What to eat for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner when you have AFIB

During these trying Covid times many people (me) are eating the same stuff every day. In this Forum we have had many discussions about AFIB triggers (things to avoid). What about the other side - what specific foods do people on this Forum eat that they feel is good for their AFIB. I would guess that some people are on diets (low carb, Mediterranean, low fat, Paleo, vegan, Atkins, etc.), but I am looking for specific menu items that I could eat to get some variety. This could also be a survey question, but I would like to see some suggestions now.

You can provide a few examples if you have more than one favorite at each meal and what foods you try to avoid. Include deserts if you have one. Don't include prescription medications or supplements.

Here is my list:

Breakfast: 1 banana, 1 orange, Great Value Organic Toasted Oats Cereal (very low in iron and practically no sugar, but usually out of stock at Walmart). One cup of milk. One piece of toast with Original Olivio spread (no jelly). Sometimes I have warm oatmeal instead of cold Toasted Oats Cereal.

Lunch: Many times leftovers from the night before. Otherwise, peanut butter sandwich (on one slice of bread, with no jelly). I try to avoid processed turkey, chicken, ham, but sometimes there is no choice. An apple, a small cookie, one square of 85% dark chocolate. Glass of water.

Dinner: Chicken with no skin, salmon (best), or most any type of fish. Baked sweet potato as first choice; second choice is white baked potato, then bean salad, corn, carrots. Another cookie or very very small piece of pie. Glass of water.

If a meal needs salt I use No Salt (Potassium Chloride, Potassium Bitartrate)

Thanks, I am looking forward to your suggestions.

Your breakfast is very high in carbs:
I orange 16g
1 cup banana 38g
Cereal 20g
Toast 13g
Milk 11.7
I didn’t even check the spread. The sugar is 12.9, 31g, 1, 1.5, 12.3g

Add it up

That would trigger AF for me. And it has.

Lunch carbs/sugar includes toast, cookie, chocolate

Add your dinner of potato, carbs in bean, corn, carrots and more sweets (pie or cookie)

I happen to like the app FitDay. It’s free. You will get a sense by dinner if you should have the dessert and bean/corn/carrots.

If you drink alcohol add more carbs/sugar

I've tried many diets, but I've still to find a sure relation between food and afib other than that of feeling bloated while digesting.
Unless I eat very little food (say, one slice of bread, or an apple, or some green vegetables) at a time, I'm likely going to feel some discomfort while digesting : stomach pressure, ectopics and maybe afib.
So little food is not enough for my needs. I'm skinny and still 5-6kg below my normal weight.
Digestion gives me the sensation that my stomach is pushing upwards, putting my heart under pressure. I often drink water to solve this issue. It seems it's adding weight in the stomach, pulling it downwards.
I've more problems when digesting bread (even gluten free bread) and pasta than potatoes, meat, french fries and "heavy" food. Heavy meals seem to prevent m'y stomach pushing upwards. Bread, OTOH, is light and bulky...
I've seen my cardiologist two months ago, for a complete check-up with stress test, blood analysis... I'm fine, my heart chambers are normal, nothing wrong in blood. She did suggest I have a gastroscopy and colonoscopy (I'm not sure those are the correct names in English), but I've not yet been allowed to plan for that, because of the covid-19.
I've still to find what's right and wrong with food, but I'm pretty sure that what's good for somebody may be bad for someone else.

Any whole food that keeps your blood sugar levels as close as practical to 83mg/dl and doesn't increase your heart rate by more than a few beats per minute.

I am the worst person in the world to answer this question. Food never mattered for me. What got my AF to stop prior to the ablation was ditching the metoprolol and taking the propafenone with a couple of beers (not in the morning, mind you). Mine was (is) a case of very vagally mediated AF brought on by years of endurance exercise and a “normal” (actually too low) BMI. I needed something vagolytic to stop the AF and that turned out to be more moderate exercise in the morning and Budweiser in the evening. I guess I could’ve taken a bike ride at 9PM, but try getting to sleep after that!

All that being said, don’t anyone try this. I’m what medicine calls a “pink zebra”.

Jake - Way too many carbs. Have you used a CGM or BG meter after meals? Have you had your fasting insulin checked?

I don't know if my diet right now causes or reduces AF but AF specific changes include; avoiding carbs especially refined carbs that cause BG and insulin spikes, avoiding caffeine and sodas, drinking zero water (removed of calcium), avoiding calcium.

