What in this meal could make me so tired that I want to pass out

[mickj]

Spicy chicken sandwich
diet soda
fries
sweet sour sauce
chocholate chip cookie

I get this feeling after eating sometimes, not all the time. Can't figure out what it is.

 

[Bluemoon]

It's obviously the diet soda.

 

[NW-Bound]

I don't know how old you are, but with myself at 55, if I have a good lunch, I would feel very sleepy and need a nap. Like right now.

Perhaps you should eat a lighter lunch.

 

[Newventurer]

Have your blood sugar checked

 

[Tigger]

I agree with these suggestions. Here's another possibility:
Does MSG (monosodium glutamate) make you sleepy? - Yahoo! Answers

Also, everything in this meal is crap. So feeling like crap after eating it is not entirely surprising.

 

[eytonxav]

Have your blood sugar checked

+1 sounds like too many carbs may be spiking your blood sugar from these:

Spicy chicken sandwich < bread on sandwich
diet soda <
fries <
sweet sour sauce < may be this as well
chocholate chip cookie <

 

[RAE]

+1 sounds like too many carbs may be spiking your blood sugar from these:

Spicy chicken sandwich < bread on sandwich
diet soda <
fries <
sweet sour sauce < may be this as well
chocholate chip cookie <

Yep, way, way too many carbs/sugar in that meal for me. You might want to take a look at the "Stupid Diet Tricks" thread. We've been discussing the low-carb thing, and eating real food versus a lot of highly processed food.

 

[W2R]

That would be too much sugar for me, too. Sweet and sour sauce is usually very high in sugar, and then cookies on top of that? Too much.

 

[73ss454]

Gawd only know what is in fast food.

 

[Mulligan]

I don't know how old you are, but with myself at 55, if I have a good lunch, I would feel very sleepy and need a nap. Like right now.

Perhaps you should eat a lighter lunch.

I'm a few years younger, but I am in the same boat. When I was younger, I could stuff my stomach and play hard, exercise whatever to the limits immediately after eating. Now I have to walk a tight line between eating enough to have energy, but not enough to be full. If I eat too much it is a least a 3 hour wait before I can do my workout routine.

 

[Alan]

I'm a few years younger, but I am in the same boat. When I was younger, I could stuff my stomach and play hard, exercise whatever to the limits immediately after eating. Now I have to walk a tight line between eating enough to have energy, but not enough to be full. If I eat too much it is a least a 3 hour wait before I can do my workout routine.

I can certainly relate to that. Beginning of this year my tennis buddy and I had to cancel our early morning tennis match because the courts were wet. At lunchtime he called me and said that he was at the courts and they were dry, did I want to play? 15 minutes later I was there and after a few games he said that he had never seen me so out of breath. I explained that when he called I was eating lunch with DW and DS and had just finished my 3rd slice of pizza and a bottle of beer.

As to the OP, I agree with the other responses that it could well be all the sugars in that meal.

 

[Chuckanut]

It very well could be the sugar in that meal. There is sugar in the sauce and the cookie and most likely in the bun itself. Also, there is probably very little fiber in what you ate, and fiber does help to counter the negative effects of sugar.

Check out this video by a pediatric endocrinologist on how the amount of sugar in our diets has gone WAY UP (minutes 11-13)and the problems it causes our body when the sugar is processed (minutes 13-15).

 

[David1961]

I agree you should have your sugar checked. Could also be a food allergy.

 

[RonBoyd]

Have your blood sugar checked

Yeah. Besides the obvious items there is those fries and whatever bread housed the chicken (which was probably breaded) that are most all carbohydrates -- and we know what the body converts those into.

A plain ol baked potato, for instance, looks like this:



No nutritional value there.

 

[MooreBonds]

Spicy chicken sandwich
diet soda
fries
sweet sour sauce
chocholate chip cookie

I get this feeling after eating sometimes, not all the time. Can't figure out what it is.

I know EXACTLY what you mean, although mine usually comes after going to a Chinese buffet for lunch with some co-workers (I only go out for lunch maybe 8 times/year, if that). At the buffet, I hit the Crab Rangoon pretty heavy, but stick with lo mein instead of rice. I have a variety of the chicken/pork dishes, so doubtful that it's sugar-derived.

It gets to where I literally can't keep my eyes open, no matter what I'm doing! Unless I let my eyes close for about 2 minutes, then I will be drifting in and out of consciousness for 30-60 minutes. It usually hits after the Chinese buffet, but has happened a handful of other times in the afternoon. Don't know if it's MSG or what - doubt that it's sugar. Most likely MSG or some other additive, as it never happens when eating other foods.

 

[Amethyst]

That meal is probably 2/3 of the calories I need for a whole day. The sandwich, alone, would be plenty for me. But if I did eat it all, I'd first get an uncomfortable sugar rush (like a caffeine buzz, only ickier) and then a huge sugar let-down. Perhaps that's what you're feeling?

Having a diet soda with that meal is kind of funny.

