Light-headed and hungry -- help?

I like to think I eat pretty healthfully and plan out all my meals and snacks the day before so I know exactly what to expect. But today at work (I'm a teacher so on my feet all day) I started to get SO hungry and light-headed around 4:30. It was only an hour after my afternoon snack and normally I feel fantastic until I eat dinner at 6. 

Didn't eat the same menu today as usual but here's what I ate. I also drink a lot of water, on average 3 liters a day.:

Breakfast (8:30): One cup Cheerios, 1/4 cup nonfat milk, one small banana

Lunch (11:45): One medium potato (boiled), one cup broccoli, 1/2 cup grilled chicken.

Snack (3:15): One small banana and 1 tbsp peanut butter

I feel better now that I've had another snack of raisins (1/3 cup) and feel okay to wait until dinner in an hour at a friend's house. Does my day's menu show any reason WHY I would have felt so light-headed? I honestly thought I was going to pass out in front of my students. My daily calorie intake should be about 1500.

EDIT: Just want to point out that the above menu obviously doesn't include dinner, which I haven't eaten yet today.

If you normally feel OK on this amount of food it could simply be that you've been using more energy than normal.  If you're on your feet all day, 1500 cals might be a little too light an intake generally and, over time, that can catch up eventually.  As another idea.... if you need 1500 cals in total, try to get 1000 of them by your afternoon snack and have a lighter evening meal.   Front-weight your energy, in other words

An observation... cheerios, potatoes and bananas are all quite starchy/sugary foods that don't stick around long in the body.   Another day you could try a higher-fibre breakfast cereal or something like wholegrain toast with some poached eggs on top.  Fibre and protein will keep you feeling fuller for longer. 

Hey!

The weakness you are describing might be a symptom of iron deficiency; I don`t see much of it in your diet apart from the broccoli, and raisins are quite rich in it so that might explain how they helped.

Another possible explanation would be low blood sugar. In case you were more active than usual either on that day or the day before, your body will crave a little more calories to support the expenditure.

Also, there is not much fat in your menu, except for the PB. I don`t see an obvious connection between that and fatigue, however, but just to give you a heads up.

P.S. Iron deficiency and low blood sugar are especially likely to happen a little before or on the first couple days of TTOTM, as it is a time when you need an extra 100-200 calories and a bit of extra iron to support what`s going on with your body.

Thanks for all of your advice! Normally I eat a slice of whole wheat toast with PB and banana for breakfast, and the potato was just today (usually I have salad with chicken). I guess now I have a better idea of what to do and not do. It was one of those "haven't gone grocery shopping in a while, what's around" kinda days.

Re: iron. I actually take an iron supplement now because my diet here (moved to Korea recently) was so lacking in iron. Thanks for the tip though. :)

IMHO you're eating high-starch bananas that are digested too quickly.  They raise your blood sugar levels, giving you the energy boost you want but they won't sustain you for long. 

About an hour after your banana, you get lightheaded because you've had your energy peak and you then experience the energy low.  This is caused by your body recognising you gave it a big whack of quickly absorbed simple sugars, so insulin was released into your bloodstream to counteract this imbalance in your blood sugar. 

In terms of fast absorption, eating a banana is on a par with eating a chocolate bar.  Bananas are okay once a day for their healthy potassium properties, but need to be eaten with foods that take longer to digest, maybe in a fruit salad that contains apples and pears.  Or in a wholemeal bread sandwich with some protein (soft cheese + nuts for instance).  Hard fruits, like an under-ripe pear or apple or even raw carrot, green beans or celery, will release energy into your bloodstream slower without causing the peaks and troughs that you're experiencing via your favourite fruit. 

I see you eat raisins - unfortunately they are having the same effect upon you as bananas.  If you eat them with some nuts (protein+fat), the sugars would be absorbed slower.

Protein is sustaining, and slowly absorbed because it spends longer in your stomach.  What about snacking on a piece of cheese, or a small pot of cottage cheese, or hummus + crudites, or half a peanut butter wholemeal sandwich.

