Problems Due To Extremely Low Fat Diet?

peateats1

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Is it common, if I cut fat from 70-90g (pufa 3-4g) per day down to around 5g (.5 is pufa) to have anxiety/depression and kind of a depersonalization feeling, with breast tenderness and other high estrogen histamine symptoms?
I'm trying to finally deplete as much pufa from my tissues as possible. I've been following the higher fat ray peat style diet for close to 7 yrs now and still struggling. Last month was when I started the low fat diet for the first time...I wasn't strong enough to function without super calorie dense/low fiber foods before then.

Has anyone done low fat for a long period of time? What symptoms did you experience?
I'm a 33 yr old female...not overweight but not super lean either. My tsh a few months back was 6.7 and t4/t3 were on the low end of normal.
TIA :)
 

LuMonty

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Is it common, if I cut fat from 70-90g (pufa 3-4g) per day down to around 5g (.5 is pufa) to have anxiety/depression and kind of a depersonalization feeling, with breast tenderness and other high estrogen histamine symptoms?
I'm trying to finally deplete as much pufa from my tissues as possible. I've been following the higher fat ray peat style diet for close to 7 yrs now and still struggling. Last month was when I started the low fat diet for the first time...I wasn't strong enough to function without super calorie dense/low fiber foods before then.

Has anyone done low fat for a long period of time? What symptoms did you experience?
I'm a 33 yr old female...not overweight but not super lean either. My tsh a few months back was 6.7 and t4/t3 were on the low end of normal.
TIA :)
In my experience, yes. I tried going back to a really old eating plan of mine in a Peat style but felt terrible. I think 2.5-3 weeks was the longest I managed. Only after adding saturated fat back (in my case butter and I are BFFs) did I improve. It's too important for hormones and steroids imo. I find the cholesterol from butter makes it superior to coconut oil, but YMMV.
 
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peateats1

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Ok, thank you for your response! I guess I might try upping my sat fats a bit and hope that helps.
 

LuMonty

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Ok, thank you for your response! I guess I might try upping my sat fats a bit and hope that helps.
It's a process. I know I have to have some taurine (typically in a Red Bull) every morning still. I recall other posters using ox bile if processing fat was too hard on their gallbladder. I've found with a lot of Peatish ideas that getting the ball rolling is the hardest part. As the most recent examples, when I tried to increase SFA or salt too much (though I had no idea what that meant until I had insight), it didn't go well.
 
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peateats1

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It's a process. I know I have to have some taurine (typically in a Red Bull) every morning still. I recall other posters using ox bile if processing fat was too hard on their gallbladder. I've found with a lot of Peatish ideas that getting the ball rolling is the hardest part. As the most recent examples, when I tried to increase SFA or salt too much (though I had no idea what that meant until I had insight), it didn't go well.
Yeah it's crazy frustrating trying to get my body to just feel halfway decent :( One thing seems to work for a while and I get my hopes up of finally feeling better, then another huge setback happens with a whole different set of symptoms and problems that need addressed.
I haven't ever tried taurine, I might give that a try and see what happens.
 

LuMonty

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Yeah it's crazy frustrating trying to get my body to just feel halfway decent :( One thing seems to work for a while and I get my hopes up of finally feeling better, then another huge setback happens with a whole different set of symptoms and problems that need addressed.
I haven't ever tried taurine, I might give that a try and see what happens.
I think that would be a good idea. If my wife misses her 1g of taurine in the morning, it ruins her digestion for about a day and a half. I also mentioned salt because it's good for stomach acid.

I recently started thyroid supplementation based on observable data (pulse, temps, wound healing, etc). It's a long story, but I can't get testing done. If you're also concerned about TSH I'd do a search in the email depository thread. I remember reading some very useful replies by RP about what works for that. In my case, I made progress without supplementing, but have made more progress in about 3 days than the last three months. I see now why Ray recommends thyroid so highly and consistently.
 
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I think that low fat after high pufa leads to a lot of pufa-laden free fatty acids that just make you miserable. It may be worth it for PUFA-depletion purposes but I would not go more than a week at a time this way. Then I’d raise my fats (saturated obviously) up a bit. When I stopped PUFAs I didn’t suffer from that. But when I stopped fats, I really suffered. It got better as I did a bout of it three or four times. It still bothers me when I reduce fat to zero but not as much.
 
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peateats1

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I think that would be a good idea. If my wife misses her 1g of taurine in the morning, it ruins her digestion for about a day and a half. I also mentioned salt because it's good for stomach acid.

I recently started thyroid supplementation based on observable data (pulse, temps, wound healing, etc). It's a long story, but I can't get testing done. If you're also concerned about TSH I'd do a search in the email depository thread. I remember reading some very useful replies by RP about what works for that. In my case, I made progress without supplementing, but have made more progress in about 3 days than the last three months. I see now why Ray recommends thyroid so highly and consistently.
I think thyroid would be a huge help, I just don't know where to order any from...not sure I trust the Mexican online pharmacies, but maybe they would be ok to use...where did you get yours?
 
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peateats1

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I think that low fat after high pufa leads to a lot of pufa-laden free fatty acids that just make you miserable. It may be worth it for PUFA-depletion purposes but I would not go more than a week at a time this way. Then I’d raise my fats (saturated obviously) up a bit. When I stopped PUFAs I didn’t suffer from that. But when I stopped fats, I really suffered. It got better as I did a bout of it three or four times. It still bothers me when I reduce fat to zero but not as much.
Thank you for your response! I will definitely try adding in more saturated fats now, and then maybe try this experiment again for shorter durations at a time. This was a dumb thing for me to do so suddenly I think(cutting fats so drastically) but I'm so impatient at this point, I just want to heal!
 

