Paleo Diet: Raw Paleo Diet and Lifestyle Forum
Members' Journals => Journals => Topic started by: Paleo Donk on December 18, 2009, 06:35:20 am
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Here’s my story- I put the cliff notes at the bottom if you want to skip down
I'm not entirely ready to start my journey again but want to get my thoughts out in the open so here I go. I recently finished a 30 day stay at a rehab for gambling and alcohol and have temporarily moved in with some relatives to get away from my old ways for the time being as a half-way house of sorts. I am not sure how long I will be here but I am committed to recovery and will likely stay until I have found a job or other suitable living conditions where I can more effectively live my life.
I was playing poker professionally which was working out well for the most part financially but unfortunately I could not handle the constant stress and the horrific gut-wrenching pain that necessarily came with losing. I can get into more details if anyone cares and probably will in the future. For now I just want to put myself in position to feel good again.
I began changing my diet a year ago last August after I haphazardly decided to read GCBC, which turned out to be one of the best things I had ever done. Nearly every single aspect of my life changed for the better and I can't extend enough gratitude to Gary Taubes for writing the book.
Ever since I was 13-14, I began to feel tired, unmotivated and slowly more depressed. I had some good years at the end of college where I came out of my introverted self a bit and cracked my insecure shell but this seemed to vanish when I went to grad school. Grad school was one of the worst parts of my life and where my depression really got a hold of me. It seemed like I was tired every day and constantly had no energy for anything that I wanted to do. I played sports all my life and found myself gasping for air nearly every time I played well before anyone would need a break. I’ve never been overweight my entire life.
Everyone would tell me how lazy I was and I was told constantly how tired I looked. I really believed I was just lazy and had to will myself to achieve more. During grad school I went to see several doctors, none of whom impressed me and several of which gave me diagnoses that were completely opposite from the last. I did 2 sleep studies, which for the first supposedly said I had sleep apnea though I never met with the physician who diagnosed me. I went to three different ear, nose and throat doctors whom two told me I didn’t have sleep apnea and one said I did. I went to a cardiologist and did a stress test which didn’t do much and then finally to a pulmonologist who said I should see a psychiatrist. It never occurred to me that I might be depressed during this time. I had been complaining about lack of energy to doctors of years now with nothing good ever coming from it.
With my degree being in statistics I was increasing more upset at the way the medical professionals were handling me. I couldn’t understand how they could treat me or give me proper diagnoses by talking to me for at most 10 minutes and then taking a few blood tests. At the time I thought how I would never ever treat my patients like they did to me.
Not once did a doctor tell me to give up sweets or juices or even mention diet in the first place. I had no idea that diet played a role in anything. I suppose you could argue that it should be obvious but when everyone else is eating whatever they want and have seemingly endless amounts of energy even, much more so than me, even my 80+ year old grandma then you don’t really think about these things.
The pain from being so tired during the day and not being able to sleep is truly infuriating. I found relief when a friend of mine gave me some adderall one night. I felt alive for the first time post elementary school. The euphoria and energy running through my body was unbelievably amazing. I didn’t know a human could feel so good. I didn’t want to have another day without this glorious feeling. I felt complete; my body ran extremely well on it.
The effects, of course, were temporary and I would only take it at night but I made sure not to take it to many nights in a row as to not form a tolerance or get an addiction.
I started to taking some anti-depressants as time went on which helped a bit but never stayed on them. It wasn’t till last August 2008, 2 full years after I completed grad school that I read GCBC. The book made such an enormous impression on me that I changed my diet immediately. Steak had always been my favorite food, especially the rim fat and so I was excited that I had a chance to eat it all the time. Before changing, I also cannot remember having much if any solid stools over the past 5 years. They were also extremely painful at times and I bled often. I had also begun urinating more frequently as well. By the end of the first week of VLC, I was having solid stools again and energy was soaring. Also the multiple headaches I was getting every week completely vanished as well. Luckily, I had little to no transitional symptoms, except for a small craving for carbs which went away for the most part after the first couple weeks. I attribute this mainly to my youth being 27 when I started the diet.
I kept the diet up, though I would still drink heavily on occasion about every couple weeks. I did manage at the beginning to go out several times with my drinking friends and not buy one drink. This had never happened in the past 6 years or so since I had been hitting the bars. My confidence was soaring as well and I even managed to pick up a girl completely sober for the first time.
Unfortunately the pattern of drinking to excess on occasion turned to drinking several times during the week, which led to breaking my diet more and more and eventually to a full blown “relapse”. I see this relapse as no different as any other drug or process addiction relapse. I continued my drinking binge all the way until rehab last month. I was looking for an excuse to stop drinking but couldn’t stop myself from drinking. I was having too much fun and could not stop on my own.
Even though I continued to eat mainly meat my energy levels and mood began decreasing and became near unmanageable when I went to Europe for 7 weeks this past July and August when I ate lots of carbs. The rehab facility wouldn’t allow for outside food to be brought in so I had eat their food which tasted great but was quite carby as well, but I was away from poker and alcohol so my mood improved a decent amount while I was there.
Now, I’m out and free and able to have the freedom to eat what I want and am slowly easing my way back into my diet. I began my journey last year eating fully cooked grain-fed meats along with eggs, cheeses, occasional yogurts, home-made ice creams and a few veggies and fruits now and then. I slowly started eating more and more raw and when I found this site I tried to eat raw as much as possible. I followed the zc forum for a while but had lots of issues with the mentality though I agreed with almost all their dietary information and am very thankful for this site which seems to have much more in-depth information on many more issues.
I am interested in becoming as healthy as I can through all means not just diet even though diet probably composes >80 percent of this. Even though I like to think myself as objective and willing to be as unbiased and as open as I can, I really want this diet to work and have some serious emotional attachment to it since it pretty much saved my life. I love reading the threads here and getting as much information as I can about how I can improve myself and hopefully will be starting to implement several of these things as possible when I get more settled in. I really respect the posters here and enjoy the open discussions and look forward to participating and learning along with everyone else.
So, here I am – 28 year old male 5’11 about 188. I do enjoy lifting weights and since I plan on eventually moving down to no vegetation, I will want to test whether or not I can play high intensity sports like soccer/basketball. I ate a couple pounds of raw grain-fed beef the yesterday and will have about the same amount today. I am having trouble asserting myself to the people I am staying with about the way I feel about food and consequently have eaten a decent amount of cooked carbs the last week with horrible results. I get so tired so quickly it’s unreal.
Cliff notes
Since 13 I have begun to feel more and more tired leading me to being very depressed and along the way accumulated numerous other smaller health problems. Last year after reading GCBC I changed my diet which completely reinvigorated me into someone that finally felt human. Unfortunately I still drank which lead to a “relapse” where I was feeling very tired again with decreasing health. Now, after spending a month in rehab I’m ready to embark on my journey again to good health.
Comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated-thanks:)
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Hi :)
(i really enjoyed reading your story, thanks for sharing :) )
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Good luck to you on your journey to good health, PaleoDonk.
One thing I find to be beneficial for healthy living in addition to good nutrition, sunshine (when it's available) and exercise is upbeat music with positive lyrics and chatting with positive friends who smile and laugh and also like to enjoy the simple, positive things of life instead of processed carbs, excessive booze or drugs, complaining, negative gossip, etc. If our ancestors could be happy for 2.5 million years without booze and processed stimulants then I think we can manage it too.
I could be imagining it, but it seems like as I act more and more positive, the people around me do too. It seems to be a bit contagious. Some of it is probably because a number of them have gone all or partly Paleo too.
Positive vibes,
PaleoPhil
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I enjoyed reading your story as well. It's an easy path to fall down, especially when youv've put in your all and your still sooo tired and sick.
I started at 27 also.
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Some words of wisdom here that you might enjoy reading:
http://activenocarber.myfreeforum.org/Bear_s_Words_Of_Wisdom_about22.html
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1 thing:- I notice you haven't mentioned grassfed meat anywhere in that post. In case you have some unnatural fear of PUFAs(some cooked zero-carbers do), I should add that PUFAs/omega-3s are essential for helping rebuild the brain and eating grainfed meats, even if raw, is really not a good idea in the long run, healthwise. of course, you may just have a problem re ordering grassfed meats in your particular area for whatever reason.
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Thanks all for the support and kind words. I get very excited when I come here and start thinking about how my life is going to change again when I fully implement my diet - sort of like a rush - but once I step away from the computer I lose focus and have trouble implementing the diet, mainly because I am too scared to assert my self positively enough to others that this is the way that is going to work for me.
I am still quite fragile right now, at least my mind is. I've had an entire lifetime of training myself to be insecure, shy and self-depricating and have become very critical of myself with a perfectionist attitude while at the same time worrying entirely too much.
Essentially, my mind isn't clear and is jumbled and I'm having trouble focusing and staying in the present. "In the present" was one of those hot phrases in rehab that we'd hear multiple times a day.
I found this amazing post the other day in the spirituality forum that accurately describes me right now -http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/spirituality/opinions-humans-and-spirituality/msg7541/#msg7541
"When I speak of higher consciousness, I play around with ideas of consciousness vs subconsciousness. If we were fully aware, fully awake, fully conscious individuals, there would be much less occurring subconsciously, it would rise to the level of full awareness in the now, in the present. Instead we sacrifice the now to all forms of worry about the future, replaying of the past, lost in thought, lost in emotion, lost in everything but attentiveness to the only thing that actually exists: the present. And since we sacrifice the present, we lose presence. "
I feel very disconnected with the presence at the time being. I'm even having trouble writing this post and have to constantly stop and rethink and then reword what I have just written. The good thing though, is that I've had great success with the diet before and felt very connected to the people around me and was the energetic, positive, creative, engaging, altruistic Teddy (thats my name) that I think is really me. I feel barely a shell of myself now.
Luckily, I have been surrounded by good people throughout my life. My mom is always looking for ways to help me improve and has gotten me several books which have greatly contributed to my recovery. The best is "The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook" - http://www.amazon.com/Anxiety-Phobia-Workbook-Fourth/dp/1572244135/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261228912&sr=8-1
This book is basically a recipe book for beating anxiety and phobia. I really beleive in its methodologies which closely allign to my own on how to go about learning a subject matter. It gives detailed plans on what is recommended to do every day for your particular "affliction".
What is recommended first and foremost is to find a method to relax. Deep abdominal breathing apparently has been clinacly shown to reduce anxiety if practiced over a certain time period. I try and do this everyday by finding a quiet place laying down flat, closing my eyes and concentrating on nothing. I think I feel calmer once I get to the 10 minute mark and usually aim for 20 minutes. They also recommend progressive muscle relaxation,vigorous exercise, yoga, meditation, etc..
Also, what I found interesting was that they have a section on nutrition with one of the opening lines saying something like "almost no anxiety books discuss nutrition...". The first thing they recommend is to cut out sugars and the like and caffeine, which really impressed me even though it shouldn't since it seems so blindingly obvious now, but still is applaudable since this one step can save people so much misery. It eventually recommends moving towards vegetarianism and believes in the alcaline/base theory (whatever that is). Apparently meat is more acidic.
Still, the book is great and the worksheets it has you do everyday are incredible in that they help you become aware of your thinking sooner and sooner. This seems to be the central idea, in that if we can recognize our thoughts and feelings as they happen we may be able to stop a particular (incorrect) belief or assumption from further infiltrating our minds and clogging it up. My personal beliefs and assumptions are so automatic now that I don't know I have actually made it. The neural pathways seem to be so deep that so well connected towards anxiety that its going to take a long time to rewire and reprogram them to healthy levels. Fortunately I have my diet which will hopefully expedite this process.
I have other books on anger and perfectionism that are great too, but will be concetrating mainly on the workbook for the time being. I haven't gone through it all yet. I strongly believe that to recover I must treat myself everyday and work hard everyday. 30 days of rehab doing groupwork for 8 hours a day isn't enough. I know this probably sounds like I am putting pressure on myself to succeed but its something that I want to do and has worked in the past and so I want to do this in the future. This is probably why so many (perhaps 80%) of people relapse. They don't finish the program and work on themselves at home. They go from 8 hours of recovery work a day to 1 or 0.
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Some of the many benefits of eating raw zero carb are mental clarity, emotional stability and confidence.
You shall be pleasantly amazed at the difference.
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My last post was getting uber-long and on other sites you get auto-signed out sometimes so the worrier got to me and I posted so to not lose it (though I had it copied anyway, ha).
Phil,
Thanks for the tips. I didn't think too much about the importance of sunshine until recently reading the forums here. The sun has always made me feel better and even as a child I would remember needing to go outside to "cure" my headaches. I'm rather dark (mediteranean blood) and so perhaps my sun requirement is slightly higher than normal. Its winter now but luckily I live in Houston, where there can be decent sun year round.
As for positivity, I completely agree, but still find it a challenge to be positive right now. It seems so much easier to be negative and my humor for the most part has been geared towards bringing down people, sometimes just to get a reaction. This is just another thing I need to try and catch in the moment before letting the thought spread.
Other things I plan on doing for health are walking barefoot as much as possible, defecating in the natural squat position, possibly sleeping on the floor (I've had some intense dreams when I tried this in the past) and hopefully more when I find out about them. Also will be doing my deep breathing daily as well as other realation techiniques.
Tyler,
I think grass fed meat is going to be much better in the long run than grain-fed. Its rather sad that the zc group seems to believe that the impact of grass vs grain is minimal at best. The true effects might not be seen for 20 or more years. It could easily be one of the reasons the bear got cancer. I ordered 15 pounds of slankers ground beef in the past and will be ordering some soon again.
William,
Thanks for the link, I've actually read just about the entire bear thread as it originally was. The guy is the ultimate guru, though he never learned how to quote which was probably most surprising of all.
Also, Phil, I am going to repost here a post you made last month that should get some serious consideration for post of the year. You basically summarized my philosophy on what is taking place in modern society with respect to science. I've read "fooled by randomness" and have never agreed with someone so much and like you I don't really like it when I agree so completely but then again it was refreshing to see someone think very similarly to me, just quite a bit more elegant.
Over the years as I've investigated the derogatory claims of Moderners (among whom I don't include Tyler, though he has cited research, opinions, etc. from this school of thought--which I am grateful for, actually, because he has provided a very useful counterpoint to posit my speculations and ramblings up against without having to deal with the really harsh critics like PETA-type folks) about the Stone Agers and HGs in general I've found that most of them are based on false assumptions, fictions, and falsehoods. Manthropology is just the latest compilation of revelations about the fallacies of the Moderners, revealing that the abilities of even recent HGs were superior in multiple ways to moderners. The usual knee-jerk response is to engage in ad hominem and claim that the scientist or layman who reports these phenomena is just promoting the "noble savage myth" or longs for a primitive utopia.
What never gets mentioned is that the critics (and their claims that others cite) are sometimes influenced by a utopianism of their own, often unbenownst to them, that infected academia decades ago, which is a sort of Utopian Progressivism. It's dogma is endless progress, man as machine, and the perfectability of man. That which is new is considered "improved," and that which is old is assumed inferior unless widely publicized mountains of evidence make it impossible to ignore the obvious. The dogma of endless progress is far, far, far more common than noble savage mythology (how else explain the endless advancement of "new and improved" technologies, foods and drugs, almost without restraint?). It claims to be scientific, but much of it's original source material comes from fictional or misguided sources like Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes and it seems built on scientific reductionism and consensus. Assumptions are rarely questioned; instead, the same old fallacies (such as "the diet-acne connection is an old wives' tale") and faulty studies (such as the bogus 1960s study that claimed to refute the diet-acne connection) get cited over and over again ad nauseum and then Modernism's defenders point to the piles of rehashed articles and say "See, there is a scientific consensus backed by the weight of the evidence," when in reality it all teeters precariously on one or two bogus studies or maybe some snippets of 17th century philosophy.
"But wait a minute," you say. "Hobbes was a Monarchist, not a Progressive." True, but some of his concepts made an impression on the masses and were misinterpreted and reshaped over time (such as the "nasty, brutish, and short" quip, which Hobbes used to describe agrarian Englishmen, but which was transformed into an archetype of the HG) eventually infecting academia and the Progressives, deep into their psyches like an invasive cancer, probably setting science back several centuries. Plus, some Progressives replaced the despotism of monarchy with a new form of despotism: an all-knowing Mother Culture led by a cultural elite that sought to "help" the "savages" and "underclasses" by "civilizing" them.
Luckily, there have been and are reformers amongst the Progressives and the academics who have recognized where things went wrong and have been shedding light on this, such as Margaret Meade, Richard Leakey, Daniel Quinn, Jared Diamond, Art De Vany, Boyd Eaton, Loren Cordain, Michael and Mary Eades, and Nicholas Taleb. These and other academics, intellectuals and Progressives put various pieces of the puzzle back together that make up the ancient storehouse of knowledge and experience: man is not perfectible, everything new is not necessarily improved, many of the assumptions on which current scientific consensus is based are faulty, and beginning around 10 thousands years ago there was a "Great Forgetting," as Quinn called it, about ancient knowledge that we have only begun to re-learn within the past century or so.
Assumptions are being questioned, studies re-examined, paradigms shifted, and we are witnessing the dawn of a scientific revolution. I call it The Great Remembering.
"But hold on!" you say. "You did what you criticized others for doing--engaged in ad hominem about Progressives." Not all Progressives. Many would call me one, actually (others might claim I'm a Positivist or Libertarian--I don't think I fit neatly into any philosophical or political slot at present). Notice also that I didn't single any one out and was careful to explain that I'm not including Tyler in my critique. It was more of a general critique of the basic school of thought that seems to underlie the source materials that critics of RPD and HGs have relied upon, based on an impression I've garnered from years of watching Paleo dieters and advocates get attacked. Notice that I instead singled out some Progressives and likeminded academics for praise. I hope that I've managed to critique the message and its underlying underpinnings more than the messengers.
One thing I also try to remember is that all variations of Paleo diets, raw diets, and low carb diets are regarded as heresy worthy of ridicule by the powers that be. Based on their criticisms, they apparently regard us all as idiots or devils to be straightened out or silenced. So I try to remember not to criticize too harshly folks from similar ways of eating, but like a dumb, dumb I sometimes forget. So I apologize to any such I have offended in the past, and proactively apologize to the folks in the future I will likely also offend when I let my words get ahead of my brain.
For ten thousand years we have been blinded by The Great Forgetting. The Great Remembering has only just begun. Imagine what amazing revelations await.
Good luck and good eating.
http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/hot-topics/are-we-meat-eaters-or-vegetarians/msg19668/#msg19668
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I'm not sure if I've welcomed you to the forum before but welcome none-the-less. :)
It sounds like you've dealt with a lot but your intended course of action should help you heal immensely. Good luck with it.
I think grass fed meat is going to be much better in the long run than grain-fed. Its rather sad that the zc group seems to believe that the impact of grass vs grain is minimal at best. The true effects might not be seen for 20 or more years. It could easily be one of the reasons the bear got cancer. I ordered 15 pounds of slankers ground beef in the past and will be ordering some soon again.
I definitely agree with you there. There are going to be a lot of ZCers having problems down the line due to it IMO. And it's a double whammy; the 3:6 ratio of fats as well as the concentrated toxins (antibiotics, etc.) in the fat of grainfed.
Luckily you're so close to Slankers that you'll be getting a great deal with the minimal shipping. :)
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I feel very disconnected with the presence at the time being. I'm even having trouble writing this post and have to constantly stop and rethink and then reword what I have just written.
I have noticed that a high-fat diet, particularly high - Omega 3s, is very good for calming the mind. Mineral supplements like bone meal and magnesium-rich healing clays are also very good for calming and focusing your attention. Carbs and fruits are generally not good for calming your brain down, in my experience.
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. I am having trouble asserting myself to the people I am staying with about the way I feel about food and consequently have eaten a decent amount of cooked carbs the last week with horrible results. I get so tired so quickly it’s unreal.
I am still quite fragile right now, at least my mind is. I've had an entire lifetime of training myself to be insecure, shy and self-depricating and have become very critical of myself with a perfectionist attitude while at the same time worrying entirely too much.
hey i am glad to here that you are starting to take care of yourself, but these two quotes really stuck out to me.
i think you need to explain to the people you are living with that what you are doing (raw paleo) is in the best interest for your mental and physical health right now, if it is easier to think about it as having a cold or "the flu" and increasing ones intake of chicken soup, it may be only temporary but it is ideal to assist the bodies healing functions.
i too have dealt with these thoughts as well as severe anxiety and phobia, raw meat and low carbs is the most calming diet i have found. i have also spent a lot of time really LISTENING to my body and noticed whenever anxiety or panic came about if i went out and RAN or did jumping jacks til the anxiety passed that helped a lot, and once i started getting into the spiritual aspects of why we have these emotions i read that budhists, shaman etc...will call those emotions just misplaced energy. so really you have to be truthful and caring with yourself and who you really are and what you really want to do, and those emotions will have no opportunity to sneak into your life...this book helped me a lot to get past that and my perfectionist tendencies http://www.radicalhonesty.com/
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ck and others,
I know very little of bone meal and healing clays and don't recall much discussion on them here, but I am willing to look at pretty much anything to help me out so thanks. Right now, I am going to focus on simply changing my diet and working my anxiety book daily. I have a type of perfectionist attitude that is constantly worrying about employing enough methods the right way for anything to work. This usually stops me from even attempting to get involved or even started on a project as it seems so overwhelming and so focusing on just doing a couple things right a day is my main goal right now.
J,
I am also trying to listen to my mind as much as possible so that I can break down the thoughts and feelings that have convoluted my actions so much so in the past. Removing poker and alcohol have brought on a great deal of clarity and I'm more easily able to detect the channels of thought developing and thus am starting to develop strategies (thanks to the book) to counter the negative and illogical conclusions with more reasoned and realistic ones. The socratic method of questioning goes a long way here.
I'm glad you brought that radical honesty website up. In rehab, we called it "rigorous honesty", where it was vitally important to the group's progress to speak up when you saw something go astray. For me this is especially true and where lots of my anger comes from. I withold my true feelings quite a bit and get worried about what people think of me and this consequently has me thinking in my head about the past much more than I would like. Drugs like adderal remove the bariers in my mind quite rapidly and I'm able to function as well as I would like. Going zc last year did just about the same thing which was fantastic. I love the feeling of being able to speak freely and not worry about what I have to say. I'm slowly getting better and yesterday I had a great convesation over the phone where I was in good form connecting very well throughout. This is hopefully going to be a central theme in my journal, being rigorously honest with myself and to this forum.
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I love the feeling of being able to speak freely and not worry about what I have to say. I'm slowly getting better and yesterday I had a great convesation over the phone where I was in good form connecting very well throughout. This is hopefully going to be a central theme in my journal, being rigorously honest with myself and to this forum.
that is awesome! i hope you continue to improve in this area. for me it was a huge step to accept myself for who i really am, with all of my "faults", and to realize i didnt really want to live up to anyone else's standards because those were ridiculous anyway and that my own were pretty righteous. if something was going to be detrimental to my well being just to "save face" or be "normal" it definitely wasn't worth it, you know? kind of a fuck you guys im just trying to be healthy/happy attitude, at first i felt really bizarre/selfish but as my mental and physical health improved i knew it was due in large part to honesty! it has lead to MUCH happiness and peace and even though that 'tude seems pretty self-righteous/off-putting it has put me in better grace with the universe :) i still have to try everyday to remind myself of these lessons but it definitely gets easier, i hope it does for you as well:)
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My fragile mind is still working hard to keep its defenses up. I've attempted to describe how my inner workings but have yet to delve into many specifics. Yesterday, I was involved in a thread that put me in a rather excited emotional state which I will describe below and hopefully show how quickly I can disconnect from reality. These are my feelings and thoughts as they are. My mood swings are still rather vicious and I can go range from over-inflated self-confidence to wild insecurity in a short time frame.
This also goes well with being rigorously honest as I've posted above. I will try very hard to focus on my thoughts and my feelings and avoid verbal abuse. The comment was made my William but the comments I make below are solely for me not for him.
Ha! You became temporarily sane.
This one remark infurtiated me instantaneously. The pain from being outright told that I am wrong and this case implied that I had insane thinking deeply hurt. I don't acutally exaggerate my feelings (or at least I try hard not to) but do use other methods such as filtering out the positive remarks to focus on the sole negative ones to ensure that the critic/perfectionist in me has been fed.
I also feel quite worthless when I'm put down like this. It feels like everything I wrote is completely wrong and useless. Ever since reading through my anger book last year I try and not directly put people on the defensive, which is how I felt this comment to be about. It seemed like a jab for nonthing else but to make me feel bad about what I've said. I try hard to never make an argument like this and if I disagree with someone I at least like to point out parts of the post I agree with first before making my point. And when making a point I would like to think that I am not attacking either but simply asserting myself properly. If you guys have noticed, PPhil makes his arguments like this, which I greatly respect him for. I've never seen him outright put down anyone down even after hes been personally attacked.
My insecure mind wants to fight back so badly and make a vicious, brutal, mostly ad-hominen attack saying how much better I am at everything. Yes, that will show'em. Message boards have generally been a source of anger for me. They are night and day compared to real life and something I have yet to come to terms with. My friends and I jab each other all the time but it seems so different here. The posts are so permanent.
I love reading threads, spend countless hours rumaging through them, but rarely post. It seems like the few times I post I get offended quickly. I expect people to be nicer and I expect people to enjoy what I post. In the past I've mulled over things on different message boards for days, sometimes weeks at a time after the posts have been made. I couldn't get over how defeated I felt. It felt like it was just a game to see who could make me feel the worst. I hope the reason we post is to uplift the community to a better and brighter understanding of the world around us not to get pleasure from belittling others.
So, those are kind of my rambling thoughts that spur out of control quickly when I feel a perceived threat. Now to break them down. Since I automatically filter out good comments, I did so immediately because the poster below stated that he agreed with what I said. This should give me evidence that not everyone will think I am insane. I also stated that this was a "crack-pot" theory so expecting not to have everyone agree is very unreasonable.
Its also a reasonable expectation to know that on message boards people will not have the same philosophy about how and why to post as mine. The detection of tone is not easily apparent and the entire meaning of the post could change because of a lack of this. This is an online message board after all and perhaps I am taking things too serious.
Even if I continue to have my posts put down in the future, I am by no means irrevocably damaged. Virtually no one treats me like they do on message boards in real life. Its also helpful for me to examine what I wrote to see if I can get my points across in a way which promotes more healthy discussion rather than inviting anger which I was probably good at in the past.
I am confidnt that I would more appropriately handle my emotions if a discussion similar to this were to take place in real life where I could look the person in the eye and have a much better perception on the situation. The unknown factors and the distant feel of the communication make it hard for me to contain my anxiety for now.
So these are my immediate thoughts. After I left the computer I started feeling better quickly but while sitting in front reading, the waterfall of emotions hit me hard rendering me trapped in my emotions.
I'd appreciate any constructive criticism.
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This one remark infuriated me instantaneously. The pain from being outright told that I am wrong and this case implied that I had insane thinking deeply hurt.
Please accept my heartfelt apology, and my admiration for daring to respond honestly.
My comment was intended as a humorous comment on the state of Man, after reading the opinion of the wise to the effect that we live in a sick society. No exceptions, as all of us are born into a wold of lies, and absorb them willy nilly. Not our fault either. I had thought that this was well known, and evidently I erred.
(note how I sneakily avoided writing that I was wrong - saving face while telling the truth). I am also fond of whimsy, and think it possible while still telling the truth.
Maybe not, after reading the radical honesty website, which I think is a scam. Honesty can get us jailed (Ernst Zundel) or killed (Karen Silkwood, Rachel Corrie, Jesus Christ), so those common little white lies make social life safer.
I could write much more, like that no man is an island, we are hormone-driven and necessarily women command some of the resulting controls of our emotions, few ever really become masters our ourselves blah blah. But I hope you get the point from the foregoing, that this is how I see the world, and not a reflection on you.
I see this website as something approaching an island of sanity in an unsane world.
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Having a mental position to defend (that of the ego) arises from a false sense of self (as divided from everything else) - namely, the ego's perpetuation either from pleasure or pain. The ego as a pathological entity in evolving consciousness feeds either on pleasure or pain - ultimately division/conflict. Transcend the ego and realise that it's not you - the true self is the quieter voice, which you can allow to arise simply by observing the ego's monologues/dialogues/trialogues in a non-judgemental manner (that way, you're observing as a separate consciousness to the ego modality).
The ego dies when there is no conflict/division, so as soon as there is no mental position to defend, the true consciousness has become manifest (transcending the ego, or the "little me").
Where ego consciousness takes offence (seeks further conflict), the transcended consciousness merely laughs (of course, there could be no other reaction).
With this kind of evolved consciousness, actions like "taking offence" become completely futile and ultimately constitute a resistance of reality as it unfolds/manifests. Better to be the playful consciousness, like most children up to a certain age ('til the point of becoming jaded)...
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... I am also fond of whimsy, and think it possible while still telling the truth.
...
Yes, I can attest to William's style, which is different from the ordinary. I recommend patiently giving yourself time to get used to his style, for like a fine wine, the results will be worth the investment. I'm quite sure that he didn't mean any harm.
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William,
I very much appreciate the apology and subsequent further details of your character. I have read a lot of what you posted previously and have admired your intellect, reasoning and humor as an observer. Unfortunately I am still sensitive to percieved threats and put up my walls very quick. When the walls are up, I become vulnerable and have a hard time managing my emotions.
I had some sort of breakthrough today that I think can help explain my thinking. I am back at home in Texas now, spending time at my parents house before heading off to Florida to help work at my aunt's school. Since giving up poker, I have resumed my research into paleo dieting taking up quite a bit of the time that I had invested in poker. My dad came up to me in the middle of some blog reading to remind me about needing to go to a gambling anonymous meeting tonight. I immediately flipped out and told him no several times while trying to remain concious to the screen. I got angry very fast, panicking as well and assuring him I would take no part of it.
Luckily, a good friend of mine called, which gave me a chance to talk things through. At first I didn't even want to talk to her and was getting annoyed but then I somehow realized that I needed to get away from the computer for there to be a fair conversation between us. As soon as I left the hot seat I felt my body start to calm down. I was still very angry but having the opportunity to concentrate solely on my feelings instead of both them and the blog made them much easier to deal with
I surmised that the research I was doing was very similar to that of the poker playing. I was almost addicted to feeding my brain with more and more research. The computer was mine and my dad was intruding my space. I was attached to my research, much like a dog is to his bone, I had no intentions of letting go. When my dad lectured me on needing to go to the GA meeting(which I atually ended up going to) I percieved this as a threat to my existence and countered with what I have always done, and that is to get angry.
Through my reading and rehab experience, it seems that there are certain channels in my brain that will automatically move my thoughts to final outcomes. Its as if I am preprogrammed to move down a conveyer belt without any chance of being able to turn around. The rational part of my brain is shut off from getting involved and so I continually get shuttled down the same path. There was no inbetween for me. I've conditioned myself to remain quiet, not speaking up for myself until its too late and then I respond with anger. I never spoke up as a child, rarely being assertive, holding back my true opinions even if that meant I was being hurt. I didn't let myself have much rights as a human. I don't have another outlet or option right now.
Hopefully, I can train myself from here to be better able to observe these channels of thought and respond to them more positively. I had a great, eloquent conversation with my friend and was proud of my logical connections that I made and feel more confident about the future. I know I will catch myself with my reptilian brain taking over leading me to anger but I should be able to deal with it easier.
BBQ,
Great post, and this exactly what I am trying to do - observe/transcend my ego and observe it with the more logical, rational parts of my brain. And yes I feel my concious evolving and improving, especially tonight.
Also, I have began to more stringely implement a diet. I've only had one piece of kiwi today to go with a large strip steak, a couple eggs and some cheese. Not sure how close I will go to 0 carbs but it should average under 50g day and most likely will go to 0. I will move to grass-fed beef at the beginning of the new year.
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I mentioned in my opening post that I enjoyed lifting weights. One of my goals is to become as functionally strong as possible. This definitely isn't necessary or even recommended for good health but it's something I can see myself working at to get better all the time and I have lots of fun doing it. I do not lift like bodybuilders and think their programs are mostly a waste of time.
I lift mainly according to the methods found in Starting Strength written by Mark Rippetoe. The easiest way to describe this book is to compare it to GCBC. Though far from perfect, it lays down a great foundation for forming usable, functional strengthm just as GCBC can lead you down a path to try low-carb. The workout program is simple - only about 5-6 barbell exercises (the author does not endorse machines at all) done 3 times a week, doing just 3 of the exercises each workout. Almost no one at commercial gyms works out like this, though there is a mountain of evidence in favor of it. Somewhat similar to how most people have no clue about paleo type eating.
This is what I did today
12/24
Overhead standing dumbbell press
40x6 (80 pounds total)
50x6
60x6
65x6 - this is a personal best, I didn't train dbs much for the press in the past
heres a decent vid here- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmUf5-eseWo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmUf5-eseWo)
Front squat
some bar work
5x95
5x135
5x155
good vid here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkK9-mnDAy4
Standing Dumbbell rows
6x30
6x45
6x25
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkb_YA8U4r0
I did the starting strength program from September to January last year when I was VLC and gained quite a bit a strength with my final numbers being
Bench db - 5x110
Bench bb - 5x255
Olympic back Squat - 5x295
Deadlift - 1x415
Overhead press - 5x150
In february started training the olympic lifts, the snatch and clean and jerk with a coach. I thought this was the ultimate test of strength and had the best carryover to conventional sports which I also wanted to excel at. I had hoped to compete in the Texas weighlifting championship which is held every January. My progress had been very steady from starting strength (SS) and I assumed this would carry over to the olympic lifts. I lifted three times a week with my coach and while progress seemed decent at first it came to a grinding halt within a couple months. During SS I only worked out once every 3 days at my own pace for only 30-40 minutes with lots of rest.
With my coach the intensity was turned up several notches. My body wasn't used to the volume. I also couldn't preform my own SS workouts because I was so sore from Oly lifting. I was also not lifting properly - oly lifts are hard to execute properly- and my shoulders seemed overworked and overstressed. After a while it started being painful lifting everyday items such as gallon of milk.
I started drinking heavily during this time and eating more and more carbs, though I still ate tons of meat. I surmised that I couldn't get nearly enough rest with this new workout regimen. Unfortunately it took me 4 months to realize this. I also hypothesized that my very low carb diet could be the culprit for me not being able to recover by replenishing glycogen stores as necessary. I think other folks have reported a slower recovery pattern when lifting weights. Thus from here on out I will mainly adhere to my 2 day a week workout. I will still train the olympic lifts but perhaps only once every couple weeks. My SS routine started up again last month and the gains have come nicely and I will continue to update my progress here.
Also, Day 2 of very low cooked carb is going well. No real cravings as of yet and good energy.
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Its now Day 5 of Round 2 and thus far I am not experiencing much if any noticeable symptoms of ketosis. I did crave sweets a bit yestserday and made some of the bears zc ice cream which was excellent to alleviate the craving. I've had less than 20g of carbs the last few days eating only small amounts of olives and pomergranite. I don't plan on having that much dairy but as I'm transitioning I will continue to be fairly lax. I want to stay as close to carnivorous as possible for now - possibly add significant fruit/veg in the spring.
I bought several pounds of grass-fed beef at a local farmers market yesterday and just seared the outside for a couple minutes. I still enjoy cooked meat more right now, though I expect my tastes to change over time. Right now I just crushed about a pound of raw supermarket chuck. Its rather flavorless but something about it feels so good to eat. I also bought some liver and will be eating it tonight.
I went to the gym and had a great workout, this despite being right in the middle of the transitional period where energy is supposed to be at its lowest. Going VLC last year along with continually eating lots of meat the rest of the year surely must have helped me re-transition much smoother.
Bench BB
135x10
185x8
205x6
225x6
225x6
Deadlift
5x135
5x205
4x275 - I was going to stop here but I had a huge surge of energy and these felt really easy so added some more
4x325
325 felt great as well and I couldn't be more pleased. My grip had failed me a couple weeks ago at 285 but I was working with a different bar and made sure to get a very solid grip and went at it and nailed it.
Pullups
BW(body weight)x5x2
Was a bit tired after deadlifting and so took it easy here
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Its day 8, with the last three days being carnivorous except for a couple pieces of cheese. I feel pretty decent, though do not have the same euphoria that I remembered getting around this time like I did the first time through. Perhaps it was a bit later. I have some moderate cravings for fruit, but I really want to give an all raw animal diet a go for a few months first. I absolutely love fruit and could eat all day long if it was around me .
Today, I've had only one meal around 1.5 pounds of raw grass-fed "stew" meat about 8 hour after I woke up. It was precut and fairly easy to get down. It was fairly lean so I might need to get a hold of some fattier cuts soon. The meat was bought from Georgias Texas grassfed beef. Its about 25% more expensive than slankers and found here - http://www.txgrassfedbeef.com/
I've learned to deal with my hunger and can fight through the minor cravings pretty well now. When I was backpacking through Italy this summer, I would routinely go 15-20 hours without eating, even on a high-carb diet.
I also got in a decent workout. My plan right now is to go every third day. I've gotten the best results in the past going at this pace.
Overhead standing press
6x95
6x115
6x135
5x135
Hang Power Cleans
bar work
3x95
3x135
2x155
1x175
1x185
1x195
1x205
pull ups
8xbw
4xbw+20
3xbw+35
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It's been a little over 2 weeks now of mainly zero-carb and for the most part its been a rather up and down experience the last week. The main thing I want is energy. The last several years of my life have left me completely lethargic to the point where nothing really matters. I am very slow to thought and speak. It takes forever for me to get a point across and I get lost in my sentences all the time.
This stuff cleared up quite a bit in 2008 when I went VLC and completed an anger management book several times at the same time. As of now, it seems the that the best way to having the energy I want is to read my and work out of my anxiety book every day. I still feel heavy brain fog and was hoping this would all vanish rather quickly once I changed my diet. Its only been 16 days but for some reason I remember feeling better much quicker the last time I was on my diet.
I've had moments of what I feel my true self to be but still have hours of emptiness where my mind feels so rigid and unable to work as it was intended. These posts seem to take me ages to write. I am still confident though that training myself with my books will work very well as I have yet to implement the program like it was designed.
The last 4 days I have eaten almost no cooked foods, mainly eating around 1.5 pounds of super market beef a day. Today I had a huge t-bone, with the smaller side being one of my favorites. I find the rim fat very hard to eat and had a huge disgusting glob (size of a plum) of it in my mouth for at least 45 minutes. It didn't actually taste bad, just was annoying to have to spend that much time chewing it. The only way to eat was to tear very small chunks of it off at a time so I wouldn't choke. I've had other pieces of fairly large raw unchewed fat that went down very quickly. Perhaps I got too much of it together at once and it all coagulated.
This is probably not enough considering my weight and lifting goals but I don't feel like eating more. I do feel like eating some carbs though, but I am going to hold off for now, though a salad with feta cheese sounds mighty good.
I ordered about 20 pounds of beef and lamb from slankers that should be getting here on monday. I've tried raw ground beef from slankers before but did not like the taste that much and so got several different cuts. I am a little worried that since Slankers is 20-50% cheaper than the other grass-fed meats online that its really not grass-fed. I suppose I could take a road trip up there some time.
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I also lifted a couple times
1/2/2010
Bench db
100x6 (200 lbs total)
100x4
Olympic squat - bar position on deltoids, hamstrings touch calves
135x5
185x2
225x5x2
My left knee has been giving me problems in the past so I'm taking it a little easy here
1/6/2010
Overhead db press
40x5
50x3
60x2
70x5 PR!
70x2
PR= personal record These went well though I had the least amount of energy at the gym so far.
Deadlift
5x135
3x225
1x275
3x345
Last week I felt very strong when I did 325 so I thought 345 would be doable. This was a mistake, and I should followed with my plan on increasing weights minamally especially now. I got greedy and went for it. Even though I was 1 rep shy, my form was trrible and my grip was slipping badly.
Power Cleans
worked up to
1 x 215
PR here is 225 although there is no need to go heavy here as form is very critical.
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I am feeling a bit better today but still have significant mood swings. It appears that my mood is heavily influenced by whether or not I actively work on myself to get over my depression and anxiety. The diet alone, at this stage, is not really giving me clarity of mind or extra energy like it did last year. I find myself quickly falling into my insecure thinking over and over. I still experience heavy brain fog and slow thinking. This more or less goes away if I use my workbook and meditate. From the outside, the solution to feeling better seems pretty easy but it isn't. I rarely have a drive to start my workbook or my meditations. Its a real struggle to get started but once I do in about 10 minutes the initial sluggishness wears off and I can work for a good amount of time and I always feel better after. Its just that it seems that I must do something everyday or my struggles continue.
I went to the gym today adhering to my once every third day routine and had a great workout with good energy.
1/09
Bench bb
135x8
185x4
205x3
225x2
235x5
240x5
Two months ago I was benching 205 so I've moved up 35 pounds here, still 15 pounds away from my pr.
Hang Power Snatches
lots of bar work
65x3
95x2
115x1
125x1
135x1
140x1 PR
These are fairly fun to do since you get to throw weights up violently over your head.
Front Squat
45x10x2
135x3
45x25
My left knee has been bothering me for quite some time when I squat and I didn't feel quite right at 135 so I backed off. I read somewhere that doing very high reps with light weights can help rehabilitate injuries so thats why the absurd volume is in there.
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Two other important notes that I've forgotten. I've lost 8-10 pounds and am down to 178-180 and look noticeably leaner. This is just about the lowest I've been in at least 5 years with the highest being just south of 200. So I've never been this strong at this weight which is pretty exciting. Also, my fingernails are the longest they have ever been. I've never used nail clippers and have chewed them ever since I can remember. I have purposefully tried to not chew them but I think its a strong possibility that they are growing faster and are stronger as well. I've literally never had fingernails so its pretty weird looking down and seeing some white at the tips.
I think I'm somewhere around 12-15% body fat and would like to get down under 10 so maybe another 4 percent or 7 pounds of fat. I think man has evolved to be in the 8-10 percent body fat range. I am consciously eating slightly less than normal of what I feel like but its not too bothersome and isn't really giving me much trouble now. My strength is still increasing nicely so I will be continuing to eat this way for the time being. When I went ZC last year I ate cooked steaks multiple times during the day, more or less thinking that it was going to be very hard to put on weight. I did lose a little weight but never got down to where I wanted, though I did drink occasionally. Perhaps the weight loss is all water and glycogen and it will come back naturally so we shall see fairly soon. I'm mainly eating one large meal a day of raw meat, though I have seared the outside a couple times. I still love the taste of cooked fat.
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One story that explains retention of strength while losing weight is that if you eat a low enough carb diet, the body uses stored fat for energy, and the first fat to be used was that inside the muscles, including the heart muscle.
BTW, fat inside the heart was first observed during autopsy of U.S. soldiers who were killed in the Korean war.
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Two other important notes that I've forgotten. I've lost 8-10 pounds and am down to 178-180 and look noticeably leaner. This is just about the lowest I've been in at least 5 years with the highest being just south of 200. So I've never been this strong at this weight which is pretty exciting. Also, my fingernails are the longest they have ever been. I've never used nail clippers and have chewed them ever since I can remember. I have purposefully tried to not chew them but I think its a strong possibility that they are growing faster and are stronger as well. I've literally never had fingernails so its pretty weird looking down and seeing some white at the tips.
Yes, on LC raw Paleo the nails tend to get stronger, the whites whiter, and anxiety and nervousness tend to decrease so the disappearance of nervous habits like nail chewing tends to occur.
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The struggle with energy is continuing without any signs of getting better. I feel very disconnected with heavy brain fog during the day and have no real motivation to help the students with their research project. I'm essentially volunteering right now at a private school and in a few months will look for more permanent work. My cravings for carbs, especially fruit are still around and perhaps greater than before.
I'm still mixing in cooked foods like I did on Sunday when I pigged out on an meat heavy buffet I was invited that was free. I felt very tired after I ate. I'm guessing mixing cooked and raw is still better than plain cooked. I'm not really stressing about sticking to all raw and realize I will slip up quite a bit and this is a process. I still heavily favor the taste of cooked meats - I had ten or so small cooked chicken skewers last nigt that I just couldn't stop eating. When eating raw I generally do not feel like eating much even after just a few bites, but I finish the steak always as it seems the right thing to do and I'm not eating that much to begin with.
I ate half a pound of raw beef liver today packaged from a 20 pound bag of meat that I get sent from slankers. I don't like raw ground beef much at all, almost feel nautious when I eat it and one time got a fever for several hours just after eating it. Not sure if the gb was the cause but I haven't had a fever like that in a couple years. So the liver was detestable, almost unedible but I forced it down and almost gagged once. I was going to eat a whole pound but I couldn't make it through and just chunked the rest. Right now I'm planning on only having liver a few times a month. I'll add in other organs in the future.
I also want to add in some suet but slankers was out. I ordered several different cuts and will probably be sticking to the chucks as they are the cheapest and decently fatty. The new york strip I had yesterday was incredibly lean, but very edible, though not particularly yummy with almost no visible white fat marbled in. Perhaps I am fat deficient at the moment.
Pysically, my nails are just about the only positive thing at the moment. My skin looks dry, gray and ashy, my face is broken out a bit (I've had some acne my entire life) with a pretty big pimple on my eyebrow. My throat is a bit sore and I have an annoying sore on the outside of my lip. I also have a decent amount ear wax build up. I've always thought I've had more ear wax than normal and have had significant problems with them when diving even in shallow water. I've even had them clog up like swimmers ear after an intense session of soccer or basketball. My nose has also been lighty constantly clogged for the last several years especially now. My lips are also chapped as I've always had problems with licking them in the cold which tends to make them much worse. These are all just minor nuisances but together they add up.
I worked again, this time attempting a warm up on the treadmill. I started a slow job and after a quarter mile felt a dull ache in my upper chest around my heart and quickly hopped off. I've never really ran for the hell of it, just lift heavy but in rehab a couple months ago I started runnning and had great stamina so I'm not sure whats happening here. Im definitely not going to push it, just let it go. I might play some bball or tennis and see if there is a difference.
