Could Reta plus a Low-Carb Diet Be Causing Dizzy Spells?

[randompersonrandom]

Calm Logic said:

BNLFL said:

Yeah, I've been thinking about the beer for a while now—it just makes me feel full and I don't really get much pleasure from it anymore. It wasn't a problem before, but it tracks that things changed once I began this at the start of Feb. Like I said, I'm grateful for everyone's feedback.

Yes, the current line is that "there is no healthy amount of alcohol." Back when it was believed to benefit the heart, I would occasionally enjoy a glass of wine with a meal (the buzz being an extra perk), but these days I mostly just have plain water or hot black coffee.

So, @BNLFL, have you given the zero-alcohol beers a shot? They're actually quite decent. As for catching a buzz, marijuana gummies once struck me as nearly healthy, yet a small study (CANDIDE study, 2025) indicates they harm the endothelium.

A liver specialist on Reddit claims the top "supplement" for the liver is black coffee. NAC is a solid supplement overall, but particularly for the liver:

Gemini said:


If you are using NAC specifically to protect your liver from alcohol, timing is everything:

Take it BEFORE drinking: Taking NAC an hour or two before alcohol can help prime the liver and prevent damage.

Avoid it DURING/AFTER drinking: Some studies suggest that taking NAC after you’ve already started drinking (or while hungover) might actually increase liver stress or toxicity. It’s best used as a "pre-game" preventative rather than a "morning-after" cure.

Click to expand...

My second husband struggled with alcohol use, so I always kept those at home as a sort of bargain I could offer whenever I really needed him to stay sober for some event or another. (note: that doesn't work, but I was young). I drank them too, in "solidarity," and ended up liking them so much that I still do. It's soda, just not over-the-top sweet.

 

[Calm Logic]

Just 5g of carbs, and it's non-alcoholic:

https://athleticbrewing.com/collections/shop-all/products/athletic-lite

You could make the case it's a health beverage thanks to the antioxidants (hop polyphenols).

To put that in perspective, V8 contains 9 carbs, BBQ sauce can reach 20 grams, while my go-to electrolyte drink (BodyArmor Lyte peach mango) sits at 4 carbs.

 

[BNLFL]

Calm Logic said:

BNLFL said:

Yeah, I've been thinking about the beer for a while now—it just makes me feel full and I don't really get much pleasure from it anymore. It wasn't a problem before, but it tracks that things changed once I began this at the start of Feb. Like I said, I'm grateful for everyone's feedback.

Yes, the current line is that "there is no healthy amount of alcohol." Back when it was believed to benefit the heart, I would occasionally enjoy a glass of wine with a meal (the buzz being an extra perk), but these days I mostly just have plain water or hot black coffee.

So, @BNLFL, have you given the zero-alcohol beers a shot? They're actually quite decent. As for catching a buzz, marijuana gummies once struck me as nearly healthy, yet a small study (CANDIDE study, 2025) indicates they harm the endothelium.

A liver specialist on Reddit claims the top "supplement" for the liver is black coffee. NAC is a solid supplement overall, but particularly for the liver:

Gemini said:


If you are using NAC specifically to protect your liver from alcohol, timing is everything:

Take it BEFORE drinking: Taking NAC an hour or two before alcohol can help prime the liver and prevent damage.

Avoid it DURING/AFTER drinking: Some studies suggest that taking NAC after you’ve already started drinking (or while hungover) might actually increase liver stress or toxicity. It’s best used as a "pre-game" preventative rather than a "morning-after" cure.

Click to expand...

The N/A versions just do not taste right to me. 100% honest — it was never the buzz, I simply enjoyed the stuff. As I said before, it only fills me up these days, so I'll likely drop it. Somewhere along the way this became a beer thread.

 

[Calm Logic]

BNLFL said:

Calm Logic said:

BNLFL said:

Yeah, I've been thinking about the beer for a while now—it just makes me feel full and I don't really get much pleasure from it anymore. It wasn't a problem before, but it tracks that things changed once I began this at the start of Feb. Like I said, I'm grateful for everyone's feedback.

Yes, the current line is that "there is no healthy amount of alcohol." Back when it was believed to benefit the heart, I would occasionally enjoy a glass of wine with a meal (the buzz being an extra perk), but these days I mostly just have plain water or hot black coffee.

So, @BNLFL, have you given the zero-alcohol beers a shot? They're actually quite decent. As for catching a buzz, marijuana gummies once struck me as nearly healthy, yet a small study (CANDIDE study, 2025) indicates they harm the endothelium.