For weight loss, BG and BP control, overall better health, I eat very routine or not at all (a lot of fasting 2-3 days and sometimes up to 10 days. I only ate 2x from Dec 31 to Jan 20 this year. I really like the high from fasting and my hair has gone from mainly grey to mainly brown at 57 yrs old. Autophagy rocks!

I eat grass fed beef, wild caught salmon, mahi and wahoo, bacon, duck eggs, this week I had some vegetable curry made with unsweetened coconut milk and broccoli. Very boring. Food has no power over me any more.

Nothing deep fried or breaded - no grains or breads, no seeds of grass, no omega 6 seed oils, no sugar.

Jake,

For me (a sensitive adrenergic, LAF) chocolate ( contains caffeine) is an immediate trigger for my afib. To me, that is the most suspicious food you are eating. Try eliminating it for awhile and see if it makes a difference.

Jeff

Jake - the other thing that seems out of whack is the idea of eating 3 meals a day. I would really look into recording your BG levels and getting that fasting insulin checked and then consider low carb and fasting. Fasting is way easier on low carb as carbs beget carbs.

What is your weight, BMI, have you had a DEXA scan ?

Quote
NotLyingAboutMyAfib
Have you had your fasting insulin checked? .

Are you referring to a sugar glucose test? If so the rush of sugar would immediately put me in AF. Maybe you are different but would you want to risk it? I might as well had drank the glucose while on a gurney prior to being cardiovert. In fact I was once vomiting without relief and went to the ER to have them witness if I would go into AF. I insisted to be hooked up to ekg leads. That ER wanted proof of 48 hours in nsr before a cardiovert. They gave me nausea meds and IV for hydration and had me drink 2 sweet cranberry drinks, 2 jellos, 2 icees and I don’t remember what afterwards. I immediately went into AF. It’s probably the similar total glucose intake as the glucose test.

No, I am talking about the blatant stupidity of American MDs checking A1c year after year without ever checking fasting insulin as it can predict T2 diabetes decades in advance. (aka diabetes in situ - Kraft insulin assay)

[flic.kr]

HOMA-IR is a far better measure but one needs to be 13 - 14 hours (almost precisely) water fasted only with no coffee (caf or decaf) for 7 days prior to get an accurate lipid panel and should preferably have an NMR lipid panel.

[thefastingmethod.com]

Thanks all for your responses and suggestions of what and when to eat. I never realized that eating food correctly with AFIB/Flutter requires so much measurement and could be so complicated. Doing things you suggest is very difficult when you have a spouse who does not appreciate eating alone or not eating her favorite foods. I will cut out the chocolate for a week (taking for insurance against Alzheimer's).

I see your general suggestion is to cut back on the carbs. This morning I had bacon and eggs (chicken), but no beer :-). I also eat small meals, am also skinny, and do not drink alcohol.

I agree with all of the above. I am thin too, and have discovered that low blood sugar triggers my afib, so i try to eat in such a way to keep it level. Fasting is super health promoting, but someone who is thin should never do it unless being guided by a knowledgeable doctor/dietician.

My dietician told me to keep my blood sugar level: no refined grains(bread or pasta) limited whole grains,(eat fat with it to slow down absorption of glucose) only few starchy veggies ( i hated to limit sweet potato as it's my fav too), LOTS of dark green leafies, and to help keep bld sugar level to have limited animal protein, we need it, but she said if we eat too much it can be converted to glucose. Most of all she said to consume HEALTHY omega 3 rich fat often. good choices are: Avocado, unsweetened coconut flakes, olives, olive oil, avocado oil. Coconut oil tastes great, but it is still a saturated fat, so I limit it to be safe. I make a wonderful lentil soup and in each bowl, add maybe a tablespoon of olive oil. this keeps me from getting hungry too soon. Eat NO sugar at all, the sweetest thing I eat is half a small organic apple. Even a whole apple is too much at once. Once your body is used to no grains, no dairy, (except a little butter and little sour cream), no sugar, everything else tastes WONDERFUL! Taste buds change ! In my big daily salad drizzled with avocado oil, the red cabbage, and carrots taste SWEET! Put as many different veggies you can in the salad to "Eat the Rainbow" Organic bell peppers, diakon radish ,(very mild) green beans, asparagus, artichoke hearts. Definitely avoid anything with MSG which is in most packaged foods.(big trigger in fried foods, and seaweed salad) If interested, go to www.msgtruth.org to learn more. I have tried avoiding every possible trigger and it still gets me, so i can't WAIT to get my ablation done.. Never thought I'd say that after avoiding it for so long. You may also want to get your Red Blood Cell Magnesium measured when Covid is over, and begin supplementing with magnesium until you get up to 6.5. Every doctor on the planet who knows anything about nutrition will say most of us are deficient. It's not easy to get from foods, but potassium is super easy. So is calcium in almost every food. Good luck changing, afib tends to be quite a motivator. I gave up chocolate, caffeine and beer two years ago. Now i don't miss any of it. (instead of chocolate to prevent ALz try organic blueberries every day, and MCT oil) Google Dr. Mary Newport on MCT oil. Learn something new that you've never done before, best is where you use body and mind at the same time like pickleball, pingpong, Ballroom dancing is supposed to be fantastic, but my hubby isn't biting. he bought me a pingpong table.

