The Culprit Is PUFA And I Will Remove Them Fast. (Severe Acne, IBS, Fatigue)

Searchoftruth

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I have been suffering from severe nodular acne for more than 6 years now. It has left deep scars and keloids all over my back and keloid.
I healed it completely with fasting, a raw vegan/fruitarian diet and undereating 4 years ago. So basically I almost lost all my body fat and that healed it completely. This was me before the regimen and at my worst:


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I did a 14 day fast, and then I became a raw vegan. I stuck with this diet for more than a year. It was not very consistent with my food choices, changing between only fruits, only sprouts, and sometimes even only raw milk (for like 2 weeks at a time) But I became very underweight (BMI of 16.6) because I was not eating nearly enough. I felt very tired and fatigued most of the time. But my skin was completely healed.

After this, I started to travel and to eat cooked food again and I noticed something. My digestion improved a lot, and I could eat things like big bowls of pasta and bread and nuts and legumes without any problems. I noticed though, that if I ate things very oily and with seed oils or hydrogenated oils, I would start to get some acne. So I stuck with a very high carb diet ( sort of a McDougall diet but with more nuts ) and I was doing okay, with no skin problems or major gut problems.

As months passed by, and I was eating close to 4000 calories a day. I started to gain weight. I gained around 14 kilos ( 30 pounds ) in a year. I was getting more breakouts, but mostly in my face but I was manageable.

At this time, I was living in Europe, and I was cooking all my food. I always ate at home, and it was quite "healthy". Usually bowls of brown rice or whole pasta, with plenty of broccoli/carrots, lentils, some almonds and plenty of spices.

Then I moved to the USA, Miami. AND IT CAME BACK.

When I moved to Miami, I started the first month to eat a lot outside, in restaurants and fast food places. I tried to chose the most "healthy" options. Usually white rice, with some beans, some plantain (possibly fried) and some salad. I was eating most of the time in this Cuban's convenience stores, where they also serve food. One morning, before they opened, I was walking past, and I saw this big barrels of seed oil thrown outside the place. I realized that the smell I felt every time that I went there, was not the smell of the food cooking, but the rancid cheap seed oil odor, that they reused many times and it was impregnated on the place. And I am sure that everything that I ate was covered by this damned oil.

But it was too late. My acne became severe again. I was developing a belly and storing fat in my middle section, and I felt like crap.

I did not connect the dots at the moment, and I did not realize that my acne came back because this oxidized rancid oils that I have been eating without knowing.

So I went to a dermatologist and she told me that I have to take Accutane, but I refused. It is too dangerous, has ruined hundreds of lives, and with my history of gut issues and depression it was too risky.
She ordered some blood tests before I denied, to see if I was fit to take the drug. It came everything fine, but my triglycerides came high for the first time in my life! (Now I know, it's a big indicator of metabolic syndrome/insulin resistance caused by the oxidized PUFA's)

Since then I tried different approaches without any success. I tried low-fat vegan (Mc'Dougall diet without any added fat, oils, seeds or nuts). I tried Paleo omnivore, with focus on vegetables, for some time.

I was really desperate. My acne was very severe again. Now I was getting nodules in places I didn't have before, like my lower back and buttocks. I was not even able to ride a bike sometimes because of the pain.
My digestion was becoming terrible also. I was having severe bloating and gas from all the whole foods I was able to eat without problem before. I was having reflux, and some kind of gastroparesis (food would take sometimes 6 or 7 hours to digest). Sometimes I was not able to sleep at night till 5 or 6 am because the pain.

Then I became a Carnivore/zero carb for a year and I am sure it made my health deteriorate even further.

I tried eating huge quantities of beef liver (up to a pound a day) for the vitamin A for several weeks, but it made no difference in my skin. It just gave me chapped lips.

