Low Carbers - No appetite??

[Enchilada81]

Does any other low carbers suffer from a severely reduced appetite?

I'm having to force myself to eat.

At 5pm DH asked if I wanted my dinner (a chicken breast with cream cheese and garlic) and I told him I couldn't possibly ... as I wasn't in the slightest bit hungry.

He then reminded me that all I'd had to eat in the entire day was:

A small bowl of flax cereal.
A few spoonfulls of tuna and mayo
A piece of fish

And it was 5pm and I couldn't stomach the thought of eating anything. I've only just eaten the chicken (at 9pm) and that was only because I'm scared my body will slip into "starvation mode - store fat mode"

Anyone else experienced this?

Yes reduced appetite is a side effect of being in ketosis. It is the main thing that makes low carb diets so easy. No appetite equals reduced food which leads to weight loss.

As long as you are getting enough protien and fat you wont go into starvation mode.

It's one of the things that makes low carbing such an easy way to follow. When you're counting calories and cutting down on the fat you do get hungry.

I remember obsessing about what I could eat, how soon I could eat, how many calories I had left, etc. It made life miserable!

If you're routinely eating too little then you will start to suffer from malnutrition. 'Starvation mode' is also possible, ketosis or not... Loss of appetite is usually a sign of sickness rather than help. Malnutrition has many implications. Short term you can find that your immune system is compromised, you're fatigued & your digestion could start to struggle. Long term it leads to things like anaemia, hair loss, periods stopping, dental problems, loss of bone-density, depression/anxiety....

The bare minimum a sedentary adult woman should be getting is 1200 cals a day in order to have the nutrition to function well physically and mentally. It's not enough to simply get 'protein and fat' or a few vegetables, I'm afraid. Tot up the calorie value of your typical food intake and if it's below 1200 make a bigger effort with your planning of meals and snacks in order to increase it.

NB... quite a lot of people with eating disorders start with extremely restrictive diets such as Atkins or raw food-ism. If you're unlucky, the loss of appetite can develop into something very dangerous.