Exhaustion While Following a Low Carb Diet

Uh oh.

I am starting to feel the way I did during the first many months of following Dukan, the low-carb exhaustion is settling in! Uuuuhhhhhhhhggggg, this is the worst part of dieting.

Especially since I need to stay on my game and workout hard to prep for my competition.

I feel like crap.

Now I would love to say that this feeling goes away, but if my memory serves me right I felt this bad for at least the first 6-7 months of following Dukan. I had felt better since the new year and still had some bouts of exhaustion if I didn’t get enough sleep, but that’s normal.

Since starting my new, very strict diet I am feeling like a zombie. I am feeling completely lazy.

Now this is my best understanding of why that happens:

Your body goes into a kindof ‘hibernation’ mode when it feels like it’s fat stores are being depleted. Your nails and hair grow slower, you get cold, and you get this feeling of absolute exhaustion. To combat this you should try getting as much sleep as possible but I find in my case, this never helped. I could get over 13 hours of sleep and still wake up tired.

Boo.

Your body just wants to hold onto all your energy, so it stops (or rather slows down) burning calories to make you warm, and it makes you tired so you will sleep to conserve energy.

I remember at one point I started taking vitamins and that helped a little. Need to start taking those again. Also, apparently I need to eat quinoa? This stresses me out because it’s not allowed on Dukan… I also don’t know how much to eat, is it daily? Weekly? I’ll let you guys know once I figure it out. Maybe that added carb will help with my feeling of exhaustion.

Also, you are not supposed to workout hard while on a diet like Dukan. I am just trying my best to get good workouts in even though I’m exhausted on this new diet.

xoxo

PS: I actually wrote this post 2 days ago and have since then purchased protein powder to help me through my bodybuilding... would you look at that, protein powder has totally gotten me out of my exhaustion! I take a scoop with breakfast and one after my workout and I'll be totally honest, it helped!

Let's see if this keeps up