At first, I was eating cheese and butter, but I cut it. And I would get diarrhea 3 or 4 times daily. But I had no bloating or pain. So I kept going it with hopes that I would fix the acne (I saw some improvements though, around 30 or 40 percent) and that the gut issue would fix by itself.
And then the 5th month I got appendicitis. They took it out and I was sent home the next day. But then I developed pneumonia that lasted for a month. And when I was almost healed from that, I developed tonsillitis that lasted for another month and it was so bad that I was in the hospital for 5 days. So in total, I was bedridden for more than 2 months. I felt so awful the whole time that I could barely stand up from my bed.

In the 4 years that I was a vegan, I've never been so sick like this year of being carnivore. Something is very wrong here.
But I didn't think the problem was the diet, and I kept trying the carnivore diet for 5 more months, because I was convinced that it was our best diet based on our ancestors and evolution.:facepalm:

Why didn't I do the raw vegan diet again and kept doing this diet? Because I felt completely crap when I did the raw vegan diet and I did not understand why did it heal me.

So here I am, today.
This is my body today with all the scars and keloids left by this horrible disease.

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I think that the carnivore diet is harming me.
I am obviously insulin resistant/pre-diabetic.
The only way I know to heal the acne is losing most of my body fat.
So what I think the problem is, is that I have all this toxic PUFA's stored in my body fat and this is causing the severe acne and the IBS .

There are some studies that show that patients with acne suffer from systemic oxidation, higher linoleic acid in the sebum of the skin, lower levels of Vitamin A, zinc and antioxidants, higher insulin resistance, etc.
Also, acne and Diabetes is linked with a host of diseases, including gut issues like IBS, diarrhea, Chron's, etc.

So I am almost sure that doing a fruitarian diet, that consist of only fresh fruits, that is extremely low in fats, quite low in calories, and quite high in vitamins and minerals , I would be able to remove quickly like last time most of my body fat along with all the PUFA's that are damaging me. They are the cause of the metabolic syndrome, damaging my skin and gut.

As soon as I can fix the skin and the gut I will try to add more nutrtitious foods, like milk/cheese, dried fruits, etc.
Do you think that I was able to cure my severe acne with the fruitarian diet is because depleting PUFA's?
I will appreciate any advice and guidance.
 

lvysaur

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First of all, this was a really good write up. It's nice seeing such comprehensive posts on this forum, they take a lot of effort.

Carnivorism is not a natural diet except for a few Arctic-adapted people in Siberia and Greenland. The entire rest of the world is highly plant-adapted.

I never had a huge acne problem, but I can say with certainty that when I was a teenager, back in the early 2010s, the acne that I would get was highly associated with dairy, and particularly dairy fat. Often I would eat a butter pat and develop cystic acne within hours.

I eventually started using higher quality dairy, and I also think that the US has banned certain hormones for use in dairy to start with. I have no dairy-associated acne, and haven't for a while. I would suggest that if you do decide to eat dairy again, try especially hard to find organic dairy. Avoid those butter pats at restaurants, they are rejected butter.
 

Runenight201

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Do not do a fruitarian diet. You'll feel great while you're eating lots of fruit, but the second you're not able to consistently feed, you're blood sugar will tank and you'll get extremely moody, fatigued, and feel terrible. It's not a sustainable diet imo, and will probably lead to oral decay from all the acidity of the fruit.

I've always perceived acne to be tightly correlated with the gut, more so than any particular food, which is why some people can eat whatever and not get acne, yet other's breakout no matter what. Those who have a good, strong gut with no indigestion, bloat, or food sensitivities/allergies will not have acne.

I used to have very bad, crippling acne. Whenever I focused my diet around attempting to cure acne, I degenerated. Acne is just another expression of health, along with energy, sleep, mood, sexual drive, etc....

Stop with the extremes, that's step number 1. You don't need an orthorexic extreme diet to heal your acne. Step 2, eat easily digestible foods in the correct quantities. Animal foods are good, so are plants. Pay attention to food combinations, what you CRAVE, it's your body telling you what it needs.