Overhead Press
95x5
115x3
135x2
140x4
140x2
I scheduled myself for 140x5 and thought there was a good chance at me pulling off 145x5 but I didn't have it in me. I thought my good improvement from the bench would carry over to press but it didn't.
Hang Power Clean
95x3
115x2
135x2
155x1
175x1
185x1
205x1
215x1 PR
I felt tired doing these but still managed a 10 pound PR, though I don't think I've tested myself fully yet with these. Still nice to show improvement on a mediocre day at the gym
I did some squats with just the bar to rehab my knee and some rows and curls for back and biceps.
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One other thing to note is that I've refrained from masturbating for more than a month now, which is probably 2-3 weeks longer than I've ever gone since I started. I haven't had sex either and am purposely not trying to get into a sexual relationship for the forseeable future. I really want to concentrate on feeling better. I want sex to just be, no cravings. Its hard to explain but can't really put my mind into elaborating right now. Perhaps later.
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hey, your zits, sore throat and ear wax make me think you should try some raw sauerkraut, kimchi or kefir/yogurt(if you can do milk) to get some probiotics into your system. i am sorry it does not sound like you are having a very good time with your diet having a better effect on your mood, health or energy. do you like raw fish? half a pound of liver is quite a lot to eat at once! if you ever have one again maybe just chop small chunks and freeze them so you can have less quanitity but more frequently. zinc would be excellent to heal your lip, liver is good source, sucks you chucked it, oysters are also an excellent source...
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One other thing to note is that I've refrained from masturbating for more than a month now, which is probably 2-3 weeks longer than I've ever gone since I started. I haven't had sex either and am purposely not trying to get into a sexual relationship for the forseeable future. I really want to concentrate on feeling better. I want sex to just be, no cravings. Its hard to explain but can't really put my mind into elaborating right now. Perhaps later.
Be careful with your prostate. I know a lot of guys who have done harm to their health by avoiding all ejaculation.
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J, you might be on to something with the probiotics but I've never tried them and don't have any digestion problems right now so I'll stick with the simple plan for now. I barely notice anything when I eat raw meat. I'm up for changing things up but want to wait to reach(hopefully) some stable point. I still have 2 pounds of liver. I didn't know how much to eat at once and was planning on eating the whole pound. Half a pound didnt sound like much.
CK, valid point but I'm assuming that my body will know what it needs to do and expell the semen when it needs to go. I haven't had a nocturnal emission(this is what they called it back in 7th grade health class) yet, but I trust my body on this diet. If holding back ejaculation was harmful then monks would have all sorts of prostate problems.
Today has been better and I feel somewhat decent right now. I ate close to a pound of cooked ground beef at little family get together last night. Again the taste was amazing and I couldn't help myself. I felt pretty tired quickly thereafter with a decently bloated gut and could feel my body working harder to digest the mess I had given it. There was bits of cheese along with a few leaves of salad and even fried pork that I ate as well that surely contributed further.
The sore on my eyebrow worsened overnight and slightly blurred my vision in the morning. Thankfully it decreased throughout the day and I can barely notice it now. Today was one of the first days where I actually somewhat enjoyed my lunch and wanted to finish the meat. I had been mainly forcing the raw meat down. I ate 1.6 pounds of slankers chuck steak raw. Chuck seems to be my favorite cut so far as the fat is marbled in and I don't have to worry about the outer rim fat attached to the tendons(?) that give me problems swallowing. Chuck is also one of the cheapest cuts and I will probably be placing an order for 20-30 pounds more of it soon.
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CK, valid point but I'm assuming that my body will know what it needs to do and expell the semen when it needs to go. I haven't had a nocturnal emission(this is what they called it back in 7th grade health class) yet, but I trust my body on this diet. If holding back ejaculation was harmful then monks would have all sorts of prostate problems.
The heck with monks. You're not a monk. Get some energy work and other training that will allow you to potentially keep the blood and fluids in your prostate and surrounding area flowing, then maybe try it. Seriously, I can point you at a forum full of people who've messed around with this. About 30% seem to really end up with long-lasting issues. I'm not saying it can't be done, but you haven't mentioned any training that would help you keep a healthy prostate.
For me personally, the only way I was ever able to avoid ejaculation was when I was eating a raw vegan diet. It's pretty easy, on such a diet, relatively. Eating lots of good-quality raw animal products makes it nearly impossible, at least for me.
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How do you propose I train my prostate?
I view sex differently now, or at least am trying to. The last couple years before rehab, my mind was filled with sexual fantasies nearly every night. My mission every night was to come home with a different chick or at the least try to get mouth herpes. I had no control. I derived so much worth from being with women. There was no better feeling in life than attempting to go after women. I failed much more than I'd like to admit but the times I had success were incredible, well at least for one night. But like most everything it was never enough. I don't care for chasing this type of high ever again.
I'm trying to retrain my mind to be patient and quiet and free of extremes. So far this diet is helping me do this with respects to my nails and shirts. I easily have 20+ shirts that have absurd amounts of holes at the next line where I have incessantly chewed them to pieces because of my anxiety while I play poker or workout or just nervous in general. I haven't barely put my shirt in my mouth this past month. Same with my nails. I've never had nails my entire life. I have chewed and eaten so many of my nails and have had way too many ingrown infected nails to care fo. This has ended for the time being. To me this is freedom. I am feeling a bit more at ease.
I want the same thing with sex. I have a borderline sex addiction that I am rather uncomfortable with that has possessed my mind. I believe in the right relaxed state of mind regardless of how healthy I may be with my diet that sex will come naturally when I'm ready. Just because this diet gives me great healthy sperm and attracts women more doesn't mean I am going to take advantage of it. Thats exactly what I'm trying to avoid. I don't think I would be happy at all even if I could pick out the most beautiful women to sleep with every night. Perhaps its fantasy (or im fooling myself) but I'm looking for more than that. If I can control myself from eating junk food I can control myself from chasing women.
I've actually had a chance to put all this into practice. I have been hanging out regularly with a girl from work since before christmas. We hit it off immediately and it quickly got to a point where we could have copulated. I spoke up though and told her where I was coming from and she respected my thoughts and so backed off. I still couldn't help the sexual flirting and did it constantly. It took a while but the last few days I have completely refrained from the sexual innuedos and feel so much better for it. My mind is more at peace with the situation. When we first met all, my thoughts were seemingly always on sex and it was harder to concentrate on the conversation. Its as though my thoughts can flow easier if I can control the extreme desire for sex.
I'm not sure where I've gone with all that rambling or if it makes any sense. I feel great about the direction I am going even if it is pretty slow and a little painful for the time being.
Maybe I will become a monk. I read an article in discovery a while back that stated buddist monks are naturally the happiest people on earth. They did some intense brain scans of sorts that apparently showed measureable results that this is so.
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How do you propose I train my prostate?
Look, I'm not saying you can't refrain from sex for a while. I'm just saying, sex is like anything else. Refraining from it completely can have unintended consequences.
I don't know, I'll have to think on this and get back to you.
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While I respect CK's opinion on abstinence (and do agree wholeheartedly under normal circumstances) I think you're making the right choice in the beginning of your recovery. As your diet heals you you will find you have a better equilibrium and can pursue a sexual relationship without it getting out of hand but right now you're in a fragile state and your addiction could easily overwhelm you. Best to center your mind and let the rest follow. :)
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Thanks djr, that simplified my entire mess into one sentence. I'm not going to abstain forever. A few months won't hurt. I'd rather be in a much better place mentally before getting into a relationship. I can already feel some of the benefits from trying to live this way right now.
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Thanks djr, that simplified my entire mess into one sentence. I'm not going to abstain forever. A few months won't hurt. I'd rather be in a much better place mentally before getting into a relationship. I can already feel some of the benefits from trying to live this way right now.
That's great, just don't go overboard with it. Not that you would, it's just that I'm hypersensitive to that because I've seen it go way wrong.
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All I will say on this sensitive issue re sexual activity, is that it's quite common for people not yet recovered from RPD issues to feel overly sexual and to have issues, no doubt due to issues re weakened glands. After being fully healed, one's sexual stamina is actually significantly improved, but one doesn't get pornographic urges etc. to any real extent any more. That is, urges get more controlled, but sexual stamina gets far better.
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When it comes to diet and other health practices, monks are some of the last people I would emulate. I had a friend who was a monk and engaged in bread-and-water fasting, celibacy, silence for 6 days of the week, and other abstentions that his order required. Not long after he started the fasting his teeth rotted and had to be extracted, his hair fell out in clumps, he experienced hallucinations and became gaunt and people started calling him "Ichabod Crane," and when he eventually, mercifully died it was a slow and horrible death from cancer. Even when he was really ill with cancer he refused to try a healthier diet and said he just wanted to die and be with God (he was seriously depressed by that point). I read his autobiography after he died and it revealed that he and his close relatives had had a litany of the diseases and syndromes of civilization and the monk diet and lifestyle was thus particularly catastrophic for him.
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When it comes to diet and other health practices, monks are some of the last people I would emulate. I had a friend who was a monk and engaged in bread-and-water fasting, celibacy, silence for 6 days of the week, and other abstentions that his order required. Not long after he started the fasting his teeth rotted and had to be extracted, his hair fell out in clumps, he experienced hallucinations and became gaunt and people started calling him "Ichabod Crane," and when he eventually, mercifully died it was a slow and horrible death from cancer. Even when he was really ill with cancer he refused to try a healthier diet and said he just wanted to die and be with God (he was seriously depressed by that point). I read his autobiography after he died and it revealed that he and his close relatives had had a litany of the diseases and syndromes of civilization and the monk diet and lifestyle was thus particularly catastrophic for him.
Some orders of monks were quite the opposite, indulging in lots of foods and making wines etc.
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Some orders of monks were quite the opposite, indulging in lots of foods and making wines etc.
Oh, this monastery made food and wine all right. The problem is, one of the staple foods they made was bread made with the wheat, barley and oats they grew and they forced their monks to go through long periods of fasting on it. They didn't fast all the time. Sometimes they ate hearty, but it was lots of grains and vegetables that they grew. He said they even often ate candy, though it was usually just a piece or two each. Later on my friend became a hermit monk living on very little money and he unfortunately ate lots of canned beans and very little meat, so he further damaged his health. He fit the stereotype of the ascetic monk, except that he talked a lot. It's hard to imagine how he maintained the vow of silence 6 out of 7 days of the week in the monastery.
He was diagnosed with lupus late in life, one of the chronic autoimmune diseases of civilization. He was completely oblivious to the dietary connection between such diseases and diet. It was heart-breaking reading in his autobiography his glowing descriptions of the very foods that had sickened and killed him:
"I had my first experience in combining WHEAT, OATS, BARLEY and the rest. To see all those little grains pouring into the hopper and load after load going to the granary was a thing of sheer beauty."
"Most folks like a good chicken dinner, at least now and again, but in a pinch they will eat BEANS. Will Rogers was an old cowhand, and he enjoyed a good dish of beans. Describing a good meal once, someone inquired what he would have for dessert. His answer was to the effect that there was no room for dessert, and if there was, he'd have some more of the wonderful beans."
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I'm aware that many monk orders avoided meats, but from what I've read and seen, vegetarian diets tend overwhelmingly to be healthier than diets high in cooked animal foods. I only have to look at the older generation I come across, in this regard.
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I would agree that a whole foods vegetarian diet COULD be healthier than the typical cooked animal foods diet, only because the latter would tend to have a lot of processed carbs and processed animal products in it. When I was a whole foods vegetarian, I was quite serious about it, as I suspect many are.
I would place the health of a cooked pure animal foods diet (i.e. cooked ZC) over a whole foods vegetarian diet, however.
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I'm aware that many monk orders avoided meats, but from what I've read and seen, vegetarian diets tend overwhelmingly to be healthier than diets high in cooked animal foods. I only have to look at the older generation I come across, in this regard.
I'm only sharing what his actual experience was. He was a big time grain and bean eater who fared very poorly. This fits in perfectly with the RPD model (cooked grains and beans are neither Paleo nor raw), so I'm not sure why you have a problem with this. Surely all RPDers can agree that bread and water fasts, which are not uncommon in monk circles, are not a healthy practice. They contributed to the destruction of the health of my friend, which I will never forget.
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I'm only sharing what his actual experience was. He was a big time grain and bean eater who fared very poorly. This fits in perfectly with the RPD model (cooked grains and beans are neither Paleo nor raw), so I'm not sure why you have a problem with this. Surely all RPDers can agree that bread and water fasts, which are not uncommon in monk circles, are not a healthy practice. They contributed to the destruction of the health of my friend, which I will never forget.
Oh, I was just thinking of 1 or 2 more hedonist monk orders in the Middle-Ages who didn't mind feasting here and there. I knew that monks routinely fasted in terms of avoiding meats fish etc. for long periods, but I hadn't realised that they were expected to only consume bread/beans-and-water except in the most closed of orders. Maybe it was more common than I realised.
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it is weird you guys are talking about monks in paleodonks journal, i will share my one monk experience that kind of ties in and maybe gives him a few ideas?
i worked on a farm and studied under a monk who was originally a collegiate rugby play(he was a really strong man, large frame, HUGE JAW! excellent features, excellent specimen really!) surfer and also had had a past of abuse and womanizing. he was reformed from that, celebate and raw vegan and seriously as docile as a puppydog, although behind his eyes you could still tell there was something or atleast used to be something incideous....what sucked was he was already on a diet that could not provide his body with the proper protein for the amount of work we did(12-14hr days on a farm no motorized tools, manual haul of supplies(dirt, algae, compost, produce, hay) miles at a time) and although he was a highly intelligent it took him a very long time to get out a comment, to complete ideas, and the less he ate the more dim he would become. when he would eat it would be like 5000000lb's of fruit, nuts, salad and oil and then his stomach would become bloated and he would have guilt for being "glutonous" and then fast again! it think that fasting and extreme diets like this are OK in the short term and perhaps can help rid the body and personality some extreme traits that are really just a result of hormone, histamine and cortisol levels, but that one must eat meat and fat to feed the brain!! he definitely cured his agression and womanizing and was a beautiful generous soul(which he was all along, just out of balance!) i think in the long term they put the body out of balance much more
you have to think that most monks do not do much physical labor when fasting because they are often in the practice of prayer and meditation at that time so they dont require much more then water to keep hydrated
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Oh, I was just thinking of 1 or 2 more hedonist monk orders in the Middle-Ages who didn't mind feasting here and there. I knew that monks routinely fasted in terms of avoiding meats fish etc. for long periods, but I hadn't realised that they were expected to only consume bread/beans-and-water except in the most closed of orders. Maybe it was more common than I realised.
Sure, as I said earlier, this monastery grew many of their own foods and likely also feasted at times and even "frequently" ate candy. My father told me that their fasts were actually just bread and water--no beans. The beans were a food he personally enjoyed, unfortunately. I don't know much details about their fasts, but I can check into it further with my father, if you like. I didn't realize that any Christian monasteries still had such severe fasting practices until I learned about what he went through. Not all monks reacted as badly as he did, of course. I was surprised that the monastery didn't exempt him from the rigors of the fast, given his poor response, but from his autobiography I learned that he actually looked forward to the annual Lenten fasts they did and viewed the suffering as a way of getting closer to God:
"I used to like Lent when we fasted. I got weak in the knees with the rest of them, but held my own. .... Then, too, in the reciting of the hours of the Divine Office, I very frequently, and with little or no effort, had a very vivid image of my suffering Jesus come to my mind."
The Medieval reasoning for Lenten fasting was strange and similar to the later strange views of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg:
Fasting during Lent was more severe in ancient times than today. Socrates Scholasticus reports that in some places, all animal products were strictly forbidden, while others will permit fish, others permit fish and fowl, others prohibit fruit and eggs, and still others eat only bread. In some places, believers abstained from food for an entire day; others took only one meal each day, while others abstained from all food until 3 o'clock. In most places, however, the practice was to abstain from eating until the evening, when a small meal without meat or alcohol was eaten. Even now, the Orthodox Churches continue the practice of avoiding all animal products including fish, eggs, fowl and milk sourced from animals (e.g. goats and cows as opposed to the milk of soy beans and coconuts) for the entire fifty-five days of their Lent.
During the early Middle Ages, meat, eggs and dairy products were generally forbidden. Thomas Aquinas argued that "they afford greater pleasure as food [than fish], and greater nourishment to the human body, so that from their consumption there results a greater surplus available for seminal matter, which when abundant becomes a great incentive to lust."[Fasting and abstinence, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lent#Fasting_and_abstinence]
Here's a similar bit about Kellogg's views:
"Some of his work on diet was influenced by his belief that a plain and healthy diet, with only two meals a day, among other things, would reduce sexual feelings. Those experiencing temptation were to avoid stimulating food and drinks, and eat very little meat, if any. Kellogg also advocated hydrotherapy and stressed the importance of keeping the colon clean through yogurt enemas." [John Harvey Kellogg, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harvey_Kellogg#Views_on_sexuality]
In reading his autobiography I see that symptoms of sensitivity to Neolithic foods were present early in his youth (it was apparently a family problem, as he reported that his brother also suffered from chronic health problems) and his diet throughout his life sounds like it was very poor. He was a poor cook, so in addition to beans he often ate boxed macaroni and cheese in his hermit days.
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Thank you all for the interesting monk discussion! I'll add my thoughts now but perhaps it would be better suited in a new thread dedicated to monks or meditation.
While clearly the monastic diet seems highly suboptimal and their logic a little blurry, I think their attempt at simplicity is something enviable. I've had the chance to go to several Greek Orthodox monasteries and even a nunnary or two, some in Greece some in the US. There is an absolutely gorgeous monastery in southern Arizona between Phoenix and Tucson named St. Anthony. Its one of the most pristine, perfectly arranged assortmeny of worship cathedrals and chapels along with palms and other desert plants that you will can eve imagine. There are something like 40 full time monks there that work the grounds which include acres of lemon, olive and other fruit trees.
I spent a few hours walking around, taking the tour, buying a couple books at the store but couldn't help thinking how much everything cost. This outrageously extravagent place has probably cost easily more than 10 million to build. You'd think one or two places of worship would be more than enough but they keep building more and more every year. It just doesn't seem like money well spent or at least money spent that falls in line with monastic philosophy.
All the monks I encountered were thin, some weakly emaciated and soft spoken for the most part but looked content. Their hours are ridiculous, I forget but I believe they sleep for three or four hours at night and then a couple more in the afternoon. They have services for several hours(5+) each day praying for the world. It seems so incredibly painful to be a monk. You can actually stay with them for a few days, so maybe one day I'll jump in and see what its really like. Need to make some pemmican at first.
Also to add - the Greek Orthodox have an insane amount of fasting days. I think its up to half the year. But these arent total fasts I believe just from meats and cheese, though somehow shellfish is fine.
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Almost 4 weeks in! Whoooop! (any Aggies here?). I bought some ketone strips to check what was going on and tested low the first time and then moderate upon waking this morning.
The main thing I want from this diet, as I've mentioned multiple times before, is energy. I usually feel so slow, sluggish, listless and can get so angry for feeling this way. I thought that just changing the diet would do it all for me. Once I had my energy I would be able to do the other things in life that made me feel good.
I've had thoughts of doing just a small line of cocaine. How incredible it would make me feel! They call this euphoric recall. I've only done about 3 grams ever, which is amount that a cokehead could easily handle in one night but the intense, overwhelming feeling of pleasure is hard to forget. There were a few moments where I desperately wanted to clear up all this agonizing clutter in my head. Its like nearly instaneously I can do anything I want and know that I'm making the right decision. It really is a helluva drug, at least before you die from overdose.
I'm coming to terms with the fact that I must get myself moving and working without all that extra energy that I was hoping for. Every time I read my anxiety book and do the exercises I get a sense of relief, feel a bit renewed and get passionate about just doing something. I was feeling sleepy, with heavy eyelids yesterday around noonish and was scheduled to go the gym. Instead of forcing myself to go tired, I worked first on my anxiety and then went shortly after. I ended up having a good workout with good energy throughout.
I hadn't mentioned this yet, just forgot, but I was taking a low dose antidepressant (10mg lexapro) for two months which I stopped taking three days ago. It takes a couple weeks I believe to fully get out of your system so I won't know anything for awhile. It was doing nothing noticeable for me so why not chunk it and see where I'm at.
I also did a little yoga on dvd yesterday in the morning. I am quite inflexible, and feel tight all over my body. When I bend down to touch my toes my hamstrings start to hurt when my hands are about 6 inches above the ground and reaching for the ground is extremely painful. My globo gym also offers yoga so I'll be checking that out as well. I generally feel very relieved and peaceful after a session.
I'm also going to start eating more. I was being a bit foolish trying to keep my intake low. I got caught up in wanting to lose weight, which should have been low on my list. I do eventually want to lose the fat for jumping and explosion purposes in the sports that I will be doing but it isn't necessary now. I think I was averaging about 1.7 pounds of meat a day which is entirely way to low for me. I ate almost 3 pounds yesterday (about half a pound was cooked). I was forcing myself through hunger which I'm not going to do anymore. I had a good bit of slankers lamb shoulder which was probably the best tasting meat to date. It was also pretty fatty and I think I like lamb more than beef. I'll be sending out for another much bigger order on monday.
1/16
Bench DB - worked up to
100x5
105x4.5 - ooomph just barely failed last rep
Hang Power Snatch
bar work
95x2
115x2
135x1
145x1
150x1 PR!!
There was a time last year when I could not get 115 so this is huge
Deadlift - again was going to go for 345x4 but grip is failing
205x2
275x2
345x1
395x1 - alternate grip
345x1
I had good energy throughout but felt stiff at the same time
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Good journal man. Are you eating any fruit/veg, even if it's something like 1 tomato per day? If you're doing completely carnivore, you may have some problems, I know I can't go 100% carnivore, tried a couple times. I can go quite a few days only meat, but around the 5 day mark I start to notice poor breath and lethargy. Other people don't have any problems.
Are you getting plenty of raw fat. I remeber as a kid I didn't like when my mom made pot roast, b/c it didn't take much until I felt sick b/c of all the fat. I eat way more fat now than I ever did then and feel great, b/c it's raw. I tried some cooked fat just a couple weeks ago (chicken leg quarters) and had the same yuck feeling.
Also, I noticed stomach probs about 1 1/2 yrs ago eating a lot of ground beef. I would go in cycles of being fine, and then loose stools. When I switched to just steaks and ribs, I haven't had any problems since. But other people seem to do fine on it.
Solid numbers in the gym. Keep at it.
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Good journal man. Are you eating any fruit/veg, even if it's something like 1 tomato per day? If you're doing completely carnivore, you may have some problems, I know I can't go 100% carnivore, tried a couple times. I can go quite a few days only meat, but around the 5 day mark I start to notice poor breath and lethargy. Other people don't have any problems.
Guittarman, why do you think complete carnivore diet doesn't suit you?
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hey donk
suck about your craving for coke i really hope you dont cave and go that way
honestly with what you have been through in life i am sure your adrenals are pretty run down and that is why you feel energetic then usual and also with the diet changes foods arent stimulants anymore, just fuel
i hope you are gentile with yourself and realize that life progresses and that you cannot look back and think "gee, i wish i had the energy i used to" without realizing that in the past you may have also been doing something or feeling something detrimental to yourself at the same time! it sucks but learning to reaccept yourself as you are will maybe help you realize you are doing progressively okay physically and even better mentally and that that is enough without making comparisons to the past which are not always the whole truth :)
also realize that while its been 4 weeks, its ONLY been four weeks, shit does not get undone that quickly..........anyway hope any of that helps
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Good journal man. Are you eating any fruit/veg, even if it's something like 1 tomato per day? ....
I would be cautious about tomatoes, which are nightshades. There are other preferable veggies.
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Good journal man. Are you eating any fruit/veg, even if it's something like 1 tomato per day? If you're doing completely carnivore, you may have some problems, I know I can't go 100% carnivore, tried a couple times. I can go quite a few days only meat, but around the 5 day mark I start to notice poor breath and lethargy. Other people don't have any problems.
Glad you stopped by. I've switched to carnivore a couple times now from a diet with carbs and luckily have never noticed any problems with strength. I've never played any sports or have done much intense sprinting or conditioning work during this time so I can't say how my carnivory will affect them. I have been attempting to lightly run on the treadmill and have had to stop three times now because I felt a dull pain in my chest and really did not want to see where it lead to. I did do a few a sprints on the beach a few days ago just fine and will attempt to run today on the beach for a bit. Ideally I would like to test the effects of being completely raw carnivore on all my athletic endeavors. So far its quite inconclusive only that my strength still increases.
Are you getting plenty of raw fat. I remeber as a kid I didn't like when my mom made pot roast, b/c it didn't take much until I felt sick b/c of all the fat. I eat way more fat now than I ever did then and feel great, b/c it's raw. I tried some cooked fat just a couple weeks ago (chicken leg quarters) and had the same yuck feeling.
Also, I noticed stomach probs about 1 1/2 yrs ago eating a lot of ground beef. I would go in cycles of being fine, and then loose stools. When I switched to just steaks and ribs, I haven't had any problems since. But other people seem to do fine on it.
Solid numbers in the gym. Keep at it.
Cooked fat has always been my favorite food ever since I was kid. It still is my favorite unfortunately and I've consumed a decent amount of it even these past 4 weeks. I was not eating much at all these last 4 weeks(somewhere around 1.5-2 pounds of meat a day) but have just decided a couple days ago to go ahead and eat as much as I felt like. I don't mind raw fat as it has almost no taste and will be ordering it soon. I don't like the taste of raw ground beef either and it tends to make me feel a bit nautious.
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J, you're probably on to something with my adrenals being burned out. I think I mentioned early on about the suffering I went through when playing poker - heres a little more. Nothing ever has stressed me out like playing poker, ever, and its not even close. The pain I felt from losing is unbelievably intense and sharp and feels worse than hearing the news of a death. My addiction to poker would have me playing several hours where I would scream and yell almost non-stop nearly everytime I played. I was maniacal. I broke three separate lap tops with my bare fists and several other monitors, cell phones and other things. I felt completely run down after finishing a session. I could barely think when I was playing and did not care for anyone except myself. I would roll around on the floor when I lost, cry like an infant and bemoan my bad luck. I was a very sick soul. This probably absurdly taxed my adrenals. The pain was just so incredibly deep, its hard to explain. But its over now thankfully.
The last couple days have been slightly better, energy level probably at its highest level yet. I've never experienced detox but had an odd looking off colored bowel movement a couple days ago in which I felt great relief afterword. My bowel movements haven't been all that solid yet but at least they are pain free.
Yesterday was one of the first days where I think I craved raw meat. Unfortunately every Sunday we go to brunch together at an all you can eat buffet. The waffles and endless desserts still look very appetizing but weren't as much as a distraction as they were last week. I ate a little less food this time and perhaps I'll eat beforehand next week and so even further reduce my cooked food intake. I actually slept for a couple hours right after the brunch, so perhaps cooked foods are becominga bit harder for me to handle now that Im eating more raw?
I'm finding myself able to focus in on what I need to do more and stop concentrating on frivilous things such as boobs, or mirrors(i've always had this need to look at myself in the mirror), or cooked food. I'm letting the distractions pass through my mind much easier.
Also Phil, I think I'm going to reintroduce some fruit like berries when you do this summer. I do enjoy pretty much all vegetation but will keep it safe and simple at first. I'd rather not be carnivours if I don't have to but it makes some sense now in the winter time when vegetation would be scarce.
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Like reintroducing dairy back into one's diet by adding one additional tablespoon each day to enable what small amount of lactase digesting bacteria remaining to begin to flourish again, may I suggest the same program. Each day add a berry or three to you get up to a small serving size, whatever that is.
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Yea, I'll definitely try and avoid purging on them and hopefully by that time my self-control will be stellar so that I can slowly add them back into my diet.
Couple other things, I ordered 60 more pounds of slankers beef and lamb with some heart, tongue and marrow. Unfortunately they have run out of fat and are apparently using lots of it for the high-fat ground beef (damn you Lex!). The chuck and lamb were the fattiest thing I ordered last time so hopefully they will suffice.
One of the main reasons I lift is to increase functionality with respects to the sports I will hopefully be involving myself in. One of the better measures of athletic performance is vertical jump. I found a tape measure and found that my reach is 93" (7 feet, 9 inches). I found a basketball goal nearby and measured the rim to be just a hair below 10 feet. I warmed up, shot some hoops by myself for a bit and then did some jumping. At first I could only just barely get rim, but slowly I started a bit more height and peaked out at 4 inches above the rim.
Running Vertical -- 30-31"
Standing Vertical -- 27"
I'd really like to be able to dunk a basketball which I've done before on a rim slightly below 10'. I'll need another 3-4 inches to have a chance. My best chance is to start my squats back up and keep improving my hang power cleans/snatches by another 20-30 or so pounds. I'm also only 5'10.5 :(
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Couple other things, I ordered 60 more pounds of slankers beef and lamb with some heart, tongue and marrow. Unfortunately they have run out of fat and are apparently using lots of it for the high-fat ground beef (damn you Lex!). The chuck and lamb were the fattiest thing I ordered last time so hopefully they will suffice.
*Looks down at lunch of over a pound of Slanker's high-fat ground beef*
I have to take some of that blame as well. :P
On the bright side my butcher will have the good meat back in this Wednesday so I won't need to order from Slanker's again for a while. :)
It's good to hear you're doing well eating this way. I agree that adding some berries into your diet when it warms up again is a good bet. Best to hedge your bets and stay truly omnivorous if you can, IMO. Moderation is the key.
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It must be nice with butchers close by. Unfortunately, up here in NE Florida there aren't any that close. I checked eatwild.com which seems like the ultimate source for finding grass fed beef. Maybe there are others??? I called a couple looking for fat or suet but they were all out as well. I'm not sure the cuts of meat I got are going to have sufficient fat on them so this is a little worrying now that I think about it. I really want to try some raw suet as well. Brains too are on my "wish" list.
I'm not sure I believe berries will be part of moderation. I'm looking for optimality whatever it is and if it means refraining from vegetation then thats what I'm going to do. Its actually rather easy being a carnivore so I wouldn't mind staying like this anyway.
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I can find marrow bones locally, they should be everywhere. Marrow is better than suet.
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aunaturale,
I've tried zc a couple times before. The first time was 2-3 weeks. My breath started to smell really bad, and then for the first time in my life, I developed cavities (purely by chance, I had a checkup a few weeks after my zc trial, but refused to have my cavities drilled/filled). I also had bowel problems and low energy. Adding just a few carbs - less than 30g - and my breath and energy immediately recovered; after year now, the dentist has confirmed that I no longer have dental carries, just a couple small indentations where they had gone down in the tooth some. The other time was after at least 3 months of VLC, and I stopped after a week b/c my breath began to smell bad again. I figured it wasn't worth it to try again, especially considering other people on the forum have had similar experiences.
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I can find marrow bones locally, they should be everywhere. Marrow is better than suet.
I get marrow more often; mostly because it can be smoother and I prefer the taste. I wonder whether by the nature of suet getting so much blood flow past it, and it used to absorb or filter so much, whether it is really "clean". Suet's less expensive too, so that's a plus on its side. Suet is much more saturated, which many people find healthier, with good reasons. Marrow has a less saturated fat, and lots of people say that's important healthwise. I think it's a personal decision as to which one is better.
I have not seen suet on the market shelf locally. Is it in local markets? Is it normally sold to industry rather than to food shoppers?
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I have not seen suet on the market shelf locally. Is it in local markets? Is it normally sold to industry rather than to food shoppers?
I always have to ask the butcher, but they never have much because the meat is trimmed before they get it. This is in a supermarket.
I get suet via the farmer that supplies the grass-finished beef, but since his cattle have almost no fat, he asks the butcher (small town), result is it's not from grass-finished cattle.
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You are seriously strong.
Good luck with staying off the drugs and alcohol, a month is a decent achievment.
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I wonder whether by the nature of suet getting so much blood flow past it, and it used to absorb or filter so much, whether it is really "clean".
fat is nonvacillated so even though suet is near all of those organs i dont think it has much to do with filtering....maybe just storing of toxins, but i am not sure? marrow is delicious and it is where blood cells are produced, i think in terms of cleanliness this would be the best bet
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aunaturale,
I've tried zc a couple times before. The first time was 2-3 weeks. My breath started to smell really bad, and then for the first time in my life, I developed cavities (purely by chance, I had a checkup a few weeks after my zc trial, but refused to have my cavities drilled/filled). I also had bowel problems and low energy. Adding just a few carbs - less than 30g - and my breath and energy immediately recovered; after year now, the dentist has confirmed that I no longer have dental carries, just a couple small indentations where they had gone down in the tooth some. The other time was after at least 3 months of VLC, and I stopped after a week b/c my breath began to smell bad again. I figured it wasn't worth it to try again, especially considering other people on the forum have had similar experiences.
That's interesting. I had exactly the opposite reaction. I'm baffled. On raw carnivore the painful hole in my tooth filled in and my bad breath went away. I was just noticing today that my underarm odor is essentially gone and my shirts don't smell at the end of the day--even if I sweated some. Don't know what it will be like in the summer, though.
I also noticed that my hair feels clean, full and soft when I wake up in the morning now--even though I still use shampoo (though it's a natural shampoo that contains coconut). Some people said that their hair got this way after they stopped shampooing, but for me it happened with raw carnivore even though I'm still shampooing (but I skipped the shampoo yesterday because my hair felt and looked so good--I think I'll try every other day for a while and just use tiny amounts of shampoo).
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I had another good day yesterday and had the first feeling of mild euphoria late in the evening. I'm reading Cosmos by Carl Sagan(very good so far) and read faster than I had previously and had good energy right until I went to bed. I seem to feel much better later in the day between 7 and 10 p.m. I also felt very strong last night and really felt like lifting but went ahead and waited for today.
Thanks for bringing up the marrow William, I actually bought 4 pounds of bones from slankers and so will be trying it out for the first time raw very soon. I'm really excited about this as I've always broken bones and even eaten parts of them in the past to get to the cooked marrow. I tried looking up nutrient values for it but couldn't find much. The USDA nutrient database has a little data on caribou marrow(wtf?). Aparently the fat is not as saturated and Delfuego found that it didnt give him as much energy as muscle or kidney suet. I'm still excited and am almost craving some right now even though I've never had it. Theres a good chance I'm not getting enough fat right now. I'm thinking marrow from grain fed cattle would be almost as good as the pasture fed since marrow needs to be of high quality for life to sustain itself while muscle fat is rather useless in excess.
I haven't mentioned but I saw Phil posting about hygeine so I'll give you my thoughts. I rarely shower, even after I work out and don't really ever plan on using shampoo ever again. I do use some soap but just for the areas that nudists have trouble getting sun on. I also only brush my teeth once every other day. In rehab I brushed my teeth and washed my face twice a day. My teeth have never really bled after brushing but for some reason they did everyday in rehab. Today was the first day that there was no blood. My teeth feel pretty strong perhaps stronger than they were last month. I don't wash my face either, though have delt with lots of minor acne since puberty. Acne is still around and appears to be slightly less.
Also, about my hair, I noticed since I was 17 that my hair had started to fall out. I was extremely scared back then and even secretely bought some rogaine while still in high school. I only used it that one time. Somehow I still have hair all over my head though it has thinned out a good deal, though if its dark you probably won't notice it much. I was really excited to see so many people have positive results with hair with low-carb. I'm actually afraid to run my hands through my hair to see if any of it falls out but I'll try and keep tabs on it anyways. I do occasionally put coconut oil in my hair and it works very well and holds it exactly where it needs to be for an entire night.
I'm also going to bed around 1030 and waking up right around 730 almost every week night. I am dreaming more often and more vividly than I have in recent memory. I'm also rarely if ever waking up during the night, something I've always done.
I got about 20 minutes of sun exposure today on the beach. It was incredible, I haven't been in the sun in months and since I am fairly dark skinned I probably need a bit more sun than average. I'd like to get it up to at least an hour and should have no problem doing this as the cold weather seems to have passed.
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I also got in a good workout this afternoon. I felt very strong and energetic.
Overhead Standing Press
115x5
135x5
140x5
145x5 - Just barely got the last rep up
Between the last two sets I went and ran 3/4 mile on the treadmill to rest my shoulders. I had a good little run running the last 400 yards in about 1:20 or averaging a little above 10 mph. No dull chest pain and good energy.
Hang Power Clean
95x2
135x1
155x1
175x1
205x1
215x1
225xFx2
I was doing well and actually pulled 215 very high and slammed it against my chest hard. I think I would have gotten my first attempt at 225 but rammed the bar against my penis which hurt like hell for a couple minutes. My second attempt was just poor but I should get this soon.
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I've been a bit iritable, angry, though slightly energetic the past couple days. I'm earning almost nothing these days but luckily have a place to stay for free. I haven't spent anything outside of food and food for my car which is great and I'd like to keep it that way but still it would be nice to have some extra income to buy any and all the meat that I need. My health comes first above all and I will do what it takes to make it as good as it can get.
It crossed my mind to play a few hours of poker a week to supplement extra health expeditures. This idea flamed quickly when I flipped out completely when I used a borrowed gps to find the only whole foods in town. I couldn't figure the gps out and wanted to end its existence quite quickly. I even whined childishly in misery as this device had complete control over me. I am improving but clearly I'm still sensitive when things don't go my way. If this silly gps got me upset then poker is going to be 100's times worse.
So I found the whole foods (its 40 min away unfortunately) and got some grass-fed beef. I can even get some extra fat if I call in ahead of time. My 65 pound slankers order is coming tomorrow so I should be reloaded for the next month or so.
I have started looking into healing clays and charcoal thanks to the recent threads and will probably try these out some time in the future once I get more information. I don't mind trying alternative therapies as long as there aren't any harsh negative side effects from them and the worst that could happen is that I burn money.
I also looked into heavy metal poisoning and though it seems like there is a good deal of crack science there is a good chance there is some legitimacy about it. I found a professional looking site, melisa.org that apparently has the only true test for heavy metal toxicity. Looking at hair or urine isn't as accurate as their test. I might end up doing this if I don't feel like I'm improving several months down the road. It looks to be 2-300 dollars so nothing that I'm going to be rushing into.
I just counted and have 10 cavaties(dentists found 8 in one visit!) that I assume are filled with mercury amalgam. Supposedly this is safe but I wouldn't be opposed to getting them out if I knew it could be done safely. I've also chewed on countless pens and pencils my entire life having several pens exploding in my mouth and good amount of pencil wood and probably some lead eaten as well. I've also chewed on paper nearly every day as well for at least a decade. Tons and tons of plastic caps as well. Basically I've put a lot of potentially posionous things in my mouth for a very long period of time. I'm going to let my diet do what it does first (4-6 months) and then look into the alternative detoxes and other tests to see if I am further poisoned.
I have chewed just about nothing in the past month which is truly unbelievable as I chewed on something nearly every day. Occasionally a piece of raw fat can take over 30 minutes to chew but at least its safe.
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lol, it took me a while to remember not to chew on plastic stuff like pens.
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I had to live through high-difficulty awkwardness yesterday when I went out with a buddy of mine from rehab and his parents. I've been spending a good amount of time with him and have talked to his parents a good deal. His parents are extremely nice and are the kind of people that make sure you are taken care of, especially during dinner time. They took me out to dinner last month before Christmas when I was wasn't raw carnivore yet and spent a good 10 minutes talking about all kinds of different foods. I ordered a massive chocloate dessert which was the talked about longer than I cared to eat it.
I'd been anticipating the next dinner and even rehearsed in my head how the night would go. My friend's mom is one of those that helps in the process of conducting those huge epidemiological studies on cancers. I obviously think these studies are more or less an awful waste of money. Dr. Eades recently posted about one here- its pretty funny. I thought about the different chain of events that could take place leading to different catastrophies all at the dinner table.
Well, gladly nothing really happened. My energy seems to peak whenever I'm around his parents. I think I feel I have to be upbeat and charasmatic and so thats how I act. It feels pretty good actually. Before we sat down I said in a very warm, clear and confident tone that I was on a very specific diet. Before I said what it was the mom assured me that she'd heard of them all and that I'd surely find someting on the menu that I could eat. I laid it out, so simply that I eat nothing but raw meat.
I was pretty nervous so I wasn't exactly paying attention to their reactions but I didn't feel threatened when I spoke out. I was immediately greeted with the usual atkins comparisons and that it wasn't complete. The mom even jabbed at me that I would be getting a heart attack and then added how she wouldn't be able to resist looking at other people eating foods that she couldn't. I didn't try and defend myself just kind of smiled and said I was experimenting with a new diet and that I would eventuallly add back in other foods.
I did explain that it was high-fat and not high-protein but I really, really would hate to go any further and explain in depth anything. These people are so incredibly nice, how I could I ever look into the sweet woman's eyes and tell her that everything she thinks of diet and disease is most likely wrong. So it kept it simple and just tried laughing the awkwardness away. I was on the verge of not ordering anything but they kept persuading me so I indulged in a 6 oz "rare as you can make it" steak. It was fantastic as usual and broke my streak of 4 straight days of all raw.
I don't seem to have trouble telling people I don't know about my diet, its generally people my parents age or older that I feel that I'm just breaking their souls by not eating the foods they eat. It's just something that I will get better at and I forsee myself down the road having no trouble standing up for what I am doing without having to ever go into an argument or getting defensive when I am challenged.
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I did some yoga and lifted yesterday as well. I'm actually going to go to my first public yoga class in a couple hours. A litte nervous, I hope there aren't that many people.
1/22
Bench BB
205x4
225x3
245x4.5 - spotter let me fail 5th rep but I expended way too much energy
250x1.5 - nothing left here
Rows BB
115x5
135x5
155x5
I haven't done these in a while. I'm going to mix these rows, renegade rows, pullups and chinups for upper back work
Hang Power Snatch
95x3
115x2
135x1
145x1
155x1
New PR at 155. I might be pressing out at the top but I am catching these with very little dip in the knees.
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I don't seem to have trouble telling people I don't know about my diet ... standing up for what I am doing without having to ever go into an argument or getting defensive when I am challenged.
Another tactic is to keep it to yourself. If you are aiming for personality integration (as it seems that you are through your efforts to heal your addictions), you will have to reconcile your "place in the world" as well.
"You" are neither your role in relationships & society, nor the perceptions of others. Personality integration requires boundaries; enlightenment is the dissolution of the boundaries; but you can't do the latter without the former. Addiction is dependence on the external. To "break" addiction, you develop internally what you seek externally. Part of the challenge is realizing exactly what that is; the other part is the interior construction/deconstruction.
Give yourself the gift of some privacy. You are receiving a lot of help from others, which is fine, but you will have to develop your self-image independently if you want true healing.
It's brave and commendable to open yourself as you have. I'm just suggesting that you may want to use the diet as a healing tool psychologically as well as physically since nourishing yourself is the most intimate of acts and since raw paleo is unusual and bound to attract meddling attention.
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PS: I hope the yoga class went well. It's a great way to learn about yourself!
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Thanks for the thoughts lvl. I'm not sure I can keep my diet to myself. I'm not even sure I know what that means. I've been keeping so many of my thoughts to myself over the course of my life and feeling guilty later about not speaking up that I'm tired of doing that. I feel so free when I calmly and assertively tell people who I am and what I'm doing or what I feel like or just whats on my mind. I feel like I've been extraordinarily weak in this regard in the past and its really kept me anxious and fearful. I can't simply just live keeping my thoughts hidden.
I'm simply not going to lie and give someone an excuse for not eating. This to me is torture. I have the right to be healthier than they are. I really hate hiding information and feel this is one reason so many people are so sick right now. It'd be so easy if were all just honest and upfront with the truth.
I realize there are going to be some boundaries and those I will not cross. I am not going to go into any great detail on how my diet works for certain people. Actually, most people I found are willing to listen and hear me out which is great. I've gotten several people to try raw meat and most of them have really enjoyed it. It didn't really take much persuasion either. It's just I can't see myself going up to a 75 year old grandfather who is in his 45th year of being a cardiologist and tell him the advice he's been dispenising over the entirety of his career is misguided. And then there's the slight possibilty that I am wrong but of course I would put loads of money that I'm right something no low fat doctor would probably ever do.
There are multiple genuine ways of communicating to people about what I eat that won't be infalmatory in any way and will be of the betterment for society. I am working on doing so. Last night was a special case where I was directly facing someone who has decades worth of work done in a field where no doubt she believes she has the right answer. Even then, I can explain myself, as I did last night, in a manner that provokes no further inquisition.
I could have said nothing and eaten my rare steak but I proceeded to let the truth out (not all of it) and feel so much better for it. As long as I won't completely destroy someone I will keep doing so. Steps 8 and 9 of alcoholics anonymous describe this situation well.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make
amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do
so would injure them or others.
That last bit is imporant, except when to do so would injure others. Say you've cheated on your ex-wife who is married with kids you probably wouldn't go interupt her life just to own up to your cheating if she never knew about it. Thats how I feel now. I will own up to my diet unless it is likely to cause harm to others.
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And yoga went well. The hour session is a bit much for now and I found myself not being able to complete all the movements towards the end. This is fine for me. A couple years ago I'd probably be putting myself through a lot of torture to finish everything perfectly and to impress all the people in the class. Today, I just gave in to my body and rested when I felt too strained and knew that I'd be stronger for it. Letting go of the ego is a very hard thing to do.
Actually last year I did do Bikrahm's yoga 3-4 times, where you melt in a 105F room for 90 minutes. I pushed myself very hard through the exercises even though I think I had a slightly fractured foot. As a result it took longer to heal.
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There's a difference between "hiding" and integrity (interpersonal wholeness), which is what I meant to convey
The boundaries I meant are a matter of *allowing* yourself to be and thereby *allowing* others to be, not *holding in* information. Simply not disclosing because it's not necessary or relevant.
Ordering the same food, but not feeling that you have to justify or explain it... Doesn't mean anything except that you eat what you prefer, as others do...
