It has become clear to me over the past few years that my hormones are completely out of whack.  I have several issues pointing towards hormone imbalances, but the biggest one I just found out about is that I have fibroids.  My periods have always been painful, heavy, long, and irregular ever since I first started getting them, but over time the pain has slowly gotten worse and worse over the years. Another symptom of hormone imbalance is the acne around my chin and jawline, as well as shoulders, back, and chest, which I haven't been able to get rid of no matter what I eat.  I also now get hyperpigmentation, which I never got as a kid, or even a teenager.  Most of it comes from the acne, but a couple years ago I got some melasma on my forehead that was never there before.  All of these things just keep telling me my hormones are completely out of whack and getting worse! 

I have never taken or used any sort of birth control ever in my life.  I never want to, because my hormones are already messed up enough that I don't want to mess them up further with hormone drugs.  Instead, I am abstinent and a virgin, which is probably the biggest contributing factor to my fibroids at least, the "disease of nuns," but that's not something I'm going to change.  If I get married, then maybe I can have a baby(that I want), but I'm unsure if that will happen.  I've always had acne my whole life, but from when I first started a raw paleo diet, most of it has improved but never went away completely.  My periods also became regular, and while on raw paleo they weren't always as bad.  But I've had a lot of trouble sticking to raw, I now swing a lot on my diet and I don't really eat fully raw anymore as I don't really like cold beef, and it's difficult for me to find good offal.  I usually sear my beef slightly, so it's still super rare or raw in the middle.  I do like raw fish though, as long as it doesn't taste fishy whatsoever (fresh/sashimi) and can eat it cold.  Every once in a while I break and eat some junk, but usually not very often.  I do consume a lot of raw dairy consistently.  But since I'm not consistent with eating raw/paleo/carnivore/healthy/whatever, I still do get some problems.  My periods remain regular now, but are more painful than ever.  My acne is sporadic mostly, with the hormonal jawline/back/shoulder acne being the most stubborn that won't go away no matter what.  The melasma on my forehead has very slowly been going away, or at least hasn't gotten worse.  I did go onto WAI diet a little while back, but even though I was almost 100% raw my symptoms didn't improve.  I also went full carnivore slightly cooked for a little while and no improvement.  I think this hormone problem is something far too advanced to be fixed easily by diet alone.

I originally though I had too much testosterone that was causing my acne, so I looked into what I could do to lower it.  I drank a whole bunch of spearmint tea at the time, with slight improvements but never fixing it so eventually I stopped.  I mentioned to my doctor that because of my acne and period problems I think I might have hormone issues.. he said he didn't think so, but I insisted so he requested a blood test.  WELL, when I got the results I found out that idiot doctor requested THYROID HORMONE PANEL, not sex hormones!!!  So I have no blood tests to tell me what my hormone levels actually are.  Once I found out I had fibroids though, I looked it up and found out it's usually because of excess estrogen.  I then looked up what can block/get rid of estrogen and started taking vitex/chasteberry, nettle, and maca root powder mixed with raw honey.  This seems to have greatly improved my hormonal acne as I did not get any for about a month until now.  My last period was also greatly improved, with barely any pain and much lighter.  However, my next period is coming up and I can feel some small cystic acne developing near my chin, my hyperpigmentation/melasma hasn't improved, and I'm not sure how painful/heavy this period is going to be compared to last time, which might have been a fluke since I do get a less-painful period every once in a while.

Mainly what I want to know is, if anyone is experienced with hormones that knows any other herbs that can help my specific situation, how I can know when to take which herbs, or how I can tell which hormones are out of whack and when?  I don't want to take TOO much estrogen blockers and end up becoming more manly or something!  I did pause on taking the chasteberry and nettle once my last period ended, (still took maca-honey every day though) and started taking it again immediately after ovulation this cycle, trying to fit with the normal rise and fall of estrogen during the cycle.  But I have no idea what I'm doing, or if I should continue with the nettle, if I should start drinking more green tea and/or spearmint tea, or avoid the teas, or stop the herbs, or how to tell if I'm doing too much or too little!  I'm still afraid of throwing my hormones even worse out of whack than they already are..

