2 Years Since I Didn't Come Here: I Healed All Of My Health Problems

Parsifal

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Aug 6, 2015
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1,081
Hello guys,

I've been quite active on this forum from 2015 to 2017, but as you might have noticed, I am not posting anymore. I'm writing this post to give news as some of you contacted me, and I also felt that I should leave a testimonial of my experience following Ray's advices (blindly) for several years:

When I came here, I was bascially a mess. I was exhausted, depressed, anhedonic, depersonalized. I had social and generalized anxiety, panic attacks. I had a lot of health issues including dysautonomia, brain fog, food intolerances, fungal infections, gut issues, etc.

I've tried so many things that Ray recommends, and also things recommended by other people on the FB groups and this forum. I've tried to go no starch and no fibers, increase "Peaty" fruits, increase sugar, supplements, thyroid, antibiotics, caffeine, etc. Honestly despite all of my efforts and dedication, things did not improve much and even got worse on some aspects. The only reply I got when asking for advices were mostly "eat more calories, eat more sugar, get x supplement, etc". My teeth also deteriorated a lot (from the sugar) despite of all of the calcium I was getting.

I had (and still have) a lot of respect Ray and for what he taught me. I learned a lot of valuable things, and I think he is a very unique and out-of-the-box thinker with many great ideas (especially in regard to his focus on biophysics and metabolism). I also think that he is genuinely trying to help and empower others altruistically. But I also realized that he is human, with his flaws, cognitive biases and ideologies, and that he might not be right about everything.

I stopped coming on this forum after he answered one of my email where he obviously rejected evidence that was contradicting his ideas on the gut (that a sterile gut is better). I had a full paradigm shift, a true revelation: even though I thought I was a free thinker, independant, I was dependant over what other people I thought were my "superiors" (in terms of knowledge) said and recommended. I was always expecting from these people to give me advices and direction in life (directly or indirectly). I was afraid to disagree with them.

I am not blaming or criticizing Ray as he doesn't force anyone to follow his ideas or recommendations, as nobody on the groups or on this forum did, even though some of them might be talking as if they have the ultimate truth in any circumstances. I am the only person responsible for the mental prison I was in.

So I decided that I should really stop submitting myself to any authority, even though I was exhausted and needed help and support from the outside. I decided that I would take full responsibility for my health/life and to find the strength in myself to really see what I should do to improve things by trial and error.

Today, I can say that I am completely healed from most of my past health issues, or at least most things improved by 80 - 90%. I did so by reading a lot from here and there in a lot of different fields, thinking/inferring and by testing, trial and error.
I now have strong purposes and goals in my life, great relationships, spirituality, a lot of great and successful activities. I can enjoy sport again, I am overall very happy, grateful, active and have only few discomfort and negativity. I still have things to improve, but I am quite confident as things keep improving exponentially, I discover new paths and ideas everyday.

So I just wanted to remind you important things that I've learned:

- Never become fanatical or too obsessed about something, and never try to push your opinion/beliefs on others. It only means that you are insecure.

- The body is a very complex machine. There is no one-size-fits-all. Something that might be beneficial for someone might no be for another one. Stay humble before this vast complexity. Embrace complexity, be holistic and be careful with reductionism.

- Stay open-minded and always seek to improve your ideas and paradigms, they will never be perfect. When you stop evolving or growing, life starts to really suck.

- Take responsibility for everything that happens to you, don't blame others, be pro-active.

Good luck to all of you and take care.
 

Blossom

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Beautiful, I’m glad you are doing well and came back to give an update.
 

somuch4food

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Great testimonial! I've come to the same conclusion after a year of following advice I found on the Internet. I tried many different approaches that made me feel worse most of the time. I also was in constant conflict between what the Internet was teaching me and the culture around me.

I have come to the conclusion that I must find my own path through intuition (trial and error). I've been making a few mistakes in the last few months, but at least I'm getting better at reading my body's signals.

Individuality is really important. Nothing will have the exact same effect on 2 humans since they have a different health status, history and genetics.
 

jzeno

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Nov 20, 2017
Messages
543
Any wisdom to share?