I noticed more severe acne from extreme bloat caused by eating way too much starch. Cutting back on starch and ramping up sugar and saturated fats helped a lot with my acne.
 
OP
Searchoftruth

Searchoftruth

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First of all, this was a really good write up. It's nice seeing such comprehensive posts on this forum, they take a lot of effort.

Carnivorism is not a natural diet except for a few Arctic-adapted people in Siberia and Greenland. The entire rest of the world is highly plant-adapted.

I never had a huge acne problem, but I can say with certainty that when I was a teenager, back in the early 2010s, the acne that I would get was highly associated with dairy, and particularly dairy fat. Often I would eat a butter pat and develop cystic acne within hours.

I eventually started using higher quality dairy, and I also think that the US has banned certain hormones for use in dairy to start with. I have no dairy-associated acne, and haven't for a while. I would suggest that if you do decide to eat dairy again, try especially hard to find organic dairy. Avoid those butter pats at restaurants, they are rejected butter.

Thank you.

And yes, I know humans are actually omnivores. But at the time I thought it was the best for me. It is hard to have IBS symptoms every day, and carnivore kinda gave me some (at least temporary) relief to the bloating and discomfort after eating normal foods.

It is funny that your tag says " I drink milk everyday" but you are saying that dairy used to give you acne. What changed? Do you not get acne anymore?
I have not noticed any difference with or without dairy. I tried carnivore with plenty of cheese and butter for 2 or 3 months, and then 3 months of only beef and water, and it made almost no difference at all in my acne.Actually I felt much better when I was eating a lot of dairy...

Also, some years ago when I healed my acne first time, I tried the milk diet for like 2 or 3 weeks, 5 or 6 liters of milk per day. It gave me no acne at all.
 
OP
Searchoftruth

Searchoftruth

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Do not do a fruitarian diet. You'll feel great while you're eating lots of fruit, but the second you're not able to consistently feed, you're blood sugar will tank and you'll get extremely moody, fatigued, and feel terrible. It's not a sustainable diet imo, and will probably lead to oral decay from all the acidity of the fruit.

I've always perceived acne to be tightly correlated with the gut, more so than any particular food, which is why some people can eat whatever and not get acne, yet other's breakout no matter what. Those who have a good, strong gut with no indigestion, bloat, or food sensitivities/allergies will not have acne.

I used to have very bad, crippling acne. Whenever I focused my diet around attempting to cure acne, I degenerated. Acne is just another expression of health, along with energy, sleep, mood, sexual drive, etc....

Stop with the extremes, that's step number 1. You don't need an orthorexic extreme diet to heal your acne. Step 2, eat easily digestible foods in the correct quantities. Animal foods are good, so are plants. Pay attention to food combinations, what you CRAVE, it's your body telling you what it needs.

I noticed more severe acne from extreme bloat caused by eating way too much starch. Cutting back on starch and ramping up sugar and saturated fats helped a lot with my acne.

I don't agree with this. It is obviously diet related, and it has to do something with my body fat/weight. If I do a 7 or 14 day fast, the acne stops right away. It takes time to heal, but it stops. It is obviously not orthorexic because I am in pain, and it hurts like sh*t to have this skin disease,and it leaves huge scars. I need to find a solution NOW. And a " Balanced " diet is not the answer. I tried that before without no success . Actually, the combination of saturated fats and sugars gave me the worst acne I had in a long time.
I am almost sure it has to do something with the hormones being messed up by the stored toxic fats.
 

lvysaur

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It is funny that your tag says " I drink milk everyday" but you are saying that dairy used to give you acne. What changed? Do you not get acne anymore?
I have not noticed any difference with or without dairy. I tried carnivore with plenty of cheese and butter for 2 or 3 months, and then 3 months of only beef and water, and it made almost no difference at all in my acne.Actually I felt much better when I was eating a lot of dairy...
Like I said, I started eating dairy from better, more organic/pastured sources. This was also around the time that US dairies moved away from rBGH, so that could've helped too. You said you lived in europe, and milk quality was likely better there for a longer time.