A liver specialist on Reddit claims the top "supplement" for the liver is black coffee. NAC is a solid supplement overall, but particularly for the liver:

Gemini said:


If you are using NAC specifically to protect your liver from alcohol, timing is everything:

Take it BEFORE drinking: Taking NAC an hour or two before alcohol can help prime the liver and prevent damage.

Avoid it DURING/AFTER drinking: Some studies suggest that taking NAC after you’ve already started drinking (or while hungover) might actually increase liver stress or toxicity. It’s best used as a "pre-game" preventative rather than a "morning-after" cure.

Click to expand...

The N/A versions just do not taste right to me. 100% honest — it was never the buzz, I simply enjoyed the stuff. As I said before, it only fills me up these days, so I'll likely drop it. Somewhere along the way this became a beer thread.

Plus, ideally, BBQ sauce with no sugar, haha.

 

[BNLFL]

Calm Logic said:

BNLFL said:

Calm Logic said:

BNLFL said:

Yeah, I've been thinking about the beer for a while now—it just makes me feel full and I don't really get much pleasure from it anymore. It wasn't a problem before, but it tracks that things changed once I began this at the start of Feb. Like I said, I'm grateful for everyone's feedback.

Yes, the current line is that "there is no healthy amount of alcohol." Back when it was believed to benefit the heart, I would occasionally enjoy a glass of wine with a meal (the buzz being an extra perk), but these days I mostly just have plain water or hot black coffee.

So, @BNLFL, have you given the zero-alcohol beers a shot? They're actually quite decent. As for catching a buzz, marijuana gummies once struck me as nearly healthy, yet a small study (CANDIDE study, 2025) indicates they harm the endothelium.

A liver specialist on Reddit claims the top "supplement" for the liver is black coffee. NAC is a solid supplement overall, but particularly for the liver:

Gemini said:


If you are using NAC specifically to protect your liver from alcohol, timing is everything:

Take it BEFORE drinking: Taking NAC an hour or two before alcohol can help prime the liver and prevent damage.

Avoid it DURING/AFTER drinking: Some studies suggest that taking NAC after you’ve already started drinking (or while hungover) might actually increase liver stress or toxicity. It’s best used as a "pre-game" preventative rather than a "morning-after" cure.

Click to expand...

The N/A versions just do not taste right to me. 100% honest — it was never the buzz, I simply enjoyed the stuff. As I said before, it only fills me up these days, so I'll likely drop it. Somewhere along the way this became a beer thread.

Plus, ideally, BBQ sauce with no sugar, haha.

This is something we've had in our kitchen for quite a while and keep using.

 

[Calm Logic]

Calm Logic said:

BNLFL said:

Calm Logic said:

BNLFL said:

Yeah, I've been thinking about the beer for a while now—it just makes me feel full and I don't really get much pleasure from it anymore. It wasn't a problem before, but it tracks that things changed once I began this at the start of Feb. Like I said, I'm grateful for everyone's feedback.

Yes, the current line is that "there is no healthy amount of alcohol." Back when it was believed to benefit the heart, I would occasionally enjoy a glass of wine with a meal (the buzz being an extra perk), but these days I mostly just have plain water or hot black coffee.

So, @BNLFL, have you given the zero-alcohol beers a shot? They're actually quite decent. As for catching a buzz, marijuana gummies once struck me as nearly healthy, yet a small study (CANDIDE study, 2025) indicates they harm the endothelium.

A liver specialist on Reddit claims the top "supplement" for the liver is black coffee. NAC is a solid supplement overall, but particularly for the liver:

Gemini said:


If you are using NAC specifically to protect your liver from alcohol, timing is everything:

Take it BEFORE drinking: Taking NAC an hour or two before alcohol can help prime the liver and prevent damage.

Avoid it DURING/AFTER drinking: Some studies suggest that taking NAC after you’ve already started drinking (or while hungover) might actually increase liver stress or toxicity. It’s best used as a "pre-game" preventative rather than a "morning-after" cure.

Click to expand...

The N/A versions just do not taste right to me. 100% honest — it was never the buzz, I simply enjoyed the stuff. As I said before, it only fills me up these days, so I'll likely drop it. Somewhere along the way this became a beer thread.

Plus, ideally, BBQ sauce with no sugar, haha.

Whoa. He also has teriyaki, steak sauce, and the like.