Long story short, if anyone has advice on herbs that can help specifically with the combined issues of:
-fibroids
-hormonal acne
-hyperpigmentation scars
-melasma
-painful, heavy, and long periods

as well as advice on how to tell which hormones are out of balance and which herbs to take when for best hormone balancing, or curing of fibroids/hormonal acne, that would be wonderful..

Just wondering what your guys' opinions are about this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9BqrSAHbTc

Hello you guys, I don't know if any of you remember me because I haven't posted here in a long time, I used to try to be on a low/zero carb raw diet though I tried many things, I had stopped mainly due to money issues, though I tried to return to raw many times it was very difficult mostly because it is difficult for me to find any good sources of raw grass-fed fats besides milk/butter/cheese which are expensive, and it also got a lot more difficult for me to eat raw meats without gagging. 

However, recently I have gotten really tired of my acne issue which just WILL NOT go away no matter what, even when I was on 100% raw diet before it never fully went away, although it has been a lot better since I went raw, even after going back to cooked foods, but it has never gone entirely away (in my entire life), so here I am again. 

I also have had a persistent cough for the past 5 or 6 months, which has not gone away for a single day those entire months, and is sometimes accompanied by runny nose, itchy eyes, and now rarely wheezing(though I was wheezing a lot at the beginning of the cough), and other such cold-like symptoms.  I had gone to the doctor a few times about it, and they had first said it was asthma due to the wheezing and my past breathing issues, but the daily inhaler did not work (although the emergency inhaler definitely works to help me breathe easier) so they said it must be allergies, and I took allergy medicine for a month and took a breathing test which concluded I did not have asthma, but my cough still persisted.  The allergy medicine did help with my runny nose and itchy eyes and other cold-like symptoms, and the emergency inhaler did help with my wheezing, so they said it was both asthma AND allergies, and gave me a pill that was intended for people with both.  Though the medicine helped suppress the symptoms, after another month has gone by I STILL have this cough and it is just not going away.  I am hoping a raw diet will also help alleviate me of this cough after the doctors have failed me, also so my friends and family could see how the doctors failed me.

I started trying to eat this WAI diet a few days ago now(like a day or two after my birthday Aug 9th, because I allow myself to eat anything at all that I want at least on my birthday), though of course as soon as I start the diet is when I have a problem finding fresh, never frozen wild caught fish.  I bought some wild caught tuna and wild caught salmon which were both previously frozen, but they have a fishy smell(mostly the tuna) that makes me gag so I have been feeding the tuna to my cat, and stuck to raw eggs yolks the past two days.  Previous to starting, I was eating a cooked diet though I tried to stay as healthy as I could afford without losing too much weight (I have already lost 4 pounds after starting WAI) though I was eating a lot of rice pasta.  I tried to eat grass-fed cooked(seared) steak(seasoned with garlic and pepper only) as often as I could afford it, but I was more often eating a lot of rice pasta and cheese because I always crave a LOT of fat.  I at least was able to avoid wheat most of the time, as well as non-grass-fed meats, though I did indulge on them sometimes. 

I've stopped all that now though, and have only been eating fruit, raw fish, and raw egg yolks the past few days, mostly following this guide http://www.waiworld.com/waidiet/nut-foodpernut.html to determine which fruits to buy to make sure I get all the nutrients I need.  I like raw tuna and salmon(as long as it is fresh and not fishy smelling/tasting), raw egg yolks are pretty delicious to me, especially without the slimy egg whites or egg yolk sac so I get rid of those and eat only the creamy yolk part.  However I pretty much prefer my fruits to be sweet only, so I've been getting mostly mangoes, bananas, grapes, cantaloupe, and dried dates.  But due to my extreme fat cravings, I'm thinking of adding avocados to my list, and I do have some raw coconut butter I have started trying to eat for extra fat, but I never liked plant-fats much. 