Having a particular diet can be self-definition and social posturing in one extreme, or it can be a sacrament in the other extreme
These personal decisions usually fall somewhere in between for most people
Just food for thought...
Glad you enjoyed the yoga. An hour can be a long session. I've done Bikram yoga and enjoyed it, the climate enables metabolism and respiration to permit an uncommon depth (for those of us who do not practice in a jungle!)
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I still don't get what you are trying to get at. Please use specific examples. You didn't say anything about what I was talking about.
For instance, when someone invites me to dinner I can simply say that I eat raw meat and can sit and chat with them which is a simple, reasonable and perfectly acceptable answer for most people. Or I can lie, evade the truth and have "integrity" and do what? Seriously what? This isn't a rhetorical question. What if I really don't want to eat anything they have to offer?
I don't think people will mind me sitting around without a plate of food. It might be awkward at first for them but its not like I'm causing them any undue harm. If I was eating cooked grain-fed meat then yea I probably get away with not saying as much but thats not the case.
My diet does define a certain aspect of me. Its so very simple if people know what it is. It makes life easier if people know. I only tell people to make life easier and if they want more info then I'll go into it.
I don't get when you think I should speak up and when I shouldn't. I was very specific above and you have given me nothing. I feel attached to my opinion that what I did was right. If you want to constructively criticize what I did then do so and stopbeing so vague. Sorry, I am a bit peturbed and its come out in this post but thats how I feel.
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I believe that LTL meant is that in a case like that to just get the steak and not feel the need to explain why you're only getting a rare steak. If you don't offer an explanation most people could care less why you're eating what you're eating. If you are forthcoming with an explanation when one is not asked for it could possibly lead to conflict (not likely with the company you had at that dinner but it's a possibility with anyone).
You should feel no obligation to explain your actions to others unless they ask.
Your diet is a part of your whole but should not wholly define you; this is all LTL was trying to convey. :)
For the record I see no problem with explaining your food choices at the dinner table. Just be aware some people will be overzealous in their convictions that the way you eat is bad & unhealthy. It's your decision if the possibility of heated discussions and/or arguments is worth it. I'm very forthcoming with my diet but I have the backing of "food allergies" so even if people think I'm nuts for eating this way they "cut me slack" since it's all I can eat.
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I suppose I see that point but you both missed what I initially stated which was that before I thought about ordering anything I told them up front that I would not be able to eat at the restaurant. I'm sure I wasn't clear so heres a bit more. My original plan was to make sure they knew I was on a specific diet and to asure them that I could sit comfortably and chit chat amongst them without anything but water in front of me. I never planned on ordering a steak. Even if I did, I think its still fine to tell people what your specific diet is so that next time, if they do invite you to dinner they will know what to expect and prepare accordingly. The invitation was rather haphazardly thrown together last minute so I didn't have a chance to speak up then.
There were a point that I was pretty sure everything was going to be ok as they settled on the fact that I wasn't ordering anything. It was an issue that I wasn't eating at first but it calmed down right until it came time to order and then I do what I normally do and try and please others and so got the rare small steak.
Im angry. I really liked my explanation and I think I handled it quite well and proud of myself for speaking up. I suppose I want appraisal from others now, feeling a bit weak minded at the moment. I want others to see that I am right. I realize I don't always explain myself fully. I hope this doesn't put offpeople from making comments in the future.
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It didn't put me off.
I think you're handling things great. I had to tell my husband today to stop taking me to restaurants; because it's like taking a diabetic to some kind of sit down candy store to hang out with you while you eat, expecting them to eat also. I think he didn't like what I said for a second, but then he said "thank you" nicely. He daily seems so interested in however the newest restaurant around is serving its pasta. It's hard setting boundaries when the people around have no conception of them. It can be "regular" work you have to do maybe even every day. Hopefully it's not waring.
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It didn't put me off.
I think you're handling things great.
**** yes :P. Thank you.
Also thought of another minor point. I am going to be seeing these people quite a bit in the future so its better that I just get it over with now than keep avoiding it. This is why I visualized the scenario in my head before I went into it. I knew it was necessary and tough at the same time. If I eat with strangers that I won't see again then sure why would I bring anything up.
In fact this visualization method is something straight out of my anxiety book. Its good to prepare for things that you know will lead you to anxiety. I knew this day was coming and I practiced for it and for the most part went through it smoothly.
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Im angry. I really liked my explanation and I think I handled it quite well and proud of myself for speaking up. I suppose I want appraisal from others now, feeling a bit weak minded at the moment. I want others to see that I am right. I realize I don't always explain myself fully. I hope this doesn't put off people from making comments in the future.
For the record I see no problem with explaining your food choices at the dinner table. Just be aware some people will be overzealous in their convictions that the way you eat is bad & unhealthy. It's your decision if the possibility of heated discussions and/or arguments is worth it. I'm very forthcoming with my diet but I have the backing of "food allergies" so even if people think I'm nuts for eating this way they "cut me slack" since it's all I can eat.
As mentioned in my last post I saw nothing wrong with it. ;)
You did handle it well and that's a commendable thing.
I just wanted to agree with LTL that there will be times where not saying a thing can make life easier than offering up an explanation, that's all.
I don't think you have to fear about people holding their tongues. We're all strong-willed people around here so unless you specifically ask someone to not comment people will comment. :)
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I really liked my explanation and I think I handled it quite well and proud of myself for speaking up. I suppose I want appraisal from others now, feeling a bit weak minded at the moment. I want others to see that I am right.
You don't have to have others to validate that you are right, that's what I meant. You can be right within yourself without needing to divulge anything - to anyone.
From my own experience, which may or may not be useful to you (I thought that it may be, which is why I offered it), it seems that you are leaning on others for help and it's great that you can and great that others help. However, I found that eventually it was time to "get on with life" and I wasn't ready for it; I didn't recognize any qualities of my own to build on. I had constructed my self-definition on others' validation/help. When I started making improvements in my life I would be shattered if others didn't really care or disagreed. Sometimes they were even harmful to me due to the power and information I had given them. I found that I needed to start keeping some things personal - not hidden, but precious. That's the "sacrament" aspect of eating for me. There are other areas of my life that are precious as well, also "sacred." Private.
So sometimes dinner should just be dinner. Sometimes everyone would appreciate some simplicity. Maybe this was not the case in the event you described. I wasn't commenting only on that incident, but in general. And generally beyond diet as well.
I'm not trying to provoke or be vague. I hope you have ease and health.
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You avoided my question again. I appreciate your thoughts though I would have liked my question answered.
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You avoided my question again. I appreciate your thoughts though I would have liked my question answered.
I didn't avoid your question, that requires intent :) I missed your question, I'm sorry...
Is this your question?
For instance, when someone invites me to dinner I can simply say that I eat raw meat and can sit and chat with them which is a simple, reasonable and perfectly acceptable answer for most people. Or I can lie, evade the truth and have "integrity" and do what? Seriously what? This isn't a rhetorical question. What if I really don't want to eat anything they have to offer?
By integrity I don't mean "telling the truth," I mean "being true to yourself," which doesn't always mean saying aloud how you feel
As in "integrated"
Anyway, some specific examples I've used are (more or less):
At a party at someone's home:
I'm fine for now, thank you. What a great selection!
(followed by some appreciative conversation about the food)
At a restaurant:
I'm just going to have a cup of tea, but do order what you like. I'm just not very hungry!
(because I ate my raw meal at home before the occasion)
At a buffet:
(I selected a small variety of foods and nibbled on vegetables, no comment necessary)
I also don't eat with others often because the eating together is a bonding event and if I don't participate it could be misunderstood. I suggest alternative activities, such as hiking or a visit to the park, or a visit between mealtimes. Sometimes I choose not to attend an food-oriented event at all with no hard feelings to anyone.
I'm not terribly social and don't have to deal with this often, so perhaps others could provide suggestions?
I hope this is the question that you meant, if not, please clarify
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I didn't mean to derail you
You're moving through difficult times, admirably, looking after your health, that's what counts!
:)
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You seriously missed my question when I said, "Seriously, what?This isn't a rhetorical question" ?
I'm currently exploring mistaken beliefs in my anxiety book. Mistaken beliefs are deeper-lying beliefs or assumptions about myself and life in general that I take for granted and assume to reflect reality. I feel personally threatened when I am criticized and you would notice this if you read through my journal.
I do not like getting criticized at all. I can get very down on myself for long periods of time afterwards and not be able focus on much else. This mainly happens when I argue over the internet on forums such as these. I've had really bad episodes where I've wanted to destroy people and physically hurt them because of their critical nature. I've not really that aggressive online or ever used these type of fighting words but I will often think them to myself after being criticized.
The past couple weeks have been much better in this regard and I haven't been bothered as much and have simply shrugged some things off. Perhaps I haven't been tested as much or there have been less disagreements but in general I have felt more positive.
But when someone rudely points out a flaw in my arguments that I think are right I want to attack. I want to bring them down. I want to make sure they know they are wrong and they admit it. It feels great to have the upper hand in an argument. My ego is uplifted if I can get the other person to feel bad. I absolutely hate thinking that I am incapable of not figuring something out or out thinking someone.
I rarely post inflamatory statements because I am behind a keyboard and can't type as fast as I think. I get time to try and say things that keep the situation somewhat calm.
I see that LVL's posts are here for my well being and that is all and that there is no reason for me to get upset. I can discuss them without trying to bring her down. I can manuever my way around the situation as to not bring anything threatening up.
But my emotional reaction is to attack. And that feels good to do so but also is a variable strategy in that if my logic is incorrect I will feel far worse and even if I do come out on top I will eventually feel silly for purposely being malicious. I don't really disagree with much of what she has written as its just a slight miscommunication.
However with this said I'm not sold that lvl's words are not inflamatory. Throughout this little ordeal she has not commented once on my approach to the situation. Instead of saying how she would have handled my specific situation she gave examples that I had already explained how I would handle. She gives me the impression that I handled my dinner situation incorrectly without telling me what I should have done. Perhaps she purposefully is not trying to validate my experience so that I do not have to rely on validation from others for support as is her contention that I get too much validation from others. Maybe shes trying to validate her own methodology of living by judging me.
In my opinion, when attempting to critique someones approach you mention the parts they did well first and then mention the areas that need improvement.
Again with this family, I am going to see them again. There is a good chance they invite me over for dinner. I am not going to continue to make excuses each and every time we eat. How bizarre would that be? Now they know what to feed me. We even talked about eating at a grass-fed beef place which is a step up.
It looks like you haven't read much of my journal which is fine since its so long and probably a bit boring.
Also I am fine with being wrong. I do not like the feeling of being wrong and dread it but I do have the ability to admit where I went wrong and will readily admit it always in the future as it makes life so much easier to live. I don't think I handled the advice from lvl that well and felt much better when I wrote my thoughts down this afternoon.
I do understand having boundaries and thats a great point to bring up though I don't particularly care that much for the examples you brought up. If I'm at a buffet I'm not going to pay for it and then eat vegetables. Is your sacrament worth the price of the buffet? I'll just sit there and drink my water for free. I can do some deep breathing while the others wait in line for food. You also purposefully skip social events just because of the food? This doesn't seem to be inline with how I want to live.
I like exploring my thoughts, I hope you guys like listening to mine even they do seem to ramble on endlessly about seemingly forgetable things.
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After sharing this diet with MANY people, 300, 400? I've come to the conclusion that 75-100% of what someone thingks of it (right off the bat) is already decided by their own peronality or open/close mindeness no matter what you say or how you present it.
I also tend to think that there's not necessarily a 'best' way to handle it, just a number of good ways (and a number of bad ways). As long as you keep it pretty light-hearted and don't get to serious, people will of course respond much better. Keep in mind you become an easy target for jokes, so do your best to roll with it, not take offense, and just laugh them off (or at least smile).
What makes the real statment to people is when they see you do this day in day out, and see that you're doing just fine. They may have all kinds of "logical" things to say against you and/or your diet, but there's nothing they can do when you slap them in the face with reality - that is, keeping this up and being healthier and stronger than the rest. It sort of forces most people to re-evaluate their views somewhat.
Of course, some people are just stubborn assholes who will refuse to change anything they believe no matter how much logic or evidence presented. Others will always try to act like they're better than you b/c it's a sort of easy self validation "at least I'm not as dumb as that guy," and thus will never change either. These f---ers piss me off too, but there's not much I can do about it, and they're generally in the minority (1 out of 10?).
For the majority, if you don't act like it's a big deal, they will generally not make too much of it either. I would try a few different methods and see what works best, just keep these few ideas in mind and I'm sure you'll get comfortable with it eventually, which will inevitably help others to be (more) comfortable with it too.
On a side note I felt better in the gym today and made some gains over my last UB routine. I feel like I'm rounding the corner in what has felt like a secondary adjustment period.
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I just woke up and had a slight change of opinion and come here to post only to see GM posting my thoughts for me. I completely agree that there clearly is a range of responses that are available for rpds to dispense out, not just one. I will sort of experiment, well I am forced to since I haven't had too much practice in the past.
All my friends knew I was zero carb before and for the most part all accepted me right away. I got lots of questions but I never felt judged. I never got the heart attack line just lots of honest questions. I didn't really enjoy the attention but now looking back I think I'm lucky I've had friends who never really passed judgment and who even tried pieces of raw meat.
Even before I learned anything about diet - I knew nothing before reading GCBC - I was very critical of my brother who went zc to win a weightloss bet from me. I remember telling my friends how ridiculous it was because she thought HFCS was bad. I was one of those buffoons who made judgments based on nothing but sketchy tv blurbs on diet. I was blind just like the rest of them.
Thats kind of where my name on this site comes from. In the poker world a donkey is someone who is terrible and will be an easy target for anyone with basic poker skills. Donk is the shortened version and thus in essence I'm calling myself an ill-trained person intrested in paleo nutrition.
Also, as for keeping my diet hidden most of the time, I'll have to disagree even further. I found this diet by pure luck. There was no skill. I was a brainless automaton unable to question anything around me content getting drunk multiple times per week and bench pressing twice. I don't deserve feeling better because of this diet anymore than anyone else. I'm not going to keep something thats been so good to me just because someone might not like to hear it. I will pick my spots of course and not unleash my diet on everyone. I will also wait so that my progress is a bit more visible. I'm still less than two months off rehab and only one month on this diet.
But, there will be a time where I will be looking to help those out who might benefit greatly. I will go out of my way to offer advice. The worst that can happen is that they disagree and get momentarily flustered before forgetting about it. One of my dad's best friends died recently alone in his house because of complications from diabetes. I've spent quite a bit of time with him, knew he was diabetic and nearly gave him some simple ideas on diet but I didn't. The last time I saw him was a couple months before his death and I can remember being on the verge of giving him my advice that might have turned his life around. Like most he probably wouldn't have listened but theres still that possibility. Don't worry, I don't blame myself but I don't want to see these opportunities fly by again. I could have simply offered Dr. Bernstein's book, something so simple.
This diet could be the best gift I've ever given myself. I'm not going to be selfish and keep it to myself. I got so incredibly lucky and read one fucking book. What if I read the china study instead? I could be wrong on all this mess but I know there is a way to reach people and I will be doing so in the future.
And GM - good to hear your lifts progressed. I assume you'll keep your experiment going a bit longer now.
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However with this said I'm not sold that lvl's words are not inflamatory. Throughout this little ordeal she has not commented once on my approach to the situation. Instead of saying how she would have handled my specific situation she gave examples that I had already explained how I would handle. She gives me the impression that I handled my dinner situation incorrectly without telling me what I should have done. Perhaps she purposefully is not trying to validate my experience so that I do not have to rely on validation from others for support as is her contention that I get too much validation from others. Maybe shes trying to validate her own methodology of living by judging me.
If I had been in the situation I would not have said anything about the diet to these people
because of my personality
I'm not you
You did what you wanted to do and that's fine
I was suggesting another tactic, one that I'm more comfortable with and I explained why I prefer that
It's not up to me to validate or not validate you, which is why my comments are open-ended - take them or leave them. I deliberately avoid telling others what I think they should do or should have done.
No harm intended.
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Your tactic makes does not seem to make sense in my situation and you failed to explain why it would work or how it would keep working. I was trying to get you to explain how your method would work in my exact situation. You still have yet to give a legitimate answer. You would continue to tell people that you are likely to be involved in private dinners multiple times per year that you are not hungry? I really want to know how you would handle seeing the same people over the course of years and not ever telling them once about your diet. This is a bit too much don't you think?
Is there ever a situation where you do think its right to tell people about your diet?
Its rather funny thinking about how things would turn out if I were to keep in touch with these people over the course of the next ten years and not ever eat in front of them once or ever explain to them what I was doing.
I understand where you are coming from but perhaps you are looking at the range of possibilities a bit too narrow. It seems like you have a one-size fits all answer.
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I am extremely open about Zero Carb. It helps that I look the way I do, I figure. But I only state my diet if it comes up in a social situation. I am often asked about my diet at the gym, and I explain how ZC gives me energy to lift, makes me strong and slims me down. I am very adament about eating this way, and let someone know if they are incorrect, as they often are, about saturated fat, carbohydrate requirements, etc. I am civil and enthusiastic, but I don't take crap from anyone. I am very dismissive of carbohydrates in general, and I need only to look at the bloated masses eating fruit and vegetables and low fat to know I'm on the right path. I haven't seen fat carnivores except in zoos.
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After having moderate signs of improved energy and strength during the day I had a disastorous day yesterday with sickengly low levels of energy. I barely felt alive and was very weak in the morning. I thought to myself that I'd easily trade a lifetime of yesterdays for 3 years of perfect health, maybe less. Things actually improved when I had half a cup of coffee early evening. Since I've never really drank coffee, the effects were immediate and wonderful. I felt human again and began connecting with the world around me. I remained human until I went to bed past 11, well after the affects of the coffee would have worn off. I was hesistant to try coffee but the pain was just too much and so I gave in. I don't want to make this a habit, but now will try coffee or tea if I start feeling as low as I did yesterday.
Late last night I had a couple pounds of lamb that I had accidentally left out all day (14 hours or so). I wasn't that hungry but went for one slice. It tasted great and I couldn't stop myself from eating the other 3. I probably would have eaten even more if it was around. I've decided to try and age the meat a little before eating. I do this when I bring my meat to school and have to keep it out in the open in my car until lunch time. Its warm and beginning to brown, has more flavor and is even easier to eat. I don't really care as much for the stuff that is barely defrosted.
I ate a bit over 3 pounds of meat yesterday, the most so far and feel better this morning. Perhaps I just wasn't eating enough. I also can't tell if I'm drinking enough water. I hardly ever get thirsty and rarely drink much at all. Perhaps I'll start drinking a bit more water as well.
On sunday at the huge free brunch that I'm invited to, I passed completely on the food which was a first. I also ate a nice size chunk of raw marrow. It tasted like wax. I actually started feeling the tiniest bit queasy with an uneasy gut sunday afternoon. I defecated two straight days in a row after having gone 80 hours without one. Perhaps there was something going on digestion wise this weekend that lead to my attrocious day yesterday. I have relatively poor sensitivity when it comes to noticing symptoms of ill-health with myself.
I tested my ketone levels last night reading low and moderate again this morning. I'm down a couple more pounds to 177 as well. I feel pretty good right now about to head to school.
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hey paleo, i struggled with high energy then really depressed low days for a while, now my energy is much more stable but i must warn you to trust your body on days like this and allow it to rest. if you do have any adrenal/glandular issues they do require some rest. it took me a while to honor this as i am the kind of person that wants to go %200 each day! but this just drains them and also using coffee as a panacea isnt the best idea as it can be draining to the glands as well as stressing them into action when they would rather just have a restful/restorative day. but if you need a little kick perhaps mate' or some other kind of green tea is a nicer alternative? just some ideas. glad you are getting into aged meat, its really delicious!
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I've been attempting to dig around to find causes for my persistant fatigue. Yesterday my Aunt called from school after I had already left to discuss my lack of energy which she has apparently noticed. After she got off the phone I immediately went to work cleaning my room, doing my book work and putting together a task list. It wasn't painful or fatiguing and I just kind of automatically and instictually started doing things I've been wanting to get done for quite some time. Motivation seems to be a huge factor. The efficacy of my diet was on the line and there was no way I wanted to defend it. I felt great afterwards with renewed confidence about my program and the future.
Depression is such a disparingly dark place that I actually thought would be quickly reversed by diet alone. I felt that I needed energy first to make anything happen, kind of like a car that's out of fuel. Its useless unless you have gas. I think I realized I need to sometimes push the car to the gas station when it runs out.
I seem to quickly forget the bad times when I'm feeling good. Life is so easy when I'm in good spirits. I really have to work on myself everyday it seems like or else I just feel like shit. I've only done 2 chapters in my book because I keep having to reread them because I'll only do work a couple days in a row and then forget about it for the rest of the week. I have to remind myself everyday to try, and to smile, and say peoples names, and look people in the eye, and to have good posture, and to speak clearly and loudly without mumbling, and to not look so depressed. These things are so unnatural to me and so foreign and something I've never done. I've spent a lifetime avoiding adults, used to petrified of them when I was kid. This behavior in turn was rewarding because I got to escape and never deal with having a conversation with them. I still feel weird talking to adults unless you give me an amphetamine and then its like magic and I'm exactly the outgoing charismatic person I want to be and its incredibly easy and life is amazing.
I also have to admit that I'm addicted to the internet and can spend hours searching and researching - all stuff I think is pretty important - but I lose track of it all and bounce from one subject to the next never really digesting much of anything. I'm going to try and have a more direct approach to my internet searching with actual organization. I feel I lose everything that I read so fast. I also don't plan on not posting here as much as I have as I really get lost and isolate and feel drained after long searches. Its rather hard for me to pull myself away from the computer and be sociable with my family.
There is also the possibility that I self sabatoge myself on purpose so that I do have a mountain to climb seeing that being on top is stress free with no drama or much excitement. I actually have felt in the past that I would lose money on urpose while playing poker so that coming back would be that much more eventful. Addict brain at work.
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One more thing I'd like to get off my chest. Depression seems to make everything so painful. Breathing is difficult, holding your eyelids open is straining. Having good posture is almost impossible. I hunch myself over all the time, my shoulders slope forward, my head turns down. I can never keep my shoulders back or head up or back straight. I get these horrible knots in my back. I can barely stand up for long periods of time without feeling my back tighten up tremendously. Its so annoyingly painful. Forming words is difficult and also painful. Putting away dishes feels like an impossible task. Depression probably stresses lots of other things that I cannot feel. Its just incredibly bad. When I think about it I just get so angry and want to take a bat and beat the hell out of something expensive.
Luckily I've always pulled myself out of it to a manageable level. Hopefully I can finally connect the right pieces for a lengthy trip above water.
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Life has turned around a good amount since my last couple posts. I had stopped my medication about 2 weeks ago and since it takes about 2 weeks for the drug to be fully utilized in my system perhaps I was detoxing from it and that was the reason for my low energy levels. I have no clue, but I did have a couple really bad days in there.
I've been eating quite a bt more food lately. A couple days ago I had 2 pounds of chuck + lamb for lunch and then went out for dinner and had a rare 16oz steak plus small leftover fatty pieces from other's plates and then still ate some raw meat right when I came home from dinner. So I probably got close to 4 pounds of food.
I also don't think I have a clue as to what real hungr is either as I can't recently recall any signals telling me to stop. I keep eating food that I am defrosting for the next day. I might test myself here soon and defrost 5 pounds of meat and see if I get any signal telling me to stop. I am usually fine when I stop eating, its just if its infront of me I have really hard time not eating it. I'm letting a small sliver sit out to examine how it looks when it rots. So far it just looks like its slowly dehydrating.
I also ate some meat that was sitting out in open air after 30 hours or so. It was very dark reddish and felt quite dry on the surface. There was also a hint of rotten smell creeping in. I believe I had the slightest hint of "brain destabilization" after ingesting it. I felt a little dizzy and just not quite right. Maybe I didn't feel anything, I have a very poor ability to connect my feelings to causes. Or I just don't really like connecting feelings to causes unless I have very significant proof that is replicated. I never understood how so many people would always be able to instantly determine exactly what it was that was causing ill health. I usually just shrug my shoulders.
Book work has gone really well and I've now worked for 5 days in a row, again feeling uplifted with a sense of relief everytime I go through with it.
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I still have cravings for carbs and might add them back in sooner than later. I still don't understand how exactly I'm supposed to mix them together or how it corresponds to eating in paleolithic times. Did we always carb up each day a little bit? I don't even know what paleolithic fruits are. I always here about berries but I can't imagine them being plentiful everywhere especially during the winter. Every other fruit/veg I can think of seems to be highly modified from its original form and I can't make a case for it. I feel like having just a bit of carbs, but I want to keep my experiment going as well. I just can't make any sense of it. I suppose its still early as its been about 6 weeks. Ketones are were almost non-existant yesterday and between light and moderate this morning.
I lifted a couple times
1/26
DB press
70x3
75x1
Failed here sadly, was going to go for 75x5 but this linear progression was way too much. Should have humbled myself and stuck with less, though I was feeling a bit depressed.
Hang Power Clean
worked up to -
185xF
185x1
205xF
205x1
My form was starting to slip badly here and so I gave it up. This was probably my worst lifting day yet
Olympic Squat
135x5
225x3
245x2
265x1
I've barely done any squats over the past few months because my left knee cap is hurting but I was a little upset at my regression in hpc so I decided it was time to add squats back in. Going to stick with low reps, I really don't want to injure my knee. It seems to never be getting any better, even after several months off.
1/28
Pullups
8,6,6 x bw
Ran a mile on treadmill - 6:59
I pushed myself till exhaustion and it took me 20-30 mins to feel better
1/29
Bench DB
85x5
100x4
105x5
110x2
I felt very good and calm going to lift
Squats
135x5
225x3
245x2
265x1
285x1
Some tricep pulldowns.
Left knee still feels off. I think I'll back off and work on perfecting my form. Perhaps there is a way to manage without pain.
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I also don't think I have a clue as to what real hunger is either as I can't recently recall any signals telling me to stop.
You will get a signal telling you to stop if you eat enough fat, especially if you eat it first.
I still have cravings for carbs and might add them back in sooner than later.
That's it! Carb crabings are caused by low fat, it's how and why people fail - see TD's experiment with eating RZC.
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That's it! Carb crabings are caused by low fat, it's how and why people fail - see TD's experiment with eating RZC.
Just to correct one of William's many, many "inaccuracies", I actually ate a lot of raw fat when doing RZC, more so than I'm doing now, even. You see, in those days, I would routinely add plenty raw marrow or raw suet to any meal involving anything else like raw fish, raw oysters or whatever.
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I actually ate a lot of raw fat when doing RZC, more so than I'm doing now, even. You see, in those days, I would routinely add plenty raw marrow or raw suet to any meal involving anything else like raw fish, raw oysters or whatever.
No doubt, but without weighing how could you know if it was 80% by calories?
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No doubt, but without weighing how could you know if it was 80% by calories?
Because it would violate the laws of science if the vast amount of fat I was eating was less than 80% by calorie. Like I told you, I was so obsessive re fat that I went overboard. And besides, at the time I'd done some rough checking of percentages of fat by weight(checking marrow etc. on the usda nutrient database ) so it was pretty obvious
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Because it would violate the laws of science if the vast amount of fat I was eating was less than 80% by calorie.
Your conception of the laws of science appears to be unique.
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Because it would violate the laws of science if the vast amount of fat I was eating was less than 80% by calorie. Like I told you, I was so obsessive re fat that I went overboard. And besides, at the time I'd done some rough checking of percentages of fat by weight(checking marrow etc. on the usda nutrient database ) so it was pretty obvious
It is possible that you ate way too much fat, like I did, and this, I believe is the cause of the symptoms I (and maybe you) experienced.
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It is possible that you ate way too much fat, like I did, and this, I believe is the cause of the symptoms I (and maybe you) experienced.
Well, I did 3 experiments with RZC. 2 I went overboard with re fat, the 3rd I just emulated Stefansson as normal. All failed. But the point is that my symptoms were too severe for the problem to have been due to not enough protein/too much fat etc. And I was eating plenty of raw animal foods, so I'm sure I got the standard 100g a day of raw protein.
I might well try a RZC experiment 5-10 years down the road (I'm such a masochist), but realistically speaking, I never really needed to do those RZC trials in the first place as my health had fully recovered by then. Trouble was that, at the time, I was so caught up in the whole fanatical "carbs are evil/carb-addicts" b*ll*cks on the web re stefansson etc. that I fell for it. At any rate, RZC was undoubtdly the most harmful to my health of all the diets I've tried, even SAD.
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RZC was undoubtdly the most harmful to my health of all the diets I've tried, even SAD.
You are unique. Present yourself immediately to a research biologist - he/she/it can get a federal grant to study you.
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You are unique. Present yourself immediately to a research biologist - he/she/it can get a federal grant to study you.
No, I'm just one of many, judging from reports. And given Lex's kidney stones and the bear's throat cancer, I do find claims of perfection for RZers a trifle premature.
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I'm not counting the fat calories but the lamb I'm eating looks extremely fatty. The chuck steaks are also fairly fatty. Unfortunately, I haven't found a good source that has total nutritional breakdown for grass fed critters. There has been a lot of work done on fatty acid analysis but this doesn't do me much good. I'm also not going to switch to ground beef just so that I can get a good reading on the fat percentage.
I've also eaten chunks of marrow this week. It doesn't really have a taste, perhaps a bit sweet, but is easy to eat. I never really crave fat alone, its always been for meat with fat inside. I did have a good bit of marrow this morning when I had no defrosted meat available.
As I said before, I'm eating a lot now, perhaps I have been fat starved this whole time. I don't know.. I just feel like eating a salad with lettuce, peppers, cucumbers, feta cheese, olives, oil... It sounds so good right now and perhaps a pinch of bread as well or maybe some starch like rice or potato. Don't know, I'm going to keep eating a lot, which should give me all the fat I need even if it does give me extra protein.
The bears throat cancer and heart disease do give me lots of pause for concern though I can give excuses for him since I believe hes eaten mainly cooked grain-fed meat. Lex's kidney stones seem to be rather unique thus far, with few(none?) developing any on the zc board, though most of them are under a year.
My instincts tell me that I will be better off with a little carbs sprinkled in around 5% like I was the first time around when I was faring much better eating cheese, yogurt, cooked meat and veggies. Perhaps its just taking me a bit longer to adjust. Blehhh...just feels like I need a bit of carbs.
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And Tyler, your teeth thing with zc is the most unique exeperience I have ever heard about.
Also, for clarification, I do get a very good stop when I eat nothing but fat. It starts to taste terrible very quickly if it is not attached to any meat.
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And Tyler, your teeth thing with zc is the most unique exeperience I have ever heard about.
Also, for clarification, I do get a very good stop when I eat nothing but fat. It starts to taste terrible very quickly if it is not attached to any meat.
When I started failing with RZC, my appetite for raw meats went down like a stone. It didn't seem to matter, though, whether the meat was fatty or when I occasionally had some lean meats like turkey-breast-fillets.
re the bear:- I never had time to read through the whole boring thread at that other forum so hadn't realised he also had heart-disease-hmm, interesting. As for the teeth, teeth fall out often on other diets such as raw vegan etc. I just found it interesting that the effect was so quick with rzc. Of course, we all come to this diet with different health-problems and therefore different strengths and weaknesses re tolerating certain types of diet/foods or whatever.
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No, I'm just one of many, judging from reports. And given Lex's kidney stones and the bear's throat cancer, I do find claims of perfection for RZers a trifle premature.
I also don't do well with a carnivorous diet for now. I need to balance meat with a bit of plant material.
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Well, I did 3 experiments with RZC. 2 I went overboard with re fat, the 3rd I just emulated Stefansson as normal. All failed. But the point is that my symptoms were too severe for the problem to have been due to not enough protein/too much fat etc. And I was eating plenty of raw animal foods, so I'm sure I got the standard 100g a day of raw protein.
I might well try a RZC experiment 5-10 years down the road (I'm such a masochist), but realistically speaking, I never really needed to do those RZC trials in the first place as my health had fully recovered by then. Trouble was that, at the time, I was so caught up in the whole fanatical "carbs are evil/carb-addicts" b*ll*cks on the web re stefansson etc. that I fell for it. At any rate, RZC was undoubtdly the most harmful to my health of all the diets I've tried, even SAD.
Fat poisoning can be lethal, like protein or carb poisoning. It is why I believe any extreme diet, like ZC, is very dangerous. And their proponents with fanatic claims as well.
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Fat poisoning can be lethal, like protein or carb poisoning. It is why I believe any extreme diet, like ZC, is very dangerous. And their proponents with fanatic claims as well.
Considering that too much fat makes one sick at the stomach, how could anyone get fat poisoning?
Lethal? Never heard of that.
RZC is the most conservative diet I know, what is extreme about it?
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I think you might be right Willy- I gave it some more thought and there is a decent shot I'm not eating enough fat. Perhaps I keep eating so much because there isn't quite enough fat on my grass-fed critters. Last year I was eating only grain-fed meat so I was definitely getting plenty of fat and perhaps this was the reason I was doing so much better.
One major difference this time around are my bowel movements which were nice and solid for the first time in 5+ years when I switched diets the first time. It actually only took a week or so and was a huge relief. I think I'm partially constipated, if thats possible, and have had multiple miniture turd sessions that don't give me much relief. I had these small softish turds appear about 5 days in a row before finally letting a larger amount go that was of some relief. I've had multiple false alarms where I sat on the toiler waiting for something to happen and getting nothing. I can't recall this ever happening last year and that was on cooked grain fed meat. I'm eating a bit of marrow but this might not be enough. I'm going to try and pick up as much fat as I can from whole foods or the one other place that sells grass fed meat very soon. My hunger pangs are also much more intense than last year. This all points to low fat intake.
I think poisoning from fat is probably hard to do if the fat is solid and raw. There was a point last year when I was sort of enamored with fat and started drinking heavy whipping cream. I could probably force myself to drink half a liter if I had to. I drank a couple large gulps and quickly felt light-headed, possibly because of the easily digestible liquid dairy fats.
I also experimented on myself for a couple weeks last year by overeating for two weeks to see what eating nothing but meat and fat would do to me. I averaged 4800 calories a day with 20% coming from protein and the rest from fat. I heavily supplemented with suet and would never get sick eating as much as 125g of it cooked at a time. I gained 7-8 pounds in the two weeks, contrary to the results of other people who puportedly overate nothing but meat and fat.
I documented the results here - http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/85/health-fitness/greeksquareds-extreme-fat-challenge-strength-log-362797/
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I do think that adding fats like suet, marrow, etc., is necessary when eating pasture-fed meats.
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I got a couple pounds of grass-fed fat from whole foods and picked up one a chuck steak as well. I feel bad about getting something for free. The chuck smelled a bit different than slankers. I am a bit concerned about slankers meat being frozen at -14F as it surely must suffer some damage. The damage might be negligible but I found a chart a while back that I can't seem to find now that had meat losing 25% of its Vitamin C and smaller percentages of other vitamins. I may not be remembering correctly so I'll try and find something more definitive later.
I've had one very small piece of chuck sit out now for over a week. Its dried up almost completely and looks similar to a piece thats about to be used for pemmican. There is no bacteria build up on it. Well, I don't know what bacteria build-up is supposed to look like but I assumed it would change its appearance. Its just very dark and very dry. I had another bigger piece sitting out for a 4-5 days that I would nibble off a bit each day. It tastes quite good, better than the freshly unfrozen beef for sure.
I'm going to experiment and start keeping whole pieces of meat out days at a time. So far the drier the better. I've stopped using the fridge to hold the meat and just let it sit out in my room which is usually 75-80F.
Since I've been eating more my weight has gone up 5 pounds to 182. I'm also going to change up my workout schedule and try and be active 5 days a week. I really love playing sports like soccer and hopefully can find some games to play in soon.
I ran about 15 40yd sprints last night without that much rest and felt quite fast. I started timing them as best as I could and ran a 4.88. I felt like I was going faster but this isn't too bad for now.
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Considering that too much fat makes one sick at the stomach, how could anyone get fat poisoning?
Lethal? Never heard of that.
RZC is the most conservative diet I know, what is extreme about it?
I can overeat fat without troubles for my stomach, and suffer many symptoms (palpitation, pain, blurred vision, low energy, etc.).
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Wow,, It's nice
Thank a lot,, :D
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I can overeat fat without troubles for my stomach, and suffer many symptoms (palpitation, pain, blurred vision, low energy, etc.).
What is it that you refer to as fat? I have to ask because there is so much confusion due to the anti-fat campaign in recent decades.
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What is it that you refer to as fat? I have to ask because there is so much confusion due to the anti-fat campaign in recent decades.
Whatever the fat : Animal and vegetable.
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It should be noted that there is a significant difference between:
1) The transition to utilising ketones during which some people, coming from a VHCarb diet seem to be low in energy, and;
2) Low energy due to indigestion of tough animal fat, making the body ill and have no energy.
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Whatever the fat : Animal and vegetable.
Vegetable fat has the wrong molecular shape to properly substitute for animal fat required in the cells; it is used out of desperation in an otherwise fat-staved body.
Not surprising that a person would have unpleasant reaction to eating it.
And there is lots of evidence on this forum that not all animal fat is equally digestible.
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Vegetable fat has the wrong molecular shape to properly substitute for animal fat required in the cells; it is used out of desperation in an otherwise fat-staved body.
References ?
Not surprising that a person would have unpleasant reaction to eating it.
And there is lots of evidence on this forum that not all animal fat is equally digestible.
I have experimented with all the fat I can have, and my conclusion is that hard fat (like suet) is harder for my digestion, and soft fat (like in seafood, pork, butter or coconut) is easier to digest.
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Do you eat the pork raw?
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Do you eat the pork raw?
Yes
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Is there anything special about it, or just normal pork? Was it frozen to kill Trichinosis? Do you eat it regularly?
I don't really know what a pig would naturally eat, are yours just standard grain-fed? Or Free-ranging grain-fed or anything?
Basically any info you can give me, thanks.
"Wild pigs will eat practically anything, but their primary diet is leaves and grasses, roots, fruits and flowers. They will eat insects and dead carcasses and strip bark off trees. There are stories of swine killing snakes and such, but I have not actually seen that.
Domestic pigs are usually fed a diet of processed pellet feed. They seem to like it, even pigs with access to grazing areas and free time to forage just love their dinner pellets." -http://en.allexperts.com/q/Pot-Bellied-Pigs-3478/Natural-Wild-Pig-Diet.htm
I'm actually just about to go to the supermarket before it closes so your reply may influence my purchases =)
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Is there anything special about it, or just normal pork? Was it frozen to kill Trichinosis? Do you eat it regularly?
I don't really know what a pig would naturally eat, are yours just standard grain-fed? Or Free-ranging grain-fed or anything?
Basically any info you can give me, thanks.
"Wild pigs will eat practically anything, but their primary diet is leaves and grasses, roots, fruits and flowers. They will eat insects and dead carcasses and strip bark off trees. There are stories of swine killing snakes and such, but I have not actually seen that.
Domestic pigs are usually fed a diet of processed pellet feed. They seem to like it, even pigs with access to grazing areas and free time to forage just love their dinner pellets." -http://en.allexperts.com/q/Pot-Bellied-Pigs-3478/Natural-Wild-Pig-Diet.htm
I'm actually just about to go to the supermarket before it closes so your reply may influence my purchases =)
Avoid pork in the supermarket. They are fed with junk food!
I used to eat free range pork fed with germinated grain.
Best is to eat wild boar if you can.
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If you guys don't mind, can you move this discussion into its own thread?
I'm still constipated unfortunately and bought some milk of magnesia that I will probably be taking shortly. My stool was very good last time around, and I don't remember being constipated at all so I'm still a bit perplexed. I started eating the strips of extra fat from whole foods so my fat content should be higher.
Also, I used to get headaches several times a week which all but disappeared the first time around as well. I'm not getting headachesbut my head is feeling some kind of pressure every now and then and its not pleasant. This could all be related to the constipation.
I have around 8 pounds of meat laying out in my room peacefully drying. I keep flipping the steaks over a couple times a day so that each side gets enough air. I still have yet to notice any bacteria buildup or bad smelling air. There is a stronger aroma now but its not bad just different.
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References ?
Sorry, was from before the intrenet. Veggy oils are made of evil cereal grains anyway. Forbidden to us.
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Sorry, was from before the intrenet. Veggy oils are made of evil cereal grains anyway. Forbidden to us.
Oils from oily fruits (coconut, olive, avocado, etc.) are not evil, contrary to the oil from seed and grain. They are low in polyunsaturate fat. Of course they don't replace fat from healthy animal, especially seafood, wild fish and game.
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Still riding the wave out, lots of ups and downs, bouts of fatigue and depression seem to hit me everyday. I still get hungry quite often and almost feel hypoglycemic some mornings but this feeling usually passes on its own. I ate quite a good amount of fat this last week and gained some weight, looks to be all belly fat, so fat intake should not be too big a factor.
I haven't produced a turd on my own in about a week I think. I've used milk of magnesia twice now which lead me to pooping in 20 minutes the first time and about 5 the second. Not sure if its capable of working that fast but thats what happened.
I think I realized something important today, or rerealizing, that I am responsible for making myself feel so bad. Its as though I try my hardest to make sure that I feel bad regardless of the event. I will find whatever I can to put myself down. Pick out the aspects of myself that I think I am failing at and focus on those. I'm very self critical, always have been and its like I make sure I keep myself from succeeding. I look at how eloquent and detailed the posts that others make here and feel so unintelligent. I question my control of the english language.
I've been researching health and diet for the past year and half and feel that I can hardly remember anything I read. I have 100's of links saved, I've read GCBC twice, took 30 pages of notes on it. I even started studying for the mcat, not to go to med school, only so that I could better learn the sciences tested. The information I read all feels so fleeting, like I can't hold onto it like everyone else. . Perhaps this is part of the depression. I'm stuck in my reptillian mind, unable to use the vast space of the frontal cortex. I just feel dumb and feel it comes across in my posts.
I've always done very well on standardized tests that test math skills but generally pretty horrible at reading comprehension. I'm just confused at my own intelligence and get quite down when I can't figure out whats going on. I forget what I read so easily and have such a tough time explaining to others what I've read.
What I am proud of is a good general sense of whats right and wrong. I'm pretty poor at dispensing information to others but I always feel like I know whats right. This sort of intuitive feel is great for poker and gambling in general and carried me a long way there.
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Today has been a pretty good day and I got some good news. One of my good friends called me up earlier this week and it I talked to him last night. I had lots of energy, was relaxed and though wasn't as clever or creative with my words as I wanted to be I was happy and confident.
Well, he told me he could get me a job at his software company no problem. My initial gut feeling was that I wasn't interested and I didn't even ask about it. I finally asked about it to be polite but didn't put much thought into until today. I've never really had a job and I'm 28. I had one internship once with Schlumberger where I actually got to apply my stat degree for one summer, but thats it. Its been nothing but poker the last 3 years.
I talked to my brother today and he got me thinking much more about the job. What would be the perfect job for me right now? I have no idea, I can't even really name anything. I can't even imagine how hard it would be for someone like me to get a job in this economy after being out of school for three years. I think the idea of working 8-10 hour days is VERY scary. I'm so accustomed to the immense instant gratification of poker that I feel like there is no way in hell I could ever manage through an entire work day, much less 5 in a row. I think it might be manageable 3 days a week, but no way 5 right now.
I can think of so many negatives right now - I can feel the agonizing afternoons with absolutely no motivation to work, feeling so bored, brain fried and foggy and tired and depressed. Ahh the pain. When I worked at Schlumberger I spent so much time doing nothing, even playing some poker. It was always a huge relief getting out.
But, since I don't know what I want to do (well, I do have an entreprenurial type idea that I'll talk about later) for now and am not getting paid much at all (this new job will pay almost 10x more :)), I think I'm going to go for it. I know its not ideal but I literally have no chances elsewhere and this kind of is falling right into my lap. I'll find out soon if my friend's excitement about the opening is as real as he made it seem.
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First the bad news - I had a painful elimination yesterday morning in which I bled for the first time since I started my low carb journey 18 months ago. Several hours later in the evening I tried to go again and took a bunch of milk of magnesia but this time the pain was worse and extremely uncomfortable and had me cursing myself in the bathroom. Standing upright seemed to make the pain go away and it eventually did but it wasn't fun.
So, I'm confused again. I still get hungry quite often and feel I could eat almost continuosly throughout the day if I had to. I really thought I was eating enough fat but perhaps not. I still have no clue as to the macronutrient ratio I am eating. I'm going to really up the fat this time, unfortunately its not going to be grass-fed since I can't find it easily over here. I should be getting lots of marrow today.
After this fat trial run I will be adding in some greens. I'm really craving a greek salad about now.
Good news- I went to a local farm about 90 minutes from here and picked up 20 pounds of beef(all they had). It was pretty neat, the farmer and his wife and his three girls, with the women dressed up in what looked like traditional early 20th century farming attire with long plain jeanish skirts with their hair in these buns. Looked almost amish. They were really nice and come into town once a week, so hopefully I can get some fat from them in the future. Also the beef I got wasn't frozen to the extremes of slankers and shold be cheaper as well. I'm going to try some of their home-made kefir soon as well.
Also, I might try fasting until the evening to eat. This actually worked well for me when I was travelling this summer and I was eating pretty high-carb cooked iet. For some reason I can't seem to go past noon now without really needing some food. I always take some food to lunch so maybe I' just won't this next week. I'm astill lifting and being active as much as I can which may further contribute to my hunger.
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For some reason I can't seem to go past noon now without really needing some food. I always take some food to lunch so maybe I' just won't this next week. I'm astill lifting and being active as much as I can which may further contribute to my hunger.
With enough fat on rzc we don't get hungry as we used to, so your guess that you have not been eating enough fat seems right to me.