I don't think beef is a good meat to be eating on a regular basis. Red meats require a lot of effort to digest. IMO if you're going to eat meat regularly, the vast majority of it should be fish/chicken/pork.
 

Runenight201

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It’s diet related in the sense that your digestion is severely compromised and the food you are eating is causing inflammation.

Easily digestible foods that agree with you won’t cause inflammation. It could be that every food doesn’t agree with you because your digestion and stomach health is that poor.

You sound desperate for a cure, which is understandable, but at least your dedicating serious effort to this and recognize that it’s a systemic health and diet problem, and not one that needs to be treated by pharamaceutivals. Try enough things for long enough and you’ll iterate on a solution. Just don’t ignore the rest of your health markers because your acne may be improving. Eventually you’ll come to realize that it’s all interrelated, and when your sleep, energy, moods, thoughts, and drive are all great your acne will be minimal as well.
 

JustAGuy

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I think fasting/fruitarian works is because it’s so easy to digest the very ripe fruits compared to other foods.
Have you ever tried eating very slowly and having like 6-7 mini meals throughout the day vs big meals? Also tried using enzymes and betaine hcl to aid digestion?

I think all undigested foods are poisonous, just some are more prone to the indigestion than others. For me any high fat foods are the hardest to digest for sure. Honestly I would just do a fast again and then slowly transition into eating very slowly and spread out throughout the day.
 

Constatine

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Spicing up every meal you eat with any gut modulating spice can help. Spices such as turmeric, cumin, oregano, clove, cinnamon, basil, lemongrass, curry leaf, peppers, and pretty much any other traditional spice you can think of can powerfully modulate the gut microbiome. Getting plenty of sun exposure can directly help the damaged tissues as blue and UV light is antimicrobial and red and infrared light stimulates collagen production (all of which is present is sunlight). Lowering estrogen can often help skin conditions so white button mushrooms can be helpful if tolerated. Consistent moderate exercise is a must as it lowers endotoxin and greatly impacts the gut microbiome. Coconut oil can displace PUFA and simulate thyroid function though some people with IBS don't do well with it.
 

Runenight201

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I think fasting/fruitarian works is because it’s so easy to digest the very ripe fruits compared to other foods.
Have you ever tried eating very slowly and having like 6-7 mini meals throughout the day vs big meals? Also tried using enzymes and betaine hcl to aid digestion?

I think all undigested foods are poisonous, just some are more prone to the indigestion than others. For me any high fat foods are the hardest to digest for sure. Honestly I would just do a fast again and then slowly transition into eating very slowly and spread out throughout the day.

definitely but fruitarianism isn’t a long term solution. If it alleviates inflammation and allows one to recognize what good health feels like, so that they can then figure out what others foods to consume to sustain that feeling of good health, then that’s great.

Spicing up every meal you eat with any gut modulating spice can help. Spices such as turmeric, cumin, oregano, clove, cinnamon, basil, lemongrass, curry leaf, peppers, and pretty much any other traditional spice you can think of can powerfully modulate the gut microbiome. Getting plenty of sun exposure can directly help the damaged tissues as blue and UV light is antimicrobial and red and infrared light stimulates collagen production (all of which is present is sunlight). Lowering estrogen can often help skin conditions so white button mushrooms can be helpful if tolerated. Consistent moderate exercise is a must as it lowers endotoxin and greatly impacts the gut microbiome. Coconut oil can displace PUFA and simulate thyroid function though some people with IBS don't do well with it.

Spice also has the added benefit of making food taste delicious =P

I never thought about it but delicious tasting food has always digested better than plain, un-spiced food. I always associated it as a psychological reason, as the anticipation of eating delicious food always makes my mouth water, and id assume my digestion is properly ramping up its juices to deal with the meal. That physical spices modulate the gut microbiome makes a lot of sense.
 

