16 Months in, and I get induction flu NOW?
 

This comes into the category of "you never stop learning on low carb". I've been maintaining, with difficulty, for a few months. Never had carb creep while I was losing but it's plaguing me now, in maintenance. So yesterday I decided to go to an Atkins induction level of eating, just to re-set everything and get those pesky bites of cheese, fruit, M&Ms, etc. out of my system. I had plenty to eat throughout the day: lots of eggs, sausage, fatty fish, lettuce with oil, and some asparagus.

Well...I woke up this morning with a blazing headache, nausea, a runny nose, and I've had brain fog, irritability and a bit of lightheadedness all morning at work. I can only think that the carb creep had actually been much worse than I thought if my body is reacting so severely. The funny thing is that I've never had induction flu before, even when I began low carbing 16 months ago! I started out with South Beach, not Atkins, so maybe that was why. Anyway, this feels horrible and now I understand why newbies complain about it and sometimes give up. I'll stick with it today and see what happens.

You may want to try upping your salt.
Have you seen this thread?
http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...75&page=1&pp=15

Eat your salt! :) It really does help a huge amount. I read an explanation yesterday. Salt makes certain structures in your kidneys bumpy and other minerals get caught up and recycled. When your body jettison's salt you'll lose all those other minerals too. So, really no use taking potassium, magnesium, etc, unless you've got enough salt!

I'm reinducting too after 7 years of being pretty low carb. I've got mild symptoms so far. My muscles can't figure out how to burn fat yet. My legs feel like lead when climbing stairs. I woke with a bit of a headache this morning.

Yesterday I forgot to bring my chicken broth with me to work and I felt poopy all day.

Ah, I see you posted in that thread, and are trying salt. So how about water, you getting lots of that, too?

Salt, yes. But you reminded me to drink more water. Just off to the kitchen to get some...

Might help with your leg cramps too, according to Dr Eades.
Here's a great article of his where he gives tips on restarting and avoiding flu-like symptoms. He talks about salt, water, and leg cramps in there, too.
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/...low-carb-pt-ii/

MizKitty: Thanks for linking to that fascinating article. So much helpful information all in one blog post.

Update: The extra salt and extra water did the trick. Thank you guys for your advice. This is day 4 of induction and the flu is over. I'll give it 2 more days, just to lock in a bit of fat loss. But, OMG, I didn't know it was possible to pee that much - which is why I lost 4lbs in the first two days despite plenty of eating. Overall, I think this was a worthwhile thing to do. There's something cathartic about starting over from scratch: there's a mild euphoria that comes with eating "perfectly" clean and experiencing again a complete and utter aversion to sugar and starch. Anyway, I recommend it and will probably do it again myself from time to time.