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Lol, carb addiction. My dad came to town and had won a 2-day cruise the bahamas for two and so we went. I had eaten a avacado and tomato salad the day before and so on the cruise I decided to ditch my 8 weeks of near raw paleo perfection. Both day I fasted the entire day, save for a bit of marrow mid-day and ate my insulin's content for dinner. I had 3 cooked prime ribs the first night with a good bit of veggies and salads and fruit. The second night I extended my carb intake and had potatoes and even a bit of cake though still lots of beef.
I came home, fasted again the entire day and feasted with my family this time eating some coconut cake and ice cream. The overhwelming euphoria from this feeding almost felt like I really needed it, almost necessary. I can't remember cake tasting so good. I stuffed myself three nights in a row but have now fasted 4 days in a row. I even tried some raw honey with the comb and it too tasted magnificent. I even dipped my raw meat in the honey...gahhh...so good. The cooked carbs are so powerful.
I started doing a little math with regards to the fat/protein ratio I was consuming and I think I could have been severely malnourishing myself. I couldn't information from slankers about the nutrient profile. I actually sent them a kind request and got a borderline rude/hopeless answer but grass fed bottom round is about 3% fat so even if slankers chuck is 10% fat it will give me around 20g protein and 10g fat for every 100g or just about 50/50 ratio of protein to fat. If I was eating an average of 1.5 kg of meat a day this would lead to about 300g protein and 150g fat which is entirely way too much protein. These numbers are just made up and likely to be far off but perhaps somewhere in the ballpark. This could easily be contributing to my poor results so far.
So, I've decided to reset my program a bit and really up the fat to the necessary 70-80% range. Thankfully slankers has some fat/suet available and I ordered 8lbs of it plus 25 pounds of bone marrow along with beef ribs, lamb shoulder, 4 beef hearts some liver, and a kidney. Some quick math estimates this order at around 60,000 total calories with at least 45000 coming from fat so a good 3:1 ratio. I'll be eating fruit and veggies, honey and dairy as well. I get cold quickly which is something that didn't happen last time as well so I'm really hoping it was carelessness with the amount of fat that was the problem. Eating organs + fat is really cheap as well. This order will be 60% less than the last one and perhaps more calories as well.
Also, no side effects from eating the cooked meat and carbs. Had a really nasty elimination and am no longer constipated. I feel pretty energetic and refreshed and mentally confident and in general hopeful for the future. I'm going to be adding daily meditation soon as well.
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I'm resetting my weightlifting program as well and am going to stick to the starting strength routine outlined in the book. I usually jump up too quickly in weight too fast and I think I might have done it again. All my lifts stalled the last couple, perhaps also because of carb restriction, but also because I was lifting more frequently. I almost always wait 3 days between sessions but was trying out lifting more frequently to see if I could handle it. I had decent energy just no strength gains. I'm just putting down my work sets here.
2/18
Squat
3x5x225
Press
3x5x125
Bentover rows
3x5x115
Curls
3x5x30
I'm still intermittent fasting and just broke a 24 hour fast with about 110g of marrow, perhaps 800 calories. I found a little old scale and measured the bone to marrow ratio and roughly found out that the bone is between 13 and 20% marrow. I had about 640g of straight bone and marrow together and so this works out to about 80-120g marrow. Caribou marrow is about 84% fat and 7% protein and using these numbers is how I got the 800 calorie estimate. I fel a bit light headed right now actualy and still hungry. I wil probably weight a few hours before I eat my dinner.
I was also up to 185 on the scale, the highest I've been since starting.
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I'll be eating fruit and veggies, honey and dairy as well. I get cold quickly which is something that didn't happen last time as well so I'm really hoping it was carelessness with the amount of fat that was the problem.
See rawlion's post, that he felt cold on fat until he tried butter instead.
I got high for a whole day after an evening meal that included 1/2 cup dry of sticky rice. I don't know what the biochemistry is doing, so fear it.
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I got high for a whole day after an evening meal that included 1/2 cup dry of sticky rice. I don't know what the biochemistry is doing, so fear it.
I get that from carbs, particularly refined grains and sugars. I get manic energy and a detached feeling. It's my Candida in a feeding frenzy.
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I don't think I was clear as usual but I did not get cold after eating the carbs. Infact I felt pretty good but this as always could be from a number of factors. Last year when I was eating the cooked fatty grain-fed beef I distinctly remember feeling pretty tolerant to the cold. I was also eating a good amount of cheese, eggs and some yogurt so I will try the dairy fat sooner than later (thanks William). Raw cream sounds really good right now and I should be getting some on wednesday as well as some kefir and some eggs. I don't really like mixing so many variables at once but I am kind of hooked on variety right now so I'm going to try it all. This year, I have not been able to attain that same type of immunity to the cold and feel quite cold annoyingly often. This all points to a lack of fat. The winter has been unusually long here in Florida and I have barely got any sun at all.
Luckily I am still fairly young and have time to work out the kinks. It could take a few years before I settle on something more permanent, though I don't think I'll ever stop experimenting.
I'm still feeling quite hungry and can envision myself taking down several pounds of food if I really wanted to. Like last night, I kept dunking my the bare rib bones into the honey. Was magnificent.
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My fingernails have these rather defined vertical ridges that make them look quite frail, ugly and like a 20 sided prism of sorts. I started doing some random searching and found quite a few links pointing to low absorbtion of minerals or protein. I also don't have lunula (the small crescent light moon shaped thing at the base of the nail) on my ring fingers and barely one on the other two. I do have a nice looking one on my thumbs though.
A couple days ago I had a huge helping of pasta for dinner with lots of ice cream for dessert and bloated up immediately. Felt like I could of done some damage if I was wearing a tight button up shirt. I can't remember ever being that full. From what I read today, this all is pointing to low stomach acid. So, I went and picked up some betaine HCL, which I've heard very good reviews about on here as well as ZIOH. Unfortunately all the brands had magnesium stearate which is frowned upon here but I was eager to experiment and grabbed a bottle anyways.
I took down about 50g of raw cheese, 200g salmon and 100g beef chuck and a bit of marrow, waited a bit and took a 600mg HCL pill. I believe I am very out of tune with connecting feelings in my body so I wasn't sure what to expect. Nothing happened after the first pill so I took another. Still nothing and I started eating more beef and still felt nothing. One of my friends called at this point so I wasn't able to concentrate on how I was feeling, though from what I read it should be fairly obvious that the HCL is kicking in. I think I took 3 more for a total of 3000mg and still didn't feel anything. I then ate some blueberries and honey and did not feel anything.
Now, about an hour later I feel slight pressure built up in my gut and maybe the softest feeling of warmth up my chest. Can't really tell for sure. I could have also got a small burst of energy during the phone call with my friend but nothing substantial.
I really want this HCL to be the missing link. My nails are disturbing to look at and I've had major troubles with bowel movements in the past and horribly chronic fatigue, which are all symptoms associated with low stomach acid. I don't want to overdo it though and will probably order some better quality HCL online.
I've never been to curezone but I found this interesting thread on fingernails.
http://curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=1351708
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I have the ridges, don't have any visible lunulas and get leukonychia (white spots) if I don't take zinc supplements. The ridges decreased when I cut out gluten and again years later when I went ZC.
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Me 3. It looks like Betaine HCl might be worth a try, from that link.
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Phil, do you take extra zinc outside of Dr. Ron's multi that you take? Have you noticed any other benefits from the supps that you take?
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Phil, do you take extra zinc outside of Dr. Ron's multi that you take? Have you noticed any other benefits from the supps that you take?
I haven't been, and I haven't been good about taking the Dr. Ron's multi every day. My acne has stayed away, other than an occasional few tiny zits, but some leukonychia (fingernail white spots) came back, which indicates that I'm still at least a bit deficient in zinc, so I'm thinking that suggests I should take one of my old more potent zinc supplements now and then too. Maybe every 3 days or once a week. Or maybe buy a less potent zinc and add it to the Dr. Ron's and try to remember to take them daily. I read that hair loss can also be a symptom of zinc deficiency, which may explain why I continue to lose hair, albeit at a slower rate than in the past.
Zinc deficiency is also associated with being underweight and undermuscled, which are also problems I have, and my cousin has measured zinc deficiency and underweight also.
Signs and symptoms
Signs of zinc deficiency include hair loss, skin lesions, diarrhea, and wasting of body tissues. It is rarely recognised that lack of zinc can contribute to acne. Eyesight, taste,[9][10][11][12][13] smell and memory are also connected with zinc. A deficiency in zinc can cause malfunctions of these organs and functions. Congenital abnormalities causing zinc deficiency may lead to a disease called acrodermatitis enteropathica.
One easily recognized sign which may be caused by zinc deficiency is white spots, bands, or lines on fingernails (leukonychia). An occasional white spot is usually evidence that the immune system overcame a bacterial or some other systemic infection, and is a positive, not negative sign. Some women may have multiple parallel white bands or lines on the fingernails marking menstrual cycles when marginal zinc deficiency was present. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc_deficiency#Signs_and_symptoms
I eat plenty of red muscle meat and liver, which are very rich in zinc, but apparently not rich enough to offset my level of zinc deficiency. I've recently been drinking coffee off and on, which I discovered, "hampers the absorption of essential minerals including iron, magnesium, zinc and potassium, as well as the B vitamins." http://www.ineedcoffee.com/03/coffeefitness/ So I'll try to avoid the coffee.
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Thanks for the info on zinc. It might be good that you don't take the multi everyday seeing that it gives more than the daily recommended amount of most of the nutrients.
So, I have this fear of not be able to do anything right or the way its really supposed to be. For example, I'm taking these cheap betaine HCL pills right now. There is no set way of using them. I've looked online now on plenty of different sites with each of them recommending something slightly different. Some say take a bit before, some just say take it with the meal, some say to wait a period of time and then keep taking more and more until you feel a warmth or burning sensation in the gut. But, I feel I'm so insensitive to these types of feelings. I had 3 fking grams of HCL and didn't really feel anything a couple days ago. I then read another guys journal who would take a more HCL than this and still not feel anything but when he switched pills he noticed the burn much faster. So maybe he was overdosing before and damaging his gut. fuck my life, I can't figure this out. And then I've read other people say that they had to increase their HCL intake over time. fml again. And then theres the mg stearate issue. fml. Now I looked into getting pure powder hcl with none of the other filler junk, but this wont have the pepsin and it will taste quite bad. fml. and now it looks like I have all sorts of mineral diffeciences. What mg should I take. What zinc do I need. I have lots of symptoms of heavy metal poisoning. Now do I have to follow all these steps at curezone to get rid of this shit? what if I do that wrong and get the metals moved to other more important parts of my body and not out? fml. What about coenzyme q10 and fermented cod liver oil and dolomite and bone meal and french green clay and raw egg yolks and effects of freezing on nutrients and the effects of having frozen meat wrapped in sheets of plastic for weeks. fml, fml, fml, fml!!! I have 10 fillings Im pretty sure are filled with mercury amalgam. I remember having chunks of the fillings stay in my mouth after the fillings were put in. Do I get these removed. Do I reshape my jaw. My eyes are permenantly bloodshot and have pinguecula. Wtf does this mean? Im pretty sure my fat to protein ratio during the first 2 months was 50:50 at best and probably worse. Probably explaining my incessant hunger all the time. Now I'm going to be eating a lot of marrow. What if the marrow isnt saturated enough, what if the suet is too saturated. fml. I have trouble frequently completing sentences and will literally have sentences trail off into nothingness everday. Sometimes I just stop speaking in the middle of a sentence. I feel so awkward. Who else cant complete sentences? Even when I write here I'm constantly erasing and editing and rereading. Nothing really flows. Im scared this will remain the rest of my life. I can't let go and just let my brain work in a relaxed state. Makes me really want to get piss drunk to have that feeling where I can flow again.
Well theres a lot more to my rant, but stuff like this goes through my head everyday. I feel so confused and I absolutely hate it. I've never been organized and it just annoys me that I have so many unanswered questions. I can actually logically challenge and counter lots of these assertions I made above pretty easily which will ease their burden greatly. But I just felt like spilling more out here. I always find a way to see the negative or filter out the positives in any situation. Ha, thats one thing Im confident about.
After all this, my overall energy level is improving though clearly I'm still anxious as hell and feel very unsure about most everything.
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I relate 100%
even if I am on a path, and not focused on these things, as soon as some factor or even suspicion emerges that one thing is potentially getting in the way of that path, than all the other stuff comes back into mind and it is incredibly frustrating and daunting. The amalgams/heavy metal/candida triangle is a perfect example. its like, here I am doing my best to starve out and also heal nutrition things, but if the candida is present to devour heavy metals then it doesn't make sense to just approach things through nutrition, especially if the problem is blocking proper nutrition, and yet as you say certain protocols to remove metals can supposedly just disperse them elsewhere, and then others that say you will continually be poisoned as long as you have amalgams, then there is danger/expense in that and on and on. And one would think the fact that many people that have amalgams dont have the same problems, overtly anyway, would be comforting but then again people consume all kinds of crap and don't have the same overt issues. I've been doing these alternative type approaches long enough that I don't even remember how I might eat/live if I did say 'fuck it' . I find if i'm very occupied by health stuff and not a whole lot else going on in my life, its more of a recipe to get incredibly discouraged. I recognize sometimes people have no choice to be so dedicated etc...but this is one thing I can suggest as a shifting of lifestyle-->mindset.
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Relax.
Take a deep breath.
Do some of your exercises in your book.
You're just in a bad mindset at the moment; things will resolve themselves.
Lets see if we can ease some of the fears of the moment. :)
So, I have this fear of not be able to do anything right or the way its really supposed to be. For example, I'm taking these cheap betaine HCL pills right now. There is no set way of using them. I've looked online now on plenty of different sites with each of them recommending something slightly different. Some say take a bit before, some just say take it with the meal, some say to wait a period of time and then keep taking more and more until you feel a warmth or burning sensation in the gut. But, I feel I'm so insensitive to these types of feelings. I had 3 fking grams of HCL and didn't really feel anything a couple days ago. I then read another guys journal who would take a more HCL than this and still not feel anything but when he switched pills he noticed the burn much faster. So maybe he was overdosing before and damaging his gut. fuck my life, I can't figure this out. And then I've read other people say that they had to increase their HCL intake over time. fml again. And then theres the mg stearate issue. fml. Now I looked into getting pure powder hcl with none of the other filler junk, but this wont have the pepsin and it will taste quite bad. fml.
Cheap doesn't necessarily mean inefficient. Betain HCL is cheap stuff to make.
When my wife and I experimented with it we used Twinlab's Betaine HCL Caps with pepsin. They're 648mg HCL and 130mg pepsin. they were on sale at 2 bottle for $17.95. I purchased the Twinlab brand because I've always had good luck with their products I used in the past.
We took one capsule immediately following the meal. Then one further capsule every 10-15 minutes after that until we felt either a burn in the back of the throat or heat in the stomach. I was desensitized to the feeling so took 2 or 3 I think the first time and had pretty vicious heartburn. The second time I felt it after one and determined I don't need them. My wife took numerous caps before she felt it but it was a clear heat in the stomach for her.
If you didn't feel anything I think you need it. It's possible the strength of the capsules isn't as advertised but I don't think there's any way you'd get that much HCL in you and not feel anything unless you were deficient.
There's no logical reason one would have to increase their dosage. If they did then they have something else continuing to impair their digestion and in fact making it worse.
I could give a damn about magnesium stearate. If the HCL is a working means to an end for someone then that outweighs this particular filler in my mind.
and now it looks like I have all sorts of mineral diffeciences. What mg should I take. What zinc do I need. I have lots of symptoms of heavy metal poisoning. Now do I have to follow all these steps at curezone to get rid of this shit? what if I do that wrong and get the metals moved to other more important parts of my body and not out? fml.
What symptoms?
Many heavy metal poisoning symptoms are present in plenty of other problems.
I wouldn't worry about it at the moment. If there's any heavy metal there it can wait a bit longer while you balance yourself a bit more.
What about coenzyme q10 and fermented cod liver oil and dolomite and bone meal and french green clay and raw egg yolks and effects of freezing on nutrients and the effects of having frozen meat wrapped in sheets of plastic for weeks. fml, fml, fml, fml!!!
The single worst thing for your body is stress & worry.
There are plenty of things that work for people in wonderful ways out there but it's all a mixed bag.
You've admitted before that you can get fixated on things; you're doing that right now. IMO you need to keep to the basics of raw paleo and then you can try whatever you like as a supplement. It's really hard to figure out if the supplement helps if you don't know exactly what your baseline feels.
I have 10 fillings Im pretty sure are filled with mercury amalgam. I remember having chunks of the fillings stay in my mouth after the fillings were put in. Do I get these removed.
You could. It's a drastic & costly move if you're not sure it's a problem.
Do I reshape my jaw.
See above.
My eyes are permenantly bloodshot and have pinguecula. Wtf does this mean?
I have no idea, maybe someone else does.
Im pretty sure my fat to protein ratio during the first 2 months was 50:50 at best and probably worse. Probably explaining my incessant hunger all the time. Now I'm going to be eating a lot of marrow. What if the marrow isnt saturated enough, what if the suet is too saturated. fml.
If it was off then you adjust. Better to know now then 6 months from now. It would explain the hunger. To satisfy my curiosity what ratio (by volume) and types were you eating?
I've personally developed a real taste for marrow recently whereas I couldn't stand it before. I look at it that my body wants more soft fats right now as opposed to the harder suet I'd been eating.
I don't think there's such a thing as not saturated enough for a fat. You can always eat more of a soft fat if you need to. Suet can obviously be too saturated for some but it shouldn't be too hard to tell by your bathroom habits.
I have trouble frequently completing sentences and will literally have sentences trail off into nothingness everday. Sometimes I just stop speaking in the middle of a sentence. I feel so awkward. Who else cant complete sentences?
I used to do that a lot and I do still do it some.
Even when I write here I'm constantly erasing and editing and rereading. Nothing really flows. Im scared this will remain the rest of my life. I can't let go and just let my brain work in a relaxed state.
I was that way in the past. Things work better now and they are still improving. I know it's redundant and not what you want to hear right now but have faith.
Well theres a lot more to my rant, but stuff like this goes through my head everyday. I feel so confused and I absolutely hate it. I've never been organized and it just annoys me that I have so many unanswered questions. I can actually logically challenge and counter lots of these assertions I made above pretty easily which will ease their burden greatly. But I just felt like spilling more out here. I always find a way to see the negative or filter out the positives in any situation. Ha, thats one thing Im confident about.
Years ago I used to be one of the most cynical and negative people in the world. It just came about as a result of my very depressed immune-system (which led to mental depression, in hindsight, for a long time). I was angry at the world, very touchy with my mood, quick to anger, and quicker to violence. I get joked with now about being too positive and seeing the positive lining in everything/everyone.
Diet did some of the mending and positive thinking did the rest.
After all this, my overall energy level is improving though clearly I'm still anxious as hell and feel very unsure about most everything.
This is quite possibly another sign that your protein to fat ratio is too high. Give a high volume of fat as marrow a shot and see how you feel in a week.
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Relax.
Take a deep breath.
Do some of your exercises in your book.
You're just in a bad mindset at the moment; things will resolve themselves.
Thanks for all the compassion and the analysis, these steps above have never failed the last couple months. Its weird how I have something that works so well and so easy to implement but I still finding myself avoiding it. Luckily, my convictions towards my ramble are not as strong as they were a few months ago.
When I wrote this long rambling ramblish diatribe I had just come back from work where I had spent about 6 straight hours doing nothing but fiddling around on the computer researching random things to optimize my health. I didn't really take a break the whole time and couldn't really pull myself away to do any real work. There's always a kid who needs special attention at the school but at the same time there are enough teachers to handle the problems without me. I'm not a necessity I suppose but I could make a big difference if I so choose. For whatever reason, I decided not to help and keep my nose squarely in front of the computer screen. I see this no differently than a drug. I was literally drugged out of my mind. Sure, there are positives associated with it - I do learn a bit more about what my optimal being will develop into - but I also lose myself in the process, I drift away, always finding a way to link myself to more research. Very little of it sticks. I don't take notes, I merely read and move on and then usually forget.
I do get this temptation everyday to browse for hours. I really crave the internet! That need for instant gratification is so strong. So, I'm going to need to do something about extended internet browsing as this likely lead to my rant.
I feel pretty decent right now actually, even after a heavy carb binge a couple days ago. I've started eating raw egg yolks - I've heard a good number of things about them on here. They are my best source for the very important polyunsaturated fat DHA, vital to good brain development. I will look into getting brains in the near future as this is likely the best source for it. Brains seem to have been a paleo staple and likely one of the reasons we evolved such large brains so why not eat them? Most all tissue outside the brain in land animals has only trace amounts of DHA, plants have none as well, though sea creatures seem to contain plenty.
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...I had just come back from work where I had spent about 6 straight hours doing nothing but fiddling around on the computer researching random things to optimize my health. I didn't really take a break the whole time and couldn't really pull myself away to do any real work. There's always a kid who needs special attention at the school but at the same time there are enough teachers to handle the problems without me. I'm not a necessity I suppose but I could make a big difference if I so choose. For whatever reason, I decided not to help and keep my nose squarely in front of the computer screen. I see this no differently than a drug. ...
Losing your job would add to the stress in your life, so if you can't limit yourself at work once you get on it, then I recommend forcing yourself not to access the Internet during the workday for anything not work-related. If they allow you to add software to the PC, then you might want to check whether there's a program for the browser it uses that will allow you to block yourself from using certain websites during selected hours or at all.
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Well, yeah it would be pretty terrible losing this job, though I don't think its really possible. My aunt runs/owns the school I'm working and I'm living with her. I will try and force myself to work with the students. I actually like working with them, its just that I'm having a bit of trouble asserting myself. I don't want to seem like I am trying to undermine the teacher's game plan. But, this again is mainly my fear of failure coming out. I'm sure the teachers will see my enthusiasm to help as just that. Even if they do feel threatened thats their feelings that I cannot be held responsible for. Lots of days I'll step into a classroom looking for help but can't muster up the strength to step up to offer help unless they specifically ask me. When they don't ask for my help I simply leave the class and go to a room with computers and drug myself surfing - I escape and isolate.
I had an interesting thought about why carbs might be important for those of us that don't eat freshly killed meat. Carnivores are generally the fastest, most explosive animals on earth and must rely on fast twitch muscle fiber and are fueled (I believe) by intramuscular glycogen for these intense anaerobic bursts. Glycogen is a glucose polymer and a carb so, somehow the body of these carnivores must assimilate it from their diet. Now, the meat that carnivores eat is mostly fresh and I think fresh meat has a good amount of glycogen in it. Human muscle is about 1.5% glycogen. Eating fresh meat would probably be able to supply all the glycogen their bodies would ever need.
Since glycogen can be used anaerobically it is possible that the cells of the dead animal will continue to use it as a fuel until it is all used up. This might be the reason why there is no measureable carb content in the meat that we normally eat (according to the USDA nutrient database). I have no clue as to how the glycogen content would continue to deplete over the time that the animal is dead and I doubt there is any research on this topic. Liver also contains a bunch of glycogen(about 300g in humans) and weights 1.5 kg so around 20% of it is glycogen. Beef liver carb content is only 4% so either cows have less glycogen naturally or lots of it gets used up after the animal is dead.
Whatever the case is it seems like carnivores have at least more than a negligible carb intake and for those that are eating just beef and water it might be beneficial to add in some carbs either from plants or from liver or egg yolks, especially if they are doing intense physical activity. I wonder how atheletes would perform on a diet of fresh meat and organs as opposed to one with aged glyogen-depleted meat.
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I guess re: your job you could ask your Aunt how you could help.
Re: liver, I was thinking along the same lines in trying to puzzle out (mainly for entertainment purposes, as I enjoy puzzling out things) why carnivores and even traditional human hunters tend to eat the liver right on the spot after a kill and frequently first thing. Liver is indeed highest in carbs of all parts of the animal, I believe, and it has been reported here that the glycogen depletes rapidly.
On the other hand, the !Kung cook their kudu liver. Would that also deplete the glycogen? If intense anaerobic bursts is the purpose of the glycogen, why do wolves tend to drink water and take it easy after a kill, instead of running around, fighting, playing, etc. (or am I wrong on that)? Does the glycogen store really well and not deplete in their tissues after they've eaten it? Do wolves somehow know, whether instinctively or through training, not to use up their glycogen until they need it for a hunt?
Could there be another reason for eating liver preferentially and quickly after a kill? Liver is also high in micronutrients, such as A and D3. Do those deplete rapidly after a kill?
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I guess re: your job you could ask your Aunt how you could help.
Yea, this would also work well. About to start a new week and will attempt to be more proactive
Re: liver, I was thinking along the same lines in trying to puzzle out (mainly for entertainment purposes, as I enjoy puzzling out things) why carnivores and even traditional human hunters tend to eat the liver right on the spot after a kill and frequently first thing. Liver is indeed highest in carbs of all parts of the animal, I believe, and it has been reported here that the glycogen depletes rapidly.
Ha, I love this. You made a post similar to mine with more questions than statements. I never feel like I can get enough answers. Thanks for asking all the questions, I really get a lot out of others inquiries. I’m going to take some wild guesses on your questions as clearly and always I’m far from even a novice.
On the other hand, the !Kung cook their kudu liver. Would that also deplete the glycogen?
My guess is that cooking would ‘kill’ the cells and thus preserve the remaining glycogen in the meat but at the same time make it harder on the body to process it much like cooked fats and proteins.
If intense anaerobic bursts is the purpose of the glycogen, why do wolves tend to drink water and take it easy after a kill, instead of running around, fighting, playing, etc. (or am I wrong on that)?
Well, eating glycogen is not going to all of a sudden give you an energy rush, that’s what refined carbs are for. The glycogen has to be deposited in the muscle first and I doubt this mechanism is the same as how insulin works with glucose. I would assume after a kill it would be necessary to rest and relax and let the digestive system work. Basically, it doesn’t give you energy immediately, only on demand during a short intense burst for a hunt.
Does the glycogen store really well and not deplete in their tissues after they've eaten it? Do wolves somehow know, whether instinctively or through training, not to use up their glycogen until they need it for a hunt?
Glycogen levels should remain stable (or deplete slowly) throughout the day even if they are casually moving around following prey. I would guess they use a combination of fat and glycogen for their non-hunting activity, probably mostly fat and then switch to using mainly glycogen for that small amount of time necessary to kill their prey.
Humans have enough free ATP in the muscles during intense activity to last 2-3 seconds and then additional creatine phosphate to last for another 3-4 seconds and then its when glycogen slowly takes over as the predominate energy source and its then that glycogen becomes a big factor. I have searched around quite a bit for this stuff because I was very worried when I went zc that I would not have the necessary glycogen in the muscles to play the sports that I wanted to play.
Could there be another reason for eating liver preferentially and quickly after a kill? Liver is also high in micronutrients, such as A and D3. Do those deplete rapidly after a kill?
I don’t know whether vitamins would deplete rapidly, but eating the liver first is something worth looking into. Maybe its just the fact that the liver is the most valuable so why let your mates get it first when it would be more beneficial to you to eat it.
I found a little overview of glycogen depletion here- http://meat.tamu.edu/conversion.html Coincidentally, I went to undergrad at A&M, Whoop!
In dying muscle, lactic acid accumulates and lowers pH.
Within 24 hours after death
(1) glycogen -------> lactic acid
(2) muscle pH: 7.0 -------> 5.6 (because of lactic acid)
(3) muscle color: purple changes to bright red or pink (pH 7.0 -------> 5.6)
More on glycogen depletion while alive
Glycogen concentration goes down.
Factors involved in this: exhaustion, exposure to cold, excitement, sex (bullock), sudden feed withdrawal, sickness, show steer.
Solution: Proper handling and prevention of stress best way to reduce incidence.
Anywhere where “fight or flight” kicks in glycogen is going to be used.
They list glycogen at a normal death to be 1% of meat and 24 hours later at .1%
Ups...made a mistake. Liver glycogen in average human is only about 100g, making it 7% glycogen not 20. Average amount of glycogen in human muscle tissue is 350g.
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I've finally started eating lots of fat, mainly bone marrow so far as its so easy to eat and tastes rather good. The amount of muscle meat I've eaten in the last 5 days is significantly less as it should have been in the past. I still can't believe I was fooling myself thinking I was getting enough fat before. I'm loosely tracking calorie and macronutrient intake and ideally would like to keep more exact notes but I keep getting lazy but have had at least 150g of marrow in the last 4 days.
I've also started to consume lots of egg yolk and just bought ten dozen eggs today from the local farm. I'm tinkering with DHA intake and egg yolks seem to be much easier to get at than brains. Fish could work too but egg yolk feels like it would work much better.
Fatigue still hits me as well as considerable brain fog but overall am probably a bit better than I was when I first started. I'm still battling my ego and my self-depricating thoughts and addiction to useless searching. Still avoiding priorities and the couple projects I have lined up which all adds to my anxiety.
Right now I'm happy and can't tell if I'm hungry. I drank maybe 15-20 ounces of kefir around lunch time. Do I have to eat everyday? I've searched around to find the nutritional content of kefir and am getting different results. One site says that only a fourth of the lactose is eaten up during fermentation. I was hoping nearly all of it would be used up, if it were to ferment for several days not just the normal one or two that is traditionally done. I've decided to leave the kefir out of the fridge and let it ferment some more. There are small grains still in it, so it should still be able to ferment on its own.
I think raw milk is giving me trouble and I feel a bit bloated soon after I drink some. I just tossed about a liter today after trying it again. The kefir hasn't given me any problems so far, so I think I'll keep it for now.
Just recieved Vegetarian Myth and Black Swan, both of which I can't wait to tear into.
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Just recieved Vegetarian Myth and Black Swan, both of which I can't wait to tear into.
tell me how you like The Vegetarian Myth. i haven't read it yet, but im a big fan of lierre kieth. you might also want to check out stuff by derrick jensen if you like kieth's point of view. i highly recommend Endgame and What We Leave Behind
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tell me how you like The Vegetarian Myth. i haven't read it yet, but im a big fan of lierre kieth. you might also want to check out stuff by derrick jensen if you like kieth's point of view. i highly recommend Endgame and What We Leave Behind
Thanks for the suggestions. I looked up both these books and from the reviews they do look like they would fit well with my current trending on what the world is becoming.
I had a rather simple thought related to the devise of mankind and similarly to any intelligent being. It was inspired by a bit in Cosmos, by Carl Sagan. We already have the capability to blow ourselves up and luckily have not done this so far. But in the future, it seems inevitable that eventually a single person will have the capability to build a destructive device large enough to wipe out our entire civilization. Once we reach this stage, it will only take one person to flip the switch and its all over.
If we look back through history of time, a single crazed individual a hundred thousand years ago could probably only kill a few people. Once primitive weapons were invented this number increased quite a bit. If we jump forward in time to when we invented guns this number increased exponentially again. The same happened when we developed large explosives and again with nuclear weapons. Fortunately, nuclear weaponry is out of the reach of most everyone so the risk is minimal but I don't think its completely unfathomable that an individual or a small group of people could create enough nuclear weapons to end us. I really believe it is inevitable that a mass destruction device will be easily built by a single human, somewhat how today you can look up how to make home made bombs online. Once this happens its all over and this could be pretty soon. It seems like every single intelligent society would end this way. If we create a graph plotting the killing power of man over time we will see that the curve is exponential and if we extrapolate (which is an assumption) the line we could be reaching doomsday pretty soon. If we plot the actual data we will see that the largest war ever was WWII at 50 million dead and the number killed during conflict has exponentially increased over time as well. If we follow the extrapolated line again we are in trouble. Even if we do diverge from the extrapolated death-line we should eventually reach a time where one individual can wipe out everything.
Maybe thats how our universe started. Someone destroyed a previous universe with a flip of a switch that left no trace of its previous existence.
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... in the future, it seems inevitable that eventually a single person will have the capability to build a destructive device large enough to wipe out our entire civilization. Once we reach this stage, it will only take one person to flip the switch and its all over.
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Yes, it seems inevitable.
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Yesterday was one of my better days yet - I had good energy most of the day and connected well with the students and found myself feel like I was 'present' and words flowed out of my mouth at some points. I still got lost in a few sentences and wasn't as creative as I'd like to be but actually eating fat seems to be working. I've kept track of my caloric intake the last three days
day---- F---P---C----TC
3/5 238 93 47 2760
3/4 145 80 9 1650
3/3 170 90 25 2000
So, I'm getting over 70% of my cals from fat and eating much lower protein than normal. Yesterday I felt nice and full after my first meal at 5 p.m. when I munched down 130g of fat at once. (I'm assuming that back fat is 70% fat, 30% water/protein - This might be a mistake since human fat tissue is 80% fat but when lex renders fat he gets 60-70% of what he started with but he also throws the solids away. So there is definitely room for error here). I felt like I could walk away and not eat the rest of the day but I forced myself to eat around 150g of liver. Didn't feel natural but I didn't want to have 0 protein intake for the day. I'm not sure how long amino acids remain in the blood before they are converted to glucose but if its a few days then maybe I have an excess of AA that are fullfilling my protein requirements and thus not bringing about the desired hunger for protein. But three days of low protein seems like a long time. Maybe the hunger for protein isn't as strong. I don't know but I feel good and will still be eating fat first for now.
I've been investigating eating lower protein and from what I can find is that most all of extra AA that is not used for repair and maintenance will be eventually have their carbon skeletons used in the formation of a carbohydrate or fatty-acid.
heres a good paragraph summing it up -http://themedicalbiochemistrypage.org/amino-acid-metabolism.html
All tissues have some capability for synthesis of the non-essential amino acids, amino acid remodeling, and conversion of non-amino acid carbon skeletons into amino acids and other derivatives that contain nitrogen. However, the liver is the major site of nitrogen metabolism in the body. In times of dietary surplus, the potentially toxic nitrogen of amino acids is eliminated via transaminations, deamination, and urea formation; the carbon skeletons are generally conserved as carbohydrate, via gluconeogenesis, or as fatty acid via fatty acid synthesis pathways. In this respect amino acids fall into three categories: glucogenic, ketogenic, or glucogenic and ketogenic. Glucogenic amino acids are those that give rise to a net production of pyruvate or TCA cycle intermediates, such as ?-ketoglutarate or oxaloacetate, all of which are precursors to glucose via gluconeogenesis. All amino acids except lysine and leucine are at least partly glucogenic. Lysine and leucine are the only amino acids that are solely ketogenic, giving rise only to acetylCoA or acetoacetylCoA, neither of which can bring about net glucose production.
Since the body is constantly breaking down excess AA into more easily usable carbs or fat, it would make sense to not overload the body with protein. Protein has the largest thermal effect of food, essentially meaning that it is the hardest macronutrient for the body to process and expends the most amount of energy using it. Fat is the easiest. 80-10-10 vegans stay alive and functional with only 50g of protein a day for decades (though I'd guess their actual protein intake would be higher if were empirically measured, and the sources of these proteins are highly suboptimal) and starvation studies show that 50g of protein will be catabolized from the muscle tissue to keep the body alive under no nutrition. So this 50g a day could be looked at as a bare minimum and for a non-exercising person perhaps just 20-30g more could lead to good health. The US food pyramid recommends 15% of calories from a 2000 calorie diet be protein so this would be 75g. For me, since I lift weights a couple times a week and eventually want to be active playing sports a few times a week as well, 100-130g a day looks like it will be the range for me. This is all subject to change and is guesswork as usual. Lex has noticed his fasting blood glucose drop 10 pts from 100 to 90 when he dropped his protein intake to 90g (15% of cals) so this could easily be a good sign.
Also the last couple days have been very low activity, so this could be contributing to the lack of hunger for protein.
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So, continuing with this thought that we should probably consume protein right around our the body's required maintenance and repair - Since all the excess amino acids will convert to glucose or fatty acids lots of energy is used. A total of ten ATP are used to create one molecule of glucose, 6 of which are used to dispose of NH4+ into urea. This energy might explain why isocaloric diets that differ in protein amounts will result in a larger weight loss for those consuming more protein. So, maybe those that are eating zero carb with very high protein intake - 150g+ are still running on a decent amount of glucose. The liver can only manufacture 400g a day of glucose from amino acids and would easily explain redfulcrums toxic level of amino acids during his highly dangerous experiment.
Lots of good info here and where I found this - http://www.medbio.info/Horn/Time%203-4/homeostasis1.htm
Also, I did not consciously eat less protein the three days before I just ate the fat first and felt full and stopped eating. I don't like the idea of trusting my instinct yet as I have horrible feel for what is right so I will be trying to eat a bit more protein in the future. It should be interesting to see how my lifting progresses with this massive decrease in protein.
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I ate much less yesterday than I ever had. I ate my usual fat first, 80g of back fat followed by 60g of marrow and felt nice and full but again did not want to go without any protein and I still had some liver out so I forced down some liver but after around 100g I couldn't eat anymore and just stopped. I felt fine and full but was not satisfied with just 20g of protein so I cut into some beef shoulder which I wasn't hungry for but was heaps easier to put down. I maybe got 200g down before just giving up and letting my body work its way through.
3/6 F---P---C----TC
120 64 4 1350
4 day average - 168 82 21 1960
With 78% of calories coming from fat, 17% protein and 5% carb. I'm always eating fat first then protein, which I've never done before. The carbs mainly came from a salad and some kefir. I feel pretty energetic right now and will lift today, so we'll see if my hunger increases. I'm wondering if eating lots of fat first is resetting my system in some kind of way that allows me to know how much protein to consume. I do enjoy the bone marrow better than the back fat and some of back fat has connective tissue along side it which makes it extremely difficult to eat and quite dangerous to swallow.
My weight is also down 5-6 pounds from a high of 188 about a week ago when my carb binging was ending. I also took a bunch of HCL pills, perhaps 7 or 8 (5 grams!) with no signs of anything going on. I haven't really taken any the past week. I'm probably going to get another brand, as I'd rather not have them do undo damage that I cannot feel. I've heard others report that certain brands will lead to differing amounts of pills taken before this mystical "burn" is supposed to happen.
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When the back fat is full of connective tissue, I cut it real thin and warm it to body temp. in a bow that sits in either warm water of above it in a big pot. Then yo can chew and separate the soft warm fat from the tissue and spit that part out. It also tastes pretty good that was.
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Thanks for the info on zinc. It might be good that you don't take the multi everyday seeing that it gives more than the daily recommended amount of most of the nutrients.
FYI: The Dr. Ron's nutrient levels on the label are based on taking 6 capsules per day. I'm currently only taking 1-2 per day. I take the minimum necessary. One doesn't seem to be quite enough, so I plan to take two every other day or so going forward.
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So, I need ya'lls help, as usual. I just took down 650g of chuck with 200g back fat and decided to see how many HCL pills it would take to feel that burn. I was determined this time to get a burn or something and have experimented now 5 or so different times taking in at most 7 pills during one sitting without feeling a thing.
So, I ate my fat first as usual, then ate 200g of chuck and took 4 650mg HCL pills. Nothing. I ate a bit more and took 3 more. Nothing still. Ate a bit more and took 4 more. Kept on eating taking two at at time until I had taken 19 about 12 grams worth of HCL and could not tell a difference. I got tired and felt the slightest bit out of it and laid down. Felt nothing still and got up to move around and after about 30 min had to use the bathroom and had small liquidy stool. Felt good after that and decided to run some sprints that went fine.
So, 19 fking pills and nothing? Seriously? I keep thinking my ability to feel what my body is processing is pretty low. Maybe thats it, I just can't feel whats going on. Maybe the pills are working but not making me feel anything. I'm going to get another brand soon. Do I have gaping holes in my gut? Do I have undigested raw meat just running wild through my blood? I wish I could have a stool analysis done to see how much nutrition is there. I really want to believe that this, leaky gut\metal poisoning\whatever, is what has lead to my horribly chronic fatigue over the years. Does my depression cause less stomach acid to be released? It can't be that bad can it?
My fingernails are so ugly and look so deficient of something and seem to be the most obvious clue that there is something not working right. Hair is falling out a bit, teeth are not white but feel fine, strength at the gym has been pretty good, back acne has cleared up a good deal, I'm becoming more active with more sustained energy. I know I need to wait longer for the full effects of the diet to do its thing but 12 grams of HCL and counting??? Even if we could somehow develop a stomach that would produce no acid, I wonder how many grams it would take to feel anything.
When the back fat is full of connective tissue, I cut it real thin and warm it to body temp. in a bow that sits in either warm water of above it in a big pot. Then yo can chew and separate the soft warm fat from the tissue and spit that part out. It also tastes pretty good that was.
Thanks, I'll keep this in mind and try it out eventually. I hate doing work for my food but this seems simple enough.
FYI: The Dr. Ron's nutrient levels on the label are based on taking 6 capsules per day. I'm currently only taking 1-2 per day. I take the minimum necessary. One doesn't seem to be quite enough, so I plan to take two every other day or so going forward.
Yea, I doubled checked the list of nutrition and 1 a day doesn't seem like it would overdose you. I don't know the signs of overdose of vitamins but there are a few vitamins that give you 20 times your daily amounts. I think b12 is very poorly absorbed but still makes me wonder why you would ever need to supplement that extreme amount on any diet.
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...So, I ate my fat first as usual, then ate 200g of chuck and took 4 650mg HCL pills. Nothing. ...
I haven't seen a lot of positive reviews of HCL pills.
My fingernails are so ugly and look so deficient of something...
Can you be more specific? Are there raised ridges, cracks, white spots, etc.?
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I haven't seen a lot of positive reviews of HCL pills.
Perhaps the pills are defective but this does not explain the fact that every single other I have read about taking the pills has felt that burn. I seem to be alone in not feeling a burn. Maybe I got unlucky and found the one brand that will allow me to take infinitely many without a burn. I just ordered twin labs betaine HCL that djr mentioned above. I'm not going to take anymore of the pills I have now since they obviously have no effect on me.
Can you be more specific? Are there raised ridges, cracks, white spots, etc.?
There are no cracks or white spots just ridges. I will take a picture of them soon and make a new thread about fingernail analysis. My nails look horribly weak with very small lunula and are some shade of pink with numerous slightly defined vertical ridges that make them look like a prism. I got some chelated zinc gluconate dihydrate and zinc picolinate 30mg supps from twin labs. I think I will take 1 every other day.
So, I've doing some reading on mercury poisoning and there seems to be even more evidence that I am being poisoned by my ten mercury amalgams I received from ages 13-16. Apparently mercury cannot be tested that accurately in hair, urine or the blood as it remains locked up in tissue, especially in the brain. A good way to accurately test mercury levels is to have a brain biopsy. I found this great article by Dr. Eades where he concludes the following
Mercury is toxic, of that there is no question. The amalgams produce mercury vapor, of that there is no question. People with mercury amalgams have higher levels of tissue mercury, of that there is no question. So why inflict children (or yourself) with a poison that is for sure going to go to their brains? Even though it might not harm them.
And here is the study where they looked at the levels of mercury in tissue and the number of amalgam fillings the person had.
Mercury levels increased with the number of dental amalgams for all the anatomic sites. The interaction term between each anatomic site and the number of occlusal amalgam surfaces was statistically significant (P = 0.03), suggesting that the association between mercury levels and the number of occlusal amalgams was dependent on the anatomic site. Mercury levels in the pituitary gland and the cerebral cortex in subjects with more than 12 occlusal amalgam surfaces were more than 10 times higher than levels in subjects with 3 or less occlusal amalgams (both P = 0.0007). Levels in the thyroid and in the renal cortex were respectively about 5 and 4 times higher in subjects with 12 occlusal amalgams or more compared with subjects with 3 occlusal amalgams or less (P = 0.01 and P = 0.04, respectively).
In summary, our research shows, for the first time, that frontal lobe cortex has the highest content levels of mercury associated with occlusal amalgam surfaces and total mercury levels approaching or exceeding 300 ppb (ng/g), wet weight, in some cases. This, in turn, strongly points to the hypothesis–which, in the future, should be looked into in larger and ad hoc studies–that mercury vapor, known to be a neurotoxicant, may indeed lead to some types of neurobehavioral disorders.
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/uncategorized/mercury-amalgam-whitewash/
The evidence is extremely damning here and really makes me want to get these fillings replaced. Dr. Huggins seems to be very experienced and one of the leading physicians that advocates amalgam replacement.I ordered the free packet of information. I'm not going to do anything rash but I really want to look into this more.
I also found a chemist by the name of Andrew Cutler, who seems to be the foremost expert on mercury poisoning and has written a couple of good books. I'm reading a free version of one of them right now. I will try and do something to get tested in the near future. I've never come across anyone as tired as me (or at least as how I perceive it) and now with the HCL failure, my mercury poisoning hypothesis seems to be getting stronger.
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZG9glNfif5YC&printsec=frontcover&dq=amalgam+illness#v=onepage&q=&f=false
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I agree with getting rid of the mercury, and had mine taken out. But it's a risk, for the non-amalgam fillings have a different co-efficient of expansion than tooth material, and don't always maintain adhesion to the tooth leaving the possibility of weakness and leaking leading to decay. Advice, carefully select dentist who is up on the latest bonding materials.
I would suggest taking a lesser amount of hcl and not looking for a burn. I think that is advice given without studying what the effects can be to the stomach lining, as in, it's too late when it burns. My guess is everyone has different nerve or pain thresholds in the stomach as well as different stomach linings or thickness of linings. Look for help with digestion on lesser amounts and take your time with increasing the amounts. I found out that it helped initially but eventually I thought it was making me weak and stopped.
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I agree with getting rid of the mercury, and had mine taken out. But it's a risk, for the non-amalgam fillings have a different co-efficient of expansion than tooth material, and don't always maintain adhesion to the tooth leaving the possibility of weakness and leaking leading to decay. Advice, carefully select dentist who is up on the latest bonding materials.
Thanks, I am going to be as careful as I can. I'm tired of being nice to nice people that have power over me. I can say no to nice dentists! I wonder if my teeth could heal themselves without refilling them.