Hope that helps.  Let me know how you get on.

^ Thank you for your thoughtful post. I learned a lot!

One of my struggles has been replacing foods I ate at home with what I can find here in Korea. There's no cottage cheese, very little cheese besides those disgusting processed cheese slices, most nuts are almost prohibitively expensive, hummus doesn't exist, and most fruits are WAY more expensive than I paid in the US (a bunch of grapes is around $8, watermelon is $12). So I'm still working out what I can find at my local grocery store with how to fit it into my day.

You all are so helpful though. I'm definitely going to keep these suggestions in mind. I do think it was a one-time thing. Normally my afternoon snack is an apple with PB and that leaves me very satisfied.

Hummus is very easy to make if you can find chick peas at the market there.  You can also substitute any white beans, if you can not find the chick peas.

There aren't chickpeas but I can probably find another bean. Can you make hummus without tahini though? That's definitely not available.

"When in Rome...." ?  What do local Koreans eat?  It's often a bit of a thankless task trying to eat your usual diet when in a foreign country.  Imported goods are always going to be very expensive and usually not as fresh.  If the people around you look fit and well, chances are if you ate what they eat (modified appropriately) you'd be in similarly good shape. 

You can use peanut butter instead of tahini.  I use it when I am out, can't taste the difference.

Wow, good to know! I'll definitely be making that soon then -- thank you!

Re: "When in Rome": definitely eat my share of Korean food when it comes to fruits and veggies but try to avoid the white rice and pork that is almost daily. Definitely buy almost everything from the grocery store down the street though and just modify it to my palate.

You all are amazing!

I lived in Korea for a year, and I know how very hard it can be to maintain a healthy diet there, its mindblowing what you can and can't find.  Koreans eat, overall, a shockingly unhealthy diet.  Copious quantities of white rice and pork abound, as does fast food, fried chicken and pizza.  Here's some tips I would have.

Whereabouts in Korea are you living?  What you can access depends largely on where you are.  Fresh fruits and veggies were a punch in the gut over there for more reasons than one.  The cost of fruit blew my mind.  Try to hit the market.  It is way cheaper than the grocery store usually, but the annoying thing is you have to buy a larger amount. (And typically you don't have a big freezer for the extras).  A friend and I did our produce shopping together at the market, and we'd split whatever we'd buy.  If you go to some place like home plus, you'll pay through the nose!  I remember lol, once paying $6 for 1 avocado!  I just wanted it sooo badly!!!!  hahaha... Oh and please please please wash your fruit "too much".  They use some crazy pesticides over there.  Oh, and I don't care what anyone told you, drink bottled water.  Westerners are not resistant to the same strains of illness as Koreans, and I got violently ill there for months.  I was told by other foreigners, once I developed whooping cough (yeah, thought i was immunized against that!), that I shouldn't be drinking the water.  so I stopped.

I don't know whether they still exist there, but carrefour was good when I was there, because they had more cheeses!  Haha... Just wait til you go back to the West.  My first time in a cheese aisle after a year over there was just overwhelming.  I didn't even know what to choose!  I didn't even buy any cheese!  I was too overwhelmed. lol... Sooo funny.  E-Mart in the city where I was living (Suncheon in the centre-South) had a health food section, where I could get nuts and supplements and stuff.  Home plus also had a selection of nuts.  A little pricey, but moderately worth it.  Also, lol, they often have some cheaper nuts in the alcohol section of the grocery store there, where you may not frequent since you are calorie counting.

Do your best to avoid Korean bar-b-q, but if you're gonna have it, go for the beef (I know WAY more pricey).  If you can stomach kimchee, eat up!  Its good for you.  Just ask any Koeran to wax philosophically on all the benefits of kimchee.  Ugh... and avoid all the 1000 islands drenched cabbage they seem to like.  Weird. 

Hang in there, it is a hard/expensive country to try to be healthy in, but you can do it!