The only thing I'm really worried about is getting enough fat in my diet, because if I don't eat enough fat I get all sorts of bad cravings.  Like lately I have been craving cooked/seared steak and grilled steakfat(I -ALWAYS- crave steakfat, there has never been a single day in my life I would say no to eating some soft, warm, and melty steakfat!) as well as cooked ground beef with melted cheese all over it.  I'm thinking I might have to increase the amount of egg yolks recommended for women and possibly eat fish as well in the same day.  It's only recommended for women to eat 2 egg yolks OR 1.8 oz fish in a day.  I might need more than that, also because I want to start working out if I have the energy for it, I do suffer from fatigue a lot too, my whole life I have, EXCEPT for like the one month I was on 100% raw diet with lots of raw eggs and raw beef when I could eat it all no problem.

Sorry for the long post, I just want to document my progress in this post and see if my life-long acne will actually finally go away after the proposed 2 to 3 weeks on this diet they say will clear up your face!  Wondering if I should post pictures..

So I forgot about some raw milk I had brought to my room the other day, so it's been sitting in my warm room for about two days and I just saw it and it looks like this now:



So, what I want to do is turn it into cheese now, since it already looks half way there.  The only thing is that I don't know how, and all of my previous attempts to make cheese without much instruction ended up pretty bad with no cheese in the end at all.. just a bunch of wasted milk.  I've never seen my milk get so perfectly separated though, and especially that it doesn't even smell sour at all, I kinda just wanna eat that top layer by itself, but I don't think that would taste as good as making it into cheese.

So if anyone knows how I could turn this separated milk into either..
just some regular cheese
cream cheese
some other awesome cheese
those super sweet indian cheese balls thingies, called gulab jamun I will love you forever if you can tell me how to make these things raw because I tried some before and I was addicted to them but they're cooked so if I could make them raw omigosh

Please let me know, I don't want this glass of milk to go to waste especially when it looks so perfect..

I lost my job and have no money so I can only buy my food with food stamps now, and grass-fed meats are too expensive for me to buy enough to eat only meat, and I also can't find any grass-fed fat or organs and you can't buy online with food stamps.. so with my current poor diet I've felt that I'm probably lacking in some nutrition, I haven't felt all that great and my teeth had been feeling like they are loose (though they don't move when I push on them) and my gums were sensitive, had been tired a lot and sleeping a lot but my sleep schedule was all messed up and stuff, and just overall wasn't feeling the greatest.

Now I've never been a fan of vitamins or supplements even when I was an ignorant SAD eater, I've always felt that you should get all the nutrition you need from the food you eat.  But with me being unable to afford all the food I need, (I'm underweight too so I need to be eating a lot more to gain some weight as well) I figure it might be a bit necessary to supplement my diet, so I bought a Garden of Life RAW multivitamin.  I also had some cod liver oil that I bought a long time ago, and a whole bunch of local bee pollen I bought a while ago too, and since I've heard that bee pollen is extremely nutrient dense with all the nutrients we need, I've mixed a whole bunch of it in with my raw honey so I can eat a little bit of that everyday too. 

My question just is, when is the best time for me to take these supplements and eat my bee pollen honey?  I know the body doesn't absorb the nutrients from things like vitamins as easily as it does from food, so I want to take them when it would be the best/easiest time for my body to absorb the most nutrition from the supplements as possible.  Instinctively, I've figured the best time to take them is on an empty stomach, so I started taking the GoL RAW multivitamin first thing in the morning, and I've been feeling a little better than I had been.  I just found my cod liver oil last night though, and also mixed my bee pollen with my honey last night, so I hadn't started those yet, but I'm just wondering if eating them all first thing in the morning is the best time to eat them, or if I should spread them out through the day, or should I only eat them after eating something else?  and if so, after eating what?  I've never really taken vitamins or supplements before so I don't really know how it all works or anything you're supposed to do or supposed to avoid if anything..

Amoung all the hype of many states petitioning to secede from the USA, there is also a petition to prevent GMOs!  Which was actually my idea, to create a petition right now since so many people are hyping about the states, for a law similar to Prop 37 which failed in California, to label all GMO foods as well as irradiated foods.  However, someone beat me to it, but created a petition to entirely get rid of GMOs.  I have signed it, and I am linking it here for those of you in the USA to sign as well to help prevent GMOs from being used and created anymore!