I would suggest taking a lesser amount of hcl and not looking for a burn. I think that is advice given without studying what the effects can be to the stomach lining, as in, it's too late when it burns. My guess is everyone has different nerve or pain thresholds in the stomach as well as different stomach linings or thickness of linings. Look for help with digestion on lesser amounts and take your time with increasing the amounts. I found out that it helped initially but eventually I thought it was making me weak and stopped.
Good point, though I can't seem to find anyone that has not gotten that burn. I didn't notice a difference in mood or feeling the next day either but then again I have hard time noticing differences and this could play right into my inability to notice my feelings or understand my emotional needs.
I've still been lifting and will be posting my progress once a month or so.
2/18
Press Squat Rows Curls
125x5x3 225x5x3 115x5x3 30x5x3
2/20
Bench Press Chin-ups Tricep Extensions
225x5x3 bw+25x5x3 45x5x3
2/23
Press Squat deadlift curls
130x5x3 235x5x3 225x5 35x5x3
2/27
Bench Press Squat pull-ups Triceps
235x5x3 245x5x3 bw+25x5x3 50x5x3
3/3
Press Squat Deadlift
135x5x3 255x5x3 245x5
3/7
Bench DB Squat
100x5x2 265x5x3
3/11
Press Squat
140x5x3 275x5x3
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I also want to get those amalgams replaced but it will be done the old fashion way, without any protection, because I could not find any dentist here who would follow a safe removal protocol.
Another thing is that I also have a little mercury inserted at the bottom of a root canal and that will probably stay there for a longer time. I want to keep that crown for functional reasons.
The funny part is that I found out about the amalgam dangers just a few weeks after I got them. Very encouraging.
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Thanks, I am going to be as careful as I can. I'm tired of being nice to nice people that have power over me. I can say no to nice dentists! I wonder if my teeth could heal themselves without refilling them.
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Yes, one of mine did, and there is plenty of info on that here and elsewhere. Just search terms like remineralize, remineralization and vitamins A, D3 and K2 here and at Stephan Guyenet's blog and the WAPF site.
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Had a pretty abysmal day, was in a lot of pain, but am feeling better right now. My bad days are always when energy is low. Its so annoying being unable to do anything to make yourself feel alive. I had some pretty awful thoughts about what I would do to make myself feel better if this energy level continued. It wasn't until I went to my recovery meeting and heard some live music that my energy started to shift. I was having this conversation yesterday about my rehab yesterday with some parents of my one friend and realized that I really missed that place. Well, I missed the interactions and the connections I made. I miss the group meetings and all the input from everyone. Its so great having all different people with different addictions and different perspectives around you all the time giving their opinions and stories.
I don't want to go back to rehab but I'd like to find a group that I can connect with. Its so easy to open up at rehab and express yourself and just really be yourself. I felt this rush of emotions, a slight tear jerking moment flashed inside and made me realize what I was missing here. I don't have a social group of people to hang out with. God, I really like the group dynamic and sitting around in circle or at a table and just discussing stuff. Sounds so simple but this makes my day. Writing about it brings me joy. My diet was terrible at rehab but I felt much more alive and at peace.
Im still having trouble deciding whether my chronic tiredness is a product of mistaken beliefs in my head or something physical. All I've ever heard from people is how tired I look and how lazy I am and no doctor I've been to has ever found anything wrong with me. Blood tests are always normal. I suppose I look healthy from their perspective. I do have a lot of self-esteem issues that when I address them, my energy level shoots up but then there are days like today, where I felt good upon waking and tried hard to keep my spirits up but just ran out of everything. I'm rambling as usual but its my journal so its all good.
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I subscribe to the positive thinking camps, but since your symptoms very much mirror my own I'm going to personally weigh in on the physical side. I know my mood has increased drastically and negativity diminished in a period which my energy has tanked, and then shown improvement with raw diet to the point where I am already/finally experiencing more of a 'normal' sense of energy. for awhile it was like below-zero, then I had the energy to work out, but after that felt almost consistently like crap, extremely tired in the eyes esp and feeling like I hadn't slept in days all the time. But I have pretty existential struggles with whether I'm going to continue with raw again this time and other such things
I also attend a support group and know what you mean about the dynamic, and how even if the conversation is depressing it can still be uplifting in the end, especially if you have stuff to share for others. other then that have very little social interaction other then my relationship. One reason for this I now live in a totally different geographical area then most of my friends, but likely if I was feeling better, and def if I was eating "normally" I would have moved back by now. So I can say for sure that for me, rightfully or wrongfully, my diet actually makes me way more introverted then I usually am, and tend to assume people won't understand things and just avoid situations.
I also have the same issue with the clear blood tests/looking healthy thing. My GF for such reasons really has gotten on my case about doing 'extreme' stuff, because of course it seems unnecessary to her. Although she has noticed some recent improvement and trusts my judgment. I havn't taken this step myself, but perhaps you could get more extensive testing for things like candida which do not turn up in blood tests.
I think it makes sense to use whatever technogies to aid your self-esteem and mental stuff while doing the physical work of diet/cleansing. I think there are some that can just tackle the mental stuff with whole sucess, but I've tried that myself and ended up in the same crap place more than a few times.
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Thanks for chiming in KD - glad to see you are struggling right along side me. It's not fun climbing an endless mountain by myself. But, my journey is not so bad, I can always find someone else who is struggling far worse than me. I don't think you should let this diet lead you towards being more introverted. Its kind of a lame excuse, the kind I have made and keep making to myself all these years.
Quick recap of the last few days. I've started eating lots of egg yolks again after dropping them for a few days. I am going out of town to this little Greek town on the gulf side of Florida called Tarpon springs with my mom and sister which I'm really looking forward to. I will probably be eating lots of eggs, seeing as they store well in room temperature. They don't taste the best and give me the slightest signs of discomfort so it'll be interesting to see how it goes this weekend.
I haven't had vegetation in 6 days when I had a big salad on Saturday after playing a couple hours of basketball. I figured this would do well replenishing glyocgen. I had my first bowel movement today since Saturday. It was very small but well formed and no blood or pain, though its still pretty odd that I have such little fecal matter after almost a week? I've felt improved energy the last couple days as well and keep eating greater than 70% fat though I've stopped tracking calorie intake directly. I have a good feel for the amount that is right. I ran out of back fat and have replaced it with suet. Marrow is my favorite fat, though it doesn't have much of a taste. I might even be craving it and will put in a big order for it from slankers soon. Still eating "low" protein, somewhat testing what will happen to my strength.
I also had this little spat with paleophil over at dirtycarnivore. It felt really good to put him down, though oddly enough he is my favorite poster. There is this nice rush and feeling of invincibility when I put people down or feel I've made a valid point. Ego is a hellaofa drug.
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I enjoyed the back and forth between you two (I'm Katelyn over there, in case you didn't know).
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...I also had this little spat with paleophil over at dirtycarnivore. It felt really good to put him down, though oddly enough he is my favorite poster. There is this nice rush and feeling of invincibility when I put people down or feel I've made a valid point. Ego is a hellaofa drug.
Glad I could be of service, and don't worry about it--while I would prefer discussions without insults, Tyler has put me down a lot more than you have, and I still enjoy most of my discussions with Tyler. I can see how you could have interpreted my comments as more anti-GCBC/Taubes than I meant them to be. Your comments helped me come up with a better way of phrasing things that should help me avoid irritating other Taubes fans. Ironically, Tyler has criticized me for being too pro-Taubes, IIRC. :D
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I've changed my way of eating and am testing a low protein diet. I looked at several starvation and low calorie studies and it seems our daily need for protein could indeed be very low with nitrogen balance achieved around 30-50g of protein per day. It seems that all excess protein intake is simply converted to glucose which is a destructive process that wastes 10-11 ATP, or 30% of a molecule of glucose while giving the kidneys the task of excreting toxic nitrogen compounds.
I want to see if my body runs better without this excreted waste. With this lower protein intake, its absolutely necessary to intake some kinds of dietary carbs at least every once in a while. There seems to be a minimum of at least 40g of glucose needed per day for the body to function well. If glucose is scarce, the body will sacrifice whatever it can to obtain glucose first to keep the body alive. If I do not intake carbs with this low-protein, I will quickly run through my glycogen stores and then start wasting lean muscle to get glucose. The glycerol from the triglycerides provides glucose at a rate 5-10% of fat burned, and not enough to supply the body with its daily glucose requirement.
A very rough daily average intake would be something like 50g carbs, 60g protein and whatever fat I feel like. I am trying to lose weight at about a pound of week so which is about 500 calories a day.
I am 4 days into this little experiment and have kept protein around 50-60g and only have had one carb intake of a large apple, about 30g carbs. I'm unsure as how to intake my carbs and from which sources but will be playing around to find something that works.
Oh, and hi K, I know who you are and have read lots of your journal.
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Hi, Paleodonk. I've upped my fat and lowered my protein a bit lately. I come from the bodybuilding world, so it is hard mentally to see me not getting 1 g. protein per pound (100lbs. roughly for me). I decided to get at least 88 g. protein a day--my LBM with 14% BF, and the rest fat. So far I feel great and it has not negatively affected my lifting.
I will not be adding any carbohydrates in though. I love just eating ZC and don't want any carbohydrates in my diet, other than the glucose my body makes from protein. I'll be following your experiment. Are you using Fitday or a tracking system?
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80-90g of protein a day sounds about right if you aren't going to eat carbs and lifting but as always listen to your body. I don't use fitday, I simply use the figure 20% to determine the amount of protein in the meat. I use the usda nutrient database which is excellent and has a very large breakdown of nutrients, though it ignores antinutrients to look up nutrient ratios. The leanest meat I have ever seen is 23% protein and the fattest is about 15%. My grass-fed beef is on the leaner side and so I use the 20% number. If I'm off by a couple percent it doesn't matter - it will only be a 5g error at the very most.
Fat, on the other hand, seems to be much harder to calculate. Marrow, unfortunately has only been measure from caribou and is 84% fat, 7% protein by weight. Cordain has an excellent paper that analyzes the exact fatty-acids of other ruminant marrow and finds it to be 51% fat, so there is a huge difference going on here. Even suet which the usda has as 94% fat breaks down to just 60-70% of its weight when its made into tallow according to lex, so I'm not sure what numbers to use. I actually don't really care as fat calories can easily come from my body if I don't eat enough. Protein on the other other hand, since it is not supplied from within my body is essential and much more important to track. Carbs are also important track for me as they are very important for sparing protein and refilling glycogen stores in the muscles.
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I just ate some blackberries from an orgainc market. They were mildly sweet but at the same time have left this pretty toxic taste in my mouth. It is not very pleasant. I've tasted this sort of toxic thing before but never this strongly. Also they cost 2.50 for 170 grams or 70 calories worth, so 100 dollars of blackberries would be needed to provide a good amount of calories.
Also, the apple I had a couple days ago was probably the best tasting apple I have ever had. Perhaps my tastes are getting more sensitive to the foods that I need. I can't believe how toxic the berries tasted. Anybody else experience this?
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I can't believe how toxic the berries tasted. Anybody else experience this?
I have but I experienced it before going RAF. Some berries tasted good while others I had to spit out because they were definitely not right.
The two times I had Blackberries a few weeks ago they had a strongly acidic and somewhat cloying mouthfeel but did not taste inherently "toxic". It still wasn't worth it even if they didn't flare my Candida issues up.
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Thanks for weighing in. I left out the other small box of blackberries and ate them today pretty much non-stop once I began. They didn't seem to have the same toxic aftertaste as the others. They didn't taste good either just felt like I needed to eat more and more and so I did. It could have been the seeds that gave the toxic taste? Whatever not a big deal. I'll probably get blueberries or raspberries next time.
These small carb-ups are quite annoying. They are like drugs. I could easily eat a ikea basket worth of fruit right now and I only had about 30-40g of carbs today (had a plum as well). I bought a sweet potato that I'll be trying pretty soon - perhaps part of it raw to see what happens. I don't know how to prepare it. Maybe I'll let it ferment if thats possible. Any tips?
Today I had this 3 minute euphoria type episode in class. It happened after I was reading some of The Black Swan, which is a ridiculously good book. The book is actually pretty healing for me. I feel it supports my main line of thinking and gives me permission to act and think they way I always had and not feel guilty. Well, I had everything connecting and one of the students even said, "I've never seen you this happy". I actually turned away quickly as she said this because I was so happy and could even feel the early signs of tears welling up. The feeling is so pleasant when I get in this stage. My mind works extremely fast and is creative and not dulled down by heavy fog. I feel so uplifted. Unfortunately the feeling faded fast and at one point in the afternoon I was completely devoid of energy to the point I was in pain from just standing. But that also was fairly short lived. Life is so completely different when I was in that little moment. Its like I feel connected to every other atom in the universe. I don't try to think. I don't control anything. I just ride whatever comes to me. I just am.
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Are berries in season down there yet? I think I picked strawberries around this time once in FL. I dont think local and organic are necessities, but some out-of-season shipped fruit can just taste off, especially with a more defined non-carbed palate. I think blackberries taste more tart anyway, but you said it shifted form box to box so I'm stumped depending on what you mean by toxic.
I think in one of the carb threads they were talking about fermentation of sweet potatoes, that they were traditionally burried. I know kimichiis make use of various roots, that one would probably shave with a peeler and compress without oxygen.. I suggest if eating raw to do the same, to slice very thin, but think raw starch in general will lead to some digestive stress.
I'm glad you had that window, and are figuring out the ways to think and act that create good thoughts and feelings. I think getting over trying to control circumstances and outcomes (for myself) is pretty key to this 'now' stuff.
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I don't know what berry season is for Florida. Maybe they would grow year round in the tropics? Do other fruits have seasons even in the tropics when the weather is about the same? Maybe it corresponds to how much it rains. I liked the blueberries I had a few weeks ago so I'll probably go back to them. They resemble the hordes of wild berries I saw scattered everywhere down in patagonia. As for the sweet potato, its still here on my desk -I'll have to research more, maybe I'll cook half, eat some raw and ferment the rest.Thanks for the encouraging words, those never get old.
I'm feeling pretty good right now, probably best I can remember in the past few weeks. Lots of factors - The sun is fking finally here, though its still cool in the mornings. I've laid out several times this past week getting nearly full body exposure to the sun. I also finally ordered some vitamin D drops from trace minerals which should be here in the next couple days. Not sure why I didn't get this sooner. Also, one of my best friends very coincidently came to Jacksonville to check out a law school he might go to next year. He has been teaching english in spain the last 3 years and so this came as a huge surprise. I went out to enjoy the nightlife for about the third time in the last three months. He's phenomenal at attracting chicks and has no issues asserting himself and is probably one of the most non-threatening hypersexual dudes I know. Just a natural people magnet. I hadn't spent that much time around women in months. Was good fun
Didn't eat any food today, somewhat on purpose Iit was around 5p.m. when I normally eat and I wasn't hungry so I decided to see if I could make it the whole day. I went and lifted and actually had tons of energy at the gym. I felt loose, flexible and more mobile than normal. My strength went measurably down today on overhead press, which is really disappointing and a sign that this lower protein might not be working. Though a couple days ago I set a personal record squatting 305, 5 times.
Also, I started a blog www.steakaholic.com I'd really like to spread the word about raw paleo and its potential benefits.
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As far as I know, even in the zones that do grow berries, they go dormant in the winter. This is true for blackberries at least. many fruits won't even grow in the tropics, like many types of berries (although I think they GM some varieties and with persistance do so) oranges etc...the farm I was at in homestead had seasons for avocado, mango, lychee, pineapple, papaya etc..all different. Not sure exactly what the factors are. Although I guess this could be considered as sub-tropical, and the winter temps can get pretty low.
heres an interesting page on growing temperate fruits in FL
http://orchards-fruit-gardening.suite101.com/article.cfm/temperate_fruit_trees_that_grow_in_florida
Great start to the blog.
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Thanks for the info on the fruit. I think I'm going to try and eliminate fruit from my diet. It is unbelievably addicting to me and I have no idea how you guys keep in under control. Last night, my mom sent me this fruit basket and I tore up half of it in just a matter of minutes, even had a delicious chocolate covered pineapple. Adding in carbs seem to be a very fruitless effort so far unfortunately. I've read through some paleo blogs and have decided to give potatoes/yams a run for their carbs. It seems like few people have had trouble with them and seems to be a much more common thread amongst extant hunter-gatherers. Its also probably closer in size and carbohydrate concentration as paleolithic tubers.
I think a good food does not at all lead to overconsumption, that a natural stop mechanism is signaled. Unmashed potatoes seem to fit this as I've never particularly craved whole potatoes and remember distinctly not being able to finish them when younger. How the hell do you guys get away with fruit? I just want to jam them down my mouth as fast as I can. Its such a ridiculously strong urge. I might just buy single pieces of fruit at a time. One interesting theory I've seen, is that since fruit is seasonal and wants to disperse its seeds that it has developed a method (namely fructose) to have the animal eating it not be able to stop itself from gorging. It might also be a survival advantage to have no stop mechanism so we could add on a bit of weight before winter set in.
My energy has been on the low side with levels of depression on the low side as well. I still have yet to even put together an entire week where I work everyday on whatever I need to do to help depression. I get addicted to researching and reading blogs and eating fruit to no end.
So, I still have no idea what works for me. Best thing so far is eating fat first, at least 100g worth and then eating some raw meat. Everything else triggers hunger except for exercising which suppresses it during and usually for quite some time afterwards.
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Thanks for the info on the fruit. I think I'm going to try and eliminate fruit from my diet. It is unbelievably addicting to me and I have no idea how you guys keep in under control. Last night, my mom sent me this fruit basket and I tore up half of it in just a matter of minutes, even had a delicious chocolate covered pineapple. ....
Same here. I try to remember how poorly I feel the day after a fruit binge. If I buy fruit I know I'll go through it quickly, so I limit myself to small amounts on the rare occasions I do buy it.
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Yea, it would be a good idea to remember how I feel like after a fruit binge, but yesterday wasn't one of those days and I stuffed myself for an easter feast. Lots of meat but also lots of carbs and even desert. I felt very, very bad immediately after the feast was over. There was a significant bulge in my stomach and I had to lie down. Luckily I went to sleep and woke up fine a couple hours later, even felt pretty clear-headed and alert. Still, there seems to be something very wrong with my digestion. I have yet to produce well-formed stools at all the last three months. Perhaps some were decent but nothing really resembling perfection, though I'm not really sure what that is now. My stools yesterday had some white streak across them, perhaps this is undigested fat?? Also, they all float, which I think points to fatty stools. Also, the 5 years or so preceding low-carb was filled with horrible stool formation so these digestion problems have been around for a long time.
I'm not sure what my 12g HCL extravaganza did to my stomach. I seem to be experiencing acid-reflux for the first time in my life, but this is only after cooked food. Yesterdays inability to deal with lots of food was really disappointing. I did eat a lot but it wasn't a tremendous amount. I also gained 4-5 pounds in the last 3 days, which is probably a good deal of water weight from the excess carbs and Im back up to 188, a weight I can't seem to easily break through.
I'm trying out a liver flush tonight. All I did was mix 3 egg yolks with 3 medium-sized limes. The concoction actually tastes pretty good. I kind of want to make more of it right now. I am extremely skeptical of detoxes but this one seems to have physical proof that it works and endless testimonials of people claiming its benefits. I was supposed to add some oil to the mix but I don't think its a big part of the equation. I'm supposed to either give myself an enema or eliminate with epsom salts tomorrow morning (more likely). If anything weird comes out of me, I will be very surprised.
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One interesting theory I've seen, is that since fruit is seasonal and wants to disperse its seeds that it has developed a method (namely fructose) to have the animal eating it not be able to stop itself from gorging. It might also be a survival advantage to have no stop mechanism so we could add on a bit of weight before winter set in.
Yeah, I'm not sure about fruits. I'm under the assumption i'm dealing with candida stuff, which is why I'm avoiding them. If I didn't know anything about these theories or raw paleo or whatever, and ignored physical symptoms, I would probably be eating alot more fruit. At the same time, I don't actually have sugar cravings. I have all kinds of fruit and starch around my house, and I prepare alot of basic starchy foods for others, but not a whole lot of desire for it. This is somewhat strange as I do admittedly have minor issues with only consuming raw-paleo/primal food, although since this is not due to cravings I can't describe what the reason is, I guess the closest word is boredom. I have been eating 100% since I started up again, but often I'm not totally satisfied with my choices.
my experiences with food addiction were mostly with the starvation raw vegan diet I was on (i'm not being pejorative of those diets in general, as I was basically told to eat a low sugar, low fat diet, which is basically impossible) so this totally lead to eying foods and occasional binging. I then turned to fruit diet which allowed for binging on fruits, and even though I followed it to the T for almost 2 years, I often had cravings for other carbs, and especially for fats. The rationing you describe with fruits I had to do with avocados and nuts. after some time I realized I couldn't even deal with nuts at all but with avo's I would buy like 1 or 2 for the week or whatever nonsense. I guess my point is, is that fruits probably do have an agenda and so forth but that the simplest answers are probably true. I think that originally fruits were not as sweet, and that many are obviously not designed (like mango) for human transfer of seeds to humans, so modern fruits do in some ways take on the characteristics of junk foods (although I think these comparisons are also hyperbolic) especially in regards to feeding fungus and other unnatural conditions of civilization. But like vegans suggest, even in our utopic tropical paradise a primitive person might find themselves among a grove of some sort, and eat to their hearts or stomachs content, but these people are also assuming these groves are like modern groves devoid of wild animals and things, where one can peacefully sit under and ruminate about lettuce or whatever, when in reality, it would be running from large and small predators and at most gathering and bring back to some primitive form of camp, or for nomads it would be back to kill or be killed.
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I think I have a highly addictive personality and my life is essentially driven by instant gratification and that there is very little in the ways of stopping myself. I get lost in so many activities whether thats playing poker for 10 hours through the night, or being stuck at a stupid flash video game for hours, or endlessly reading paleo blogs or eating fruit. I have enormous trouble stopping myself from doing anything if left on my own. But, it seems like I do have natural "stops" in place for things in life that are healthy for me. I instinctively know how much to eat when I eat raw fat first and then lean meat. I instinctively know how much deep breathing to do. Whenever I work on my anxiety book I never work for several hours. I produce good work in a short amount of time and don't wander around aimlessly. Exercising is the same way.
I tried something different yesterday. Before I went to bed the day before I made a little agreement with myself that I wouldn't go online until I had done a list of tasks. Its spring break, so I have the week off, and right when I woke up, I carried out my plan. You guys might not think this is special, but I did my laundry for the first time in 4 months. I was just wearing dirty clothes this whole time, even stopped wearing underwear. My room was a wreck as well, I cleaned that up. I went to the bank. I checked up some other accounts. I found new car insurance. I read a little. I accomplished so much, probably more than I have in one day - and I did almost all this by noon. I know I perform better when there is structure as my mind wanders so aimlessly, so easily and gets entirely cluttered and worked up over stuff that doesn't matter that I end up doing nothing but reading blogs and research most days.
Essentially there isn't much room for error once I get off track. The slope is so slippery on either side, that once I've fallen it seems to take so much time to get back on track. Thankfully I have the tools to make the slope less slippery and not as accessible, but fuck its hard as hell. So, right now, I should get off this computer, do some meditation or relaxation, work on anxiety book, make a detailed to-do list and go from there and give myself rewards for following through.
Also, the liver flush thing hasn't produced much so far, though it feels like there is something going on in my body. I did eliminate more floating, very thin sick looking turds this morning. A noticed a very thin white hair-like thing on it. I also just drank a bit of epsom salt and water. It is extremely bad tasting so I am switching to milk of magnesia. I'll keep the updates coming and probably do another yolk-lime flush today.
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Keep moving and moving forward. Nip this crap in the bud. Knowledge is your enemy.
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One quick speculation on fruit that I wanted to bring up before I delved more into my depression. Since, we are at a peak in a warm period now between ice ages, more fruit is probably available than ever before. Perhaps, more fruit is available even in the tropics and thus even primate fruit eaters are getting more fruit than on average over the last several million years. I was watching some nature vids on youtube where they showed this one wild chimp, weak, gray, and nearly blind and he was only in his 40's. There are clearly lots of reasons for this but I'm simply using this example to illustrate a possibility that even chimps could not be adapted to such high amounts of fruit.
For as long as I can remember I've been addicted to fruit, especially fruit juice filled with HFCS. I would easily down a liter of mango juice with my dinner and never connect it with my passing out shortly there after. The last couple days, I've had no vegetation intake and today I had some liver which tasted quite good, much better than the last time. I don't like haphazardly attaching a cause to anything but I love speculating and so possibly this was my body letting me know I needed something in it. I also hadn't had any protein before this so that could of affected my tastes for it. It had been several weeks since last eating liver.
My body feels pretty decent right now on no vegetation and after a long talk with my brother on my mental state. Its amazing how he figures me out so quickly. He's pretty much the exact opposite of me in terms of education - I made good grades in high school, made sure I never walked off the line and ended up with a useless masters degree. He barely passed high school, failed college miserably, but has incredible intuition and insight without having picked up a textbook, though he now likes to read. I was always told all my life how smart I was and so I actually believed it for the most part, until these last couple years when I realized I actually couldn't do much outside of academics. In literally almost any category that matters in real life, my brother would surpass me. Its kind of weird admitting this but its true. He just figures things out that matter and can explain in detail his thought processes, while I simply sit on the sidelines acing memorized actuarial exams that have gotten me little. Its not quite this black and white but you get the picture.
Also, I'm going to Miami for spring break tomorrow. I'm not going to bring my laptop and just see what all I can expose myself to, put myself in some different social situations and move out of my comfort zone. I've had decent success doing this traveling on my own in the past, so we'll see what it do. Maybe wounded gazelle hunting - I haven't done this in a while, though I don't stay up late enough now to even see if there are many wounds. Holla
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Wow, I'm the opposite. Very Type A, love routines. I thrive only with boundaries--which I often set myself. Good going on making a plan and sticking with it! :-*
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I think I love routines also, or at least love myself more when I write down a routine and follow it. I seem to lose myself so easily if I don't have a concrete plan. My mind is excellent at finding ways to distract itself from the goal if nothing is there to keep it in check. The best things that keep my mind in check are plans, and especially so if these plans involve attractive women that will see the results immediately.
Also, wanted to give an update on my 2nd day of liver flushing. I put down 5 egg yolks with an even higher percentage of lime juice last night. I went ahead and just bought lime juice instead of limes, making this thing far easier to do. I probably won't keep the ratio that high if I do add even more egg yolks from here on out. I did have some gnarly stools this morning. I had three separate pushes that resulted in 3 different colored stools - extremely strange, no? The first push was easy and relieving and resulted in a large amount of soft, light colored mess. The second was smaller and darker, and the third was even smaller and darkest of the three. So, something is happening. I didn't take in any milk of magnesia either.
I'm going to lay off the carbs for now, I've felt great in the past without them. Maybe I will eventually train myself in the future to eat them, but I really can't have what happened this weekend. It was awful. I feel much better now. Perhaps I'll find a happy medium where I will instinctively know when my glycogen stores are running low and need a refeed and then eat the appropriate carbs. I'm still worried about exercise performance, which is one of my main goals.
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Good news and bad news to report as usual. Good news is that I had some really relaxing smooth conversations that were creative, absent of diarhea of the mouth where my sentences seem to splatter everywhere without direction. The bad news is that I was wallowing in extreme lethargy for much of the day. I only slept 5+ hours last night after scouring throw a bunch of research last night. I was in my addiction completely unable to remove myself from the computer. There was much catching up to do from the 5 days in Miami that I was without a computer. I was tired around 1030 but just pushed myself until 2 until I was borderline hallucinating. Its crazy what I will do for instant gratification. In this instance sleep is not instantly gratifying and so my mind rejects this in favor of tirelessly searching. I have about 20 tabs open on this browser alone on a lot of material that I did not quite get through. I feel like I have so much work to do. Not necessarily a bad thing but I need to force myself away.
But now I feel pretty good and about to head to my weekly recovery meeting, something I have not done in about a month. I'm actually pretty excited to go and see the people and join in the active listening. So going to miami was a fantastic experience. I stayed with my Dad's best friend from college who is now recently widowed. The guy really questioned almost everything that left my mouth. Not necessarily at all in a threatening manner, though it did get quite annoying and I did explode on him eventually, but he really forced me to make everything I said crystal clear with no leaks. He picked apart every little part of my reasoning, which really forced me into thinking, yes thinking, something I have been avoiding been stuck in my own anxieties. My mind sharpened like it had before with his mandatory need for explanations - something I have never been good at doing. For the most part, I figure out how to do things without being able to explain back what it took to get there.
A psychologist explained my thinking to me using the following example - She would always tell me how "bright" kids like me were worse at explaining things they learned since the knowledge just intuitively came to them. You ask a smart kid how he knew how to write the letter 'D' and he'll say "I don't know?" but you ask a kid struggling in school and he'll be able to give a more precise, detailed answer. I know its not exactly like this, but the point is that I think this really explains how I think. I don't figure things out really and instead skip over the details and grasp ideas as a whole. This also leads me to think other people understand my thoughts better than they really do. They can't actually read my mind - just because what makes sense to me does not mean that makes the same sense to them. This really is a lack of empathy, the ability to put oneself in another one's place. I feel much more empathetic right now than last week. Empathy is also related to my ability to connect to my surroundings without agonizing and simply reacting. I think I do well with pattern recognition types of intelligence, stuff that looks nice on standardized tests but not particularly helpful in real life.
This also helps explain why my posts often have missing words - my ideas in my mind are clear but I have trouble fully putting all of it down in a readable manner for everyone else. It makes so much sense to me that I rush to get my point across without the thought about how others will read it. I still have to proofread my posts multiple times, like this one, which I am editing now(twice now) to correct for a couple mistakes.
Also, not being able to explain myself clearly leads to me just giving up and saying "I don't know". If an answer does not just spontaneously come to me, I badly want to give up. This has been my modus operandi for years now. I just give up, or cry and pout like a little baby when things don't work out. Its amazing how much I just don't think about a situation whenever a problem arises. I just stop trying instead of thinking critically and asking the right questions. Right now, thanks to my Dad's friend, I feel I can ask the right questions to get out of a jam. But I'm vulnerable as always to slipping back but the confidence is there. Woot.
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A psychologist explained my thinking to me using the following example - She would always tell me how "bright" kids like me were worse at explaining things they learned since the knowledge just intuitively came to them. You ask a smart kid how he knew how to write the letter 'D' and he'll say "I don't know?" but you ask a kid struggling in school and he'll be able to give a more precise, detailed answer.
Been there, done that. It used to be so bad at times in high school that they'd think I cheated.
I'd take a math test and finish in less than 10 minutes with nothing written out other than answers while it took the rest of the class 30+ minutes and they'd have a page or two of scrap paper filled out with their calculations.
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Been there, done that. It used to be so bad at times in high school that they'd think I cheated.
I'd take a math test and finish in less than 10 minutes with nothing written out other than answers while it took the rest of the class 30+ minutes and they'd have a page or two of scrap paper filled out with their calculations.
I'm not alone, again. Nice!
I forgot to mention my liver flush experiment which I did not continue in miami for the 5 days I was there. I did have about 4 egg yolks with some limie juice and a touch of coconut oil a couple nights ago, which produced nothing interesting the next day. My stools seem to be backed up significantly again. If you recall I was having tremendous difficulty, with horrible pain passing malformed stools at the end of my first two months of raw carnivore. The stools became painless once I added carbs, but never even got close to normalcy. I keep talking about stools in my journal since they seem to give me immediate feedback, though I still do not know how to interpret them.
I'm going to restart HCL pills which I only took a few times and thought they were worhtless after getting no burn. I found another journal online of a zc'er who had a very similar reaction to me with the pills. He took 6 one meal, then 8 and eventually up to 20 650 mg pills without a burn. But, he stuck with it, but kept his intake much lower and eventually got down to a more reasonable number. I'm not sure he got down to 0, but he did feel something after 6-8 IIRC. This got me very hopeful and so I took 7-8 HCL pills last night after my meal and felt nothing of course, but it didn't bother me as much because of the other guy's experience. His journal can be found here - http://forum.zeroinginonhealth.com/archive/index.php/thread-2386-1.html
He suffered from poor anaerobic performance and never got to the level he wanted to be at in the 8 months of zero-carbing, even with his much improved digestion with the HCL. He's now doing a Matt Stone inspired High Everything Diet (now renamed RRARF, which I have my own inconclusive opinions on that I will talk about later). I have never had trouble with weightlifting and in fact increased my lifts significantly going vlc/zc.
Today and yesterday I felt what it was like to be both not depressed but physically incapable of doing much. More so yesterday, but the 5 day break away from the computer and in social situations almost all the time with little isolation, as well as being outside seemed to really erase some mental instability. I called one of my good friends that I had not talked to in a year or longer. I emailed her a couple months ago telling her I would call very soon. I kept putting off this call and was in fact kind of dreading it the entire time. Well, I somehow just called her up and had a really inspiring conversation that lasted for more than 2 hours. It was effortless most of the time and I was able to produce uninterrupted streams of thoughts that connected well with her. My mind seems to be in a much better place and this was without any bookwork, just stepping out into the open. I finally feel like talking to the opposite sex in the way that I want to.
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A few things. Grain fed meat is starting to taste much worse to me. I was forced to buy some in Miami this last week and decided to cook part of it because it tasted so bad. Grass-fed meat on the other tastes good, especially the lamb shoulder chops that sit out for a day. They are amazing - the fat content is high and the meat is so tender and soft. I could eat it the rest of my life no problem.
I can't tell if this is a product of my training or my diet, but it appears that I am not doing so well when I lift for sets longer than 5. The first rep seems very light and then the rest seem significantly heavier. I wonder if this has to do with me depleting my glycogen the last week with almost no carbs. For instance, today I deadlifted 425 for a new personal best one time. It wasn't my intention to max out, its just that I didn't feel like doing anymore than one rep. That one rep felt very strong, just that I had no need for anymore. So, with this in mind I decided to just throw on more weight. This was 10 more pounds than my previous max and and whopping 60 more pounds than I had done double-overhand, implying that my grip is probably stronger and also that if I switched to the stronger mixed grip I could have probably deadlifted a bit more. I also maxed on olympic squatting getting 355 the other day. So max strength is up, which is important, but I'm not sure about endurance.
Also, I picked up a canker sore for the first time in a very long time (perhaps since I went vlc 18 months ago). I used to get these annoying sores pretty often in the past and they too miraculously disappeared with the change in diet. Essentially, there isn't one aspect of my health that has improved over the last 4 months. Most things have stayed the same, but a few have gotten worse. I am a bit stronger than ever though and thats about it. Maybe its time for pemmican - something I really don't want to make.
Its kind of weird that raw meat feels great going down and raw fat is satiating but that my stools are so completely awful but they were fine on cooked meat, as was everything else. Well, I'm going to stick it out and get my mercury taken out and then detox from that. I did have this huge swiss chard and an avocado yesterday, which has produced no bowel movements today. I sense something painful in the near future :(
One good thing as well - the HCL pills seemed to have done something today after 6-8 pills (lost track when I was on the phone). I can't really describe the feeling as a warm burning sensation that others have reported but I didn't feel like taking more
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I do more of an endurance type set, but have noticed both strength and endurance are up, marginally. But as for my typical daily energy there has been no positive shift yet. So I can relate
Sorry to hear about your elimination, I seem to go back and forth between fully formed/dense, and the more liquidy brain like ones, but almost never full scale liquid and never undigested matter. as for drying meat, Ive only had a bit of the stuff I made, and can't see how removing the water from meat would yield a better bowel situation.
I whipped out the HCL today myself because of my current situation thinking it might aid in getting rid of anything nasty, I havn't been taking them really at all on raw, and after taking them a few times, I got a burn after 1-2 pills so sort of forgot about it. But, I don't know if its because of my current stomach issue, but I took 8 pills and never got anything, although I waited quite a bit between every 2 or so waiting to see what happened. That's also fairly disconcerting, because I would have also though raw would not effect this situation negatively. I have heard that the chloride in salt is a factor in producing HCL, but I've used little salt in the last 4 years, and don't think a few months without it would be such a factor. I'll try again when my stomach is 100% well and make a more accurate comparison. But I wonder if anyone has any ideas of why raw could affect such things negatively, over a similar cooked diet.
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Grain fed meat is starting to taste much worse to me.
Is it really grain fed, or do you mean the kind of meat sold in stores? I would call the latter feedlot beef, while the grainfed I must now buy is from a small town abattoir in an area where there are no feedlots.
Maybe its time for pemmican - something I really don't want to make.
Pemmican is an experiment for when all else has failed, but it turned out to be a long-term trial for me because the lethargy took about a year to disappear. The mental/emotional effects are all good, but the physical effects are weird.
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Will, yeah its feedlot beef that tastes terrible-which is fed grain. So there is a difference between farm raised grain-fed beef and industrial feed lot beef? It almost tasted toxic to me, which is why I chose to cook it. Also, I would easily welcome pemmican into my diet, except that is seems like an enormous bitch to make and there is no way I'm going to be smelling up my aunt's house with rendering fat for half a day. Once I go back to my own house this summer I might give it a go.
KD, there have been a few people I've seen that don't handle raw that well at all. Perhaps cooked meat can in some sense or another be easier for the body to digest or process. I still think there is something seriously wrong with my gut.
Though, yesterday after several days of little to no stool, I had one of my better turdings of the year - just too thin, giving me the feeling that something is trapped all along the walls of my colon. So, good news nonetheless, perhaps the HCL had something to do with it.
I'm also going to go do a blood test in the next couple weeks. I think its about time, 4 months on the diet should have given me enough time for my blood nutrient levels to settle to a level that should give significant results. Now, I just need to know what kinds of tests to get, what to look for, and whether or not I should even bother going to a doctor in the first place. I wouldn't mind just going directly to the lab and bypassing the appointment.
Forgot to add - energy during the day is pretty horrible. Still a lot of pain just moving around or even standing up straight. The late afternoons through the night seem to be a bit better after I come home from work.
Also, any suggestions on what to get tested for besides the normal, TGL, HDL, LDL, Serum D, white blood cells?
I'm thinking thyroid - TSH, T3, T4
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The last time eating all raw(meats) I lasted 6 mo, but ran into some problems that may or may not have even been related, but In the end weight loss was also massive. I still supposedly looked really healthy, but I think in the last couple weeks I was well under 140 (and I mean visibly). I don't know if its my type that doens't seem to be meshing well with raw or its that raw seems to surface alot of nasty things in my body (I lean more towards this, as I've been through some pretty heavy duty treatments and such). As like I said this time around I havn't seen great benefits, but certain things seem to be going well.
I would think if it was just the foods themselves there would be major problems from the get go. I tried going cooked VLC this time around, and although I didn't give it much a chance, the way I was doing it seemed to make sense just to eat raw again. I do read the MDA site occasionally (Primal Blueprint) as well as some Crossfit stuff now, and I'm pretty envious of how loosely they interpret paleo etc...coconut flour pancakes and bacon and such. Other than the 'knowledge' that keeps me raw, I can see eating those things, or things like chicken or some fish cooked as to me they are far superior than their raw versions (I've eaten enough raw chicken to be deadset on this opinion). But these guys who are eating all seared red meat etc...I dunno I'd just assume stick with raw than that. But I might end up doing the former. I want to at least do a few weeks with my high meats when they are done, AS I'd be sketched out eating them with cooked matter in my system. Perhaps if they work they'll be an asset if I choose to go back to including some cooked foods.
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Heres a few other random things people get tested for.
D, B-12, C- Reactive Protein (CRP), Homocysteine, Hemoglobin A1C, DHEA, Testosterone, Estradiol, HGH,
If you don't have insurance, you might be able to avoid the doctor by using an online lab, other than that, I think most labs require the doctors write up.
https://directlabs.com/Default.aspx?&catid=90&language=en-US&tabid=55
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Thanks for the blood test recommendations, I'll be sure to add those and research others to add. I have insurance, and I suppose I should go to a doctor to take advantage of it, they might actually have something important to say.
Under 140, wow thats really sick. I should have been more fair to my diet, raw foods appear to digest well - I feel nothing after eating them and am never bloated or have that full feeling. Its just kind of odd that there are obvious other signs of maldigestion that I have no answers to at the moment. I suppose it will just take a long time. I wonder what is the worst case scenario for people on years of RAF. It seems like all the long time RAF'ers have done very well, but this could very well just be survivalship bias where we only observe the people that made it and not the failures.
I too start loosely interpreting raw paleo whenever I see other foods. I feel that raw paleo is the answer. It makes tremendous sense to me and seems so superior with respects to all that I have read. It seems so hard to make a case against it, but empirically it is not working for me, so nights like tonight where I was at this huge banquet with free reign to all the food that I wanted to I caved. My mind had an easy way out of this one - since raw pale isn't working, why would it matter if I cheated. Cheating could even be healthier right now, if I am not digesting raw properly and my immune system is attacking me. Probably not, but the chance is there.
Before the banquet, I had fasted til about 4 p.m., came home starving for fat, and had some bone marrow, though I wasn't in the mood for bone marrow - I really wanted some suet, which is highly saturated. Bone marrow is only ~ 30% saturated iirc. I don't have any suet around so I just ate the marrow which quickly sated me in some way. I then tried to eat some raw kidney for the first time and didn't get very far. It tastes like liver covered in some urine. I had 6 egg yolks with lime juice with some trace mineral magnesium - which tastes unbelievably bad by itself and just a drop manages to make the mixture taste bad, but tolerable. The daily suggested amount is 4 drops (4ml), which I cannot see myself approaching ever, since the taste is so bad.
I get to the banquet a few hours later not hungry but willing to eat. I hold off for the first hour but then decide to try some roast beef. I try eating the cooked fat but do not get very and start feeling full and bloated much quicker than normal. I used to be able to eat tons of cooked beef without feeling too ill. Not sure if I am just paying attention more to my body or am actually more vulnerable to cooked meat or both but of of course this cheating leads to more and so I gorged on fruit and ate maybe 15 chocolate covered strawberries. Yum!!! MY stomach immediately bloated up but not as bad as two weeks ago so I was able to remain conscious. I was really craving carbs the last couple days after being nearly carb free for 10 days.
I wonder how much these cheats affect my body. I would assume that one big cheat every so often is going to be very hard for someone adapted to eating mainly raw fat. I think the body fine tunes itself for certain inputs. I also wonder if I'd be more likely to cheat now that my diet isn't working or if and when my diet starts to work, because as for now there really isn't much reason for me to stay on it, especially if you were an outsider observing just my physical symptoms.
I also ordered 20 pounds of suet from us wellness meats, which should be good for a couple months.
Also, good point about high meat. I was letting my meat rot on its own at room temperature or below for a few days to as long as just over a week, I actually liked the rotting meat. I don't think it technically got high but it did have a strong smell and some of it was pretty slimy, though it wasn't anywhere near the sliminess of the meat I've seen posted here. I probably should invest in a small fridge to store some high meat on my own. There is no way I can keep that stuff in my aunts fridge. Its starting to get too hot here for me to keep the meat out in the garage, I'd really like to avoid making her entire home stink, which I think I might have already done so to some extent. So, now Im eating all the meat fresh defrosted or out in my room for at most a day, not long enough for it to get that smelly.
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Often, you'll need a doc to interpret the results, as its like a bunch of random numbers. Be really specific with any questions, as if something is just remotely acceptable they might just say 'good'.
Yeah, I usually have no digestive issues other than this bout, and the occasional nausea/loss of appetite which might be indicative of something or other, but no undigested matter, discomfort or belching/gas. *shrugs* As for the long-timers thing. I agree. Also I think fundamentally even if RAF is indeed the best diet to maintain health, for some either other tools might be needed with the diet to create it, or other tools are needed before one continues with the diet if they are too compromised (which makes little intellectual sense as other than CW, raw is supposed to be easier on the body than cooked)
As for loosely interpreting, I was merely saying that I can see the appeal of such over eating a diet of just lightly cooked red meats which is cut and dry inferior to raw (even if the cooked version might work better for some). Wearas at least with PB one can claim (traditionally) the variety of plant and animal sources etc and the social flexibility to some degree as healthful... Although when I briefly was following PB, everything others were eating seemed like almost SAD type habits, and I was already trying to target any fungal issues so I was basically just eating grass-fed meat, fish, poached eggs, and vegetables. I wasn't really getting any other fat so I got back into raw dairy, and that didn't mix well with cooked, and the diet was already so limited and I really dislike cooking - especially more than once a day - so I just went back to raw.
I've noticed on the Dirty Carnivore site that alot of the people doing cooked, arn't really doing a whole lot in terms of added fats, However I havn't spent much time there. Would you say this is accurate?
I think if one is not thriving, eventually yeah there is going to be some fuck it type mentality. But also if one is doing fine they might not be as anal about things.
I'm still preparing meals for others and don't have any real cravings, made chicken tonight, and ended up just eating a a few little ounces of raw beef instead. So from an outsider I think that would probably look a lot more distorted than succumbing to some chocolate covered fruit.
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THt is alot of suet! :) I think ordering fat is really going to be the only option for me to staying on the diet 100%.
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I had 6 egg yolks with lime juice with some trace mineral magnesium - which tastes unbelievably bad by itself and just a drop manages to make the mixture taste bad, but tolerable. The daily suggested amount is 4 drops (4ml), which I cannot see myself approaching ever, since the taste is so bad.
If it tastes bad you're not deficient in that trace mineral.
My family used to have a good laugh doing the test panel of trace mineral solutions. I think it was a panel of 8 minerals, all in their own aqueous solutions, that you put a drop of each on the tongue to see what you're deficient in. If it tasted sweet/good you were deficient. If it tasted bland you were borderline. If it tasted bad you were fine with that mineral.
The funniest part was we'd have a friend who was over give it a shot and they'd invariably have different minerals tasted completely different to them. Molybdenum, the most foul tasting one of the bunch for me, would be quite plain for someone else while perhaps Chromium would be disgusting for them and quite tasty for me.