I personally think starches are the key to a productive life, for one. Probably a few other places I disagree with Ray Peat, too. But I do agree with him on PUFAs. I think that's his one area that he is clearly right and multiple other authors support his writings. Otherwise, it's a case-by-case situation.
 

milk_lover

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Aug 15, 2015
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Congrats dude. If you have any tips for us readers, we would be more than happy to listen and learn.
 

InChristAlone

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Since everyone is different we can't emulate exactly what you did, but it would be interesting to hear what your diet is like. Congrats on escaping authoritarianism!
 

Dave Clark

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Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
1,978
I have a martial arts backround, and I always liked what Bruce Lee said, "Absorb what is useful...." He studied many different forms of martial arts, he didn't necessarily agree with all their techniques, philosophies, etc., but when something worked for him he kept it and employed it into his own style. He also didn't condemn these arts just because he didn't agree with everything, it was all about respect. Some artists may have latched on to a technique and make it a main part of their style, where Bruce would find it either inefficient, not powerful enough, or even useless. Here, some of Ray's stuff works for some of us, and some it doesn't. It's okay to disagree with Ray and try something else, and if it is useful....absorb it! We all just need to be respectful of each other, and remember we are all in it together. Learn and share.
 

sunraiser

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Feb 21, 2017
Messages
549
Massively happy for you, genuinely :)

It's beautiful to see people on the other side and reclaiming their intuition and authority over themselves. Keep going!
 

Kram

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May 8, 2017
Messages
382
I also would love to hear what you did to get better as I have been struggling with many of those same issues the past few years.
 

lampofred

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Feb 13, 2016
Messages
3,244
Nice post. The only tricky part is being able to distinguish between disagreeing with Peat because your intuition is actually pointing you in a better direction (as in your case) versus disagreeing with him because you are not fully understanding what he is saying (such as thinking estrogen and iron are good for you because they give you energy in the short term, even though they will cause long range damage)
 

Ideonaut

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Joined
Sep 20, 2015
Messages
499
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Seattle
Hello guys,

I've been quite active on this forum from 2015 to 2017, but as you might have noticed, I am not posting anymore. I'm writing this post to give news as some of you contacted me, and I also felt that I should leave a testimonial of my experience following Ray's advices (blindly) for several years:

When I came here, I was bascially a mess. I was exhausted, depressed, anhedonic, depersonalized. I had social and generalized anxiety, panic attacks. I had a lot of health issues including dysautonomia, brain fog, food intolerances, fungal infections, gut issues, etc.

I've tried so many things that Ray recommends, and also things recommended by other people on the FB groups and this forum. I've tried to go no starch and no fibers, increase "Peaty" fruits, increase sugar, supplements, thyroid, antibiotics, caffeine, etc. Honestly despite all of my efforts and dedication, things did not improve much and even got worse on some aspects. The only reply I got when asking for advices were mostly "eat more calories, eat more sugar, get x supplement, etc". My teeth also deteriorated a lot (from the sugar) despite of all of the calcium I was getting.

I had (and still have) a lot of respect Ray and for what he taught me. I learned a lot of valuable things, and I think he is a very unique and out-of-the-box thinker with many great ideas (especially in regard to his focus on biophysics and metabolism). I also think that he is genuinely trying to help and empower others altruistically. But I also realized that he is human, with his flaws, cognitive biases and ideologies, and that he might not be right about everything.

I stopped coming on this forum after he answered one of my email where he obviously rejected evidence that was contradicting his ideas on the gut (that a sterile gut is better). I had a full paradigm shift, a true revelation: even though I thought I was a free thinker, independant, I was dependant over what other people I thought were my "superiors" (in terms of knowledge) said and recommended. I was always expecting from these people to give me advices and direction in life (directly or indirectly). I was afraid to disagree with them.


I am not blaming or criticizing Ray as he doesn't force anyone to follow his ideas or recommendations, as nobody on the groups or on this forum did, even though some of them might be talking as if they have the ultimate truth in any circumstances. I am the only person responsible for the mental prison I was in.

So I decided that I should really stop submitting myself to any authority, even though I was exhausted and needed help and support from the outside. I decided that I would take full responsibility for my health/life and to find the strength in myself to really see what I should do to improve things by trial and error.