 

[Nabster]

tubby said:

I mean, you're putting your metabolism through the wringer here.

To start, you cut off all the carbs it normally receives daily, and that alone takes anywhere from a few days up to a week before it adjusts and gets comfortable doing without them. Then you deceive it with that fake GLP-1 signal continuously sent to your brain yelling "I just ate," so it reasonably figures more carbs are being emptied into your stomach, which (since they don't exist) it has no way to absorb. It also releases a bit of extra insulin to handle those phantom carbs.

So don't act shocked when it treats you the same way right back for a while.

On reta or other GLP1s, staying low carb seems to bring my metabolism to a full stop after a while.

What I need is a stretch of carb refeeding—a week or longer, I guess—before I can get back to dropping weight.

Right now I've brought carbs back in and we'll see how it goes, but at minimum I'm down a pound rather than stuck the way low carb plus reta had me.

Another thing: while low carb on reta, I just can't get my hunger under control.

 

[GLP1Pharmacist]

What makes GLP1s so appealing is that you can still have a sensible serving of carbs.

 

[lessthanhalf]

Reta may not really be the culprit here. How much you normally move or exert yourself physically is unknown to me. Still, episodes of that kind can easily arise simply from doing hard physical labor or workouts you are not used to, combined with too few calories (or insufficient fluids/electrolytes). Whatever the precise physiological explanation, it is fairly clear your body is unhappy with the current situation. What it likely needs is rest, fluids, and food.

I definitely recall throwing up and passing out more than once when I was younger after heading to the gym having barely eaten that day.

 

[Calm Logic]

lessthanhalf said:

Reta may not really be the culprit here. How much you normally move or exert yourself physically is unknown to me. Still, episodes of that kind can easily arise simply from doing hard physical labor or workouts you are not used to, combined with too few calories (or insufficient fluids/electrolytes). Whatever the precise physiological explanation, it is fairly clear your body is unhappy with the current situation. What it likely needs is rest, fluids, and food.

I definitely recall throwing up and passing out more than once when I was younger after heading to the gym having barely eaten that day.

Quite zen.

 

[BNLFL]

lessthanhalf said:

Reta may not really be the culprit here. How much you normally move or exert yourself physically is unknown to me. Still, episodes of that kind can easily arise simply from doing hard physical labor or workouts you are not used to, combined with too few calories (or insufficient fluids/electrolytes). Whatever the precise physiological explanation, it is fairly clear your body is unhappy with the current situation. What it likely needs is rest, fluids, and food.

I definitely recall throwing up and passing out more than once when I was younger after heading to the gym having barely eaten that day.

I figure that's basically the whole story. I haven't come anywhere near that kind of activity since last summer, but patience isn't my strong suit. At 66 now (though I feel like 40), I either pay someone to handle things or have my oldest come over to pitch in or take care of it. Since that single day, I've been completely okay.

 

[Bunts]

Not to sound like a broken record given what others have already said, but my best guess is that calories are the culprit - more precisely, carbs.

During my first 2 weeks on reta, things got pretty intense. I was barely eating (1000 cals per day) yet I could still get through my day and train without issue. Of course, that wasn't sustainable. Then I hit the learning curve - my body needs carbs and cals to keep my workouts going. In the gym I was dealing with symptoms much like yours, and eventually I figured out carbs were what I was missing.

Once I raised my carbs and bumped calories up a bit, the difference was huge. Right now I'm really stretching what's left in my glycogen stores, but I'm close to hitting my lean-ness goal.

Hope that's useful!

 

[BNLFL]

Appreciate it, I think we've sorted this out.

 

[Calm Logic]

Calm Logic said:

Just 5g of carbs, and it's non-alcoholic:

https://athleticbrewing.com/collections/shop-all/products/athletic-lite

You could make the case it's a health beverage thanks to the antioxidants (hop polyphenols).

To put that in perspective, V8 contains 9 carbs, BBQ sauce can reach 20 grams, while my go-to electrolyte drink (BodyArmor Lyte peach mango) sits at 4 carbs.

The flavor is awful. It could use additional carbs and a better taste. I'm relieved that I picked up just 1 can (from Trader Joe's).

 

[MFGamesta]

BNLFL said:

I've just placed an order for an electrolyte powder mix.

Adding this one easy thing made a huge difference in my case. Plenty of brands and flavors exist, some containing caffeine and some without.

 

[BNLFL]

MFGamesta said:

BNLFL said:

I've just placed an order for an electrolyte powder mix.