Now that I think of it I will give the panel a test tonight (haven't done it in years) and see what my deficiencies, if any, are after eating carnivore for 8 months. :)
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I've noticed on the Dirty Carnivore site that alot of the people doing cooked, arn't really doing a whole lot in terms of added fats, However I havn't spent much time there. Would you say this is accurate?
Yes.
THt is alot of suet! :) I think ordering fat is really going to be the only option for me to staying on the diet 100%.
The last time I bought fat, it was 63 pounds. Rendered, the tallow filled all of my storage, but I won't have to buy any more fat for months.
If it tastes bad you're not deficient in that trace mineral.
My family used to have a good laugh doing the test panel of trace mineral solutions. I think it was a panel of 8 minerals, all in their own aqueous solutions, that you put a drop of each on the tongue to see what you're deficient in. If it tasted sweet/good you were deficient. If it tasted bland you were borderline. If it tasted bad you were fine with that mineral.
I'd like to try that - can you post a source url?
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I'd like to try that - can you post a source url?
http://www.bodybio.com/storeproduct405.aspx
Testing like this is a real eye-opener as it's a clear, instantaneous, and undeniable feedback. :)
Oh, and here (http://www.spectrumsupplements.ca/content.asp?node=333&cateid=16) is their Canadian counterpart. ;)
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I finally have the pleasure of reporting my first significant piece of good news since starting raw paleo 4 months ago. This morning I awoke to the urge to produce stool, which I did - this very long, dark, dense, homogeneous thick mass came straight down from my ass. I probably should of kept it, like restaurants keep their first dollar bills as a token to my first sign of progress. My body felt very light all day, especially my abdomen/gut area. My body felt very at ease the entire day. The pile of sledgehammers dragging behind me were absent today and I felt like I could easily move around with no pain. I had some mild brain fog but this was probably the best my body has felt yet.
If I had to guess, what helped, it would probably be the HCL pills. Although I did eat heaps of carbs last night, I'm not sure they would have gone through my digestive system that fast overnight. Plus, every other time I have carbed up, I have produced terrible soft turds, though no pain. ZC causes me to become constipated with very thin turds.
So, obviously I will be continuing to take the HCL pills but I do want to get to the root of the problems. I actually stayed up late last night past 1:30 and woke up at 7:30 with energy and the ability to move around. Even when I was up at 1:30 I wasn't really pushing myself, it felt somewhat natural - so perhaps my energy had corrected itself somewhat before my magic dump. I had glossed completely over adrenal fatigue this past four months, just assuming that raw zero carb would cure almost everything. But, it seems there are quite a few people that have had adrenal fatigue symptoms with raw zero carb and I found quite a few threads here with little anecdotal evidence that zero carbs can indeed be difficult for those with burnt adrenals. Not to mention Matt Stone and his latest attack of low-carb almost solely because of this glandular malfunction while on it. This connected with me well, since I no doubt have very badly disturbed my adrenals playing poker, yelling, screaming, crying and breaking computers for the last 5 years. Not to mention doing nearly the same thing when I play sports. So, I plan on looking at getting some raw sweetbreads(adrenals, thymus and pancreas), though this seems to be pretty difficult. If I cannot find them, I will just by Dr. Ron's freeze dried glandular supplements.
I'm also not going to restrict carbs for the time being, for the reasons that there is all this chatter about that zc does stress the adrenals. I was so extremely tired on rzc, that I don't think HCL alone will help me out. I've also followed several other zc journals where HCL did not give them the energy they needed. I will even add cooked starch as this seems to be one of the better choices of cooked foods to add to a diet. I do not think this necessarily optimal or even close, its just that it may have some beneficial effects letting my adrenals heal. Meat and fat will be as raw as ever.
I am hopeful for a full recovery but I think I still need to remove my amalgams and then chelate the metals out - which I have not figured out the best method for yet. I'll probably try something natural first - chorella and coriander tincture before trying Cutlers methods but I still have a lot to research here first. I also want to continue liver flushing and so should be eating lots of raw yolks but might try something more potent with a Hulda Clark type liver flush. I also have a bag of french green clay that I will look into using as an even further healing agent.
KD, yes it seems that not that many people at DC add fat. I think a lot of them still eat grain-fed meat which doesn't need much fat. Many people there seem to be very concerned with weight and not as much with other health issues, whearas here at rpf, it seems there is little discussion on weight on more on finding the underlying cause of these issues. Also, 20lbs of suet isnt that much and I would have bought more if I knew I was going to be staying here longer. I never seem to lose the taste for suet though marrow can definitely give me a stop like it did yesterday. Perhaps my body would like to be fueled more with saturated fat than mono.
DJR, I really hope you are right, that my taste buds can tell the whole story with deficiencies, though I'm reluctant to take your statement as strong as you state it. I've only managed to intake maybe 3ml total in the past couple weeks since I got the trace minerals Mg, and thats not even their suggested 1 day intake. My taste buds don't have an off switch for fruit or other carbs so I'm going to be cautious with listening to them, though it'd be really interesting to take that test.
With that said, I tried to eat kidney yesterday and failed massively, so perhaps my kidneys are fine? I was also pretty hungry when I tried them. I've had them sitting out now for a couple days and will try them again tonight. If they still taste bad I'm either going to cook them or toss them. Also interesting, is that I had a bunch of liver a week ago or and stuffed it down with ease but a month or so before that I couldn't get through 100g of it. Maybe I need to eat liver more frequently?
I'm also going to probably add some kelp for some iodine as this seems to be connected with glandular malfunction.
This is just speculation but, my digestion has been very poor for at least the past 5 years, if not longer and I might not have as many issues with carbs as I once thought. Cooked VLC seemed to save me at first, but it may have had nothing to do with the low carb content. We shall see
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you don't look too bad in the picture if that's really you.
i've had 4 amalgam fillings removed in a rather dirty way. i still have 2 more. i have not seen any difference whatsoever before or after. i did heavy metal testing for both stool and urine and both came well below limits. i heard that hair test is more accurate.
organs taste, mmmm it is all in your head. liver has very sweet taste, kidney tastes like piss, spleen has very bloody and rusty taste, tongue tastes like any other muscle meat. i have no issue eating them all.
i have yet to see the benefits of raw meat, but i do think raw meat has more nutrients/vitamins
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you don't look too bad in the picture if that's really you.
lol... I might put up a workout video sometime in the next few months if I can remember to ask my aunt for her camera before I go to the gym.
Lots of ups and downs as usual since the last post. Most up - I've had some good days at school with decent energy. Nothing like I think I should have though. Still it was an improvement until today. Extremely fatigued to the point that breathing was annoying. It was excruciating getting words out of mouth. I head felt sick all morning as well, very heavy and almost dizzy when I would bend down to drink water. I had to step out of class and lie down a couple times because I couldn't even sit in the chairs. Then we had a Spanish festival at lunchtime where I ate everything in site. Plate after plate of mainly rice, beans and small portions of beef and chicken. I could not stop eating, the food tasted so good. I then felt a little sick and sat down and felt pretty relieved. Very comforted, no anxiety and not as much bloating as I had during easter a few weeks ago where I could barely move.
I then got out of my chair and went back for more food - mainly tres leches cake- which is probably my favorite cake and had several pieces of it along with a ton of fruit. This made me things worse and I had to lie down somewhere. I had a pretty good bowel movement first and then went to sleep in a classroom and felt much better upon waking. I'm pretty angry that I can't figure out how to make myself feel better. Maybe its all in my head like everyone tells me. Fuck all of them. Just thinking about what a 10mg adderall would do to improve my energy almost puts tears in my eyes. Fuck sitting behind this computer and bitching. I also injured my hamstring running the bases in softball, so I cannot run or lift. whatever, its always excuses for me. I'm still thankful for what I have. I will find a way out of this.
I'm going to do a Hulda Clark type liver flush soon, perhaps as early as tomorrow.
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Since I've had enormous trouble passing normal stools, have low/non-existent stomach acid, and continued low energy I decided to go through with a Hulda Clark style liver flush last night. All of these signs are pointing to insufficient bile secretion and/or inadequate usage of such bile secretion. There are some pretty good anecdotal success stories over at curezone. Heres the recipe and steps
http://curezone.com/cleanse/liver/huldas_recipe.asp
I skipped out on the epsom salts since they taste terrible and MrBBQ warned me about electrolyte depletion. I also replaced the olive oil with macadamia nut oil because of lowered omega 6 content.
I squeezed 1.5 grapefruits to get about 4-6oz of juice and combined this with about 4oz of oil. I was supposed to shake this up well but it was getting late and I didn't have a container so I did the best I could to mix the stuff together. I added a few drops of the black walnut extract and drank the mix within a few minutes. It didn't taste particularly good but it wasn't hard to take down either. I laid down and went to bed pretty quickly. I also heated up and soaked a kitchen rag in castor oil in my attempt at a castor oil pack and placed it around my liver area for a few minutes. I got bored with it and took it off. I only had a small cooked meal around 1 p.m. and fasted after that.
I slept right through the night, woke up and had to poo and had a pretty normal, pretty well formed bowel movement. Nothing interesting at the moment. I feel fine right now. No better, no worse. I didn't feel anything in my liver area or anything different really. This is fine, I wasn't expecting a miracle. I will flush again soon. It can take several flushes to get anything interesting out and dozens to completely cleanse the liver. As long as its not making me feel significantly worse I'm going to keep at it. There are some variables to play with as well - apple cider vinegar, different herbs and oil that I'll be playing around with as well.
Also theres a great little series on youtube that goes into good detail on how important accessible bile is to good digestion..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMPpBMHiiXc&feature=related
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Video would be nice.
Let us know the results of those flushes. My hunch is all those so called flushes are nothing more than placebo effect. But who really knows?
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My hunch is all those so called flushes are nothing more than placebo effect. But who really knows?
I get mad when people write this, though I am working on just letting it pass. Its just an opinion that differs from mine so it should not really make me mad, but it does challenge my inner belief and my immediate reaction is to get angry.
What makes you say something so strong as you think liver flushing is a placebo effect? Have you read through the hundreds of stories on curezone who claim positive results? Did you see the video I just posted? Its excellent and these stones are not fake. They are real. The sludge is real. It can severely disrupt bile secretion into the small intestines which can cause a host of digestive and auto-immune problems. Just watch the video. Your asshole doesn't tear open and bleed following raw paleo. Mine does and its terrible.
Read through this very accurate account of a man who has gone through 50+ flushes now getting out over 300ml worth of stones over a period of 4 years.
http://curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=985349
Here is where you can find the rest of his journey.
http://curezone.com/blogs/f.asp?f=1196
Heres a tip. If someone is suffering badly and trying something new, you probably shouldn't say anything about it being a placebo, especially since it seems like you haven't read any of the previous. Perhaps you have and you can make a case against liver flushes and if so, then make that point. I realize you said this is a hunch, and you might have just simply dismissed liver flushing since it sounds like crack-potting, but you really should do some research before making such seemingly benign comments.
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well someone is not in a good mood today. i don't like you are taking out your frustration on me, but that's ok, i do not take things personally.
but you really should do some research before making such seemingly benign comments
that's the thing, there is no scientific research that i can find regarding flushes. all there is out there is people's claims and personal opinions. and you know, people claim a lot of things.
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Has anyone ever analysed the stones ? What I know is that these stones are from formation of cholesterol and bile. The real stones are too large to pass.
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Small update - I've had 4 separate bowel movements though I'm not sure any of them are related to the flush. The first three were all good and solid, though slightly painful - I had a rather thick turd that must of tore something minor a couple days ago thats been a little irritating. The last one was loose and like diarrhea I suppose.
J,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallstone
"the real stones are too large too pass" - Another baseless statement. How do you guys make such blind assertions? You could have said that in your opinion or that there is evidence such that but not what you wrote. Sure, you'll probably get defensive now that I've attacked your statement but it is what it is. It could take multiple flushes to wear down the bigger stones until they are small enough to pass through to the intestines. Telmans liver file shows that he was still passing stones in the 3cm range even after 30+ flushes and I'd probably guess that these types of stones did not form completely on their own after this many flushes and were instead much bigger and eventually shrunk
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Update on strength
I maxed out my lifts over the course of the last month - somewhat randomly, since I hadn't maxed in bench and squat for over a year
Bench - 265
Squat - 355
Deadlift - 425
I maxed 275 more than a year ago on bench and so tried 285 to set a new record and got buried. I'm going to do more dumbbell work along with starting to add inclines which I have just ignored. At my peak I had inclined 210x5 and could only get 175x5 this last week. Thats really unfortunate that my strength in benching didn't translate that well to incline. This also leads me to believe that my strength is not very transferable to real life applications. Both squat and DL I probably had more in me.
Parts of my right hamstring are blue and black but I could still get down into a full olympic squat last night with 315 on without any pain, so I guess its healing up on its own.
Weight is up to 190, the carb binging seems to have done it. I did want to get down to the mid 170's for summer but this is really vain and I'm going to do whatever it takes to feel good first.
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I attempted to surf for the first time this summer with horrible results. It was still fun trying and I plan on doing this as much as possible, since I can throw a stone into the ocean from the front porch. I'd really like to be outdoors doing some kind of physical activity for at least an hour 5+ days a week.
Energy levels were pretty decent today, especially after I took a 20 minute time out to breath as deep as I could into my abdomen. I did the deep breathing while sitting at my computer. It took so much will power not to go grab the mouse and surf, but once I got past the 5 minute mark or so I settled in and was able to relax and thats when my energy started coming back to me.
The ground suet I got from US wellness seems to taste significantly worse than the slankers suet which I could eat at will almost no matter what. I left it out for several days which didn't improve the taste. I then moved the suet inside a small fridge I bought, which seemed to make matters worse because of this new plastic smell that the fat was absorbing. Its really unfortunate, because I thought I had a good solution to my raw fat problems. I bought some baking soda to put in the fridge to soak up the smell, so perhaps this will help. I'm still eating some of the suet, it just tastes pretty poor right now compared to slankers.
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do you buy the suet already ground? or do that yourself? (didn't know they sold it ground)
baking soda in the fridge has worked perfectly for me. i change it monthly or so. no smell.
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Good to know! I was wondering how USW's ground suet was.
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Ioanna, I bought it previously ground and now have 15 pounds in the freezer that I'm kinda dreading eating. http://www.grasslandbeef.com/Detail.bok?no=670
Also, I'm going to prom again after an 11 year absence in a couple weeks. With a date. And she's up for eating raw meat and egg yolks. No reservations at all. We met during a sand castle building contest this last weekend. Holla
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Also, I'm going to prom again after an 11 year absence in a couple weeks. With a date. And she's up for eating raw meat and egg yolks. No reservations at all. We met during a sand castle building contest this last weekend. Holla
nice! well done sir
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Thanks yy, I'm really looking forward to it.
I successfully completed an ice cream and cake liver flush a couple nights ago. They say tres leches cake is the by far the best cake to use because the multitude of dairy confuses the liver and thus biliary action is heightened. So at around 22:00 I ate about 700g cake along with 300g ice cream topped off with 200g blackberries. The anti-oxidants in the berries mitigate all of the harmful AGE's from the excess glucose. I followed this up the following morning with more cake and then later in the afternoon had 800g ice cream to finish the flush. The protocol was extremely easy to follow and produced a tremendous amount of turds. Skin looks healthier as well.
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Please tell me you are joking! -\
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tres leches. piece of cake.
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Yeah, I was kidding about the liver flushing bit but I did consume a pretty decent sized cake and half a gallon of ice cream within 24 hours. I checked my weight at the gym today and am up to 196 about 10 pounds heavier than 2 weeks ago iirc. I don't really care. Nothing has really made me feel any different energy wise so I'm kind of gleefully jumping off a deep end diet wise. I'm hoping this is mainly water weight. Maybe I'll finally break 200 - I've gotten up to 199 before so this might be my chance!
Got some good news with the suet, its starting to taste better but still not as good as Slankers and the plastic smell seems to be gone, probably thanks to the baking soda.
Got a bunch of lamb and goat organs including some thymus which I will try very shortly, probably a small dose seeing that some people have had some severe reactions to it.
HCL supplementation is grinding to a slow halt. After taking 2-3 my body starts to reject them. My stool is pretty well-formed for the most part. My theory on HCL supplementation is that it only masks underlying symptoms of poor digestive ability. Its hard for me to believe that it magically makes your stomach want to produce more stomach acid on its own and in fact it would make much more sense that it would lessen the stomach's natural ability to produce HCL in the long run. I hope I'm wrong about this but I don't think it should be used for a long period of time, especially when you get down to needing just a few pills. Feeling a burn is a pretty bad thing and perpetually doing so is probably dangerous. I like the way KD described HCL use as a "litmus test" as to how your stomach is performing. I'm not taking them every meal like I did last week and I might just give up HCL for a few weeks or until poor stools come again. Or even just taking one per meal.
Just lifted and had a solid workout with good energy. Incline drastically improved over last time and I worked db's up to 90x5 which is just 5 pounds below my max. I felt very strong with decent stamina. I'm going to start concentrating more on overhead pressing/shoulder strength than benching. Maybe only bench a couple times a month as bench has very little carryover to athletic movements.
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yeah for me, I pretty much just used them to test, but generally I think people will supplement with them if they don't burn. I don't know for how long. It seems like you/me etc...would be doing many of the the things needed to jump start more acid production, like 'fasting' from problematic or difficult to digest foods, irritable fibers/carbs etc...So I'm more concerned as how this situation does not seem to improve, or in my case may be worse eating all raw. This would imply that there is some issue absorbing the necessary nutrition or getting the true rest to heal the gut. My opinion is a healthy raw diet should do both, so either supplemental nutrition is needed, at least on a temporary basis or there is some issue with digestion/assimilation or bacteria that isn't 100% related to HCL production/supplementation. I know low levels make one more prone to bacteria, but not if bacteria can overwhelm the stomach. I've been doing the high meats, and they may have helped me out of my digestive crisis somewhat (appetite is normal) but I'm still getting the minor belching and stuff that I wasn't getting weeks before.
There is very little info on how to increase HCL other than vitamins and such (again the assumption that the HCL-cycle inhibits nutrition)
some simple things to try might be drinking warm water/teas, eating smaller meals, and breathing exercises.
since you don't seem to have super bad reactions to sugar, perhaps unheated honey might work somewhat as an enzyme? grinding your own meat...
don't beat down on yourself, your not alone in your frustrations.
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One thing about HCL that MRBBQ pointed out to me is that, the body could be purposefully downregulating its production because of the inability to get enough bile into the small intestines. I'm just going to copy from the email.
Also, the chyme leaving the stomach and entering the duodenum is a pretty damn acidic cocktail, as you can imagine – this kind of pH ain’t the funk in the small intestine, so what normalises the pH of chyme for that environment(?)...The juices entering the duodenum via the sphincter of oddi – you guessed it, from the liver, gallbladder and pancreas. So, if there’s insufficient alkalising element coming into the duodenum due to occlusions in the biliary tree (sludge, soft stones, hard stones, grit, gravel, allsorts), one may wonder if there’s a corresponding effect to down-regulate HCL production in the stomach. Ultimately, this may impact the effect of the enzymes in the stomach (pepsin etc.), yielding undigested protein.
I'm also going to do my second liver flush, this time with olive oil. I've just taken a bit of epsom salts which was much easier to drink this go around thanks to chilling the water first. I have not eaten all day either except for a few small bits of seaweed. I really am biting hard on these flushes supposed ability to heal my digestion more so than a healthy diet ever can do. It may even be that a cooked high-carb diet can take some of the pressure off the gut and allow it to heal faster, though with other collateral damage elsewhere. Thats just a random haphazard thought, but there might be some truth to it. I will try eating more truly high meats - I seem to have a taste for at least some level of bacteria.
Also KD, unheated honey sounds good, extremely good. There was a week when I had some honey (probably heated, though the source said it was raw). I couldn't eat enough of it and was dipping the raw aged meat after almost every bite. It was absurdly good. I'll probably get some more sooner than later. I still don't think my intake really matters that much right now as long as I keep a decent amount of raw meat in my diet. When I was traveling and binging last summer and feeling sicker as my trip went on, I would make sure and eat some raw meat. Not sure if it worked but I did feel better every time.
I think its a good sign that I added weight with my overconsumption. It would make sense that a healthy animal adds weight with respect to its calorie intake. The 'bear' claimed that you could eat up to 5k calories of meat and fat without gaining weight. I can't see how this is a positive thing. Burning excess calories to maintain some weight would not seem like an optimal way for an organism to evolve. It might even be a sign of ill-health when you overeat and do not gain weight. Maybe there is some mechanism in the body that overrides your own intake and keeps you at a set point, but is this a sign of good health?
To good flushing!
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I can't quite follow that quote 100% but get the gist. I still don't see why cooked meats or carbs wouldn't be causing the same issue, unless the raw proteins and fats were requiring more acid to break down when they supposedly require minimal digestion. What rings most true about this quote is that I suspect the issue is far beyond just HCL. I mean if people with no gallbladder or that produce no HCL can handle raw meats/fats...
as for the weight gain thing.totally. I was always one of those types that could eat tons of food and never gain weight, which led me to eating more crap in order to try to do so. This summer after 6 mo on raw meats/fats was the first time I've ever gained serious weight (on cooked starches/meats) not to the point of being overweight at all but on the far end of normal for me. (185?)
now on a positive note, my weight seems to be regulated on raw. If I under-eat, I lose. I seem to be able to eat under what one would normally expect and maintain weight. and if I eat 3000 cal or more regularly I can gain some steady healthy weight, but that is hard for me to do for one because my appetite is low/digestive issues..catch 22s!
I heard someone here mention liver flushes and being able to eat raw meats afterwards....
some people really swear by honey/digestion. for me I just get ear itchyness and the flavor combination is a bit disturbing to me. but it sounds worth trying.
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Yes, the issue of digestion does seem to go far beyond HCL production seeing that a number of people are fine without gall bladders or cannot produce HCL(aajonus). It all seems to point to biliary congestion which is the reason for the flushes. I probably should stop all this mess with eating whatever I want since the HCL supplementation has improved digestion. The thing about cooked starches and other easily digestible carbohydrates is that several people have had success adding them back into their diets after having bottomed out with low-carb. So, whatever mechanism is working to produce results for them could produce results for me. Perhaps, they will give me some much needed energy and nutrients while I repair my digestion with these flushes. Once the flushes have been productive I can go back to my low-carb raw paleo approach, which I still think is the answer. Of course, many people here will say to simply wait it out and not think about it too hard. Just eat and supplement with HCL. I still haven't given relatively low-carb raw paleo + HCL a true chance yet since every time I add carbs I binge on everything else.
Also, my liver flush has produced nothing so far. No bowel movements, even after taking a second dose of epsom salts early this morning. It felt like my abdomen needed to empty out something but there was no strong urge to try to expel anything.
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I heard someone here mention liver flushes and being able to eat raw meats afterwards....
whoops, i meant to say eat more raw meats [significantly], although this seems to be more my problem then yours. What specifically are your symptoms again if you do not supplement? Is it mostly on the elimination end? do you think there is a difference of fats or proteins?
I didn't mean to sound un-supportive about trying cooked starches, I'm just literally ignorant of how the stomach works as to understand how this helps. My only reasoning would be to throw out raw-isms of raw food being easier to digest (particularly for those that support RAF, on meats being easiest than any fibers) or that cooked foods sometimes stop nastyness from dumping into the blood and stomach. I think the latter is the reasoning behind alot of the Primal type protocols.
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Well, I r idiot too when it comes to understanding of human physiology and anatomy and so I stick with the very basics, those things that a 4 year old would understand. By adding in cooked starches or other carbs, it would make sense that you would be naturally lowering your protein and fat intake and thus lowering the need for HCL and bile. This might be why raw honey, as you say is reported to help those with poor digestion - its almost pure energy with no antinutrients(like almost all other carbs contain) and plenty of enzymes(which I'm not sure what they do, but I suppose this is a positive thing). It is high in fructose though which must be processed in the liver but I think Aajonus had some kind of explanation for it.
I found something - typical Aajonus exaggeration but as always theres usually some truth to it.
http://drbass.com/aajonus.html
You are a big proponent of unheated honey and unheated bee pollen. Can you tell us how you came to believe so strongly in these two foods?
I first learned about it from a military medical doctor in Central America who observed that wounds healed 3-5 times faster if unheated honey was applied to wounds. I experimented. both topically and internally with human and non-human animals and proved the same results. I noticed that the health of the digestive tract and. generally all tissues improved considerably in most eases when considerable amounts of unheated honey were consumed.
and
"Unheated honey contains and insulin-like substance that is produced by the bees when collecting nectar. That insulin-like substance converts 90% of the carbohydrate in nectar into enzymes that help digest, assimilate and utilize protein......The insulin like substance begins detrimental alteration at 93 degrees F (33 C) and is destroyed at 100 degrees F (37 C). Diabetics, hypoglycemics and some infants cannot utilize honey if the insulin-like substance is destroyed. Honey that is heated above 104 degrees F (39 C) is radical sugar that often causes slow deterioration of membranes in the body. Honey heated above 104 degrees F (39 C) may cause toxicity in some infants."
So, 90% of raw honey carbs are converted to enzymes and not energy? Whatever..still it seems like honey is worth experimenting with regardless. You have any online sources for truly raw honey? Honey pacifica is "cold-pressed" but from what other people have said about it, I'm unsure whether its really raw or not. I actually don't care that much now but it'd still be nice to get ahold of some real honey, with the comb and pollen and grub and what not.
I also just had a bowel movement. Nothing that interesting- It was a little difficult to pass and came out in chunks which almost felt like large stones but where just fecal matter as far as I could tell. About to go the beach.
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I'm not going to defend honey as healing practice, at the same time, in this case people use it to supplement a large consumption of animal fat and protein, so I don't think its the energy within the carbs of the honey as a replacement of total energy, at least in regards to claimed digestive health.
I thought you meant just adding cooked starch to otherwise RPD. I understand that if one had a complete rest from needing to digest certain types of foods, that the responsible organs might heal themselves, but seeing since alot of the rational behind RPD or other animal based diets are that high cooked starch is detrimental to such organs and even HCL production it becomes confusing. esp. as stomach acids are required for most types of digestion right? and again if no bile is apparently necessary for eating animal foods.
I don't have a honey link I'm sure about, I've actually only heard good things about Honey Pacifica. Theres some dispute about the Really Raw brand, which I've tried in the past and has all sorts of the pollen and junk on top. This is the kind I have bought locally which I believe is legit, although I personally still get symptoms from it so I'm not really consuming it
http://www.honeygardens.com/honey.htm
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Upon testing on myself lately I've changed my mind of the Really Raw brand. It hurts my throat and causes indigestion which I'm comfortable saying must be from heat.
The last honey I tried was the "Wee Bee" brand. It's very similar to the Really Raw brand in that it's thick, opaque, and topped with cappings. I did not experience either of the negative immune responses to the Wee Bee brand though so I'd trust it in the future.
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I forgot to answer your question on symptoms of bad digestion that I think the HCL supplementation has helped with - yes, the physical symptoms are basically very poorly formed stools. Also, from the bit I've read about what fingernails can tell about health, it appears that vertical ridges are a sign of low-stomach acid as well. Also, the chronic fatigue is probably a sign as well.
The reason honey and cooked starches could work well for someone like me is that they are easily digestible and the nutrition passes easily and quickly into the bloodstream. Cooked starches probably don't factor much into harming the digestive systems more. I'm guessing its much lower on the list than gluten, cooked animal fats, etc..
I'm kind of putting all my yolks into this liver flush idea. All the people with long-term success seem to not supplement with anything at all. lex, TD, alphagrius, delfuego, etc.. and all the indigenous cultures that live without disease don't really supplement at all, so why should I. I think that once the body heals itself, it will have access to the bountiful amounts of nutrition provided by a raw paleo diet. This last statement is so stupidly simple. I'm not really that concerned right now about the micronutrients or minerals that I might be missing, though I think they can play a role when you are first starting out on this diet, like I am. But, supplementing usually provides the body with a huge overabundance of minerals not in their natural form so there is danger that you will do some harm. Also, for me, its usually impossible to tell whether or not the addition of a supplement does anything without extremely strong evidence. I see a lot of people here saying that taking x supplement lead to y reaction or whatever and I never really put much faith in that.
All of the other long time paleo eaters do not worry about any of this crap. They just eat. The only things that ever really make sense to me for long term health are heavy-metal detoxing and now possibly liver flushing. Everything else seems like its just practicing perfecting dietary masturbation.
And thanks for the honey info, I'll probably order something soon.
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Just had a thought about something that might be keeping me struggling. When I first went VLC 20 months ago, I felt really good, better than I had ever felt before. My mind was as sharp as its ever been and I had tons of energy. I remember having a hard time going to sleep because of all the energy I had. I didn't think of this then but my energy did dissipate after a couple months. I think I was so sure that VLC was the answer that I didn't step back to notice that I didn't have the same energy or clarity when I first started.
I was expecting this same kind of euphoria and probably still do to some extent. This first experience really skewed my view of VLC in almost the exact same way that my first cocaine/adderall usage influenced my expectations with future use. My first few experiences with adderall were amazing but the more I took it the less amazing it became. Its important for me to accept the fact that I'll probably never reach that first euphoria that I experienced with VLC.
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I've come here once again to elucidate my feelings of malcontent, depression, anxiety and anger that have antagonized me this entire day. I will be going into full detail of this anguish. I feel much better now, but throughout the day my mind was wrapped up in this horrible, very tough to escape pit of depression. I got painfully angry at some points, completely addicted to the focus of the pain and the insecurity.
I am writing the following all for myself to figure out how I can manage my anger better when these situations come up in the future. If you're not depressed or never were you might not understand but this is my story and my feelings and I am owning them.
It all began when Paleo Phil accused me of going to far with a 'diagnosis' on the forum dirty carnivore with the following comment.
Paleodonk, you're getting ahead of yourself again. She hasn't even figured out that she has a liver problem yet. Please try to avoid the appearance of prescribing to people. Suggesting possibilities is OK.
He wrote this in response to a statement I made which was
Curezone is filled with crack-pot theories and the such and its up to you to use your judgment to find out a protocol that can work for you. There is a lot of garbage on there and zapping parasites could be one of them, but you can cleanse your liver/gall bladder without any of that mess. Read telman's liver file for a very good break down on how to safely execute multiple liver flushes.
My first reaction was to laugh it off as PP's usual and unfortunate 'follow the leader' type personality that I've seen him turn to when posting. I have a few examples in mind but I won't get to them here as its not that important. Well, I was sure, at first anyways that I wasn't dispensing medical advice and merely giving a polite suggestion of a possibility to look into for further research. I've gotten much better at brushing off criticism, especially from people like TD, since most of his posts to me seem are so far off based and entirely emotionally driven that they cannot make me mad because they do not challenge my own personal beliefs. They aren't even worth responding to as even my anxious mind cannot even bother to smell the whiff of truth they possess. Same for the obvious trolls that I'm surprised that so many others respond to and give legitimate answers to.
But then as usual, my mind wonders and starts to create grand disillusionment that hints at the truth but in reality is quite far from it. Maybe, he is right? Maybe I was going way too far? PP doesn't usually make these types of comments so he could be on to something. There was another poster who commented just before this who thought I was making a mistake with my apparent 'diagnosis' on another post. Is my logic forever doomed because I have these two people attack me? Will everyone else think I'm an idiot? Is it worth even trying to get a job? Am I just always wrong? I made a couple bad posts both today and yesterday that were flat out wrong - this really added to my perception that I was an idiot now and forever and lots of other bad memories popped up too. It all kept on cascading downward leaving me feeling pretty fucking worthless.
Once I settled down, which took most of the day, I decided to break down the comment to see what amount of truth there was to his statement. My first sentence tells my opinion on curezone that many crack-pot theories (i.e. possibly dangerous, possibly a positive black swan) and to use your best judgment on what kind of advice to take from that site. This is a clear warning that there is potential danger to following advice from that site, though I would say this about any site really or even any medical advice. My next sentence deals with one of the crack-pot pieces of advice, which is parasite cleansing which again in my opinion could be one of the more dangerous (though possibly extremely productive) avenues to health to follow. I then say its possible to cleanse the liver without the parasite removal - obviously not from experience but from reading the now dozens of threads on curezone about people with first-hand experience. Again, no professional sounding advice is given (not that this ultimately matters anyways). My last word is just some information about where someone who has vast experience with liver flushing, who kept detailed records and who has come a long way in regards to his health has kept his log. I did state it as a command, but it was a command to read and thus research more on the subject.
And to another issue - Is it really that big of a deal to suggest to someone a possible path for them to research? Does it really matter at all if I tell someone exactly what I think their problem is? My journal has plenty of suggestions in it and I don't see how what I was doing was any different than any of them. What is wrong with prescribing something to someone (outside the possibilty that there is legal rammification, though this would be outrageously rare and hard to pinpoint from one post)? Its still up to the individual what to do with the advice. If they take offense to it and don't look into it further thats both party's fault.
One of the most important things about healing is the simple fact that you must know of a way to heal before you put it into practice. I'm sure all of you wished someone would have just told you about raw paleo before you started down your path to health.
The only thing that has ever made sense to me to as a human is to spread the word of healing methods to those around me. I don't give a fuck about anything else really. I am not saying push anything on someone, just let them be aware of the methods to heal if they are sick. Be as honest and forthcoming as you can revealing all information as if you had no attachment to either side and let that person choose to do the research and decide for himself.
There was no compassion with his confrontation.
And to comment on PP's comment. Did he really think I was actively trying to prescribe something to this person? Hes seen me post so many times and I would guess he knows my intentions behind my post as simply to make aware to someone a possible method of healing - remembering this is rule number one to good health, especially to this person in particular who is 200+ pounds overweight and stalled for 4 years. What do I gain from prescribing anything even if I did?
In my opinion, liver flushing has minimal downsides(only 5% of the people in the survey on curezone reported a negative reaction) and a possibility for an enormous upside.
\elucidation
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I wanted to comment further on advice giving, prescribing, diagnosing or other medicalish advice that can be given on the internet. It's always up to the individual receiving and reading the advice to vigorously question and research it so that the decision is entirely up to them as to whether to accept it and experiment with a new method of healing or not. Now, I think the major problem comes in when posters continually try and push healing methods with strong wording that suggest extraordinary results. Again, I don't think there is anything really wrong with having very strong statements about certain methods of healing such as the one I posted in the quote above since its up to the individual but there is a point where it gets too much.
I was guilty with pushing liver flushing too far with the above quote, though my sole intent was to inform the overweight individual about another method of healing - because without knowledge of this method then its impossible to find out more about it. I think I was getting too emotionally connected to wanting to express myself that my wording eventually reached a point that I wasn't being careful and it showed. I just wanted someone to acknowledge that yes, liver flushing is a viable option. Then I could peacefully shut up.
There was a poster who got banned by the name of Roony who had some very intriguing posts with very radical methods of healing. The major problem he faced was communicating these healing methods to the community. He would rarely, if ever post sources and made it seem like his healing methods were sure things. This actually shouldn't really upset anyone as he's entitled to his own opinion and even if hes dead wrong about some of his healing methods its interesting to have someone like him thats willing to post some stuff on the fringe. It was his continuous refusal to acknowledge that he was wrong about certain things and inability to provide sources that really got to me and to the rest of the board and so he was banned. Its kind of unfortunate he wasn't able to tone down his posts, because I think he had some very good insight even though it was shrouded in poor wording.
I think one reason Aajonus is so successful is that even though he seems to clearly exaggerate some of his findings - I've seen some reports here about how nice he is. He might be a master at communicating his ideas, no matter how bizarre or unrealistic they might be, people will listen to him and not people like Roony who was just way over the top.
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Just had a thought about something that might be keeping me struggling. When I first went VLC 20 months ago, I felt really good, better than I had ever felt before. My mind was as sharp as its ever been and I had tons of energy. I remember having a hard time going to sleep because of all the energy I had. I didn't think of this then but my energy did dissipate after a couple months. I think I was so sure that VLC was the answer that I didn't step back to notice that I didn't have the same energy or clarity when I first started.
I was expecting this same kind of euphoria and probably still do to some extent. This first experience really skewed my view of VLC in almost the exact same way that my first cocaine/adderall usage influenced my expectations with future use. My first few experiences with adderall were amazing but the more I took it the less amazing it became. Its important for me to accept the fact that I'll probably never reach that first euphoria that I experienced with VLC.
I've been chasing that same 'high', and I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it. While your energy dissipated after a few months, mine went after only a few days; however, I've since had maybe ~15 days where I felt the energy and satisfaction with life again. Being that I've only been eating animal foods and taking little to no supplementation, it is hard to simply dismiss this feeling. There are plenty of ZC'ers that report feeling amazing, but there are also many who seem to agree they feel "great" as if only to fit in. There seems to be some critical nutrient imbalance or deficiency that is causing this, probably one that some are more sensitive/predisposed to than others.
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I thought what you said to the poster at DCF was fine. I have been known over there to walk the line myself, as you surely know. I give my opinion frankly, ie. "There is no eating off plan;" "Peer pressure doesn't exist," "Who cares what your 100 grandmother thinks that you don't eat any plant food?"
That said, and while I enjoy reading your writings a lot, I think you went off the rails with eating the neolithic foods instead of sticking out raw ZC/VLC. Cooked starches have "nutrition?" Honey? You really think adding high glycemic sugars are going to make you feel better?
Don't be offended; I am just blunt.
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carnivorous, I'm still keeping an open mind about reaching that euphoria I had the first couple months and your statements help me keep this dream alive, its just that I think its probably better that I should not see that as my only goal. I shouldn't be disappointed by feeling normal. It would be pretty strange that I now have a nutrient deficiency since my diet is a magnitude better than it was when I went VLC the first time. Several people have noted a VLC 'honeymoon' effect similar to what happened to me, so this suggests we are suffering from similar issues. I'm still leaning towards the fact that a healthy person can survive well on a variety of natural, whole food diets.
If you looked at the nutrient profile of an inuit, a hadza and a kitavan you'd see they all are probably very different and yet they are all in seemingly great health. I would guess that if a traditional inuit where somehow transported directly to kitava and forced to eat their diet that they would do very well with little symptoms of ill-health and vice versa.
Kate,
Yea, the neolithic experiment was definitely not healthy, though I felt pretty decent throughout. In the short run, it could be just as healthy or healthier than eating my raw paleo diet if for whatever reason I cannot uptake the nutrition properly from the latter. One argument for why honey would be the best carb source for me would be that it is pure nutrition with no anti-nutrients or indigestible fiber and would be pretty easily digestible.
I also went to the local natural foods store, Native Sun, which is a step-up from whole foods and picked up some goodies
Bragg's raw unfiltered Apple Cider Vinegar with the mother, Wee Bee honey and some Greek yogurt by Fage
For lunch I had some raw goats heart from Green Zahbia, supposedly grass-fed, with the honey and the yogurt. The heart tasted great and had plenty of suet covering it which really added to the experience. The honey tastes extremely good, is solid and gritty and is similarly textured to wet sand. I covered a piece of heart with yogurt and then put a touch of honey on top and devoured it all very quickly. I had difficulty with putting the honey away and had about 100g (75g carbs) worth (5 tablespoons). I actually bought another random liquid "raw" honey as well, which might be a mistake because it looks like I am addicted and may need to hide it. We shall see.
Also, I took 7 HCL pills and felt nothing. I really don't want my system to back up again so I will keep taking them for now.
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I had difficulty with putting the honey away and had about 100g (75g carbs) worth (5 tablespoons). I actually bought another random liquid "raw" honey as well, which might be a mistake because it looks like I am addicted and may need to hide it. We shall see.
I feel your pain.
I bought the medium sized jar and ate 2/3 of it over the span of a weekend. It's good honey and feels full of vitality. It messed me up good in hindsight but I enjoyed it at the time. ;D
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Ha, cool. Yea, I meant to say thanks for the tip, I think. Also, thanks for the tip on the Twin Labs Betaine HCL, it seems to be working much better than the country life version that seemed to give me this funky aftertaste as well as weird smelling breath.
Another note - I had a huge pounding headache right at the lower right base of my skull that lasted for several hours late at night. I also was congested, and still am, far more than I have been these past 4 months and my voice was a bit hoarse. All the extra cooked carbs this past week probably hasn't helped. I don't think I've ever been as sick as long as I've stayed off of heavy carb intake. And I think I felt a very dulll something around my upper right abdomen, but I have no idea as to whether this is random noise or if my gall bladder/liver is awakening because of these flushes.
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Ha, cool. Yea, I meant to say thanks for the tip, I think. Also, thanks for the tip on the Twin Labs Betaine HCL, it seems to be working much better than the country life version that seemed to give me this funky aftertaste as well as weird smelling breath.
Yup, both were me. I'm glad they were both useful leads for you. :)
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...I've gotten much better at brushing off criticism....
Gosh, Paleo Donk, I didn't mean for my suggestion to you to be seen as criticism. I was trying to help you avoid getting into trouble, as you had just gotten into in your last post before that one. Your remark about my "personality" sure seems critical, but I'll just let it wash over me, rather than affect me, because I think you've said before that you don't really mean anything by some of the anger that comes out.
If you disagree with that forum's rules then a constructive tack might be to express your feelings regarding them with the owner of that forum who sets the tone. However, avoiding even the vaguest impression of prescribing and diagnosing seems very important to her, so I don't think you'll change her mind. I don't see her requests as being particularly burdensome myself, but then I'm pretty easy going. My approach is "live and let live" and "easy rockin--cool vibes." My office mate even called me a "hippie" a couple times because of it (though I don't have the hair for it ;) ). People are free to run their own forums however they wish and if I don't like it I can either ask for a change or go find another forum, which I have done in the past, and I could even start my own forum if I felt strongly enough about it and wanted to do it.
Thanks for the tip re: Twin Labs Betaine HCL, paleo donk and djr. I don't remember the brand I took before. Maybe it was the brand that was the problem--like it seems it was with K2 (I'm getting better and better dental results from the K2 brand I'm taking now). I'm doing pretty well right now, so I won't bother taking that supplement at this time, but I'll keep it in mind if I hit another stall in my ongoing health improvements.
One love,
PP
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I had a huge pounding headache right at the lower right base of my skull that lasted for several hours late at night. I also was congested, and still am, far more than I have been these past 4 months and my voice was a bit hoarse.
I used to get that exact same headache until I went rzc, then it moved to just above starboard ear (the one that's supposed to turn green from eating pemmican).
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Yup, both were me. I'm glad they were both useful leads for you. :)
Ha, I used "I think" in my last response because now I have an excuse to buy actual raw honey, where as before I wasn't so sure that I could find truly raw honey. On that note, I finished all the wee bee and almost all of the other "raw" brand, about 800 grams worth in 2 days, so honey is probably way too addictive for me. I also noticed that my throat got the slightest bit soar when swallowing the 4th or 5th spoonful worth of the liquid honey. It felt like I got congested too, but I had significant mucous the whole last couple days as well, but the soreness in the throat was real. It didn't stop me from eating more obviously.
PP, Thanks, I did not understand that those forum rules were in place, and was upset because I thought someone was attacking my logic. And when someone attacks my logic, I get furious because obviously I am the chosen one of this universe and unquestionably correct. I would have preferred if someone had flat out said this is against forum rules.
With that said, some of the best advice I have ever received came from people who criticized me in ways that completely lacked compassion. Just because someone gets their point across in a sub-optimal way, does not make their underlying argument any less valid. Even bad advice usually hints at the truth.
I used to get that exact same headache until I went rzc, then it moved to just above starboard ear (the one that's supposed to turn green from eating pemmican).
The headache I got was much worse than any head pain I've had these last few months, though I have had several more minor headaches every week now. I can't handle rzc for now, but will try it again if I see my digestion improve.
quick notes
- I've had some relatively good bowel movements, that are now sinking as opposed to floating
- going to be taking apple cider vinegar with a cup of water at least once a day
- still occasionally taking some french green clay in water in the mornings
- have been eating more salt lately, though not with every meal
- took 8 HCL pills with no burn after a pretty large goat heart meal
- had one of my better days at school yesterday, though still had a few moments where energy was depleted
- I've slept on the floor the last couple nights - I've seen evidence that mattresses provide instant comfort but not necessarily long term relief (i.e. another drug)
- I showed the girl I'm seeing a hunk of drying meat in my fridge, took a bite, and she responded with "wow, thats hot"
- I have not shampooed in 5 months, but will make some out of ACV
- been walking around almost entirely barefoot, even at school, the kids think I'm weird
- I ate a rotting goats heart at school by gripping it like I had just ripped it out of the goat's chest mortal kombat style
- eating at least 4 yolks plus citrus (mainly for taste) most nights
- pressing strength went up a bit with 150x3. I feel stronger too.
- weight was 195 so I didn't reach my goal of 200
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- I showed the girl I'm seeing a hunk of drying meat in my fridge, took a bite, and she responded with "wow, thats hot"
wow, nice find Goro :)
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when you shower do you rinse your hair? I usually only wet my hair once a week and use a tea tree oil shampoo (has some other additives). I notice if I don't it stinks (its long enough now to smell) and has a flat unhealthy texture, but I could also try rinsing more often.
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wow, nice find Goro :)
Yea, definitely lucky. Though, I've had a few other girls show interest when I told them how much steak I eat. I've even gotten another girl to try raw meat and even crave it on several occasions when she would come over to my place before we'd go out and get drunk. I have a plenty of fish account, an online dating site, where my title is "looking for fellow steak lover" and I've gotten a good number of responses from just that. So, for whatever its worth, its seems there is some population of girls that are into raw meat eating men.
when you shower do you rinse your hair? I usually only wet my hair once a week and use a tea tree oil shampoo (has some other additives). I notice if I don't it stinks (its long enough now to smell) and has a flat unhealthy texture, but I could also try rinsing more often.