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/prevent-genetically-engineered-modified-organisms-being-introduced-our-bodies-food-supply/FYd99VbV

Please sign!

So, I lost my job a while ago though I had money saved up, so I was still trying to eat a good diet until I found a new job.. but so far no one is hiring me even after going to a few interviews and stuff, and I am starting to run out of money..

So I want to ask you guys if you know any good, cheap foods I can buy at a regular commercial grocery store that I can still eat raw and be healthy without spending a ton of money on meat.. I usually don't do well on a diet high in plant foods because I crave fat a LOT, and if I eat too much carbs I go crazy to eat some fatty foods, especially meat and dairy.  But I'm not going to be able to afford to keep buying a lot of meat, even commercial meat is still expensive, I don't want to eat grain-fed fat or organ meats, and raw dairy is super expensive.  Pasteurized dairy started tasting like plastic to me after trying raw dairy so I don't really want to buy pasteurized dairy either.  But any suggestions for foods that I could buy from a commercial grocery store that would still be healthy.. I don't know much about vegetables since I never really eat them, which ones can I even eat raw other than leafy stuff?  I usually hate leafy stuff like lettuce, spinach, kale and all that, I never really tried any root veggies other than regular potatoes.. though I liked cooked potatoes.  I don't know what to do, I'm used to eating mainly meat but I won't be able to affording eating as much and I don't know what else to eat..

or rather, I was given a cat as a birthday present.  I'm not really a cat person, I'm much more of a dog(well, canine) person, and I didn't even want a pet in the first place because it's hard enough just feeding myself...

But now I have a cat.  now I have to feed it.  but I can't make it eat commercial pet food, not when I'm here trying to eat a healthy raw carnivorous diet.  But what do I feed it?  I mean, I figure lots of meat/organs/bones from beef, chicken, and fish.. but does anyone have any suggestions for a good healthy raw cat diet?  I'm planning on eventually buying live mice from the pet store (that are normally used to feed snakes) and letting her catch and eat them, if I can get her to.  But would a diet of pure mice bought from the pet store suffice for a cat? 

She's not a kitten, but not a full grown cat, either, probably a couple months old.  She's some non-shedding breed and supposed to be an indoor cat I guess.  She just had surgery to get her spayed a few days ago, or like a week ago, at most.  She also happens to have a stuffy nose and is sneezing a lot, which I heard makes it difficult to feed them since they rely heavily on smell to eat.. and I'm pretty sure she can't smell much right now.  I've already tried feeding her some salmon, tuna, beef, and beef liver, none of which she's really eating, but she will eat the dry cat food that was given to me with her.  I'm letting her eat it for now, because she hasn't been eating much of anything since I got her a couple days ago, and I'd rather her not starve to death, but I want to switch her to eating raw meat as soon as possible.  Or at least wet canned food, since I've read they need a moisture rich diet to be healthy, and don't drink much water.  I just figure it's probably going to be really difficult right now while her nose is all stuffed up..

But any suggestions would be very welcome, thank you

I have been eating mostly raw for a while now, mostly as my new years resolution to eat only good, but I was having a problem with raw meat.  The grass-fed steaks I normally bought and ate were very expensive, so I switched to buying grass-fed ground beef from trader joe's which was a lot cheaper, but I can't eat the meat straight.. it doesn't taste very good to me and makes me gag and stuff, so I instead started making it into beef jerky using my dehydrator.  The only problem was that the dehydrator doesn't have a temperature control on it, and usually got up to 150 - 160 degrees F as far as I could tell, so the meat was coming out cooked and dried I suppose.  I ate it anyways though, and it tastes good to me like that and all, but then I started having problems where the meat was coming out weird and my thermometer started saying it was 180 degrees now, and it also seems like my health wasn't improving very well.

In any case, I stopped eating the cooked beef jerky and I bought some of the same grass-fed steaks that I used to eat again, and told myself I'd go 100% raw from then on, as long as I could.  I didn't eat any meat for about a week though, but I did eat 100% raw for that time.  Then I finally got one of the steaks out and tried to eat it. 