JustAGuy

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definitely but fruitarianism isn’t a long term solution. If it alleviates inflammation and allows one to recognize what good health feels like, so that they can then figure out what others foods to consume to sustain that feeling of good health, then that’s great.



Spice also has the added benefit of making food taste delicious =P

I never thought about it but delicious tasting food has always digested better than plain, un-spiced food. I always associated it as a psychological reason, as the anticipation of eating delicious food always makes my mouth water, and id assume my digestion is properly ramping up its juices to deal with the meal. That physical spices modulate the gut microbiome makes a lot of sense.
I agree, you will never build robustness on a fruitarian diet. Personally when I feel like ***t I crave fruit and sugar, while when I feel good I crave starch and meat. Also for me grazing throughout the day has been a massive game changer in being able to deal with foods I normally could not handle.
 

Runenight201

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I agree, you will never build robustness on a fruitarian diet. Personally when I feel like ***t I crave fruit and sugar, while when I feel good I crave starch and meat. Also for me grazing throughout the day has been a massive game changer in being able to deal with foods I normally could not handle.

Yes I pretty much am similar. Optimal health for me involves usually consuming something every 1-3 hours. Heavy fatty protein rich foods for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and then I’m usually snacking on some nuts, yogurts, soda, fruits, milk, cheese, coffee in between. Attempting to force mass amounts of calories in a couple meals a day led to a lot of indigestion, bloat, and acne *cough cough* OP *cough cough*

I could go longer between meals, but then energy and mood dips, not worth it for me.
 

TeaRex14

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As a laymen giving my two cents, the PUFA was certainly not helping the situation at all. But I'm not entirely convinced it was the underlying culprit, and if it was, I highly doubt you solved the problem by depleting your PUFA stores which is a very long process that requires a few years of time on a highly restrictive lowfat diet. More then likely switching to a fruit based diet switched your metabolic machinery over to glucose metabolism, which severely inhibited fatty acid liberation. Simply put, actually storing your PUFA away in your tissues probably helped. Whereas while on a carnivore diet you were probably liberating tons of fatty acids which only exacerbated the issue.
 

lvysaur

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More then likely switching to a fruit based diet switched your metabolic machinery over to glucose metabolism, which severely inhibited fatty acid liberation.
He thinks he was burning the PUFA because he lost fat.

I've experienced the same, and I know it has something to do with beta oxidation but I still don't entirely understand it, maybe @haidut could chime in if he wants to make a really layman two sentence summary of it.

Basically I lose tons of body fat while eating tons of milk and sugar. Obviously the fat is going somewhere.
 

TeaRex14

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He thinks he was burning the PUFA because he lost fat.

I've experienced the same, and I know it has something to do with beta oxidation but I still don't entirely understand it, maybe @haidut could chime in if he wants to make a really layman two sentence summary of it.

Basically I lose tons of body fat while eating tons of milk and sugar. Obviously the fat is going somewhere.
I think you lose mostly the saturated fatty acids in your adipose tissues. The body prefers to oxidize them for energy over the polyunsaturated fats. The polyunsaturated fats, to my understanding, have a cumulative affect to them over a lifespan. At least this is what Peat mentioned in a YouTube clip (Westside PUFA's YouTube channel).
 

yerrag

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Do you sweat easily? It could be all the sweating allowed toxins to come off our skin pores and your skin was reacting to some allergens or toxins coming off.

Than toxins were coming off your may indicate you have poor digestiion. Since you have this problem when you're off a fruitarian diet, it may have to do with your inability to digest protein and/or fats well. Test to see what happens when you eat fats like coconut oil and butter. If that goes well, then it may be a problem with protein digestion. You can try eating raw meat (like a carpaccio or ceviche) and see how it goes. If it goes well, it's likely an enzyme problem. Eat fresh pineapple before you eat cooked meat and see how that goes, or you can take digestive enzymes before your meal.