I do rinse my hair, but not for any particular reason, just feels natural. I don't know anything about shampoos but thought it couldn't hurt to not shampoo so I experimented and my hair feels the same and doesn't smell (the students would tell me if it did). I was putting coconut oil in to style it which did work well, but I was afraid I was going to do long-term damage so I stopped that as well. I'll try the ACV plus baking soda (I think) concoction some time in the near future.
Notes
- The heaviness in my body is pretty much gone - which is great, I can actually move around without pain.
- I still have a bunch of brain fog, its almost like a small constant headache and annoying but overall feel much better than a few months ago
- thigh feels much better, the purple spot has faded considerably but still there
- little endurance for surfing which wore me out really fast today.
- Maximum strength efforts are good as usual and I feel pretty strong. I set a new record hang power cleaning and then jerking 225. I was really proud of the effort, especially since I haven't power cleaned in at least a month
- the warmer the egg yolk the better tasting so far. I've let them sit out for weeks now
- the ACV experiment is going fine. It tastes fine with the water and taking it at least twice a day. I read that rinsing with baking soda neutralizes the acid, which is potentially dangerous to the teeth, so I've been doing so
- aged meat is so good
- ordered some lugol's iodine and will experiment taking very small amounts in water soon
- curezone is an incredible site with endless personal accounts of experimentation
- I like the hard waxy marrow that doesn't have much taste, its easy to eat. The liquidy stuff almost makes me gag
- I'm thinking of doing some experimental fasting, just for a few days or until I feel I need to quit. Maybe even a type of master cleanse. I felt great after 40 hours of fasting a couple months ago, so I think it'd be good to try again.
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I can't tell if I would prefer an afterlife consisting of a series of perfectly executed bowel movements or continuous sex with women of my choice.
As long as I'm having decent bowel movements, which is the key to life, and going to bed on time I'm feeling pretty good.
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Got some more goodies to experiment with - Some expensive(not a thinly veiled brag) unrefined sea salt, coffee and an enema bag. I will be giving myself a coffee enema in the near future. I've read mainly very positive reviews and figure it to be safe. We shall see.
I took my first dose of iodine today with two drops of lugols 2% solution in the morning in some water on an empty stomach. I then took two more drops with some ACV and water this afternoon after consuming about 200g of honey and a liter of pasteurized milk (I couldn't stop myself from eating the wee bee honey and gorged till I felt a little sick). Each drop is 2.6mg so I had about 10mg total, which is a pretty low dosage. Many people take a dosage in the 50-100mg range, though I don't plan on getting up there anytime soon. Some claim that iodine can wipe out good bacteria and a few have reported some detox issues, so I'll be taking it easy for now, there is no rush. I couldn't feel anything from it for now.
Also, I lifted and had a good little workout getting 95x5 twice with dbs on the incline which ties for the most I've ever done. I feel strong and would like to make my easily bullshittable reasons for why I think this is so. I think my body is responding to better absorption of nutrition, whether that be protein due to HCL supplementation or just extra calories from easily digestible carbs, it seems to be translating to more energy and more strength and of course, the key to life, better bowel movements. My endurance is still pretty marginal but its been that way for almost a decade now.
I say easily bullshittable above because everything I feel and subsequently write is just haphazard conclusions based on very wild variations of inputs from everyday life and is virtually meaningless but I suppose fun to try and guess what is happening.
I wonder if its possible to have perfectly formed bowel movements(whatever that is) and be in anything other than excellent health.
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i'll have to be the contradictory evidence on the last point. My elimination is almost always effortless on this diet and usually regular (on rare occasions just eating meat/fat theres a day or two absence but still never hard) lacking any fiber - even by convectional standards. Although I have done my share of bowel cleanses/and squat(havn't sat on a toilet in years) so that factors in I suppose. I think the raw dairy has its pros at least in this department also FWIW. My health/strength etc.. seems to be about the same though. At least your finding positives, even if you havn't located exactly the rights formulas yet.
as for enemas I would suggest trying a few water-only first.
make sure the water is not too hot (to avoid damage, but also makes one want to release instantly) and generally good to start off with way less water than most people recommend. At first it real is a pain-in-the-ass. (ha!) to get used to holding the water in for any length of time that is beneficial.
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I was also considering your brain and bone marrow diet and according to this system it says to use bones sparingly. There's so much conflicting info out there...
(http://media.threadless.com/subs/big/66313.gif)
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I think an important fact about the zombie diet is that its all draped in blood just like the fresh meat would have been in paleolithic times. If we truly were apex hunters then I would have assumed we would have adapted to needing to get at least part of our nutrition from the blood which is noticeably absent in all the meat that I consume and perhaps the reason why so many people have magnesium, salt, iodine, etc.. deficiencies and a possible reason why it could be important to supplement with these for life. But, I have no clue as to how much blood is consumed after a freshly slaughtered animal today or how much nutrition is in such blood. Zombies have no ego either, which further points to more brain consumption.
I rigged my bowel movement statement so that it almost necessarily has to be true. Perhaps you can step in again with first hand info. Having easy eliminations does not necessarily translate into good eliminations. Many of bowel movements are easy and relatively free of effort, just not well formed (again, whatever that is) which I think usually points to something going wrong - I can't imagine a case where a faulty elimination does not at least hint at malfunction even if it is just dietary transition.
Theres a really cool vid below of a white man eating a reindeer with plenty of blood.
http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/general-discussion/man-eating-raw-raindeer-liver-and-blood-straight-after-the-kill/
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to get into more detail, I would say fully formed, sometimes they even have wide diameter. Occasionally they are somewhat thinner or not in one single 'log' of course. But I don't see that is being abnormal or far from any ideal. I've never once seen undigested matter or or fat and usually things seem pretty drained of hue(not reddish). I've had spurts of worse/diarrhea type elimination of course, but that is becoming less frequent. for awhile eggs or poultry seemed to really trigger this, especially in my last bout with raw.
I hear you on poor elimination (however one defines it) is an indicator of ill-health, but I don't think the converse - good elimination = perfect health to be true. I mean, alot of high crapping vegans would qualify.
*brains...*
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I love you guys. ;D (We need a laughing smiley)
Only here could that image be posted and be both handled with the dry humor it was as well as make you think twice since it does have so much of our diet in it. ;D
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The blood conversation is interesting.
I have always wondered if vampires - being immortalists - have less caloric needs than short-lived zombies, who seem to have requirements similar to a growing child. Although we might count ourselves lucky, as vampires - while they can survive on smaller animals like chickens and rats - tend to become thin/malnourished over time which causes moodiness and seclusion. A vicious cycle. In the modern period there are more claims from vampires about EMF sensitivities, but many are grateful for the advent of vitamin D-supplementation and freezable blood, which is the real conspiracy behind blood drives
zombies appear to have similar nutritional stores as well, as I have seen them endlessly walk around shopping malls and never give in to cooked or processed foods. Occasionally they might try to convey angrily (interpreted only by an expert zombie-nutritionist though intonation of their only vocabulary:"brains...") that the soil is not as good as it used to be and therefore brains are not exactly top quality.
but out of all the studies in NAPD, zombies are the only ones who have actually grown more agile and sharp both mentally and physical in the modern period.
in fact, many are actually moving away from their native Haiti in search of poorer quality genetically altered food sources which provide shorter bursts of stimulation and increased sense of being 'alive'.
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DJR, appreciate the props on my dry humor
KD, Amazing post. I never thought of working at a blood drive. Maybe I'll try it out this summer.
Speaking of said summer, I'm thinking of going some place outside the US for a month or so to a country where fresh meat is easily available. I'm thinking southeast Asia, maybe the phillipines as Goodsamaratin's posts seem to indicate his country is quite raw paleo friendly. Any other suggestions?
I still feel pretty decent even with quite a bit of the cooked garbage. I'm also feeling quite strong, with results at the gym improving. Part of this is probably directly related to weight gain which I think is related to improved uptake of nutrition. I deadlifted 435 and pressed 155x4, both personal bests. My press has been stalled for months now, so this is really nice to see. My weight is varying quite a bit with the feasting and random fasting, was a pound short of 200 at the gym.
I think I've noticed a connection - that no matter how much I eat, I will still have a desire to consume raw fat and it seems that it is only raw fat that will eventually get rid of my cravings. And its usually the raw hard fat that does the trick.
I gave myself a saline-filled enema and was only able to hold it in for 30s or so. I'm up to 6 drops of iodine (13mg) and can't notice a difference.
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I'm still angry as hell and fairly fatigued both physically and mentally. It seems to be all a vicious cycle. I am fatigued and so I get agitated and angry easily. Virtually everything can make me angry. I hate not being able to get something right. I take myself very seriously, though nobody recognizes this. Literally every person that knows me thinks I am very easy going, nonchalant character, not afraid to be a little different. But inside, I'd really like to beat the shit out of so many people. I never do though and have never really gotten close.
My anger makes me feel so alive, so worth living, its such a drug for me. I finally get the energy I want and my mind clears right up. There is no headache or any pains. Its all so clear, except that I have a limited capacity to think rationally. I have noticed that my energy levels remain higher after an anger episode for a short time. And this is when I can act beautifully and human. But, the stress takes its toll on me and I believe fatigues me further setting me up again for more anger to alleviate the pain.
I've read so many anger books, have so many journal entries and worksheets filled out which all help at the time, but the quickness to anger remains so entrenched in me. I remember being violently angry when I was 5 years old and lost a game of complete luck of shoots and ladders against my dad. Its like I have been predisposed to getting angry and nobody really understands. I can never consistently do all the book work and meditation and journaling and affirmations and visualizations and all the other coping skills I have read over now so many times to shake free from the quickness to anger.
I am inclined to believe that I just need to accept the fact that I will get angry and that nearly everything can get me angry. I can't control it. The one thing I do like about myself is that I always admit whenever I am wrong, probably too much, but I have no problem apologizing and compromising.
I can compare my anger to the cycle that mercury and candida run through. Apparently candida is quite helpful for those who are poisoned with mercury transforming the toxic version of mercury into something less toxic. http://www.cfspages.com/fire.html My fatigue gets transformed into something usable with anger.
But I am confident. I will beat the shit out of whatever the fuck is keeping me tired. I will find a solution. I am never giving up.
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Paleo Donk, have you considered your immediate environment? Where you live. Does it support, enhance or rob you of power? Or is it neutral?
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BB, you bring up a good point about my immediate environment. It seems the more time I spend online the more depressed I am and the correlation seems to be pretty strong. Theres only so many poor posts by Paleo Phil that I can tolerate. The next couple weeks I should be offline a good deal as my brother is coming in town and I'm very much looking forward to this.
I'm confirming my belief that HCL supplementation is most likely not helpful long term, though it can potentially be a life saver when used intermittently. I've been reading more on digestive bitters such as grape, sweedish and chinese that supposedly more naturally stimulate the digestive juices and will start experimenting with these soon. I have a feeling long-term HCL use is damaging.
Heres a good post on the bitters - http://curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=1445785#i
I am also going to buy some gold coin grass (made from traditional chinese herbs) which has reportedly helped many with better liver flushing from sensiblehealth.com
I just bought this grape bitter- http://www.vitacost.com/productResults.aspx?ss=1&Ntk=products&Ntt=grape%20bitter
Also just did my first coffee enema. I wasn't able to hold it in for more than a couple minutes but my abdomen was going a little crazy shaking around. The urge to expel was very strong even after using a saline enema right before. I'll try it again soon.
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I am sorry you are having a hard time, Paleo Donk. From my point of view, if you have the degree of anger you note, you still come across here as very interesting and thoughtful. Maybe give yourself some more credit. You have not acted on your impulses (i.e. punching someone in the face), so you seem to be in control of your anger.
You might just be missing a hobby or passion that would re-direct your focus. For me, besides raw ZC, lifting and hiking are my passions. I can get lost for hours reading about lifting, or actually lifting, and going and taking walks alone. I also enjoy reading a lot.
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Thanks Kate, that kind of support is very helpful and you are right that I am very bad at giving myself any credit, I'm almost always on the lookout for any way I can to make myself feel bad or perhaps alive. Unfortunately I am very largely driven by my ego which really sucks my energy and proceeds to judge everything so harshly. I realize that am constantly on the look out on how to correct the faults of those around me, no matter how much correctness their message contains. I am searching for a battle and can always find one. There really is no cleverness involved, its purely egotistical. I guess you could categorize me as a passive aggressive egomaniac when I'm in the wrong state of mind which seems to have been quite a bit of the time the last month or so.
I've been trying to curtail this egomania by attempting to look at the whole of one's response. In person, this is very easy to do as their is much more information streamed in at one time - tone of voice, facial expressions - which gives me more to analyze but which give more human qualities to the individual thus making me appreciate a response for all that it is worth. I accept much more than I judge. I think this is where playing poker comes in handy. Poker has forced me to monitor and scrutinize every detail during the game, which when applied to life outside the poker table has given me much practice in finding strategies that more efficiently lead to optimal decision making. You see, when money is on the line people quickly either put up or shut up and this kind of mindset forms the foundation of my posts.
For instance, if you would ask almost any mainstream western doctor what they thought the correct path would be for getting rid of symptoms for your epileptic child, I would assume their strategy would be almost entirely based upon prescription drugs.
Now, I step in and propose to the doctor an alternative method of healing, say a raw ketogenic diet. His first response would most likely be to quickly dismiss my proposal and get on with his life. But, I don't go away and instead sweeten the deal and offer him an even money bet of 50 dollars that my way of healing would be better (whatever way you want to define better in this situation, its not important here). He would probably accept this wager seeing it is a good deal for him. But, right before I shake his hand to complete the ordeal I up the bet to 100,000 dollars. Now, he is forced to change his mind. Even if he thinks very highly of his method of healing he might not want to take up the bet which is understandable. But then, I offer him 2 to 1 odds on his money meaning he only has to risk 50k against my 100k. He might still not want to take the bet. I then sweeten the deal even more and offer 10:1, meaning he must only believe that his method of healing has at least a 10% chance of being right for him to want to take up the bet. At this point, he should be thinking either, how easily he will make money off me or how little he knows of alternative methods of healing if someone is willing to give such tremendous odds to some radical method of healing that he knows little about.
The point of this little story is that people will change their opinions when they are forced to wager money. The money really exacerbates the path to the truth. Poker is exactly this, you make your decisions based almost entirely on how much money you would like to make/save on every hand. The best players seem to have little ego, or at least show it the least. They don't seem to get too high or too low and take their losses with their wins. I unfortunately had extremely horrible lows and just moderate highs when I played swinging back and forth wildly.
I actually started studying for the MCAT - the medical entrance exam in the US early last year. I did not want to go to medical school. I wanted to get as many interviews as possible and rip into the medical board with everything that I had gathered. I wanted to throw an arsenal of true methods of healing in their face. Make them to feel my anger from all the bad advice and wasted money that they had bestowed upon me and my parents. A huge ego trip to say the least. I actually got about half-way through the material before quitting to play poker and drink.
Interestingly enough I had a very good weekend with my brother and his friend down in Tampa. I was away from the computer (I'm so certain my addiction to the forum message boards is really slowing my recovery) for the most part and managed to have that sense of control and peace of mind that makes me feel human. I've also had decently good days at school this week, managing to clearly elucidate my feelings and thoughts with a few students. The brain fog lifted for quite some time.
As I said previously, I still see mistakes in so many posts, definitely including my own, and I think the best strategy is simply to ignore them as most of the time they don't really matter or affect the final decision even if they are mostly wrong.
Expanding further on my proposition bet with the physician. I think this is the best method to convert the modern western medical field to include other more beneficial methods of healing. If we can make a large enough public proposition about something as sure as childhood epileptics being cured with a raw ketogenic diet we could generate tons of publicity. Imagine putting up a multimillion dollar bet against the medical community giving them tremendous odds. The truth would come out. It will follow the money.
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I used to have major anger towards the medical establishment/delusions that I would somehow save lots of people. I dunno, somewhere along the line I was introduced to the ideal of being "incredibly spiritually greedy' for my own healing, as worded by a friend of mine, and lost all thought of helping others on any mass scale or even for individual level for those who were probably entirely uninterested. I've had moments where people asked me what my secret was or whatever cliche, and I hope they didn't follow anything I said because eventually I changed my tune altogether myself. Now I think if I have 5+ years of increasing health on one empirical routine, I might be more vocal towards others, but probably still on a passive, individual level.
I think its normal for people to stumble on ideas or actual practices that have benefit in their lives and immediately want to share them. But its quite clear that not all of these solutions or individuals are right or right for the long term. There are many people with many divergent ideas and experiences - and of course some ARE just jerks or morons - but largely any conflicts that go beyond simple back and forth are usually some kind of 'Control Drama' within the individual(s). There are some that go as far to say that the 'individuals' and situations are actually things we create because we are addicted to these kind of situations in some weird way and it supplies some kind of inner need. I don't fully agree, but generally if someone is 100% at peace with themselves and their ways, theres nothing really to defend or be threatened by, even in the face of complete ignorance. Of course, when others are on the line, one gets the sensation/need to keep setting the record strait with such 'person', but that goes back to the whole saving others thing.
But in a sense that is just a bunch of philosophical jabber, like you say in the internet especially there is 0 consequence of providing shitty information or changing their hand arbitrarily, but I think one can assume a little faith that most people (especially in a very specific group like here) are really meaning their best, and faith that others WILL call BS on them (or just sense it themselves). So there is something to be grateful here, as opposed to other forums that have consent tennis like contention amongst people less stable and knowledgeable.
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My main criticism of the medical establishment in the US is not necessarily against their methods of healing, which probably saved my life a few years ago (more on this later), but with their arrogance and wholly unacceptable approach to determining the best possible solution to a health crisis. If I were a healer(this term seems so much better than doctor), I would like to think I would look at all possible methods of healing and inform those coming to me for healing of the many paths available and their respective chance at dealing with the crisis on hand. I probably went to over 10 different doctors and therapists over a two year period and not one asked me about my diet and my number one complaint had always been massively low energy. Western medicine certainly has its place in healing and has saved countless lives, its simply just a small slice of what is out there. I don't understand its attitude and that is what I wanted to attack. I never felt comfortable asking something that might interfere with doctors opinion. This is perhaps my own flaw, but I would like to think that I would make sure that my patient could be very open to discussion about healing methods. It seems so awkward and out of place to even think about questioning a doctors advice. Not even really question but to even have an open discussion.
I am not into advice giving and have never told anyone to follow a diet like me, but I will point out some things that I know for sure that nobody pointed out to me when I was going through my troubles. Seriously, not one doctor even informed me that there could be a connection between diet and health. The only thing I really tell people is to cut out refined sugars and if they listen to that I inform them that processed grains are the next to go. From there I don't really say anything unless they are family. Though I do think there is nothing wrong with informing the very sick, those most in need of advice and most likely to do something radical of advice since they are about to die. There is a huge difference here that I hope most people see and I completely disagree with the viewpoint of never giving advice unless another person specifically asks for it. I'm not sure anyone feels that way anyways but there is, like always, more than a black and white scenario here. The strategy for advice giving changes at some point.
I agree with you about the 'control drama' and am very guilty of this. I like to play the devil's advocate card too much and already extrapolated on this idea on my above post. I am hoping this is just a step in my journey that once I feel healthier I will be less dramatic because I'll be less tired. Being outside and amongst friends is my best cure for this right now.
Now onto the part where my life got saved. I actually don't even think about this anymore, pretty much ever but about 6 years ago there was a small lump on one of my testicles. I actually noticed it a couple years before but was too shy to point it out to my doctor, but it had grown enough and I suppose the term 'grew some balls' applies too literally here that I finally did ask my doctor about it. I got an ultrasound and sure enough it had to be taken out. This was back when I believed US doctors were all knowing and infallible. I remember my dad wanting to see if there were another way out of surgery. I got so mad at him for questioning the doctors opinion. How could he even think about questioning this man's opinion. Seriously, hes a fucking doctor, and my life is now on the line (though there were no signs of cancer yet), why are you going to even think about questioning him???? How completely ironic that now I would be the one questioning everything.
Well, after getting my testicle guillotined, I went to basically every type of doctor we have to see what I could do about my chronic fatigue.
Cardiologist - EKG and stress test (where you walk and then run on a treadmill to test something..) They supposedly found out that I had mitrol valve prolapse- which from wiki states that it is prevalent in 38% of active males. The doc didnt make me think it was that bad. Just that I had to take antibiotics before going to the dentist because bacteria could leach into the bloodstream - though I just found an article now that says these antibiotics are useless for this.
Pulmonologist - did a test where you blow as hard as you can into a tube for a few seconds. I could never last the full length of time here, so the docs concluded my breath strength was fine. This guy did recommend me seeing a psychologist. I remember him just nodding his head at me when I told him my symptoms like he knew I was fucked in the head. I still have trouble holding a note when singing, especially multiple notes in a row, like I run out of breath real easy.
Ear, Nose and Throat(ENT)- I did all sorts of tests here. They would numb my nostrils and then stick a small camera up inside my nose. My adenoids were enlarged as I recall and I was prescribed some nasal spray that was going to supposedly shrink them. There was even a possibility of surgery to correct them.
Dentist - I did a breathing test with my jaw shifted forward and apparently this showed that I had some obstruction that would be fixed if I slept with a device that pulled my bottom teeth forward. Well, I was fitted for this mouthpiece that yanks your jaw forward at night allowing more air to come in. I think I lasted one night with it on and I was afraid it would permanently move my jaw forward, which actually makes a big difference in your appearance. And this dentist actually shaved some of the inside of my molars down with the supposed effect of having my tongue sit farther down allowing more airflow. This did not work and now I have slanted molars.
Sleep studies - I did two of these where you spend a night in a room attached to a bunch of different electrodes sending back all sorts of info. I never saw a doctor for either of these tests. The results were simply shipped to another much less qualified doctor to interpret them. I was prescribed a CPAP machine - a device thats like a ventilator that blows air into your mouth to prevent you from having sleep apnea. I must have been the thinnest, youngest person ever to get prescribed this machine. I had a couple different ENT's look at the results and each one of them determined something different that either I had sleep apnea or I did not.
Dermatologist - Said I could have acne till I was 80. I bought all the creams, though never really used them.
Internist - the only guy that actually sat down with me and talked to me like a human. I asked for addreall and he gave me some. Adderall and coke are the only drugs/devices that I have seen any benefit from. He also told me the mouth-piece for moving my jaw forward was not good.
Opthamologist - to check to see if I had wilsons disease characterized mainly by an a problem with excess copper and extreme signs showing up with a ring in the iris - hmmmm...maybe iridology does have its place somewhere. I didn't have wilsons thankfully and I am in the process of getting the results to see exactly how much copper I excreted over 24 hours which is I believe what lead them to think I might have wilsons in the first place. I wasn't interested in any of this stuff back when it happened as I just mindlessly followed the docs advice.
4 psychologists and an anger therapist - I always felt good after going to a therapy session, its just once a week sessions don't really do that much when you are really depressed. I did get prescribed some antidepressants finally which did seem to work but I could never keep up with them and they got lost. I was taking some antidepressants at the beginning of the journal which perhaps were helping but I gave them up too sensing they could be doing long-term damage.
I also had lots of blood tests that I will be sorting through when I go back to Houston next week that may give me a bit more info. My mom told me I had elevated levels of bilirubin which indicate some biliary malfunction/congestion of some sort and I'll be looking to cleanse my liver more with digestive bitters, apple cider vinegar, chinese bitters, castor oil packs, egg yolks and finally liver flushing which I will resume once I have my diet in place.
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Yeah, I didn't think your critique is wrong or misplaced, especially from my own experience and reading other testimonials online.
As for the diet connection, this is something that does of course deserve a way higher place in mass consciousness, not to be distorted by the same medical myths i.e. more whole grains for health etc...
I thought your idea of going on interviews was actually really clever. I think my scenarios were more V For Vendetta-ish, heh. But I've seen alot of other raw food folks take on a mission-mindset and losing track of their previous passions or even eventually losing touch with their own health progress in pursuit of what they believe to be truths. Then their are the David Icke types, that seem to thrive on conspiracy, critique, and negativity as their staff of life. So somewhere along my path I finally realized the words 'truth' meant very little in comparison to what works in the moment.
Other than whatever the forum policy is, I don't think advice giving is wrong. I know you posted something before about this, but I've never seen your posts come across as 'diagnosing' others problems. In others 9:10 its phrasing that makes all the difference and the persons experience of course. Like there was that one guy here was saying everyone's problems were kidney issues because of excess red meat. Well ok, it would be one thing if this guy ran some raw meat retreat and had done various surveys and tests, but this guy hadn't even done weeks on RAF. I agree with you that Rooney should NOT have been booted, I think that shows more the bias on this site or possibly his eccentricity than any negatively towards giving advice. Advice is given in almost every post.
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I had some very similar experiences, except in my case I had a doc when I was not even I college yet dismiss my self-inspection, and year later the treatments had become far more severe, which then led to just a massive spiral of issues. When I had a reoccurrence years later which had a 5% chance of happening, the doctors at least admitted it was pretty much 100% due to botching the first treatment. When I had a massive hip problem later, the doctor at Hospital for Special Surgery in NYC (pretty much the premier pace for physical medicine) said I needed an immediate hip replacement because of the second treatment. At that point I finally declined and got into diet and cleansing and things. So, in my case, I still have anger and frustration with the fallout, but if things had been different, my life would have been equally so, I might not have moved away at all or had any of the other experiences that I did, and I might have lived in sub-par health indefinitely instead of ever making any serious decisions about change.
But yeah, some of this shit is just plain barbaric. The worst anecdote was one time I got this diagnostic where they they injected blue dye though 12 inch needles in between all my toes. It was totally excruciating as one can guess. Later I asked my doctor about it and he was like, "yeah, I dunno, we didn't really need that info."
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I agree with you that Rooney should NOT have been booted, I think that shows more the bias on this site or possibly his eccentricity than any negatively towards giving advice. Advice is given in almost every post.
Rooney did not fact check. We appreciate fact-checking here.
More to the point, a good 50% of what he said was clearly wrong. 10-20% of what he said was not just wrong, but insanely, extremely, hyperbolically crazy AND wrong.
Also, he posted like crazy.
When posters start posting that much, they nearly always go off the deep end and have to be reined in.
It got really irritating (to me and the other mods) to have him constantly posting both so much and often so non-factually.
In retrospect, an ideal system for someone like Rooney would be having all of his posts moderated and monitored BEFORE they are posted. That would cut down on both the inaccuracy issues AND the excessive posting.
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Well perhaps my own facts are wrong here. Perusing pages of back posts I now have more of a mixed review. Some seems pretty harmless and well intentioned to me, even if it was 100% wrong. The derailing and contentious loling are a bit different. Plus any use of the word 'sheeple' deserves some kind of instant and preferably physical punishment IMO. I actually wasn't even aware of the ban, didn't see any drama, and I had figured it was just the talk of blackholes, evolution/eugenics, and various remedies and such, which ultimately no one can know conclusively about. I was trying to communicate that giving advice isn't the problem itself, when coming from experience or facts as you say.
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KD, thanks for the post above. I can't imagine the anger and resentment I would have in your case, though my multiple readings of my anger management books has helped me alleviate this to some degree. Also, I appreciate the patience for waiting for a response. It usually takes quite some time for me to make a post. Its a challenge to get the thoughts from my head down to the keyboard.
My brother also thinks I am highly addicted to the forum message boards. Thanks to the data tracking here on rpf I have spent 8 complete days of my life on this forum not to mention the probable several more days not accounted for as a guest when i went online at school. I'm going toto try spending as little time as possible online and especially this message board in the coming weeks. If this fails I will just stop coming here altogether for a set time period.
As for rooney - he was very annoying and posted complete garbage quite a bit. Its too bad he didn't get himself a journal and put all his nonsense in there. There was a place for him here, just in small doses.
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Ok, now to something interesting. My mom saved all my blood tests from 6 years ago when I was going through my testicular cancer scare. Out of the 30+ parameters tested, 3 were consistantly out of range.
Bilirubin total 2.3, 2.1, 1.7 mg/dl range (.1-1.2)
ALT - 99, 63, 56 IU/L range (0-40)
Ceruloplasim 15.1,15.5 range (16-35)
Elevated bilirubin is associated with obstructed bile ducts and Gilberts disease.
ALT are liver enzymes - Significantly elevated levels of ALT often suggest the existence of other medical problems such as viral hepatitis, congestive heart failure, liver damage, bile duct problems, infectious mononucleosis, or myopathy. For this reason, ALT is commonly used as a way of screening for liver problems (from wiki)
Low ceruloplasim could indicate wilsons disease- can be characterized by an inability of liver cells to excrete copper into the blood stream. Not coincidently my serum copper levels were measured on the very low range.
The docs suggested an ultrasound of the liver which I had and showed a probable small hemangioma which are apparently not that serious and could have resolved itself over time and be responsible for the poor blood results. I advised to get a CT scan but I don't think I ever got one.
I think its interesting that these tests show that there is possible bile-duct obstruction and that my attempts at cleansing my liver could potentially lead to something special. I did have further blood tests done two years later and bilirubin levels dropped to the high-end and ALT levels were well within normal range so maybe the poor results were just tempoary. I did test on the very-low end of white blood cell count 3.9K/uL which was reported again just a few months ago in rehab.
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Went to a homeopath who also has his MD for the hell of it. I am extremely skeptical of these types of healers but figured it probably wouldn't hurt and going to these types of healers follows under my number one rule of healing which is - You must know of a method of healing before you can apply it. Had an hour long consultation where I talked about myself. He was very interested in all I had to say and asked me a good number of questions and really focused in on my anger. Towards the end he gave me this very optimistic look and said something like, "I think I know how to help you". I sensed in his eyes that he was trying to provoke some kind of reaction out of me but I didn't budge.
He then went on to say that the medication he was going to give was going to make my anger go away like "poof" and he actually raised his hand and did a little poof signal with his fingers like a magician does right before he makes the rabbit disappear out of a hat. He told me I wouldn't have to do anything else - no anxiety exercises or anything. I mean, how much more of a quack was he trying to sound like?
He went back somewhere in his office and came back with these small white pellets inside a small cylindrical tube and indeed did something even more quackish - once he came back into the room he immediately came next to me to attempt to throw some of the white pellets into my mouth. I hesitated naturally for a couple seconds before giving in - its not like I wasn't going to try them anyways. The funny thing was that he wasn't even going to tell me what was in the "medication". I had to ask. WTF? How come you fucks aren't upfront and honest about what you are putting in my body??? Its like the only healers I've found that actually care about me are a part of this message board and I'm eternally thankful for that.
Well, he told me the magic pellets contained Nux Vomica which I of course researched right when I got home - they are made from the seeds of a fruit found in SE Asia and are another digestive bitter that should help with digestion so at least his magic bean sounds like its on the right track for me. I'm going to give it try and see what happens. There is no way in hell this is going to work but whatever, maybe I should try and maximize the placebo effect.
I went to a gastroenterologist today and did some more liver panels which should be interesting to see if the above parameters have changed. He actually ordered me a sigmoid colon endoscopy, because of the rectal bleeding I had mentioned and a liver ultrasound to check the hemangioma. I ignored this for now.
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Keep us updated, Paleo Donk. I have anger issues sometimes, and I'd be interested to hear if these pills work.
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Still angry as ever. The only thing that works for me is expressing my feelings with the help of a book or another person. These work very well actually, but I have to practice daily which I fail at.
Quick notes
- Texas is great. There are cows grazing within walking distance of my house and I live only 30 min from downtown Houston.
- I have found a source (there are many) for beef fat and eggs. And even might be able to be around for the slaughtering of a small animal. So there is hope for fresh meat and blood!
- I had honeycomb from a local farm so finally for sure raw honey. The comb was still in the rectangular tray. The farmer let me scoop out as much honeycomb as I wanted with a spoon. It was amazing and much darker than any honey I've gotten yet. He didn't even sell the comb? I was too shy to ask for the whole thing. Which might be a good thing, honey is still addicting though not as strong as before.
- I'm trying to spend as much time out in the sun with as little clothes as possible. I think sunlight could be a pretty big missing link for my health. I don't have a job now so this is easy.
- I took a hot bath with 2 cups epsom salt, 1 cup baking soda and about half a cup H2O2. I soaked for 10-15 minutes and sweat quite a bit. Felt the same afterwards.
- There seems to be a good biologic dentist in the Houston area and I am aiming to get my amalgam fillings out by summers end.
- I have never worked on mobility or flexibility much at all and am trying out an assortment of different drills and stretches as I believe I am horribly inflexible and have quite a few minor aches and pains. Heres my starting point - http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-to-maintain-shoulder-mobility-and-scapular-stability/#more-12665
I'll be looking to do all the programs - for thoracic spine, hips, ankles and wrists, and shoulders over the next few weeks.
- I'm thinking about working on one of those self-sustaining farms in another country. I don't have a clue of what they are about just kind of heard a couple stories here and there. Let me know if you have any additional info!
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I think wodgina's (I find this name hysterical by the way) campaign for settling demons of the mind as first and foremost is striking multiple chords with me lately. In fact, I'm fairly certain that I could probably handle any reasonable diet as long as long as I had a comprehensive daily plan for dealing with my depression and anxiety. No dietary change has had much of any effect on me and the only thing that has ever really produced results is calming my mind and expressing my emotions.
I get no rush or high from doing this, just peaceful mindfulness. I figured I am young enough that my body can cope with a fairly bad diet as long as my mind exercises are in tune. I think the diet is more of just a very long term insurance plan as many people, probably most don't have many symptoms of disease until over 50. Many people came to this diet after having much, much more difficult health issues than I.
This is not to discount any diet its just that I really need to put more effort into feeling good about myself. I think I was fooled into thinking that a change in diet could have an immediate impact on my health with my first round of low carb. I did get a rush, an unnatural spike in energy that I thought would sustain me the rest of my life, but it turned out to be false. There is no magic pill (in the homeopathic sense), or even perfect diet that will help me (at least not in the short run). A holistic, comprehensive approach to settling the mind does do wonders for me and surely my digestion as well.
And the hard part is actually over. I know what to do to make myself feel better. I was lost for quite some time with some severely bad anxious moments years ago.
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I agree with you. Each of us has different pasts and different courses of action we need to take.
It does seem in your case dealing with the depression and anxiety needs to come foremost.
A number of us here have found ourselves at greater ease emotionally by diet and exercise alone but it's not a guarantee it will work or it will help that you won't need other work to settle yourself.
You've mentioned a number of times in the past that your book work gives you the greatest benefits. Maybe you should re-prioritize your focus and make therapy number one followed by exercise and diet.
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Thanks for the agreement and yes re-prioritizing is something that is important for me to do. My sister told me today that she knows I'm constantly in thought and angry. I had a really good day letting out some emotions that had been tangled up inside me with my family - crying can feel so good.
I should also mention that removal of amalgam fillings and liver flushing or parasite cleansing or whatever will not reverse depression or anxiety and are too just long term practices towards good health.
I have been doing quite a good amount of stretching lately and I suppose have been feeling a bit more limber and was feeling pretty good today and decided to run some sprints. I ran several 40 yard dashes and the lowest I was timed was 4.48, timed on approximate first movement. This seems rather fast, so theres a good chance that something wasn't right as timing the start has a huge impact on the time. Regardless I was pleased with my results, especially so being on grass and barefoot. I felt fast, fluid and pain free. I also broad jumped 108" which was pretty good too.
Find me on facebook if you want - Teddy Petrou
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I've gone through periods on various raw diets of extreme vulnerability and emotional release. alot of it is feeling it out and letting in pass, knowing that it cannot actually harm you.
I think alot of people (from what I've seen) sometimes have a similar experience, that diet helps facilitate some of the deeper work, and NOT that it necessarily gets rid of problems at all, although I do think part of the issue re: anxiety does have to do with physical stuff.
for me it still an ongoing battle to mark down objective improvements and things or else. I don't succumb to depression per se (even though I've been in terrible dark ones in my lifetime) but more of like an ungrateful and pointless take on the whole thing if I don't monitor my thoughts and find activities that bring meaning to my life. Noticing the changes in pain or prowess - while not guarantees of following the right WOE - still have their significance in terms of having power over those (ones) circumstances. Meditating (for lack of a better word) on that can prove very beneficial.
a friend of mine once said that if you can choose three people that you cannot stand completely and can figure out a way to really understand, be more civil, and show support to that person, than you will have developed a greater capacity to show kindness to yourself. It sounds hokey, but it may be one way out of the cycle of constant thoughts/arguments etc...also the traditional ideas about having structure and positive routines and ways to break harmful ones is also of great value.
It may be an issue of priorities but possibly also an acceptance that the diet, physical stress, sunshine - all good things -might be accelerating these kinds of feelings, and even the idea that that is a factor might help with any corresponding guilt or spiraling and just an acceptance that having some or even alot of internal baggage is totally normal.
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Yes, it all works together. Diet and Mind. I was making the case that I could most likely overcome a pretty bad diet with a very solid mental approach (and not as easily the other way around), though I'd probably be sick in 30 years. I mean, the only people that I know that care about diet are online. Every single one of my friends seems to overcome their terrible diets and seem at least as happy as me. If it takes me 5 years to get my diet reasonably settled that'll be great.
Mentally, things were accelerating for me in rehab and during the first part of the year (when I was much stricter diet wise - again usually all or nothing for me) but have really fallen off the last couple months when my diet has spun out of control.
One simple reoccurring anecdote (not in the last year or so though) is when I would take amphetamines before going out at night. My mind would very quickly clear, all anxieties taken a back seat and I would notice my body would start functioning better. I would urinate far less frequently when drinking, it was amazing. My anger book tells me that hangovers are far worse for angry people and I would have notoriously bad and depressed hangovers. These never happened even after 10+ drinks with the uppers. I also don't have ADD and have taken and passed those tests with ease. Mainly because I do not tolerate doing poorly on standardized type tests. I do however have horribly bad attention span in real life situations where it counts as my mind is wrapped up in something else and I do not get graded on it.
Its actually very cool to see what kind of things you notice whenever you are not locked into your own thoughts. I surprise myself with these rarely used abilities. Creative thoughts just kind of pop into my head.
There is still that fear of losing myself by becoming present in the world. I have worked so hard to be in my own mind that it is scary thinking about never coming back. All the little superstitions and phobias that I have used to control my emotions from leaking out have been a huge part of my life. Of course, there is little truth to these fears as I feel far better letting go of the anxious thoughts but it remains.
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I am going to try and eat healthy once again and do some kind of diet getting most of my calories from egg yolk, raw butter and cooked starch. I will eat some raw meat and fat but I want to test AV's egg yolk diet. I will also add honey and probably some citrus to the yolks. I have a good source for eggs which have the added benefit of being an entire animal (an argument I don't see many people making), though I don't believe they are fertilized.
I have been eating plenty of yolks the past month or so but will try and ramp it up to 20 or more. If everything goes well, maybe even more up to 40 (thats only 2k calories). I'm also going to consider doing some mini-fasts and am working on how to approach this. I still feel clogged up inside.
Also, I am a complete idiot. I was only doing about 35 yard dashes. I somehow could not even measure the distance properly with a tape measure. I am so often conservative with these types of things I don't know what the fk came over me. This explains how fast I was, even though I've timed myself around 4.8 before. I guess it was just wishful thinking that my squat had helped my performance that much. Still, it was nice to run pain free, though today my legs felt really tight and inflexible.
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I think the thing that makes the most sense to me about Aajonus is that although the systems can seem complicated or strange or just wrong, that his fundamental goal is to create a method that is BOTH cleansing and building that heals more efficiently than either alone. He has tons of long term experience with water fasting and definitely gets many people that come from that world and he has determined (to the best of his ability) that these methods are not healthful and very possibly harmful, which is why he has his little tricks on how to basically 'fast' with added benefits of fat and nutrients to help replace/remove harmful products. This is opposite the hygiene position that the body always knows how to eliminate even foreign substances from the body safely.
where does the starch come in? I think that is only in special circumstances and like mentioned in threads here mostly phased out. Although I know a guy who was currently being recommended a very small bit of cooled rice like once a week or something
As I understand it the AV combination is vegetable juice fast with raw whole egg, or butter/honey/whole egg intermix.
I think Rawzi can explain it better than I but other than the general reasons for including the whole egg, it is believed that in those systems/cleanses the egg (white I think in particular) helps move toxins and such through the bowel. There are some claims about un-fertile eggs, but this seems to be another one of those quality issues that seems less relevant to primals as a lesser of two evils between no white ingested.
not that you have to adhere to any of this. Just added info.
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4.8 or better seems pretty fast man, seems like NFL range to me.
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The added info is great - I have seen very few reports about anyone really staying on this egg yolk cleansing type diet for an extended period of time. Re: egg whites - There are several members here who report bad experiences with egg whites and a paper posted on the lack of digestibility of the whites (likely unfertile). I'm not sure how this translates into removal of toxins especially if its taken together with the yolk. Wouldn't it pull some good nutrition with it through the bowels? The same thing that fiber does. I have some green clay that I haven't used in a while that is supposedly good for pulling toxins through and I might go ahead and start using this in the mornings instead of using eating the whites. Rooney advocated activated charcoal for beginners as well, which looks like it would work. I will stick with the yolks for now and maybe experiment with the whites later on, and especially so if I can get fertilized eggs.
I'm not sure what to think of complete fasting yet. I'd rather not try it seeing as you are guaranteed to lose muscle. I wonder if fasting for a few days at a time while doing this yolk diet would be the best of both worlds. Moving towards zero-carb seems like it would be a good step before fasting so maybe I will start skipping days when I eat once I get my fat calories up high enough.
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Right, well, you got to figure in that mind that most people view all symptoms from even natural foods as bad. Largely the symptoms would probably be diarrhea and the like which people would assume is poor digestion. Its true that eggs in the wild would likely always be fertile, but the issues over avadin and such seem to be scientifically poor. Regardless whether they are right or not I still think PD'ers would see eating whole eggs from a pastured source to be acceptable and preferable than only eating yolks until there is a fertile source. This could very well be wrong. The only counter is I don't think many people are eating fertile eggs even the big consumers. I don't think I've ever had a fertile egg, and although I don't eat lots of eggs I only periodically get any intestinal stuff. I know my body is not in a perfect state so its a toss up on what to attribute it and still mostly side on cleanup as opposed to just poorly absorbed nutrition. There are alot of indigestible things one can eat that usually don't 'cause' such symptoms.
as for the bowel stuff, I don't understand how it works either but I suspect its not the same as fibrous material. If so fasting is usually the main goal of cleansing and resting, and taking it easy shouldn't require as much nutrition. I've experimented some with charcoal, I think that is more like to do with poisons in the stomach. I havn't tried clay.
either way, if you are doing just yolks and nothing else or the butter or things, your body is greatly conserving energy. It will probably be good to take a break from the workouts, hang out in the sunshade etc...read a fiction book or something.
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I think if I could intravenously get my nutrition I would as this would surpass digestion and allow any of those organs to heal if need be. That might be wrong but that would be interesting to do if possible.
Eating a mono-diet as prescribed by quite a few on the forum probably mimics this as much as possible and this is another reason to do just the yolks without the whites. The yolks, I would guess are probably easier to digest by themselves.
I suppose I am on day 2 of the yolk and starch diet. I had 6 yolks with a touch of honey and then some yams in the afternoon with a bunch of raw butter. I tried some wild caught salmon (300g) and that was pretty decent. I had a few small fruits mixed in as well and overall ate much less than I had the last few weeks and was pretty hungry when i went to bed and had a few more fruits but was able to control the total outbreak that normally happens. I think part of this control had to with my evening in which I spent with one of my friends who has more mental instability than me. I was rigorously honest with him and was able to open up and speak freely and confidently. This no doubt helped me maintain control of my food intake.
Today though I had a bit of a fruit implosion along with some milk and passed out immediately after. I did have more potatoes with butter which tasted very good almost to the point of healing.
I also front squatted 315 for a 15 pound PR.
I finally got something on tape
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nofIxRtm26I
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Had 16 egg yolks yesterday with 4 squeezed limes and a touch of honey. I was only hungry right before bed but instead of going in for the starch just went to sleep. I don't plan on making this a low calorie experiment at all. I wasn't that hungry so I didn't eat.
This morning I went to go pick blueberries at a local farm. pickyourown.org is a great site with a list of farms that allow you to pick your own fruits. The blueberries were excellent for the most part and definitely sweeter than the store variety, almost like candy. I went with my mom and we picked 7.5 pounds and I ate about half of them myself.
That was a mistake and for one of the first times ever I had whole undigested food in my stool within hours of intake. Lots of blueberry skin. I didn't feel bad at all, just had quite a bit of rumbling in my stomach and frequent trips to the toilet. Perhaps this is a good sign that food is going through me quickly. It seems I am perpetually clogged.
I gave myself a coffee enema yesterday and somehow absorbed almost all of it.
I got some blood tests back about a week ago. Elevated bilirubin, low ceruloplasmin, low white blood cell count. This again makes perfect sense about my troubles with zero-carb. I plan on liver flushing in about a week if I can stay on this diet high in yolks. Hopefully the combination of this liquid diet, chinese herbs and enemas does the trick and I get something out.
I should be getting a good amount of raw butter here soon.
I was really bummed about USA losing to Ghana, they played well and had so many more chances to score just couldn't connect. I've played soccer my entire life. I really should get back into playing.
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blueberry skins don't digest well for many, its quite normal
Some foods (like berries) can move pretty quick through the system, it doesn't mean there is no waste otherwise, but yeah probably a good sign.
I'd be somewhat concerned about the coffee enema, are you in touch with anyone with alot of experience with this? Sometimes with a typical enema, absorption is like when someone is really dehydrated, maybe its best to not do them (CEs) at certain times or arbitrarily. I don't know exactly myself but yeah would be good to be in touch with someone. Remember also with some of this stuff, having so many variables is hard to tell what is working or not. It might be a matter of doing the liquid plan and then doing the liver stuff, back to the liquids and maybe back to RPD for a period before going on another cycle. sticking to a long term plan that involves periodic cleansing will be superior to short term attempts to correct all the issues in one shot. At least that is my experience.
nice vid. 'Country First!