Amethyst

 

[Animorph]

I'd have a problem with the "spicy" part of the chicken, the sweet and sour sauce, and the chocolate chips part of the cookie. So I guess just about any of it could be suspect.

I kept a diary of what I ate and how I felt. I have gradually formed a list of stuff that gives me problems. Much of the stuff on the list I never would have guessed before I started.

 

[RonBoyd]

I kept a diary of what I ate and how I felt. I have gradually formed a list of stuff that gives me problems. Much of the stuff on the list I never would have guessed before I started.

Would you care to share? I would be particularly interested in what "problem/s" each item caused.

 

[mickj]

Sounds like I need to do a food log. Had my blood sugar levels checked several times always normal. Also need to find a happy medium between a few carbs and too many. I feel equally bad when trying to do lo-carb eating.

 

[mickj]

Would you care to share? I would be particularly interested in what "problem/s" each item caused.

+1

 

[RonBoyd]

Sounds like I need to do a food log. Had my blood sugar levels checked several times always normal. Also need to find a happy medium between a few carbs and too many. I feel equally bad when trying to do lo-carb eating.

How often do you have (had) an A1C test? (This is kind of an average of your blood suger level over several months.) (I am unsure what "normal" means exactly. Within an generally acceptable range?)

You do know that you need to maintain any diet change for at least 2 weeks before you body stops complaining. This is what the Atkins folks, for instance, call the "Induction" period. Anything less than that tells you nothing other than you have a "habit."

 

[haha]

You need to buy a meter and some strips. 90% says you are getting some high readings post meal, that perhaps drop quite low very soon after. By the time you run to a doctor, and convince him to make a test, your blood sugar will have moved on.

Ha

 

[RonBoyd]

You are correct, Ha. That's the theoretical reason behind the A1C test since it supposedly gives one the averages over a several month period. <chuckle>

Anyway, a good (well, a recent one -- there are many) article on the test strips can be found here:
My 5 Low-Carb Mistakes And How Nutritional Ketosis Rescued Me From Them

 

[Animorph]

Would you care to share? I would be particularly interested in what "problem/s" each item caused.

Not that interesting, but you have to record everything and make sure you have enough variations to see everything. For example, condiments, vitamin suppliments, sauces.

I had discomfort or pain in the lower abdomen, pretty much around the navel, in the morning. A few foods (chocolate chips, a few soups) would give me immediate discomfort, but higher up in the chest. Sometimes it was a two morning thing, with pain just under the ribs on the right side the first day and the old usual discomfort the second day. The doc says GERD, but that doesn't seem to cover all of that.

What I've seen so far:

Multivitamin (minerals or no minerals, pill or gummy) - When I stopped taking them I finally had days with no discomfort. That allowed me to find some of the other problem foods. Never suspected this until I went on vacation and stopped taking them for a week. As an added bonus, my calories burned when stationary bicycling for 40 minutes went up by about 30%. I was able to do a lot more while putting in the same qualitative amount of effort. I tested this a few times with different multivitamin types, for each type the calories burned goes way down and the morning discomfort is consistent. I haven't found which vitamin or combo is the problem. I take D3 and B12 separately, so no problems with them. Too much iron could have caused some problems since my original multivitamin included it, along with my Cheerios and regular diet.

Hard chocolate (60% was a favorite, semi-sweet is bad as well), most tomato-based foods (even vegetable beef soup made with tomato puree) - Immediate discomfort, plus the usual morning discomfort or pain. No big problem with chocolate ice cream, supposedly solid and liquid chocolates are different. Or it may be a total dose threshold problem.

Other acidic stuff with vinegar (pasta salad, pickles, BBQ sauces), raw onions, peanuts, artificial sweeteners (which includes pretty much any gum) - No immediate effects, but morning pain can get bad enough that I have to get up early. It can take a couple of days to feel better. I haven't seen a problem with orange juice though.

If I stay away from all this stuff I can wake up in the morning without even thinking about the problem. If I cheat a little, I'll notice it and may have to avoid stretching in bed to avoid additional pain from it. Or get up early if I was bad. I still have some significant dips in my exercise performance which I hope will correlate to some foods, but I haven't looked at the data for that yet.

 

[BigNick]

Spicy chicken sandwich
diet soda
fries
sweet sour sauce
chocholate chip cookie

I get this feeling after eating sometimes, not all the time. Can't figure out what it is.

I don't see any evidence that the meal is causing the problem. The feeling probably also occurs "sometimes" 3-5 hours after you take a shower, move your bowels, etc. Perhaps something else in your previous activities made you tired and that hits after you eat, etc etc. It's very hard to extrapolate even quite reliably population data to an individual case, and there's no a priori reason to believe that the cause of tiredness is the last salient thing that you did beforehand (i.e., eating).

That said, it doesn't sound like optimum nutrition, but that's typically not going to cause
problems in the first couple of hours, unless you have an undiagnosed case of something like diabetes.