I wish I could afford to travel like that.

I was a waiter for quite a while, and it was probably one of my highest paying jobs in "adjusted dollars". People seem to be willing to tip a waiter quite a bit more than many waitresses can get. Helps to look exotic and pick the nicest place in town.

I've been thinking about the original subject, and I think almost everyone I know complains about their digestion. So many people fiddle around with their fiber and yeast and gluten and whatever and never seem to get it right. In fact, I am pretty sure that the words "I finally fixed my digestive problems" is semantically equivalent to "I'm about to have a nasty surprise".

But like all hobbies, part of the fun is messing around with it (no pun intended) and spending way too much money on it.

Thanks to all who responded. Yeah, this is kinder embarrasing, and thumbs up to all who laughed while reading my opening post. You get the joke: life is sometimes humiliatingly funny!

During the day I had a negative fantasy - I imagined that no one would respond to my post, but I'd be able to see that 1,000 members had read it. Or maybe just one insensitive response. Then I told myself, ah, surely the good people at low carbers won't let me down! I see they haven't, and my expectations have been far exceeded.

steph0203, feelskinny, Dharmalisa, misschris - I'm not wanting to belabor the conversation, but if any of you want to pick at this problem over the next weeks, I'll be looking in on this thread. I consider this issue to be a considerable diminishment of my quality of life. If it were actual diarrhea, I'd be off the low carb diet all together. But the low amount of nausea tells me it's definitely not that.

To anyone who has this problem, if the thread seems dead, don't be shy. If you don't want to divulge, you might just pose the question, "Any progress?"

Misschris, I have to echo your experience - the whole business seems awfully inconsistent. I have bad days and good. Here's how I generally eat:

No bread at all. I do eat processed meats (salami, sausage, hot dogs). Lots of cheese. Steak, chicken, hamburger. I eat a few strawberries once in a while, and no other fruits. I don't eat any veggies, except for a little fried onion once in a while with the hamburger. With the meats I sometimes put on mayo or a little ketchup. Oh yes, and bacon, bacon, bacon and bacon.

Now it might seem like Ketoneman is the zero carber. Not so. He's a choc-whore. Aside from a few carbs in the processed meats, and the ketchup, that's where his entire stack of carbs comes from. Well, there's milk, which serves the purpose of allowing him to scoop some Nestle's choclate into. A choclate bar accompanies this concoction. A good addict, he measures the carbs and notes them on a chart every day. A cup and a half of milk is 15 carbs, the nestle's adds another 15, the bar is 22 = 50 carbs per day. Viola. (music to my mouth).

I know that too much sugar can cause me to have disgusting craps, and I learned this years ago in relation to syrup on pancakes. The relationship was readily seen due to the timing of the events: enjoy the wonderful pancakes, then pay for it in the worst way 20 minutes later. However, my chocolate consumption does not precipitate, in terms of the timing, my bad times in the bathroom.

Thanks to all again. I'm going to re-read this entire thread. Also, I might start a Journal of Crap. This would hopefully be a peer-reviewed journal.

Well, you won't like what I recommend I'd cut down on the cheese, or cut it out for a little while along with the dairy. And man, ease up on the chocolate! LOL! Try the Chocoperfection bars, 2 carbs and they are wonderful. But don't eat 20 a day Cut back a little on the processed meats. Add some veggies as they are BULKING agents The bulk of your carbs should be coming from better foods, like veggies. Now, if you are like me, and don't really like veggies, it can be tough, but a nice salad slathered with bacon, some cheese, avocado and ranch dressing is very yummy. I think if you cut out some of the known causes, and get rid of the regular chocolate and instead have small amounts of a low carb chocolate, you may find yourself doing better. It's worth trying for a week. Good luck!!! I'll keep my eye on this thread!

Um... I think the only and best possible statement which would cover each and every concern you have while also expressing my instinctive feelings on your predicament, taking into account the various things which have been posted during the day and the original post which I had read carefully... the only words which accurately encompass all this are "Well, DUH!"

Dude, crap would be running down my leg if I ate that.

I know that aspartame does me that way. And it is in the darnedest places. It is in most gum. I have seen aspartame added to REGULAR gum, right along with the sugar. (Wrigley's) Certain life savers have it too. My stomach finds them all for me.

Many sugar free or lite food items are sweetened with it, and some regular. You didn't say if you drank coffee. If I drink coffee without cream, it will "move" me along. And the Nestle's? Is it sweetened? Check the label.

Good luck!

It is fun to travel. But I didn't mean to make it sound like he does it *all* the time, plus he lives in Europe, so it's not quite as extravagant as it sounds


Agree there. I know I complain and try to analyze it a lot more when on Atkins then when on a "normal diet" (SAD). I've always had stomach problems so I've always had to deal with it, but as I said I think about it so much more on Atkins it's not funny.