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I think you're right, it might be ideal to take off from any kind of physical activity, save stretching and walking in the sun for quite some time and just focus all my energy on healing, which means completely removing myself from the computer. I am very hesitant to do this because of all the progress I have made with my strength training. But I have lots of little aches and pains (probably due to slouching for so many years and incorrect exercising) as well as being severely inflexible and would probably benefit greatly in the long run if I could heal and re-balance my body.
As for the coffee enema - I think quite a bit of it leaked out as it was going in. I've done around 10 enemas total and they've all immediately come out. I have read reports of others absorbing the enemas without issues. The number of bad experiences seem to be very low with the CE's.
The thing with liver flushing is that it would most likely go much better while on the yolk diet since this is already supposedly cleansing out my system anyways.
I skimmed through Matt Stones free ebook and he is a huge proponent of dropping everything and healing. His method of healing is to eat as much as possible from non-grain, low-fructose natural foods until your morning body temperature rises to normal levels. I'm not sure about the overfeeding bit as I have basically been doing this the last couple months but many people have had success in the short time period that its been around.
Also, I am going to a monastery out around San Antonio tomorrow for the day to explore the possibility of staying out there for some time to do some labor.
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Had 18 egg yolks with 3 limes in the afternoon and then a sweet potato and part of a boniato (a sweet type of potato) at dinner.
I don't seem to be binging on the potatoes though this could just be because once I run out I must wait a long while to cook more up if I'm still hungry and then my hunger usually passes if its still around if I just avoid eating.
The stricter I am with my diet, the easier it seems to follow - again, an all or nothing crusader I am, but hopefully as my depression and anxieties lessen I will be able to find a middle road with these type of things. Doing raw zero carb was actually pretty easy the beginning of the year once I got into it. It was adding that small amount of carbs that quickly blew open the carb floodgates (and my stopped bowels).
I have lost a few pounds after stabilizing right around 195 eating just about as much I could the last couple months.
I seem to be noticing more things going on during digestion with this yolk experimentation. Not necessarily with the yolks but when eating potatoes I notice them in my stomach pretty quickly after eating which is something that I was never really that good at detecting before. Its not a bad feeling, I just feel something there.
I have not been strict with the yolks and starch (which I'm fine with) and at the monastery where the monks are essentially vegetarian (though they scarf down any and all sweets - cakes, cookies, whatever... which is ironic because there isn't as much self control as there is when limiting these things) and lots of other vegetation, which could of been responsible for my fruit binge the other night.
It seems the only thing that stops my sugar craving is zero-carb but again perhaps this is a mental insufficiency that is influencing my cravings as I have noted previously that when my mind is together I can generally control my cravings better.
My bowels are moving regularly but not at all solid, but at least I'm not shooting blanks anymore.
Also, I lifted barefoot for the first time today and did some squatting and held 315 on my back in a deep squat for a few seconds (felt like an eternity). This isn't that interesting but when I put my shoes back on (after lifting without them for an hour) I felt like I was walking with bricks as shoes. I put shoes on all the time after being barefoot all day and never feel that big of a difference so perhaps the squatting barefoot with some weight helped in some respect. I will try and lift barefoot all the time now.
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Still haven't fully committed to yolk diet, averaging less than a dozen a day. I've had a couple days of low protein intake ~ around 30g. Yesterday I nearly fasted the entire day, which is not really my goal again but I wasn't really craving anything since the yolks aren't really that appetizing. I went to go lift this morning and felt pretty good before going and was planning on overhead pressing 80 pound dbs for a set of 5 since I got 3 last time. I couldn't get 1 today so my strength definitely went down. There are of course many factors but the low protein is likely the biggest culprit. I came home and immediately gobbled up a dozen yolks (30g protein). Waited half an hour and then had 3 small potatoes with butter and immediately passed out. Perhaps I should have waited longer.
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36,12,18,24
Number of yolks I have eaten the previous 4 days beginning with today. I'm still confused as to what my carbohydrate consumption should be or when I should eat them - as far away from the eggs as possible sounds right. I have felt slightly uneasy a bit after consuming my egg and lime mixture a few times, but nothing too bad. Today I felt something spasming in my gallbladder/liver area. There is a liver flush mixture that is just a couple yolks with a few limes and a teaspoon of oil that has supposedly worked for a few people - so my mixture itself is basically a liver flush and is quite a rush of liquid fat so this could be the reason for the spasming.
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I pretty much fasted the entire day until just now almost on accident, just never really got hungry. I think I am becoming better at controlling my honey consumption. It definitely does not taste anywhere near as good as it did a couple months ago where I would eat up to a few hundred grams at time and couldn't keep a jar more than a couple days. I now have 4 different brands of honey, each of which I've had for several weeks. I think I nearly finished an entire jar on the way home from the market once I was that addicted. Although it did momentarily increase my hunger in the morning when I had a teaspoon or two, the hunger went away fairly quick.
I had a small (400 grams) shank steak with a bit of honey because it seemed like the right thing to do, though I was not really that hungry. I have given up fruits the last few days which are unbelievably addictive to me. I can't stop eating them and never got the point where I wanted to stop and always had to consciously stop my intake. At least with honey now, I am getting some kind of stop.
No yolks today but will get right back on it tomorrow. Also have done several more coffee enemas, I still feel pretty stopped up. Also had some fully intact corn (when I cheated last night having dinner with a friend) in my stool half a day later. I can't say the enemas are doing much more than the warm water or saline variety but they are getting a good bit of gunk out and I feel slightly better afterward. I might look into an actual bowel cleansing system in the next few months if this yolk and liver flushing routine does not get the job done.
I also got to play some basketball and dunked from a run on a 9'10" goal. It wasn't a very clean dunk but it counts and gives me some confidence that my vertical has gone up a bit. I couldn't dunk on the same goal a year ago when I was a drunk. I was also easily out jumping nearly everyone so that was nice but my on-court stamina sucks and it hurt to breathe after my first game. Still loads of fun and was excited that I got out the house and did something. Still depressed but am working everyday to get better. Reading, breathing deeply and using the coping skills are a tremendous help as always. I'm still stuck in my head much of the day and have these absurd scenarios replaying in my head over and over again. I've found that at least in the car when I'm listening to music that attempting to freestyle flow is helping my mind stay away from these horrible thoughts. Its pretty fun and ridiculous hearing what comes to mind but it forces me to think on my toes and not worry about stuff that will never even make it to reality.
I've pretty much given up on the starches as well - they never really sat that well with me. If I really crave one I'll go ahead and eat one but the moderate amounts of honey seem to be ok for now as far as satisfying any carb cravings. This is very likely to change but things are looking good.
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when i'm constipated i do a vitamin C flush, otherwise known as an ascorbate flush. you buy a mineral ascorbate powder and just put 1 tsp or more in water and drink every 15 minutes until your bowels release.
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Still depressed...
Try tantric sex. It's like normal sex but instead of going for the orgasm you focus on building up the energy between the two of you. You stay fully present in the moment and go for as long as you want. It takes sex to a whole new level and is more mind blowing than any drug. There's no way you'll stay depressed after 3 hours of this.
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I think tantric sex, for me, will only be realizable once my depression has been lifted (and unfortunately not the other way around). I have absolutely no chance right now of sustaining an erection for anywhere near 3 hours. In fact, I'd guess that well over 90% of the time I can only remain erect for less than 10 minutes. I am pretty terrible at sex - always have been. I get tired very easily - I don't see how people can keep thrusting for more than a minute or two at a time. I certainly can't without taking a breather and then when I do take a breather I lose sensation and the erection ceases. Even if I don't get tired I get the urge to finish very quickly nearly every time. Alcohol actually cures a decent amount of this leading me to believe that once my depression is lifted I can preform sex (and most other human actions) adequately.
I've tried numerous little mental tricks to last longer, but who the hell likes doing math or thinking of dead people during sex. It's just difficult to relax and enjoy the person I'm with. I'm actually confident that I will be able to work through the things that are keeping me depressed with what I am doing now. Antidepressants (which I am currently not taking) have also helped out quite a bit with sexual performance.
So to sum it up - tantric sex is likely to be a useful tool for me in my recovery but is too advanced for me to partake in now. For instance, I am still learning to assert myself positively to those around me, learning to say no, overcoming phobias of talking to authority, etc... And, thank you for the idea.
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This is turning me on... :D
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I think people forget that doing happy things doesn't necessarily help depression if it is largely chemical. But it is important when depressed to try to do as much joyful stuff as possible.
I experimented with real tantra through kundalini, its more of an energetic thing.
I also tried having non-ejaculative sex and not masturbating for quite a few months. although the sex was towards the end. Its just one of those things that is more of a 'practice', I don't think I was any healthier then per se.
I hear you about the dead people thing. I don't know if thats in my tool-set, but often when I'm with someone, I have to focus mostly on pleasuring them and not on my own stuff. It works for longevity, but the whole thing seems to lose its whole magic. very ironic. Often if its twice and a row its easier to be in the moment more or basically just fuck good.
congrats on the dunk.
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K, If the above is working for you, then perhaps I should share some of my hilariously entertaining stories of sexual inadequacy.
KD, I agree doing joyful things is good. I would like to do as many as possible within the limits of my recovery. Sex is surely one of these things. I do like the act just as much as anyone and don't have much if any fear when performing. I usually try and have sex for as long a time as possible, just can't get myself to do it. Though I have done no formal visualizations or meditations or positive self-talk beforehand and certainly no formal tantric stuff, so these preparations would probably help. Yea, working on pleasing the other person is something I do a lot of - not necessarily because I'm cool like that just so that the ordeal can last longer.
Yes dunking was cool. I really felt like I was lifting off nicely. If I can lose a bit of weight and gain a bit of strength then hopefully I'll be able to dunk on 10' goal pretty soon. I did some moderately heavy deadlifts barefoot for the first time and now have some soreness at the front part of my shins, which is definitely a new type of soreness I have not experienced before. I have also tried to walk barefoot properly. I still get lazy if I am not paying attention and land on my heels. Its hard for me to go more than a half a minute walking proper barefoot which utilizes much more of my calves. I've wondered now for a while if I've had really weak calves - them and my wrists are the only muscles that are still relatively small in size.
The sore calves from deadlifts and the difficulty walking properly barefoot lead me to believe that I indeed have weak calves. I think its possible that modern weightlifting shoes that significantly lift the calves are doing a pretty big disservice for those that want to gain calf strength. The muscle is shortened and eliminates the need for its use. I definitely keep experimenting lifting without shoes - hopefully this brings my calf strength right up where it needs to be to be able to sustain barefoot walking and eventually running long distances.
This is starting to make more sense to me right now - I've heard quite a few people say that calf-size is just genetic and that even doing heavy squats and deadlifts and olylifts will not make much of an improvement for calf-size (though strength should probably improve). I wonder if this is all connected to lifting with shoes and walking with shoes. I've been a lazy walker and huge heel striker my whole life. Well, I am excited about this new possibility of getting some strength and size in my calves (if you couldn't tell already...) which could even further add to my vertical.
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More good news - I was able to squat barefoot for the longest period of time yet - in the 3-5 minute range without too much pain. I could barely balance myself just a few weeks ago. I still cannot completely relax but could have probably gone longer and might think about squatting together with either reading, watching tv or meditating with a mandala (which I recently just started doing).
I found a good article on becoming a "frontfoot dominant athlete" in which barefoot training is recommended. http://www.higher-faster-sports.com/forefootdominance.html
Also just completed a coffee enema and got a good amount of gunk out and feel quite at peace right now.
Also, I have been sleeping on a carpeted floor about the last ten days - which is the longest streak of floor sleeping I have put together. Its been my intention to experiment with this but I could never make it a routine. Its been a struggle to fall asleep on my back - its just so hard breaking the pattern of sleeping on my side or even my stomach. I don't think its possible for me to sleep an entire night on the floor in any other position other than my back. My arms and legs fall asleep and go numb within a couple hours. I can't tell whats been happening to me at night this last week and a half but I think I am still in an adjustment period not getting full restorative sleep. I think I keep waking up a few times at night, just am not consciously aware of it. Last night was a bit odd. I could not tell if I was dreaming or awake at one point. I kept trying to wake up and move around but I could not. It wasn't a pleasant feeling. From what I've read it takes several weeks to fully adapt to the floor (I keep using less and less pillow - this might make a huge difference).
Heres a good article with more info - http://www.marksdailyapple.com/sleep-posture/
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Oh, yes, I looooove entertaining sex stories! -d
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Last two days have been best of summer so far. I finally decided not to visit this forum and set myself a to-do list and made sure to start as soon as I awoke. I feel like I managed to do as much in these two days that I had in the 6 weeks I have been home.
I am seriously thinking about teaching english in vietnam for a year starting late august or september. I am trying to weigh whether this is truly best for me. I really want to just jump into it as it feels so right.
I found some "fertile" eggs at whole foods which I promptly bought and ate immediately. Still ate just the yolk. They seemed to digest just fine. I've done castor oil packs on my liver/gallbladder the last couple days with no noticeable difference. Still, they are nice in that you cannot do anything but relax. Averaging 1-2 dozen yolks with a bit of lime and random teaspoons of honey throughout the day with some raw beef mixed in as well.
Got a quote on amalgam fillings removal. 350-600 for small fillings and 1200-1500 for the large. I think I might just call around until I something much cheaper, though theres only a couple in my area. I can make a trip out of it if need be. I've seen other people report getting their fillings done for much less.
Strength seems fine. Did a "bootcamp" workout with one of my friends yesterday and then lifted a bit today. Definitely need to increase my work capacity. I have decent limit strength but barely any endurance. Deadlifted 315x5 no problem. Still barefoot and doing quite a bit of stretching and dynamic warm-up type stuff as well as walking as much as I can barefoot. Still a long way away mentally and definitely depressed but better.
Oh, yes, I looooove entertaining sex stories! -d
I came.
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Hehe, I cannot wait until next month...visiting my boyfriend in Virginia Beach (where he lives) for 5 days. Pent up sexual energy!
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I'm about to toss all my eggs into the low-protein basket as I have yet to see anything convincing me that any protein in excess of nitrogen balance is a good thing and nitrogen balance can be achieved in remarkably low amounts (30-50g/day). I'm really starting to believe that excess protein, especially cooked is as hazardous as the media portrays it and is the most overlooked aspect of the paleo crowd. I'm going to put all my thoughts together here in the week or so. This low-protein diet is more of a very long-term health issue as so many do very well with high-protein diets when young.
I wouldn't be surprised if an "optimal" diet was something like 5-10% animal protein with raw fat making up the vast majority of the rest of the diet and random leaves and fruit filling in the rest. It could even be better to eat the animal protein intermittently just a few days a week. If anything, I am very excited to try these things out once I finish up this yolk cleansing thing which is looking like it will take a very long time as I had some large cheats this weekend.
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I'm about to toss all my eggs into the low-protein basket as I have yet to see anything convincing me that any protein in excess of nitrogen balance is a good thing and nitrogen balance can be achieved in remarkably low amounts (30-50g/day).
I've been thinking about mentioning that in re: eggs, how easily that can alter protein intake even with little muscle meat. I remember when you commented in my journal about how even though my percentage 18:04:78 p:c:f, was quite low that my level in grams was high at 129 g protein, 33 g carbs and 268 g fat due mostly to eggs. I havn't calculated recently, but I'm sure its much lower protein now.
If you look into Nora Gedgaudas work (which I'm sure you have) she suggests a similar logic, but basically when one does the math, its unlikely to have such a low protein (in grams) without having a very low intake in total calories. The only way in doing so, of course is eating vast amounts of ruminant fat ( or dairy fat, or fruit and plant fats and oils I suppose) which would mean in nature either scavenged, or discarding a large portion of the kill based on its high protein.
It could be suggested that this issue was indeed a factor in Inuit health or validates some of the more 'superficial' findings about cave peoples in terms of life span etc...but in a way going with the low-protein, it would make me more convinced that the ratio of carbs was probably much higher, or that its requirements higher for carbs and were unmet during worldwide disapora.
I tend to believe it might be somewhere in the middle, with protein being at a similar level in terms of a percentage (perhaps slightly higher than 10%), but probably a much higher level in amount (grams) with total energy expenditure with primitive hunters being far increased.
At the very least, eating a moderately low protein intake with a large percentage of raw animal fat, must have benefits in itself compared to high protein diets or even SWD, even if it is not in absolute low levels of protein, and given for fat-burners that protein doesn't create abnormal amounts of glucose.
anecdotaly, I've tried eating protein intermittently with fat only meals, its pretty challenging. Eating say a few .25 lb muscle meat/fat meals, with a few eggs at other times of the day seems pretty reasonable to me right now, but I'm considering other experiments myself.
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I think my main philosophy when it comes to diet is that generally speaking I would like to provide my body with nutrition as efficient as possible, which implies putting my body through the least amount of work to obtain its necessary requirements. This is essentially the raw paleo mindset - in that cooking food places additional strain and energy requirements on the body to achieve the same amount of nutrition that is provided by raw foods. All the extra toxins and damaged molecules don't have to be dealt within the body. Excess protein conversion, I believe to be rather noxious as I will try to explain later when I get all my sources together.
It may be that all animals essentially eat a high fat diet when you take into account all the conversion of fiber and excess glucose to fat. So, why not provide the body with the fat already present? It would be very interesting to see how a gorilla would fare on a high raw animal fat diet. Perhaps they are better served turning fiber into fat than actually eating it? I'd also really be interested in seeing if pandas do well with raw fats. Actually if we can show that gorillas or other natural herbivores/omnivores survive in excellent health with a high raw animal fat diet then I might not need to read another study again as this would essentially prove to me that animal fat is the key. I kind of want to go buy some rodents right now and test this out.
It seems humans have a necessary glucose requirement of around 50g/day and so to me this would make sense to simply eat some carbohydrate. Perhaps higher activity levels would necessitate even more carbs. There are also plenty of vitamins and minerals that are scarce on a modern zero-carb diet that would seem to point us towards certain vegetation to obtain these nutrients.
It is true that an extremely high-fat diet would be difficult to obtain in nature and the idea is certainly rooted in the scavenging theory. I think its possible for a diet that is not obtainable naturally by animals to be substantially better than their natural diet. It could be that we always were on the look out for fat and simply substituted carbs whenever fat was not around.
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Its really amazing the highs and lows of depression. One moment you feel like you have thoroughly convinced yourself that you are so worthless and will never make it anywhere and you have tremendous evidence to prove it so - and then the next you feel like you want to give the world so much love and be active in this world and connect with all the people around you. You also have this supremely confident self willing to take risks and fail. I continue to search my mind for wisdom that will keep me at peace, comfortable with what I am and what I have. This is what drugs do. They let you accept yourself. There is no more hate. The mind no longer focuses on the insignificant, the sheer pain it was once in. Things get done.
I've been having these moments at least once every few days where I will see something or think or about something that makes me cry. It feels wonderful to cry. I was watching the movie Invincible with Mark Wahlberg where he plays a 30 year old guy that makes it onto the Eagles during an open tryout. I want to be that guy. I cried so much watching that movie. Envisioning that success for me is extremely pleasant and comforting. Its funny because I'm 29 and would love to see where my athletic potential will take me.
And right when things start to look like they are picking up steam I'll have sat behind my computer for three days straight doing nothing, eating poorly and in lots of physical and mental pain. Its such a slow process I suppose. My commitment isn't quite there and I can convince myself of all things negative almost naturally now that making myself think positively can be a chore.
I'm looking to get away and scramble around for a living teaching english in vietnam for a year. I'm still feeling good about this and might be there in early october.
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I seem to gain and lose weight very easily depending on the carbohydrate in my diet. This last week or so I gained around 10 pounds. I'm guessing mostly water but it just seems like an enormous amount as I don't even feel like I am eating all that much. I am definitely overeating when carbs or cooked foods find their way into my diet. I gave my yolk diet a rest and ate quite a bit of cooked food, even some junk like cake and ice cream. I think the scale actually went from 186ish to 199. Just unbelievable really. This all coincides with my parents coming back and refilling the fridge again with their foods.
I have also bought a cheap digital thermometer and measure my temps randomly throughout the day and am averaging in the low 97's. Not horrible but my hands and feet still feel colder than most especially when I shake people's hands. My limbs also fall asleep pretty fast as well.
I have kept up with my liver cleansing protocol making sure I take my chinese tinctures. Castor oil packs are a really nice way to relax and something I would recommend everyone try. Apple cider vinegar in small amounts once a day with some iodine the last few days. I am going to be doing a liver flush very soon and see if this bombardment of liver cleansing things does anything. I am still unsure about what to do on the day of the flush but I think I will stick to fasting after 2 p.m.
I have also been convinced by a family therapist to go to a half-way house of sorts. I really can't get anything together here in my parents house. Its just a black hole for me with the computer in front of me. I am definitely feeling better but I really need some structure in my life. For at least a month.
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If your limbs fall asleep that's bad circulation. I've had that if I ate too much fat, or too much sat-fat or something... I don't remember if the soft brisket fat would cause it, even in the largest quantities. But fat.. too much fat, anyway, I think your problem was..
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Hello Miles,
I am going to use your above statement to further dictate to everyone my personal philosophies on the matter of attributing causation to different factors in diet. It seems to me that once a person has an inkling or just the smallest seed of security about a connection between dietary factor and human physical condition that this person will without a doubt try to confirm this belief at every instance possible. And the more information gathered, the more this connection will be confirmed. It is nearly impossible to break away from this type of thinking as we are programmed to make these very connections. What is troubling is that modern society is many magnitudes more complex than what we evolved in and so the connections we have made have run astray and have little to do with reality. Its like looking at a very starry night and picking out the dots that connect with the current image in your mind. Humans are so incredibly good at picking out the dots that align exactly with their current story its scary. Scarier indeed is the ego that possess us so tightly in this modern world that we may almost never admit to even looking to challenge our own so sacred thoughts.
This is why I like to think that I will continually look for reasons why my thoughts are wrong. It is so easy to see how I can perpetuate my own connections. I do so without trying. It is so natural and comfortable. But to admit that your thinking is wrong or partially distorted is perhaps the key to life. Once you have motivation to change your thoughts and accept that you are not your thoughts, life can become so much easier. Depression is so hard to let go because of my attachment to the 'fact' that I am worthless. Its so easy to find instances where I look worthless and virtually AM worthless or situations where my presence is wholly a negative. My own confirmation bias of myself is so deeply ingrained within me. I am slowly pulling my way out of this enormous hole that I have dug for myself. Luckily I have some excellent tools to get out now. I just need to find myself far away from the edge of this hole because it seems so easy to fall right back in.
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Nice post, but what what does it have to do with my 'statement'?
The only thing I said was that if your limbs fall asleep easily, then you are experiencing poor circulation... The other things I said were 'in my experience's, and 'I think it may's. I didn't even say I thought the fat was bad in causing the poor circulation, just that there seemed like there may be some correlation in my experience, between the two.
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Hello Miles,
You are correct that my post had little to do with your statement, I've just had these thoughts about dietary connections for a while and reading through the black swan again has further cemented these thoughts and I just really needed an excuse to get them out.
All,
Hopefully this will be one of my last posts for a long while. I am going to stay at a half-way house type place as I simply cannot get my life in order at my parent's house. I thought I could but there is no real fire under my belly. I have nearly run out of money so its imperative that I get a job and stop talking about getting a job. There are so many days where I feel so close to having everything coming together but at the end of the day I still don't have a job, and am not doing the things that I really would love to do. Volunteer to help others, play sports, do other outdoor activities, rehab my joints, talk to women, do serious practice overcoming my phobias, taking better notes of my dietary progress, and more.
I had a great epiphany this past week in a family therapy session. I have, from what I remember always been extraordinarily angry. I have talked about this many, many times in this journal. My first memories are of me being angry when I lost board games. I never understood why I was so angry and why I cried out in so much pain whenever I lost. Why was I self sabotaging myself?
It appears that I was crying out for someone to be my parent. I needed someone to tell me how to act. I was desperately needing an authority figure. Someone to tell me not to act a certain way. I grew up with a tremendous amount of 'love' with both my parents and grandparents at my side. I was virtually never told that it wasn't ok to act out. Its funny because I do tell people very bluntly how I think they should act in certain situations. But, what I am really doing is trying to myself that. I had this uncontrollable crying session once I was helped to piece together the puzzle leading me to believe the connection is very strong.
I know whats right and wrong, I need to start listening to myself. I need some structure first and this is the reason for the half-way house. I don't really know how to live. I've done my laundry three times in the past year, which is a record high actually.
On a very positive note, I ended up with the grand slam ball hit by one of the Astros in their game against the Brewers yesterday. It was hit right to me. I finally made it on to sportscenter.
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Got a clip?
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Good luck, PD, and good health.
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Hello All,
I just picked up my 30-day chip at my half-way house which is given out for those who achieved 30 consecutive days a row of sobriety. I have been technically(from substances) sober for longer but not anywhere near mentally and I have finally been put in a situation where I can look really get to know myself.
Excluding myself from my computer and from my solitude has miraculously put me in a much better place in life. I did however suffer from perhaps the most depressing thoughts I have ever had the first few days in my new place. I thoroughly convinced part of me (whatever that means) that I was useless and would be so the rest of my life and that my actions as a whole would be a net negative (in terms of expected value) to the world. The clear solution to this is suicide. The whole world would benefit, not to mention some life insurnace money for my parents. Luckily not all of me had come to terms with this but mathematically it made sense. Somehow these feelings left. I realized I loved everybody else but myself. I really hated myself and many of the titles I had carried so tightly. Even my diet was a significant part of who I was. I was better than everyone because of my failing diet...
Going to 12 step meetings everyday and being around people in recovery has been an incredible experience and I no longer think of myself as worthless. I am also no longer following any sort of diet. I eat lots of fast food, lots of sweets, it all tastes so good and I feel pretty good to. I have a job where I tutor 9th graders in math all day. Its a perfect job for me. I enjoy coming to work.
One point I wanted to make was that as much as our food is polluted with toxic elements the society we live in is probably equally or more "polluted" with elements that we have not evolved to deal with accordingly and thus I must continually do what it takes to detox from these mental, emotional and behavioral challenges. I have enormous struggles overcoming the years of mistaken beliefs, enabling and the such that have dominated my life. Like with diet, these continuous stresses have accumulated within me to "toxic" levels and like many here must diet daily to stay in good health I must partake in a number of different cognitive behavioral strategies to stay healthy. The best strategy is simply to be with other people who have empathy for you and to talk about whatever it is that is on our minds. This is exactly what the half-way house has provided me - an environment where I can express myself without fear. My roomates are tremendous and the meetings, though I don't agree completely with all the 12 step program, have set me free of my tumultuous struggle with the definition of God. I am the most spiritual I have ever been and probably the least religious and I feel so content with this.
Life, of course is not all rosy with bloody lamb shanks but the confidence I have to find help is growing. I am attending family therapy and have a few friends that have been talking honestly to about failry regularly, one of whom has helped bunches is a guy who posts here who's name starts with K and ends with D.
I am trying to take things slowly and in moderation. I was going to avoid this board for much longer but realized this practice would have been too strict. I can live with moderation for certain things. Drugs and alcohol not so much. Internet, yes. I was going to do the same with women - avoid them completely but I think this too was too perfectionist. I do have codependt tendencies but not to the point of addiction.
I will not post much at all, but I did want to check in with an update.
One dietary note - I did complete a successful liver flush the day before I went to my place. Lots and lots of small green stones came out. I felt no different the day after but could "feel" my gallbladder for the next couple weeks. I would like to come back to rpd at sometime in the future its just not something I want to think about right now.
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Congrats on your success, PD. I agree that there are more negative factors in modern society than just diet, including less time spent just socializing face-to-face with friends and family, which is why I term my own approach "ancestral lifestyle" instead of just "ancestral diet".
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I'm glad that you're finding your own way PD. :)
Congrats on the 30 day chip. ;D
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Hello all,
One of the best things I have done is stop posting in this forum. Not that it is generally bad, just not a good idea for me. I believe I was attempting this diet not because I liked myself but because I didn't like myself. It fed my ego enormously. I was better than everyone else because I had the perfect diet. I attempted perfectionism with this diet completely idiotically. I went without vegetation, eating just once a day ignoring all the terrible hunger pangs in such vein to do this thing right. I essentially tortured myself and paid the price later with uncontrollable cravings for food I never even cared to eat before.
I'm not saying raw paleo is bad only that my methodology of attempting to attain perfectionism with complete rigor was highly dangerous. It really is ok to take a very long time to ease into this diet especially since no one really knows whats going on. Its ok to eat suboptimal foods. Its ok not to control every facet of this diet. I had no control over my own life and tried deeply to control something with this diet. It was a terrible addiction in itself.
For me to attempt any kind of major food restriction again, I would have to love myself completely. I am not there yet but have improved since my last post. My energy level isn't where I want it to be but my ability to pull myself out of my own self pity and self-hatred is much better. I still have some deep resentments against quite a few people including some in this forum but I am working on letting them go as well. It simply takes a very long time to reprogram a depressed mind. I am more social now than ever before in a sober state that is and have had some good success asking random girls out (yes a brag, and one that I am very proud of). I've been slightly petrified of the opposite sex since I can remember so it feels good to finally, effing finally be able to have that confidence to let go of the guilt and shame that I might face by saying something awkward and just say something, anything carefree.
I'm a little fat and a lot happy. I can eat half a dozen doughnuts and feel good about it too.
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Good onya mate. The internet can be a curse.
Haven't had a donut for about 5 years heh enjoy them fatty.
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I still struggle with loving and accepting myself. And the one constant that seems to work all the time is being as completely and rigorously honest as possible to the point of brutality. I've held back enormous amounts of emotions and thoughts over the course of my life and its all coming out now. I still am not ready to post on this forum or participate in much of anything that can lead to addictive behavior(bad habits in general) since I can already see myself worrying about whatever the fuck I posted being correct from others perspectives. I am still wildly insecure about my own existence and am still learning to accept everything that I am.
There is this strongly ingrained fear about not being worth anything coupled with an overaggressive ego that makes me think the universe has blessed me with everything that it could offer. I literally have these thoughts where I will walk down this path of perfectionism in my mind thinking that no human on earth has been blessed with the talents I posses - Attractiveness, logic and reasoning, athleticism.. I seem to have it all some moments in time. There is no human greater than I. PaleoPhil would be worth one millionth of my worst shit ever. I will think I have all the answers which consist of a raw diet, hang power cleans, liver flushing and mindfulness. Just do these things and you will be able to dunk a basketball with a smile on your face and feel good about yourself.
And then again most days I'll have to force myself to smile at people without thinking how much better I am than them when the truth is that I'm no different than anyone else. This includes rapists, murders, child molestors, all the bad posters on this forum or whatever. I could have easily been any of these people. I feel no different than them. I just got lucky that I wasn't in their situation. I am you. I just happen to have lived in a different set of circumstances. I am nothing. I just got lucky to be who I am. I didn't try for any of it. There is nothing special about me. All I can do is observe myself and protect what was given to me. My character defects are not me either. My existence wants truth and thats it. Thats all that makes me happy and sets me free.
I will separate from that mind that has kept me alive when I was a child and let it all go. But for now I'm sure I will see someone as I drive home tonight who I'll wish would have just run himself off the road into a fiery grave because it looked like he was going to cut me off or maneuver through traffic better and more dangerously than i would - but that would only be for an instant.
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There is this strongly ingrained fear about not being worth anything coupled with an overaggressive ego that makes me think the universe has blessed me with everything that it could offer. I literally have these thoughts where I will walk down this path of perfectionism in my mind thinking that no human on earth has been blessed with the talents I posses - Attractiveness, logic and reasoning, athleticism.. I seem to have it all some moments in time. There is no human greater than I.
You needed a nut cracker to crack pecans, wtf? Just put two together in one hand and squeeze them together. My 80 year old grandpa dying of cancer showed me this trick.
Yeah, when I deliver you to hell you can tell gramps that I now crack three!
excuse me, I have chalk up and get back to my metcon....
(http://kara.allthingsd.com/files/2008/06/highlander.jpg)
"There can be only one"
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Hello peoples - I'm getting closer to restricting food choices again. Though not that close - just had rice pudding with chocolate gelato. But restricting food choices for me means that I completely accept who I am. This is very hard for me since there are some parts of me who sincerely believe that I am very much scum of the earth, a huge creep, with horrible logic (especially at deciphering Taubes, etc...), ugly, small genitalia, whatever inadequacy you can think of I can project on myself. Nobody sees this of course but my natural defense mechanism in the face of stress is to make sure I tell myself I am worthless (this ensures that I don't have to face problems and stay in a safe zone). The ultimate in this line of thinking is suicide - the complete absence of feeling emotions ever again. I said some silly suicidal remarks while playing golf yesterday - The results of golf at times can be so overwhelming that I cannot think anything else exists outside of the last shot I just took.
But like I said, I'm closer than ever to accepting myself and loving myself for the person I am. There is still a very strong association between my past and survival that I am attempting to break with multiple strategies taken from popular cognitive behavioral therapies along with a weekly therapist. I'm at the point where I am ready to cut the string from these defects of thinking but its very hard to do since they resonate so deeply and can make such good arguments(especially when women who I meet and appear to be extraordinarily interested in me and then do not return my texts or calls). I can believe these voices which are essentially just my survival mechanisms kicking in. They will be reversed and let go. So perhaps a few more months or however long it takes is fine with me.
I have sporadically eaten raw meat the past 4-5 months but really only out of convenience and never grass fed. I've followed this up with donuts immediately after with no ill effects. I've also stopped taking medication with no signs of withdrawal that I can notice.
And a random thought - metabolic advantage seems like complete nonsense to me. What makes most natural sense to me is a diet with the worst metabolic advantage - i.e. one that takes the least amount of energy to process nutrition. Fat takes the least energy for us to store.
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I've done exactly the same thing to avoid emotions. I do convince myself I've got some disease, or focus on some imperfection and then I just don't have to do anything. I don't have to deal with the pain or uncomfortablness of cleaning my house or working hard at my job or even talking to that girl I like.
It's a very human thing to do.
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PD, I suffered dreadfully from feelings of inadequacy when I was younger (last year?), anyway, as Andrew says it’s part of being human. I went through my first 35 years convinced that I wasn’t worth much and others were much smarter (much better at everything in life) than I was. I was miserable. My first cathartic moment was when I went to my 20 year high school reunion. I dreaded going as I was the nerd that everyone picked on and I just didn’t want to deal with that again. What a surprise. All those people that had made my life miserable were now struggling with there own problems. I graduated in the late 60’s and a good percentage of my class was dead from drug overdose. My best friend was on the streets pushing a shopping cart – brain fried on LSD. As bad as I had thought my life was, others were far worse, and those popular jocks and the beautiful people that had been the life of the party in high school were now struggling with their own problems as no one cared about them anymore once they graduated. Football hero and Homecoming Queen were of little value on a resume.
If you read my journal you’ll find that diet is just a means to an end for me. It has taken me almost 60 years, but I finally came to understand that I had to decide what was important in life. I spent the last 20 years taking care of a friend with Alzheimer’s. When she finally died at 90, I decided that quality of life was far more important than quantity of years lived. I also decided, that for me, the ability to follow my passions was MY definition of “quality”.
As young children we spend our time running and playing, living life with great gusto, giving no thought whatsoever to our bodies or what others think. We are totally absorbed in the wonders all around us. We only think of our bodies when we allow others to decide what is important or when something physically stops working correctly. Other than that, our bodies should be transparent as we become absorbed in living our lives. We should be focused on what has captured our imaginations in the here and now rather than how we feel physically or mentally.
My goal has been to recapture that spirit of youth where I spend little time thinking of how I feel, or what others think of me or what I’m doing. As I did as a child, I again rush through meals just so I can get back outside and "play". The role of food in my life is to fuel my body such that I have the best health and the most energy possible to enjoy the wonders of everyday living that most ignore or take for granted. No matter how long we live, in the grand scheme of things, life is short and I want to make the most of it. We all face the same challenges. It’s how we handle them that matters. If I could live my life over I’d do everything the same – even the early years when I was so miserable – for it was having to deal with all my problems (many of them self inflicted), and the good and bad experiences that have come together to make me who I am. I’ve found that to be happy I have to embrace life… all of it, and unconditionally accept who and what I am, for you see, I made me this way, one problem and decision at a time over the last 60 years.
I wish you a Merry Christmas, and may everyday bring you joy as you continue to create who you are and what you will become in this epic adventure called life.
Lex
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thank you, lex. i always enjoy your posts and take care to read your entries, but this last one i can really appreciate.
The results of golf at times can be so overwhelming that I cannot think anything else exists outside of the last shot I just took.
gosh, how humbling what you wrote.. my entire idea of my self worth in high school and college was based on my sport performance... i wouldn't change my passion/competitiveness, but wish i saw the bigger picture.
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My goal has been to recapture that spirit of youth where I spend little time thinking of how I feel, or what others think of me or what I’m doing.
Thanks for the Christmas present, Lex. This quote above is essentially my goal -to return to the very carefree and honest existence that I believe humans truly are meant to have as they leave the still stone-age womb. We are somewhat unfortunately born into an industrialized crib that from the get-go breaks us apart from our natural pre-programmed set of instructions that still wants us to use stone tools and eat stone-age foods.
One other statement that you keep posting and one that has probably helped me the most is the fact that you have no attachment to this way of eating. It simply works now and will switch if necessary. I was very attached to this method of eating and would fervently defend THE diet online but would always run into trouble with debating and the feeling of worthlessness if I made mistakes. I realize now I most likely purposely put myself in situations where my prophecies about myself would be fulfilled.
Yet another aspect that I enjoy about your posts is that you allow others to have their own stories and biases and don't go off on tangents trying to defend every possible little facet of your diet. For me, my reactions when someone would pick apart my diet online would be to freak out first and then scour medical journals and the such for evidence to back me up. And then this would take up all my time and energy and rarely would yield a satisfactory answer.
To me this is simply my over-alarmed survival system kicking in gear - I am worthless is the set premise in my head which translates in my subconscious brain into ---> "You are in danger, fight for your life". So I did that. Now if I can change the premise in my head from "I am worthless" to "I am valuable" (which is inherent in us when we are born) then I can proceed with my life without scouring through medical journals (which I care very little about) and with doing things wrong and being fine with them.
Its somewhat ironic that I must learn how to unlearn. Diet is just one means to this and I think I a fairly small piece to me. (Small piece in that as you also like to say and many others agree - that the biggest gains come from dropping the worst offenders - refined modern foods) The neural maps in my head need some readjusting and it takes persistence and practice to reverse such things. Once I have done all this then I can go out and kill wild boar with stone tools and feast on their brains!
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To me this is simply my over-alarmed survival system kicking in gear - I am worthless is the set premise in my head which translates in my subconscious brain into ---> "You are in danger, fight for your life". So I did that. Now if I can change the premise in my head from "I am worthless" to "I am valuable" (which is inherent in us when we are born) then I can proceed with my life without scouring through medical journals (which I care very little about) and with doing things wrong and being fine with them.
Its somewhat ironic that I must learn how to unlearn. Diet is just one means to this and I think I a fairly small piece to me. (Small piece in that as you also like to say and many others agree - that the biggest gains come from dropping the worst offenders - refined modern foods) The neural maps in my head need some readjusting and it takes persistence and practice to reverse such things. Once I have done all this then I can go out and kill wild boar with stone tools and feast on their brains!
Yeah, that whole scouting medical journals thing is so 2010 for you. I think you have to give yourself tremendous credit. Likely the reason you are in the spot you are in is because you probably do give a shit alot more than your peers about these things and asking tough questions. Ultimately this might get you into deeper holes, but as long as you don't waste all your energy digging you should be able to use the experiences to your benefit that others cannot. You can see you are wising up already to actually isolating the problems and moving forward. With your knowledge of recovery, how many people do you know that can really come to terms with such things so quickly and implement lasting progress? Ultimately you are still younger it seems than the ages Lex listed for many of his breakthroughs, but don't you go using that as excuse to slack of for 5 more years!
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And that's just it, Doc - my mind has always been my Achilles' heel! - The Tick
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gosh, how humbling what you wrote.. my entire idea of my self worth in high school and college was based on my sport performance... i wouldn't change my passion/competitiveness, but wish i saw the bigger picture.
If this struck a chord with you, then there are probably quite a few things that you want to be honest about but simply cannot because you are afraid.
I'm still continuing to work relatively hard on overcoming my depressive thoughts and I am still not there but trending upwards. There are a few things I still need to become honest with my family that hopefully will be close to the last major cleaning house that needs to be done. It has to do with childhood sexuality that I have tried to forget for the last 15 years that I created myself. I want my mind to free so bad, to be free from that voice deep inside that comes out and reminds me that I am failure and to not try and to hunch my shoulders and put my head down and not show my emotions and to not go talk to a beautiful woman and to not say anything when someone wrongs me. Just keep it in and say nothing, its so easy. I'm an addict to making things easy for me. Its so easy to hide my feelings. I love it when I can raise my head high, smile and tell people how I really feel all without much thought, just natural human spirit flowing through me. It happens every now and then.
Also Ive planned a trip to visit KD during spring break. I'm excited! Also, I'm going to find PaleoPhil while I'm up there, punch him in the gall bladder, remove it, tear it open and go the nearest lake and spend hours skipping all the stones that are in there. Then I won't have to hear him complain about him not gaining weight or getting chapped lips from consuming too much honey.
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no no no no no no no no no no no no no we won't do that.
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I forget where on the coast you are KD but both you guys have an invite to stop here anytime you're passing through; just give me a heads up beforehand.
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I'm guessing it would be 4 hours each way. We'll see how it goes. PD will be renting a car I assume, and I can probably take time off work. I don't know if I can take 4 hours of gallstone chat.
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Howdy all, its been brought to my attention that sometimes things I say on the world wide web are of poor word choice. I realized what I was doing when I said I wanted to punch PP in the gallbladder. Alot of this stems from extreme resentments I have against some of the things he has said to me on the forums.
Let me say that if I were to ever see PP I would not punch him in the gallbladder right away. In fact, I would give him a huge hug. I like PP. I think PP is a suberp poster and is the poster I most often click on his posts from the most recent posted column. I deeply care about his opinin of me. I want him to think I am smart and worthwhile and and valuable and contribute passionately with preciseness to the forums.
At the same time I hold lots of resentments against him and if I think hard enough I can think of all the things where I thought he made a severe mistake in judgment. I actually have quite a bit of anger and nitpick his posts(in my head) and can find fault in lots of the things he posts. This is a product of my own perception and insecurities, not necessarily reality. I like thinking of myself as a superior thinking human able to decipher truth better than anyone.
One of my main complaints is my belief in his passive aggressiveness, still apparent in that PP had to complain about me in a pm to Dan instead of simply acknowledging to me directly that he had a problem. There is more like I said but there is no purpose in me posting it here.
Now if PP survived the hug, which is not a sure thing sinec he weighs 128 then he wont have to worry about being punched in the gallbladder. ;)
Also related to my internet rage is that I see loads and loads of bs across the interenet related to dieting where people are so blind to their own preconceived notions of what is correct. This 'disease' seems to be spread deep amongst the paleo crowd. I see covert lying all the time. Very few people are completely honest about what is really happening to them and cannot admit their wrongs. I suffered from this for a while - ZC IS THE WAY!!!!
And Dan - if you want to make the drive to KD's, cool!
I still don't undersstand how someone is supposed to survive in great health without a gallbladder or with one that is filled with gallstones and still eat a high-fat diet. Its likely that we can survive in good health but I still don't see why this isn't a bigger issue in the paleo crowd when 500k Americans get their gallbladder removed every year. I can only imagine how many have issues with gallstones.
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Dude i'm going to punch you in the gallbladder
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And Dan - if you want to make the drive to KD's, cool!
Yeah, I could come meet you guys or you guys could come visit up this way, either works for me. Let me know a date in advance and I'll take a day or two off from work.
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Is there someone here without a gallbladder or who knows they have gallstones? Do you(PD) not have a gallbladder?
How tall is PP?
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PP is 6'7, 123 pounds with a BMI of -3.2.
Miley, I have a properly functioning gallbladder as far as I know. Lots of people have gone low-carb(high fat) without gallbladders and from what I've read most do surprisingly well with few reported problems(though some cannot handle large amounts of fat at once). That said, a healthy gallbladder is surely better than no gallbladder for a high-fat diet. I'm not sure about where the threshold between a sickly stone-filled gallbladder and no gallbladder stands. Surely there is a point where having no gallbladder is better than a sickly gallbladder and some have reported the relief to digest fatty foods again when the stone-filled gallbladder is removed(but had trouble with the stones).
Miley, I recall you passed a small yellow colored thing while you were fasting a while back. That sounds like a gallstone to me if it was in the 5mm size and sunk in water. Which gets my mind thinking that lex's success could be to passing lots of junk/stones through his month long fast. This is all wild speculation of course but fun to guess.
When I was zero-carb a couple years ago I did an experiment where i overate by around 2k calories(4800 calories total) a day for two weeks of pure animal fat and gained weight equivalent to my calorie intake which further leads me to believe that my gallbladder is fine. If I had not gained the weight then one of my suspicions would be that my gallbladder would have been malfunctioning as I believe others with gallstone problems report diarhea and the sorts after consuming high fat meals(the fat passes straight through them undigested?)
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.... Also Ive planned a trip to visit KD during spring break. I'm excited! Also, I'm going to find PaleoPhil while I'm up there, punch him in the gall bladder, remove it, tear it open and go the nearest lake and spend hours skipping all the stones that are in there. Then I won't have to hear him complain about him not gaining weight or getting chapped lips from consuming too much honey.
Golly, PD, you've given me a free diagnosis of gallstones? How kind of you. And you'll do surgery on me for no charge? Doubly kind. I think I'd prefer psychic surgery, though. :D
PP is 6'7, 123 pounds with a BMI of -3.2.
How did you know? :P
As for any complaints you have about me, it would probably be better to take them offline in a personal message or report them to the moderators rather than have us potentially bore people with any discussion of them in the forum.