I ate about 4 ounces of raw steak a few hours before I went to sleep, and ate nothing after eating the steak.  The next morning I woke up feeling extremely nauseated and sick, but I hate puking so I tried to just go back to sleep and ignore it and let the nausea go away on its own.  I couldn't fall back asleep so I tried drinking some water to calm my stomach but it made no difference.  I still felt just as nauseated so I finally got up and went to the bathroom to throw up. 

If you don't want to read the details, you might want to skip this paragraph.  It took me a minute after getting up, but I finally started heaving, but at first nothing came up but air.  I rarely ever puke in my life, but the times I do, I usually don't struggle so much.  I wasn't so much dry heaving, because there was a bunch of air coming out, and it felt like i was puking out air rather than just heaving, though I thought it might be because I hadn't eaten much and my stomach must have been mostly empty.  Then I just forced it and finally puked out whatever was bothering my stomach, it didn't look like meat at all, it was mostly just yellowish green liquids, with what looked like it might have been a bit of brownish liquefied meat in it, but only a very little.

I have no idea why I would have gotten so sick after eating that meat though.  It's the same exact meat I had eaten many times raw before, and it never caused me to become nauseated like that.  Could it just have been because I wasn't used to eating any meat since I hadn't eaten any for a week before that, and only cook-dried before that?  Or maybe it was just a bad steak?  Or was it because it was sitting in my fridge for a week?    The fridge is super cold though.  I've never gotten sick from eating meat before, raw or cooked or old or whatever, so I have no idea why this happened. 

edit:  After that, I also just threw away the rest of the steak from the same package, I was too afraid to eat any of it in case it was a bad thing of meat.. but I still have 2 more pounds of steaks that I'm afraid to eat now, and that have been sitting there for about a week and a half by now.. I don't want it to go bad after spending all that money though. 

This is my breakfast that I just ate right now.. Grass-fed liver at the top, grass-fed 8oz top sirloin steak on the left, and a little bit of grass-fed marrow on the right.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/SrIacIovv/Food/0812010358b.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/SrIacIovv/Food/0812010357.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/SrIacIovv/Food/0812010358c.jpg

So it jut rained yesterday, and now I've found my stash of food raided by ants.  Mostly going after my honeys, but everything was all together, so they were on everything.

Looked up a few natural remedies, though I didn't have most of them, I did have some cinnamon powder that wasn't covered in ants. 
Turns out ants HATE cinnamon powder.

All I had to do was sprinkle it over my stuff, and on the ants' trails, and they scattered like they couldn't stand the stuff.

So if anyone wants a natural repellant, just sprinkle a little bit of cinnamon powder around and they won't come anywhere near.  I tried both an organic most likely heat-dried cinnamon, as well as an organic cinnamon that claims to be raw, and both seemed to work the same, though I only tried a tiny bit of the claimed raw cinnamon, because I didn't want to waste it.. but I poured the heat-dried cinnamon everywhere.

This picture is of some chocolate ice cream covered in chocolate syrup, and a dash of cinnamon powder and cacao powder.  I made both vanilla and chocolate ice cream, but I ate up all the vanilla ice cream before I could get any pictures of it!

To make the chocolate and vanilla ice cream, I bought a pint of raw cream and a quart of raw milk, and used two of my old 2lb jars of honey that I washed out after finishing all the honey.  I poured half the cream and half the milk in each jar, then mixed in about 3 - 4 ounces of raw honey mixed with either vanilla extract or cacao powder.  I wanted extra-vanilla and extra-chocolate tasting ice cream, so I added a lot of vanilla extract and cacao powder, but if you don't want such intense flavour or so much sweetness, you can add in less honey and flavour.  I mixed the ice cream really well, but I am inpatient so I didn't mix it for long.  It probably would have came out creamier if I had churned it for much longer, or used less milk, and if you have the time, you should churn it for as long as you can.  I kept most of the stuff chilled while I did this, because I live in southern california so it's always pretty hot here, so I kept the jars in ice while I was mixing.  Then I put them in the freezer and left them overnight!  Ta da, vanilla and chocolate ice cream. 

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/SrIacIovv/Food/0717010944a.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/SrIacIovv/Food/0717010943b.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/SrIacIovv/Food/0717010943a.jpg