Adding this one easy thing made a huge difference in my case. Plenty of brands and flavors exist, some containing caffeine and some without.

It's been quite a while since I last used any. To be honest, the most recent occasion was around a month back—I was moving landscape rock from in front of the pool cage doors so the paver pads could be installed. The temperature hit 89* that day. I dissolved some into a water bottle, and it's still sitting in the garage fridge.

 

[LabRatts]

BNLFL said:

After another thread brought up Reddit, I went to take a look. YIKES! Anyway, someone there described feeling light headed and fainting, and a few other people chimed in too. That made me start wondering, because over the past week I've had about 2 episodes of mild light headedness, nothing serious and it clears up fast. We've seriously reduced carbs around here, no pasta, bread, blah blah. I'm still drinking somewhere between 2-4 beers (carbs) daily. I was at the doctor's office on 2/11 for blood work. All results were spot on, BP 125/70 and HR of 70bpm. The only other thing that comes to mind is that I worked my ass off digging a footer for a 25' flagpole, then placed 6-60lb bags of concrete. Because it hasn't rained here in forever, the ground was hard as hell. It beat the shit out of me.

TL;DR Could Reta mean I'm not getting enough carbs?

Carbs are completely absent from our diet, and we've never had a problem.

Since 2021, my daily intake has been well under 5 carbs, or fewer than 25 grams weekly. Bloodwork comes back great, no problems at all — 59-year-old male, 6', 170#, 13.5% bf.

Ease is just a drawn-out way to die.

 

[jungletech]

LabRatts said:

BNLFL said:

After another thread brought up Reddit, I went to take a look. YIKES! Anyway, someone there described feeling light headed and fainting, and a few other people chimed in too. That made me start wondering, because over the past week I've had about 2 episodes of mild light headedness, nothing serious and it clears up fast. We've seriously reduced carbs around here, no pasta, bread, blah blah. I'm still drinking somewhere between 2-4 beers (carbs) daily. I was at the doctor's office on 2/11 for blood work. All results were spot on, BP 125/70 and HR of 70bpm. The only other thing that comes to mind is that I worked my ass off digging a footer for a 25' flagpole, then placed 6-60lb bags of concrete. Because it hasn't rained here in forever, the ground was hard as hell. It beat the shit out of me.

TL;DR Could Reta mean I'm not getting enough carbs?

Carbs are completely absent from our diet, and we've never had a problem.

Since 2021, my daily intake has been well under 5 carbs, or fewer than 25 grams weekly. Bloodwork comes back great, no problems at all — 59-year-old male, 6', 170#, 13.5% bf.

Ease is just a drawn-out way to die.

Wow, that’s impressive! Dropping under 25g leaves me feeling awful. Maybe I’ll give it another shot.

Since my hippie boyfriend introduced me to pasture raised chicken and bison, regular meat just doesn’t taste good to me now. Doing low carb with top-quality meat sounds amazing. Yum!

 

[jungletech]

LabRatts said:

BNLFL said:

After another thread brought up Reddit, I went to take a look. YIKES! Anyway, someone there described feeling light headed and fainting, and a few other people chimed in too. That made me start wondering, because over the past week I've had about 2 episodes of mild light headedness, nothing serious and it clears up fast. We've seriously reduced carbs around here, no pasta, bread, blah blah. I'm still drinking somewhere between 2-4 beers (carbs) daily. I was at the doctor's office on 2/11 for blood work. All results were spot on, BP 125/70 and HR of 70bpm. The only other thing that comes to mind is that I worked my ass off digging a footer for a 25' flagpole, then placed 6-60lb bags of concrete. Because it hasn't rained here in forever, the ground was hard as hell. It beat the shit out of me.

TL;DR Could Reta mean I'm not getting enough carbs?

Carbs are completely absent from our diet, and we've never had a problem.

Since 2021, my daily intake has been well under 5 carbs, or fewer than 25 grams weekly. Bloodwork comes back great, no problems at all — 59-year-old male, 6', 170#, 13.5% bf.

Ease is just a drawn-out way to die.

Wow, that's awesome! When I go below 25g, I feel awful. Maybe I'll give it another shot.

Thanks to my hippie boyfriend, I'm now eating pasture raised chicken and bison, and regular meat just doesn't taste good to me anymore. Doing low carb with top-notch meat sounds delicious. Yum

 

[BNLFL]

Carbs come in whenever you eat — the only variable is the amount. Energy requires them, so choose the healthy kind.