Bad breath from dieting.....

[MindingMum]

I started a diet a month ago and am doing really well, eating healthily, little and often.

However I have really bad breath all the time since I started it. It isn't a 'stale mouth' or poor dental hygiene kind of smell but a truely horrendous reek (sorry tmi )

The smell only goes away when I eat and no amount of mouthwash/mints will cover it up.

I have a lunch date on Mon and I am considering cancelling because of it.

Does anyone have any idea how I can deal with this?

Sounds like ketosis - have a cup of tea with half a sugar in.

dh gets ketosis when he is on a high protein diet. It's a really unpleasant smell, but it is good in terms of the effectiveness of your diet, as it means you are burning fat. If you want to reduce the effect you need to increase the amount of carbohydrates you are eating. Try experimenting for Monday, you should find it a very short term thing.

Yes,thank-you both, I will try that. I have actually cut my carbs dramatically as I used to eat like food was going out of fashion - mainly carbs so body is probably in shock

Drink LOADS and LOADS and LOADS of water, I'm talking about 3litres a day and the smell will go. It's just a high concerntration of ketones so if you drink a lot it will dilute it and the ketones will come out in your urine, not breath.

funnily enough Ewe I only ever drink water but it seems to be making it worse. I drink approx double that amount anyway to keep the hunger pangs away.

I have just tried the sweet tea recommended and it seems to have worked for now

You can't dilute out the smell I don't think. dh drank between 6-8 litres of water (seriously) a day and still had smelly breath at times. In the short term I think you just have to provide some glucose which your body will choose over burning fat (it's harder work to burn fat).