Food that's not fully digested can get absorbed by the small intestine into the blood, but that is usually filtered off by both the liver and kidneys. It would be an extra load for your kidneys and liver, and constantly stressing them this way isn't a good way to go. They would start to fail doing their job, and these undigested particles would have to be excreted some other way, and that is through the skin. That could be why you have skin allergies.

You also have low immunity, having both pneumonia and tonsillitis. Poor digestion can do that as you aren't receiving enough nutrients.

I used to sweat a lot. As a result, I still have the keloids that result from it. My keloids are much worse. Small ones get together and fuse and become bigger over time. They grew more than what I'm seeing on your back. I'm not sure yours are keloids as much as they're hypertrophic scars. I stopped sweating that much after I had mercury chelation, with my mercury toxicity resulting from having too many mercury fillings over the years.

Your situation and mine won't fit to a tee, but I hope you well in troubleshooting what ails you, and I hope what I shared could give you some ideas.

Also, what is your temperature and your heart rate? It's good to have an indication of your metabolism as a good metabolism also makes you less prone to allergies, and allergies to me are a sign also of low immunity levels.
 
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rei

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I think you lose mostly the saturated fatty acids in your adipose tissues. The body prefers to oxidize them for energy over the polyunsaturated fats. The polyunsaturated fats, to my understanding, have a cumulative affect to them over a lifespan. At least this is what Peat mentioned in a YouTube clip (Westside PUFA's YouTube channel).
I was under the impression that fat tissue prefer to meet own energy needs by oxidizing saturated fat. This concentrates the PUFA in fat stores. But when you start to circulate the fat stores the PUFA is first to come out.
 

Whichway?

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I’m sorry to hear you having such a rough time of it.

I haven’t got anything to add to the dietary strategies that others have already mentioned. Just wondering though about your vitamin D status. You look pretty pale in those photos, so I’m wondering if some time in the sun would help on several levels. It improves Vit D status, the infrared is good for your mitochondria, and the UV is antibacterial so that may also help to reduce the infections in your skin.

Could you also try some topical treatments on your skin (while also trying your diet Strategies) such as coconut oil. It’s got antibacterial, antiviral properties. Lavender essential oil diluted to 5% in jojoba or coconut oil would help to kill the bad bacteria in your skin and promote healing.
 

charlie

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Runenight201

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So you are advising him not to do what helps him? :crazy:


You'll feel great...while eating lots of fruit. But don't do it!!!
:nonono


Hyperbole.

I feel personally assaulted!

lol jk but a fruitarian diet isn't sustainable, without great effort and drastic lifestyle changes, and I think the vast majority of people who live on a fruitarian diet run into oral decay and infertility, doesn't really sound like a healthy diet to me. I don't have any stats on this, but it makes sense, at least the oral decay. Fruit is highly acidic and constantly subjecting your teeth to that can't be good over the long run.

If we look at his post, I don't think a fruitarian diet helped his holistic health, it only helped his skin. He stated that he felt crummy while on a raw vegan diet, which isn't fruitarian but very close to it, but he had clear skin! I think it should be fairly evident that clear skin is not the sole sign of good health, and if he felt terrible with low energy and fatigue, than the raw vegan (and by extension fruitarian?) diet should not be used.

I later corrected myself and stated that since he doesn't buy into the pharmaceutical paradigm that he should try many different things to see what works, but cautioned him not to ignore other markers of health in pursuit of clear skin, which he's had a history of doing in the past, and is a trap I also fell for earlier in my health journey. I then stated that when all his health markers are good, his skin will be good as well, which I believe to be useful advice.

I'm only trying to help, perhaps I was too authoritarian with my original post, but I've grown quite partial against extreme diets for the average individual, because I think they hurt more than they help. Certainly there may be some extreme cases which warrant them, but it isn't the first line of defense for the average, low health fatigued individual.
 

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