Anyone suffering this problem should also abstain from low carb processed foods. Sugar alcohols are notorious for this and, as I learned from Nancy, low carb tortillas, bread, etc, have five times as much gluten as ordinary wheat tortillas, bread, etc. If you are gluten-intolerant, LC processed foods are a nightmare.

I'd see a doctor at that point. It could be your liver, your pancreas, hepatitis, giardia, many things that require medical treatment.

A man shows his strengh by his sense of humor! I'm here for ya!!

This too shall pass...I'm sure; you may have a bug...hang tough and keep posted. We'll figure this out!!

Thanks for the reassurance Feelskinny. I share your optimism. I doubt that it's a bug because of the duration of this problem. It's been with me from the time that I began LC living.



Cathy07, how long have you pursued a LC diet? Did you ever have this symptom BEFORE you began eating LC?



bike2work - the education of Ketoneman continues. I'd never heard of these little buggers, and I just finished an article on them. My thought is that I don't eat anything that has them, but i can see that I'm going to start reading labels.



Ah, but the timing my good fellow. How soon after eating it would you experience this effect? I ate my choclate meal around 1:00 (yesterday) afternoon. No problemo en el bano. I'll consider cutting out the chocolate at a future time, but for now I'm going to try to document this train wreck.


misschris - some interesting ideas there. From here on out, (at this point I mean) I'd like to think that I'm doing ONE thing to cause this problem. I know, I'll be lucky if that's the case. Really, three weeks ago I took a chance by trying to correct the problem by doing 2 things (quitting both eggs and diet drinks). As for the notion that I should be getting better carbs, I'm a follower of Gary Taubes, and that means (perhaps you know better than I) that I believe that meat has everything you need in it. He also teaches that fiber has only one effect - to decrease food's transit time from one hole to the next. But I'll be sure to re-examine that last concept if other efforts to solve my issue prove ineffective.

Thanks again all.

Thank you all for all the advice.I have been low carb for months, and only recently has this been very bad.I will ring the doctor as someone suggested.
I eat very plain and simple due to not much appetite
Breakfast
nothing
Lunch
eggs (sometimes a piece of bacon)and small salad
Dinner (we calls this tea in the north )
meat any kind and cauliflower
Snacks
celery with cream cheese or pork rinds
odd teaspoon of peanut butter
( a couple of vodka and soda waters at night too)
I sometimes have egg or tuna mayo with lettuce for lunch, for a change.

Well, sooner or later.

Seriously, I can see you don't want to leave chocolate behind. I couldn't agree more, since Chocolate is the only candy type thing I EVER bothered with. But it's one thing to eat it while getting lots of fiber and another to shock your system with a high sugar/chocolate/milk bomb while processing nothing else but meat.

Again, digestion is a chaotic thing, meaning that there are so many random influences that any static prediction is bound to be incomplete. It may be something else, but one of the first things I would look at is the one large variation from the norm that you partake in. To me, the fact that you crave it is a sure sign that it's the problem.

I'm thinking lactose intolerance. I can eat cheese, high fat yogurt, but milk, low fat ice cream will send me doubled over to the potty, and sometimes not until the next day! Chocolate in too large amounts at once can do this too. Sorry - just sayin'...

Try cutting out one thing at a time. Try cutting out dairy for a week, if that doesnt' do it, try something else. While chocolate is a nice treat, eating as much as you are eating could be a problem, and just because it doesn't happen right away doesn't mean it isn't the problem. I think I read that only 10g of fat can be processed by the digestive tract in an hour, so just because you don't have issues right away doesn't mean that what you ate isn't causing you problems. You are having 50 grams of carbs from chocolate milk and chocolate bars, things that aren't on most "low carb" plans by any means. It must be very confusing to your body. Your body could just be rebelling, LOL. I really do think you should rethink this one part of your diet. Perhaps try having a little heavy cream with a low carb chocolate, add some chocolate davincis to the cream if you must, but you could easily turn that 50g of carb into less than 10 by making that small change. It might be worth trying for a bit. Good luck!!!

Baerdric - I'd certainly be a fool not to bear your words in mind. Regarding the timing, however, my thought is, if you are going to experience a sugar-related case of the runs, the timing will be tightly linked.


Dharmalisa - thanks for having the guts (har har) to join the thread. How would you know if something is going to upset your digestion...the next day?! The concept you are advancing seems dubious, but I'm willing to investigate. Obviously, I need to learn something which I don't currently know!


Cathy07 - I can't resist jumping on a simple recommendation based upon my experience - salad has caused me to have diarrhea many, many times (but not every time) over the years. I remember once many years ago swearing off of it. When you look down and there's tiny green leaves in the bowl, yeah, that's a clue. Some of your lunches include two of my "no-no" foods - eggs and salad.

I don't mean to hound you, did you see my question about "when did this problem begin for you"?

I now find myself in an odd position.....
waiting for......
another......
[COLOR=DarkRed]BAD CRAP!!![/COLOR]