Today, I can say that I am completely healed from most of my past health issues, or at least most things improved by 80 - 90%. I did so by reading a lot from here and there in a lot of different fields, thinking/inferring and by testing, trial and error.
I now have strong purposes and goals in my life, great relationships, spirituality, a lot of great and successful activities. I can enjoy sport again, I am overall very happy, grateful, active and have only few discomfort and negativity. I still have things to improve, but I am quite confident as things keep improving exponentially, I discover new paths and ideas everyday.

So I just wanted to remind you important things that I've learned:

- Never become fanatical or too obsessed about something, and never try to push your opinion/beliefs on others. It only means that you are insecure.

- The body is a very complex machine. There is no one-size-fits-all. Something that might be beneficial for someone might no be for another one. Stay humble before this vast complexity. Embrace complexity, be holistic and be careful with reductionism.

- Stay open-minded and always seek to improve your ideas and paradigms, they will never be perfect. When you stop evolving or growing, life starts to really suck.

- Take responsibility for everything that happens to you, don't blame others, be pro-active.



Good luck to all of you and take care.

I painfully persevered through this vapid post hoping to find something worth reading, alas in vain. He solved all of his health problems but won't give anybody a speck of specific info on how he did it.
 

Kartoffel

Member
Joined
Sep 29, 2017
Messages
1,199
I painfully persevered through this vapid post hoping to find something worth reading, alas in vain. He solved all of his health problems but won't give anybody a speck of specific info on how he did it.

I think he did. If you can't find the info on how he did it, I think you should read his post again to get the message.

I stopped coming on this forum after he answered one of my email where he obviously rejected evidence that was contradicting his ideas on the gut (that a sterile gut is better).

Would you care to share the email and Ray's response?
 

Tenacity

Member
Joined
Mar 12, 2016
Messages
844
Thanks so much for this. This forum can be very negative, so glad to hear you have found your own success. As someone suffering from dysautonomia too, this is inspiring. Best of luck in the future.
 

LiveWire

Member
Joined
Apr 13, 2019
Messages
176
Good post but lets hear the divergencies as otherwise it’s just a poem. From my many years of lurking here I think people in this forum are quite receptive to many different ideas, let’s say for as long as Peat is somehow always kept in the back of the one’s mind.
 

KennethKaniff

Member
Joined
Sep 11, 2015
Messages
64
In my experience this is one of the less dogmatic health forums (compared to veganism, keto, or paleo)

I’m interested to hear what worked for you, OP, feel free to elaborate for us what helped with your health issues
 

ilikecats

Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2016
Messages
633
@Parsifal Im curious about the details dude, I've always thought you had some interesting posts. obviously this is your n=1 and maybe you’re reluctant to share it because you don’t want people to just become followers to your ideas but I think it would be interesting .

My peating journey hasn't been a straight shot so I'm very curious when I hear stuff like this but then when it gets down to details things seem to get a little flimsy NO OFFENSE. Through what mechanism does sugar damage teeth? It's just glucose:fructose, it's refined... am I missing the part where they added something that dissolves teeth? Or do all fruits have a similar effect effect in your opinion? Is it because you think its slightly acidic? Any acidic substance sitting on the teeth for extended period of time can harm them but that's pretty odd to avoiding all acidic foods based on that. Is it because It can contribute to bacterial overgrowth when conditions aren't optimal? Because peats already acknowledged and addressed that and that’s an issue that can come up with most carbohydrates not just sucrose. I've recently had a game changing experience with my teeth health by increasing calcium via supplementation. Even though I was getting a lot of calcium from milk I was getting a ton of phosphate and in my particular context I had one of the worst calcium deficiencies ever usually getting less than 50 mg of calcium for 22 years of my life and with my vastly increased calcium needs due to that plus all the phosphate I was getting I was running into a weird functional calcium deficiency. Not only did my teeth greatly improve but so did some of my lingering hypo symptoms that were usually resolved but with other interventions that needed to be frequently applied and now I don't have to rely on them to keep certain things in check.
 
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OP
Parsifal

Parsifal

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Joined
Aug 6, 2015
Messages
1,081
Thanks everybody for the nice comments :):.

Congrats dude. If you have any tips for us readers, we would be more than happy to listen and learn.

