Topic: High carb meals and... vomit...?

[Andy Animus Tran]

As some of you know, I've been on a quasi-Paleo diet for the past few months.  Being Asian, though, it is difficult toa void high carb meals at times.  Lately, though, something odd has been happening when I eat it in mass amounts (no effect on smaller amounts like a mini-pita).  Last three incidents:

Expensive Japanese restaurant, with two bowls of rice...  Vomited as soon as I got home.
Chinese food buffet for brother's birthday... vomited AT the restaurant.
Two plates of stuffing at work.. >_>.. (k, I just love stuffing and my boss cooked turkey).. vomited within 20 minutes.

...what the hell is going on?

[Liset Reep]

I saw the same thing with my XC runners when they would stop eating fast food (or other high fat products) for months at a time. Their stomach got so used to eating something, that when it saw something that wasn't familiar anymore, it freaked out and rejected it.

Since you were eating so much of something 'new', your stomach was probably like
"Aah!~ What is this? Why is there so much of it? Make it go away!".

You know, only in actual physical form instead of personified speech.

[tombb]

The most likely explanation is that you haven't eaten enough carbs for too long.
That will cause you to get more likely indigestion or even throwing up when you finally do eat them in an unusually high (compared to what you got used to) amount. That's not anything special about carbs, it will happen with most other nutrients including proteins or fat, or even food in general.  If you ate almost no food for a prolonged period and then tried to eat a big meal all of a sudden, you would run into a similar indigestion problem.

Your digestive system produces enzymes to digest different nutrients, but the amount you produce by default is constantly adapting to your daily diet.  If you don't eat any starch for quite a while, your body won't bother producing much amylase for your next meal and if you suddenly have a bunch of rice it will not be digested properly.

So if you want to avoid this problem, get a more balanced and consistent amount of carbs in your diet, either by increasing the average which has been too low, or by reducing the amount you consume when you do decide to suddenly eat rice.

[Chris Salvato]

And not all people experience this...not by a long shot...

That said, only adjust your diet if its what you want to do. Adjusting your daily diet that may be good for your health (higher in fibrous, natural sources of carbs, lets say) just so you can eat crap isn't something I would do, personally.

[tombb]

And not all people experience this...not by a long shot...

That said, only adjust your diet if its what you want to do. Adjusting your daily diet that may be good for your health (higher in fibrous, natural sources of carbs, lets say) just so you can eat crap isn't something I would do, personally.

Just as a correction, Chris, all people do experience this.

It's just an inevitable part of physiology. People in concentration camps that were starved for very long periods were incapable of suddenly eating normal amounts of food. Similarly if you tried to eat what a morbidly obese person can eat, for example eating 20,000 calories a day mainly from starch and fat, you would experience indigestion too. It just takes getting used when changing to very different levels of food, no way around that.

[Chris Salvato]

I meant not all people that switch to lower carb diets....or stop drinking milk for 6 months, for example.

Animus only started this Paleo'ish diet a few months back (maybe 6 or so?) and the rate of adaptation is different for everyone...he is just a lot faster than most people i have experienced.

I don't eat that way and stuff my face with stuffing on thanksgiving and im peachy...aside from a sick nap.

[Patrick Yang]

I've been noticing the same thing.  Had a piece of carrot cake at a coffee shop the other night and nearly threw up at the shop.

[TraceuseDS]

I've been noticing the same thing.  Had a piece of carrot cake at a coffee shop the other night and nearly threw up at the shop.

Me too. But it was birthday cake at home...

I've noticed that if I eat the whatever-it-is that makes me feel sick all by itself, without eating anything else, then it has a MAJOR effect on me. But if I eat a balanced meal, then eat the high-carb/high-sugar/whatever thing along with the meal or right afterwards, the nausea isn't as bad. Just an idea...



EDIT-Animus, it sounds like you're already doing that...um, that sucks?

[Steven Low]

It's called eating healthy...... then when you eat crap (processed food) your body doesn't want it.

That's good.

[tombb]

It's called eating healthy...... then when you eat crap (processed food) your body doesn't want it.

That's good.

Just to correct this, no, it has nothing to do specifically with your body wanting 'healthy' foods or knowing what 'crap' is, and it's certainly not intrinsically good (or bad really, but causing yourself indigestion is not a good idea in general).
You will get the same effect with eating processed food and then eating suddenly large amounts of a 'healthy' food you are not used to consume, for example a high protein meal, milk, etc.

Chris made a good point that the time it takes people to get used to a different level of consumption of certain nutrients may vary from person to person (although it's also a measure of how one-sided and rigid your diet is, it sounded like Animus might have gone completely starch-free for a while there), but having trouble digesting foods you are not so used to is not an indication of how good or bad they are for you. 

In fact I think it's a terrible way to try to figure out what's good or bad, an anorexic person will just think that their near-terminal reaction to attempts at eating ANY food is a sign that they are better off with no food as they were, instead of an obvious sign that they progressed past a point where hospitalization and intravenous nutrients become necessary.
Similarly a morbidly obese person might just think that their body is telling them they are better off eating twinkies since they can digest them so well while trying to eat high fibers and high protein would be harder to digest for them.