Lani - low blood sugar triggers your afib? TY

Quote
NotLyingAboutMyAfib
Lani - low blood sugar triggers your afib? TY

Before I changed my high carb ways, I was likely experiencing nighttime hypoglycemia (I figured this out after the fact). These would kick in around 3AM and I'd wake up sweaty (the low blood sugar triggered an adrenaline response). As I used to get 3 AM afib episodes, this MAY have been a trigger. Also, I would monitor beat to beat heart rate over night. I saw apnea patterns in the heart rate tachogram. I started taping my mouth shut at night, and this cleaned up the apnea.

Subsequent to keto adapting in Oct 2009, I no longer experienced these hypoglycemias. That doesn't mean I don't/can't have low blood sugar at night. It just isn't a physiological crisis anymore. I've done many extended water fasts (in 2017, I did nineteen five-day fasts, fasting five consecutive days out of 14, repeated nineteen times in a row). When I do extended fasts, my blood sugar routinely drops into the low 50's and has easily gone lower. However, because I'm well keto adapted, there is no crisis.

Fasting & keto were one of the ways my friend, Julie Gregory, President of ApoE4.info, reversed her early cognitive decline at around age 50. Interestingly, she had a BMI of 19 at the beginning of her journey, but found she was "TOFI" (thin on the outside, fat on the inside) and dropped her BMI to 18 to get healthy.

I like reading all your stories and experimentations. It's interesting and instructive.
It's sometimes confusing too, isn't it ?

It’s a science experiment from past experiences. Sort of accurate. Eat something with MSG/high salt/sugar/carbs/alcohol/chocolate rush and wait for the AF.

For me, same with dairy/gluten. I get sick 100% after digestion. It’s a blind test too. Someone had gluten in the ingredients and didn’t tell me and my GI still reacted with projectile vomiting afterwards.

What about you? Is there one food that you can predict will triggers you to go into AF from past experiences?

I'm better with very very light meals (I mean : far too light to be enough, even with 8 meals a day) ; or heavy meals (I mean : physically heavy).
Heavy pulls my stomach downwards (it's what I feel). Not heavy enough makes my stomach pushing upwards, stressing my heart. This pressure means ectopics and sometimes afib.
Is it a symptom of hiatal hernia ?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/06/2020 07:15PM by Pompon.

Lani:

What is wrong with Sw. Potatoes? They are a very good food and have a lot of vit. and minerals: What vitamins and minerals are in sweet potatoes?
Sweet potatoes are high in many important nutrients. They contain a good amount of fiber as well as vitamin A, vitamin C, manganese and several other vitamins and minerals. In addition to the nutrients above, sweet potato nutrition also contains riboflavin, phosphorus, vitamin E, vitamin K, calcium and iron.

You said you are going to have an ablation so your diet isn't helping, I had problems eating too much late at night, other than that I can't say that any particular food gave me AF. Look at all the people that are heavy and have terrible diets, they don't have AF, they have other health problems but not AF. I believe in a good diet, vegtables, fruits good protein, beans some wheat products, cook your own food and raise as much as you can. I also firmly believe AF is in our DNA, usually someone in our linage has had it, my mother did.

Sweet potatoes are also very high in potassium. They're one of the most potassium-rich foods you can find.