LuMonty

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I think thyroid would be a huge help, I just don't know where to order any from...not sure I trust the Mexican online pharmacies, but maybe they would be ok to use...where did you get yours?
I'd read the "TyroMix" thread here on the forum for reference. If you catch my meaning.

I think that low fat after high pufa leads to a lot of pufa-laden free fatty acids that just make you miserable. It may be worth it for PUFA-depletion purposes but I would not go more than a week at a time this way. Then I’d raise my fats (saturated obviously) up a bit. When I stopped PUFAs I didn’t suffer from that. But when I stopped fats, I really suffered. It got better as I did a bout of it three or four times. It still bothers me when I reduce fat to zero but not as much.
Indeed! I first tried the "can probably be done in 30 days" deal and can't recall a more miserable time doing something willingly.
 
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peateats1

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I'd read the "TyroMix" thread here on the forum for reference. If you catch my meaning.


Indeed! I first tried the "can probably be done in 30 days" deal and can't recall a more miserable time doing something willingly.

I forgot about tyromix!
 

milkboi

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Indeed! I first tried the "can probably be done in 30 days" deal and can't recall a more miserable time doing something willingly.

I think that low fat after high pufa leads to a lot of pufa-laden free fatty acids that just make you miserable. It may be worth it for PUFA-depletion purposes but I would not go more than a week at a time this way. Then I’d raise my fats (saturated obviously) up a bit. When I stopped PUFAs I didn’t suffer from that. But when I stopped fats, I really suffered. It got better as I did a bout of it three or four times. It still bothers me when I reduce fat to zero but not as much.

What were your symptoms?
 

Cirion

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I have started to collect data from my own diet and how it affects stress (I'm using water weight increase or decrease as my "stress" marker). It seems that increased SFA/PUFA (and thus likely not a zero fat diet) is indeed optimal, at what point is the optimal reached, I am not yet sure, but I have data up to around an SFA/PUFA ratio of 9 thus far, and at least up till this value, the benefits increase. I believe Haidut posted a study that showed the optimal was at least 10. It is hard to impossible to have a 10+ SFA/PUFA ratio if overall fat intake is too low.

upload_2019-5-17_15-52-3-png.13205
 

milkboi

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I have started to collect data from my own diet and how it affects stress (I'm using water weight increase or decrease as my "stress" marker). It seems that increased SFA/PUFA (and thus likely not a zero fat diet) is indeed optimal, at what point is the optimal reached, I am not yet sure, but I have data up to around an SFA/PUFA ratio of 9 thus far, and at least up till this value, the benefits increase. I believe Haidut posted a study that showed the optimal was at least 10. It is hard to impossible to have a 10+ SFA/PUFA ratio if overall fat intake is too low.

upload_2019-5-17_15-52-3-png.13205

True, but if you take in some form of pure saturated fat (HCO, MCTs and I want to try pure stearic acid too) it becomes really easy. My daily PUFA intake is under 1g, and I get anywhere from 5-30g fat from MCT oil, so that's a 5-10/1 SFA/PUFA ratio.
 

Cirion

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@CLASH found that things like coconut oil and MCT aren't great sole-sources of fats, at least for him, and myself and @Captain_Coconut have found the same results. CLASH says that beef tallow and cocoa butter have better positive benefits on the body than CO or MCT oil. MCT oil and hydrogenated coconut oil make my bowels very angry personally. Regular coconut oil not as much, and I think regular CO has some benefits, but not as a sole-source fat source. Also dairy fat can be fattening for most people, so that basically leaves beef fat and cocoa butter.

My plot I generated, most of the fats came from beef. Now, I will admit, I'm curious to see how that line shifts (if at all) with CO though. I only recently started gathering data, so I don't really have much from back then (Although I might, I gotta dig through my cronometer logs)
 

BigChad

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@CLASH found that things like coconut oil and MCT aren't great sole-sources of fats, at least for him, and myself and @Captain_Coconut have found the same results. CLASH says that beef tallow and cocoa butter have better positive benefits on the body than CO or MCT oil. MCT oil and hydrogenated coconut oil make my bowels very angry personally. Regular coconut oil not as much, and I think regular CO has some benefits, but not as a sole-source fat source. Also dairy fat can be fattening for most people, so that basically leaves beef fat and cocoa butter.

My plot I generated, most of the fats came from beef. Now, I will admit, I'm curious to see how that line shifts (if at all) with CO though. I only recently started gathering data, so I don't really have much from back then (Although I might, I gotta dig through my cronometer logs)

Why is dairy fat fattening more than other fats? Ive heard dairy fat actually promotes fat loss due to omega 7 vaccinic acid in it?
 

Xemnoraq

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I do basically fat free, ive been doing it for roughly a year and half or 2 years, my diet right now is restricted and i eat this way because i have bad gut issues, but its lots of skim milk with lots of sugar added and fruit juices, raw mangos, and something salty as well, but i keep it fat free, and sometimes if i feel im really struggling a tablespoon of coconut oil takes all the problems away,

Its hard to say if fat free is best, because fat seems to have some beneficial effects on the intestine and transit so i dont know if fat free would increase endotoxin issues due to this, ive often wondered, ive been peating for about 3 years, and i think SFA oppose the effects of PUFA release faster and much easier than sugar, i sometimes have to eat a massive amount of sugar to get the same response i'd get from coconut oil, i think its because, needs to be consumed in large quantities before it turns to SFA, itd be interesting to hear other peoples experiences as well
 

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