Hi Lynne, Being underweight can be as bad as overwieght. I'm very overweight and training to be a nutritional therapist. I endorse Jon's view that you need to eat whole food and as much raw food as possible. Excess carbs, especially refined carbs can be causing you a problem. For practical advice I always refer people to Nigel Denby's book "the GL diet". Your episode of fainting after missing food can come from many possibilities, but usual is low blood glucose. You should really see a nutritional therapist who should consider all the many factors. They do run quite expensive, but they have years of training. Find one BANT registered, because of the massive amount of training and need to do continuous professional development. People often misunderstand blood glucose and think that they need to stuff themselves with carbohydrate. Firstly, you do not and secondly not all carbohydrates are the same. Most whole food carbohydrate is “slow release”, but will still only take 2-3 hours to digest and absorb. What “slow-carbs” or low GI carbs do is avoid excessively high blood glucose that can cause a massive insulin release several hours later and drop glucose to rock bottom. Your body stores carbohydrate as glycogen. Glycogen should provide enough energy as glucose for about 24 hours. The concept is well known in athletic circle because long distance runners often run out of it and hit the “wall”. The body should switch to burning more fat at that point, but unless one is used to it, it takes some time to switch over, so the body quickly metabolises protein. But that takes time as well. Fainting is one of the ways the body cuts down on demand so that it can catch-up. There are many things that can go wrong with this process. For example, glycogen formation depends on potassium and sufficient glycogen may not be formed if levels are low. Triggering the right responses requires insulin and glucagon (two hormones) to balance each other and they have to be accepted by cells – which depends on many other factors. See how complex it is. Your body runs better on smaller amounts of wholesome food eaten at regular intervals. This helps to stabilise blood glucose and keep things on an even keel. Using whole food instead of processed provides more of the nutrients you need to make the above processes work. Particularly important are magnesium and potassium, two orphan nutrients often neglected. Their best source is fruit and vegetables, especially green leafy ones. On the other hand too much salt, sodium or refined carbohydrate or tends to rob the body of potassium, magnesium and calcium for that matter. If you have been eating poorly nutritious food for a while, your body can get out of kilter and respond badly. It is a strange concept that eating for underweight is the same as eating for overweight, but really - its just eating healhily. According to Lutz in "life without bread" a low carb diet puts on weight if you are under weight and takes it off if you are over. There is no need to go as far as a low carb diet: the low GL diet represents a happy compromise. Nigel Denby is a fully qualified dietitian. Nigel Denby You could also try consulting with a nutritional therapist. They view things differently from dietitians: Carolyn Hill Just google "nutritional therapy" to find other links - there are national registers helping you to find a qualified practitioner near to you. Cheers, Nick Last edited: 16-12-2006 12:17:09 PM
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