find them in Waitrose and some in sainsbos).

So many people eat soo much wheat every day and get symptoms like yours or worse!

I just noticed the bfing thing - I am also bfing dd1 and it's really taking it out of me. I think I just need to eat a lot more than usual, but my head is telling me to stop being so greedy. I've spent 30 years working out how much I need to eat a day, and to eat 25% more is just weird!!

And, although I say eat nuts and high protein stuff, my diet at the moment is about 80% cake due to bfing. I have a sugar craving like nothing before. But it's making me feel bad so I'm going to try following my own advice and eating more of the good stuff.

Just a thought but have you had your thyroid levels checked? - losing weight while eating a healthy diet along with shaking could indicate overactive thyroid (most likely not, as you are BFing and that could explain as some other posters have mentioned).

You can still have the nice things in life but as a treat. I make cakes so usually thats my sugar hit/treat. I wouldnt have a pudding as well. As I said previously investing in better quality chcolate such as Lindt dark is better plus you cant consume much so it lasts.

Once you start cutting down yr body doesnt crave it and you notice how sweet things are - even wine! sugar is a drug and once yr hooked its an obession.

The best way is not to buy it, we dont have crisps (too fattening). Luxurys can be bought at the weekend. Perhaps keeping a food diary may make you realise what your consumming.

Bertie / Crystals, the Radiant Recovery eating plan works on the basis of stabilising your blood sugar / serotonin / beta endorphin levels before you even think of reducing sugar. Stabilising those makes you not crave sugar in the same way. Just trying to stop eating them does make you want sweet alternatives e.g. artificial stuff, and makes you more prone to relapse.

On the RR plan, reducing or eliminating sugar doesn't happen till step 6 out of 7 - all the previous steps work on adding things to your diet rather than giving things up. I'm only on step 3, but I find I crave sugar far less than before. A month ago, I was happily eating a whole box of jaffa cakes in one go but now, as long as I've eaten according to the plan, I can walk past the doughnuts in Tesco without even being tempted.

The plan recommends avoiding all artificial sweetners as they can affect the brain in the same way as sugar - I think changing that happens in stage 6 too.

BF'ing ususally increases your serotonin levels and relaxes you, which helps you not to crave sugar so much, but (according to Radiant Recovery, anyway), it does mean that if you're sensitive to sugar, you need to eat loads more protein than someone who's not bf'ing.

If you're consistently exhausted, it's worth asking your GP to test for thyroid / iron levels / coeliac disease. You can have iron-related exhaustion without having anaemia - I had it when my iron levels were in the normal range (although at the low end). The GP suggested trying to try take supplements, and I was a new woman within 2 weeks of starting them. :)

If you have children, iron levels are fairly likely to be an issue, as (IIRC), most women's iron levels haven't returned to their pre-pg levels by the time their second child is born, and they're likely to drop further with each child you have.

I think it's like anything. If an aspect of your lifestyle is having a negative effect on your health and you're not prepared to change your lifestyle in that respect, you have to live with the negative effects. No-one's going to force you to make changes you don't want to.

The website only gives a basic overview and there are more details in the book (after all, the woman who wrote it makes her living from selling the book and associated stuff). So she says that ideally you have no snacks between breakfast & lunch and lunch should be within 5-6 hours of breakfast. But if you can't do that, you should have a planned snack in the middle.

(There are other variations e.g. because I'm pg and bf'ing, the plan says I should eat every 3 hours, and have a protein/carb snack at bedtime rather than a potato.)

I think it ought (in theory) to be possible to eat protein at breakfast even if you're short of time. Half my snacks are eaten whilst pushing a puschair around town. Hard-boiled eggs are great for me: I boil up a number every few days and so I have portable protein which need no preparation. Apparently lots of people prepare a milkshake with cottage cheese or protein powder the night before and drink that instead of breakfast. Doesn't appeal to me - I like my porridge too much, but you could do other things like put nuts on your cereal, or eat them while you're travelling.

There are online classes on the website which probably go into more detail, although I've neither the time nor the money to do them (you have to pay). There are also free online groups where you can discuss the details of your particular plan to get it to work for you. Of course, neither is absolutely necessary.

The journal thing is good IMO. The idea is that over time you learn to understand and listen to what your body is telling you about what/when you eat. How foods affect different people varies a lot, so you can only really find out by listening to your own body.

The idea is you have a column for how you feel physically & how you feel emotionally at the time of eating, rather than how the food makes you feel. Of course, you can note down how you feel in between too. Brief is better than lengthy!

Mine might say 'Tired, thick head. Irritable with DS' or 'Awake! Cheeful.' The book has a whole list of suggestions which I've not bothered reading.

The author gives an example that if she has breakfast 45 mins late, she will always get grumpy the next day at 11am. That's the sort of thing you probably only realise if you're wrigint it down.

An example of my own is that if I eat protein before bed, I feel at least 25% human when I wake in the morning, whereas if I don't, I wake up & wish I was dead. (That's a slight exaggeration - but you get the idea.)