When you start an intense low carb diet, such as during the Induction phase of the Atkins Diet, you may notice a few side effects during the early days. Most side effects are caused by the body switching over from using carbohydrate as a fuel to using fat. To do this, it needs to use up all the remaining supplies of carbohydrate, stored as glycogen in your muscles. When you are not eating any new carbs, the body uses up the last of the glycogen, realizes it isn't getting any more, and switches over to burning fat as its primary fuel source. This can take up to three days, and in those three days you may find yourself feeling tired, nauseous, hungry, and even a little light headed.
These are not caused by the low carb lifestyle, because your body hasn't switched into that mode yet - you are eating the low carb diet, but you are not really "on it" until your body makes the switch. Your body is running out of what it thinks is its fuel, so it feels a bit strange. As soon as it begins using fat instead, these symptoms will disappear and you will have plenty of energy and feel far less hungry than you ever did before.
Some other effects you may notice initially are headaches and cravings for things you can't have. This is because you are experiencing withdrawal symptoms from something your body was addicted to but which you can't have on your diet - possibly caffeine, or more usually, believe it or not, sugar. Because all carbs eventually break down to sugars, even if you thought you didn't eat that much sugar, you probably did. These withdrawal symptoms are not serious and will go away within a few days.
Just try and resist the cravings, because if you do succumb and have some sugar, you are putting glycogen back into your muscles, resetting you to day one of the plan. Once you are burning fat and out of the addictive phase, you won't have any cravings as your addictions will be gone and your blood sugar levels will be constant (though if it was a caffeine addiction, you can have caffeine again later in the diet, so it's up to you whether you want to stay caffeine free or not).
Other effects you may notice can be caused by a vitamin or mineral deficiency. These can include painful night time leg cramps, caused by a lack of potassium. It is strongly advised that you take a multivitamin complex during the initial stages of a low carb diet, because during these stages your vegetable intake is very tightly controlled so you may not get all the nutrients you need from your food. Taking an ordinary one a day multivitamin should prevent any additional side effects like these, but if you do find you are getting the cramps the quickest fix is to eat some banana - it is not allowed on the diet, but will give you a quick potassium boost. Make sure you count the slices of banana in your carb intake for that day if you have to do this, otherwise again, you could be resetting your body back to day one.
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