Can
Member
Hey there,
I've been lurking on this forum for a few weeks now, reading a bunch of different posts and saving ones I found interesting. I figured it's time to introduce myself.
I am a 21 year old guy living in Germany. Heard of Ray Peat a few years ago but didn't really pay attention until recently. Started having mild health problems (skin issues) about three years ago, that I pretty much ignored for the most part until they became worse and unignorable since October of the last year (started having severe panic attacks, noticeable bloating after meals, and more). I've come to think that the solution to my health issues is to heal my gut because my symptoms point there as far as I am concerned.
I have been getting more into Ray Peats work in the last couple of months, trying to recover my health. I don't just blindly accept everything Ray says and am not sold on following some dogmatic prescriptions, which Ray is not about in any shape or form anyway. I have come to acknowledge Ray for what I think he is - a very deep, nuanced and sophisticated thinker who takes the complexity of the world into account. The most important thing for me that I take from his work is that nothing is ever black or white, no food or health practice is 'good' or 'bad', everything has up- and downsides, everything depends on the individual physiology and state. In the end, one has to listen to his/her own body and realize what foods they tolerate well and what feels the most nourishing.
Compared to my past behavior, I have unusually often visited this forum over the past few weeks (I was never an active member of any online forum prior), always coming here if I want to read people's health experiences or what they think about certain lifestyles or foods. I have come to distrust pretty much all the major 'health' sites, even the ones that claim to be scientific, because I have trusted them in the past and have been burned. Maybe my current health problems even stem from trusting these mainstream health outlets to begin with (not sure, still trying to get to the root cause of my issues). I bought the propaganda of pufas being good and necessary - that lead me to take fish oil and intentionally eat nuts and seeds in relatively large amounts (plus eat upwards of three eggs a day and massive amounts of olive oil) every day for YEARS and so on. I never bought their propaganda that safas are bad though, I was aware of the discrepancies of view points and still included a bunch of dairy, so that maybe mitigated some of the pufa damage, but I still ate a lot of pufas because I was unsure what viewpoint was correct. Probably damaged myself but hey, at least I noticed it now and not later - I have the hope that I can still fully recover and heal!
I started tracking what I eat in a day very diligently using cronometer for one month now, and being very mindful of what I consume and put into my body in general, and it has made a big difference - I had no panic attack or severe anxiety for several weeks now, which is a big win to me. Also, since reducing pufas drastically and being mindful of what I eat, the skin issues on my hands have already majorly improved - my hands looked like they were from a zombie before (they looked filthy) and now they almost look normal. This is unbelievable considering I am only a few weeks, not more than two months, into 'peating'. I still suffer symptoms like bloating and what subjectively feels like mild hyperglycemia and/or cases of low stomach acid after some meals here and there and can't eat high energy foods on mass like I could a few years ago without having symptoms, so everything hasn't been fully resolved yet, but I feel like I am definitely on the right track.
Anyways, I'll leave it at that. I'll keep you updated and might ask for help here or there, or post about other topics.
I have never been an active member of any forum in the past so I might not know all the functions or the ways things are conducted here, so keep that in mind if I mess something up at first .
I've been lurking on this forum for a few weeks now, reading a bunch of different posts and saving ones I found interesting. I figured it's time to introduce myself.
I am a 21 year old guy living in Germany. Heard of Ray Peat a few years ago but didn't really pay attention until recently. Started having mild health problems (skin issues) about three years ago, that I pretty much ignored for the most part until they became worse and unignorable since October of the last year (started having severe panic attacks, noticeable bloating after meals, and more). I've come to think that the solution to my health issues is to heal my gut because my symptoms point there as far as I am concerned.
I have been getting more into Ray Peats work in the last couple of months, trying to recover my health. I don't just blindly accept everything Ray says and am not sold on following some dogmatic prescriptions, which Ray is not about in any shape or form anyway. I have come to acknowledge Ray for what I think he is - a very deep, nuanced and sophisticated thinker who takes the complexity of the world into account. The most important thing for me that I take from his work is that nothing is ever black or white, no food or health practice is 'good' or 'bad', everything has up- and downsides, everything depends on the individual physiology and state. In the end, one has to listen to his/her own body and realize what foods they tolerate well and what feels the most nourishing.
Compared to my past behavior, I have unusually often visited this forum over the past few weeks (I was never an active member of any online forum prior), always coming here if I want to read people's health experiences or what they think about certain lifestyles or foods. I have come to distrust pretty much all the major 'health' sites, even the ones that claim to be scientific, because I have trusted them in the past and have been burned. Maybe my current health problems even stem from trusting these mainstream health outlets to begin with (not sure, still trying to get to the root cause of my issues). I bought the propaganda of pufas being good and necessary - that lead me to take fish oil and intentionally eat nuts and seeds in relatively large amounts (plus eat upwards of three eggs a day and massive amounts of olive oil) every day for YEARS and so on. I never bought their propaganda that safas are bad though, I was aware of the discrepancies of view points and still included a bunch of dairy, so that maybe mitigated some of the pufa damage, but I still ate a lot of pufas because I was unsure what viewpoint was correct. Probably damaged myself but hey, at least I noticed it now and not later - I have the hope that I can still fully recover and heal!
I started tracking what I eat in a day very diligently using cronometer for one month now, and being very mindful of what I consume and put into my body in general, and it has made a big difference - I had no panic attack or severe anxiety for several weeks now, which is a big win to me. Also, since reducing pufas drastically and being mindful of what I eat, the skin issues on my hands have already majorly improved - my hands looked like they were from a zombie before (they looked filthy) and now they almost look normal. This is unbelievable considering I am only a few weeks, not more than two months, into 'peating'. I still suffer symptoms like bloating and what subjectively feels like mild hyperglycemia and/or cases of low stomach acid after some meals here and there and can't eat high energy foods on mass like I could a few years ago without having symptoms, so everything hasn't been fully resolved yet, but I feel like I am definitely on the right track.
Anyways, I'll leave it at that. I'll keep you updated and might ask for help here or there, or post about other topics.
I have never been an active member of any forum in the past so I might not know all the functions or the ways things are conducted here, so keep that in mind if I mess something up at first .
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