And people that are lactose intolerant might like to similarly and wrongly think that their intolerance must mean their bodies know best and milk is bad, despite the fact that it was just about the best thing they consumed as babies and they just lost some of their ability to digest lactose well as they aged, which can be a fairly rare occurrence in some ethnic, geographic or genetic groups or even somewhat common in others but never an indicator of whether a food is good or bad.

[Chris Salvato]

tombb, i think you are missing the point...

No one on this planet gets indigestion when they start eating 10 cups of veggies and 4-8oz of meat in every meal coming from a diet high in refined carbs and processed meats (typical american diet).

However, the converse is not true -- going from 10 cups of veggies and 4-8 oz of meat in every meal to highly processed carbs and processed meats will make someone experience indigestion and other negative effects (like "cloudy thinking").

Granted, going from starvation to eating or from no milk to a gallon a day or from being vegetarian to eating a pound of meat in every meal will cause indigestion -- but these are kind of isolated extremes and we are talking about practicalities, here...

[tombb]

Chris, not really.
We are just talking about indigestion and that's just a matter of enzymes you produced vs nutrient levels in your food, not any intrinsic property of refined foods. If anything refined foods are very easy to digest under normal situations (almost too easy).

The only thing that can make your examples work is somehow only having sudden excesses in refined foods and not in say quality foods/proteins, where both are possible.

And we are only talking about indigestion. Things like 'cloudy thinking' etc are based on completely different mechamism. As you know there can actually be negative consequences in consuming excessive amounts of fast-absorbing sugars or calories in general while sedentary, all that is unrelated to the indigestion issue.  For example you could be eating plenty of processed sugars and not have any problem digesting it and still being on your way to diabetes and other complications. Eating complex carbs there would actually be better for you and yet that's harder to digest.

But as far as just indigestion, switching to refined foods is the easiest thing and no you won't have any digestion issues just because you switched to refined foods, if the amount of starches, proteins and fat is similar to what you were consuming before. It would be nice if it were true perhaps, it would push everyone to eat more healthy naturally, but that's not the case, starch for starch, fat for fat refined foods are easier to digest.

Again the main point is: indigestion is not an indicator of a food's 'intrinsic goodness ', it's just a response to sudden changes in diet, good or bad or neutral alike.

[TraceuseDS]

No one on this planet gets indigestion when they start eating 10 cups of veggies and 4-8oz of meat in every meal coming from a diet high in refined carbs and processed meats (typical american diet).

Actually, Chris, I have to disagree with you there. Tombb seems to be right on this one.

Before I made a concerted effort to clean up my diet, my food intake was the "typical American diet" you're talking about here. Lots and lots of starchy stuff, insane amounts of sugar, and lots and lots of processed meats. When I was used to that diet, I wasn't used to eating veggies - other than maybe highly processed potatoes - at all. Eating just 1 cup of vegetables would make me sick. As in, I'd have nasty stomach cramps (and other results) for the entire next day.

At this point, I try to make sure I have a couple cups of vegetables and a good source of protein with each of my meals. My stomach is used to that now, so there aren't any weird digestive issues anymore when I eat vegetables, even in large quantities. However, my stomach is no longer used to the stuff I used to eat, so now THAT stuff makes me feel icky and nauseous instead.

Basically, it seems to be a factor of what you're used to. If your diet is fairly homogeneous for long enough, and then you eat a large enough quantity of something your stomach doesn't know how to handle (or at least isn't prepared to handle past a certain quantity), you're going to experience results of one sort or another. The magnitude of the response will, no doubt, vary from person to person, but the same thing will happen no matter WHAT it is that you're used to or not used to.

Me, I'd rather have my body used to eating healthy stuff and unprepared to handle "crap" than the other way around. If nothing else, it's a good deterrent.

[Steven Low]

tombb:

WHAT HE EXPERIENCED IS OBVIOUSLY NOT JUST SIMPLE INDIGESTION..............

and no crap there's other physiological responses going on that are responsible.

*facepalm*

[tombb]

tombb:

WHAT HE EXPERIENCED IS OBVIOUSLY NOT JUST SIMPLE INDIGESTION..............

and no crap there's other physiological responses going on that are responsible.

*facepalm*

And you are basing that on what, exactly?
Do you have any mechanism you care to suggest for whatever you think would be an alternative?  And do you have any data, study or even just sound reasoning to back up such a claim, aside from writing it in all in uppercase letters?

And what reasoning ever drives you to think there must be something else at play here, especially considering that the symptoms match normal indigestion, the causes match normal indigestion, and that such indigestion can easily be caused, reproducibly, each and every time under similar conditions (mismatch of amount of food or nutrient with digestive enzyme production, which also fit the effect not happening when smaller amounts are consumed, as he mentioned in his post).
Again you offered no plausible mechanism that would cause or explain any of this other than some vague hand-waving about 'your body doesn't want junkfood anymore' and just chose instead to write a confrontational emotion-driven responses with uppercases, stars and facepalms that don't really add any substance or credibility to whatever explanatory statement you didn't make yet..

Post and discuss actual details and explanations for what you think is happening besides the obvious indigestion and we can consider whether there is some merit to them.