Hey milk_lover thanks, I don't really feel qualified to give any health advices and like I said I think we're all different, but in my case there are 7 main things that helped the most:

1) Improving my gut microbiome
2) Reducing fungal infections (stopping sugar and some supplements when needed)
3) Improving vagal tone (the healthier/happiest I became, the easier it became of course, loving-kindness meditation helps a lot)
4) Meditation/mindfulness/relaxation
5) Avoiding foods that I don't tolerate well (lectins, dairy, the most amazing part is that while I improve my gut health I started tolerating most of these foods better)
6) Circadian rhythm protocols (including intermittent fasting).
7) And finally exercise (really improved the anhedonia and well-being by 30% alone, but I needed to fix myself first because with dysautonomia I was exercise intolerant).

Regarding microbiome health, I highly recommend people to check what Kiran Krishnan has to say. While I don't agree with him on everything (let's say that I agree on 80%), I think he shares a lot of great content. The microbiome is really involved in virtually any disease/health issue, I'm reading a lot of research about it and that's really amazing.

Good post but lets hear the divergencies as otherwise it’s just a poem. From my many years of lurking here I think people in this forum are quite receptive to many different ideas, let’s say for as long as Peat is somehow always kept in the back of the one’s mind.

Thanks LifeWire. I did not want to create a polemic as I find it really useless, 99.99% debates are only egos clashing and none of the debaters will have grown or changed their view in the end, they will become even more closed. I just wanted to share my testimonial and give some hope as I craved to read this kind of post when I was very sick. That was already quite long for 1 post.

However, I will try to reply to you (very) briefly: I think that Peat (or at least the way he is interpreted online) is too dualist (either a substance is absolutely good or bad). He stresses too much the effects of some molecules like if they were bad in every context and doses. We need serotonin, we need estrogens and other of these molecules that have a bad rap here to maintain homeostasis. And we need a gut microbiome (which is involved in virtually any systems of the body, even the nervous system and hormones), the higher the diversity the better (which is not promoted by Peat's guidelines).

Any wisdom to share?

I personally think starches are the key to a productive life, for one. Probably a few other places I disagree with Ray Peat, too. But I do agree with him on PUFAs. I think that's his one area that he is clearly right and multiple other authors support his writings. Otherwise, it's a case-by-case situation.

Hey jzeno, while I agree that starches are important and useful, I don't think that most people can tolerate all starches well and in every context. Potatoes for examples are nightshades, they have a bit of lectins and their glycemic index are high. While I tolerate them now and eat a bit of them, while I still was "full Peat" I was sick each time I just ate a bite (and even other starches), so I think it's really a matter of context and that people have to adapt and heal their gut permeability. That's also why I don't want to give any specific advices, some people might really be sick if they try to emulate what I'm doing because they would need several adaptative steps before being able to fully tolerate more starches/fibers in their diet.

My favorite starches are purple sweet potatoes which were the main staple of okinawans until recently. I also eat quite a lot of leafy vegetables and rice.

Also about PUFA, while I keep them low most of the time (I guess under 5%, I don't count), I'm not obsessed about getting them to 0% and I think that Peat might be excessive about his claims on PUFA. I don't agree with Paul Jaminet on many things, but what he says about PUFA seems more grounded to me.

Thanks so much for this. This forum can be very negative, so glad to hear you have found your own success. As someone suffering from dysautonomia too, this is inspiring. Best of luck in the future.

Thanks Tenacity, and I'm happy if it gave you some hope as it was the goal of my message.
Regarding dysautonomia, I know there are a lot of different types so what helped me might not help you. Still, in my case what helped was reducing gut permeability and inflammation, balancing the nervous system and improving vein tone with polyphenols.

I painfully persevered through this vapid post hoping to find something worth reading, alas in vain. He solved all of his health problems but won't give anybody a speck of specific info on how he did it.

Hey Idenonaut, I'm sorry you did not find anything meaningful here but I wanted to keep it short. You will find more information in this post even though I kept it broad.

Nice post. The only tricky part is being able to distinguish between disagreeing with Peat because your intuition is actually pointing you in a better direction (as in your case) versus disagreeing with him because you are not fully understanding what he is saying (such as thinking estrogen and iron are good for you because they give you energy in the short term, even though they will cause long range damage)

Hey lampofred, I might have misinterpreted some of Peat ideas but this kind of sentence: "such as thinking estrogen and iron are good for you because they give you energy in the short term, even though they will cause long range damage" is exactly what I call reductionism and dualism and criticized in my message to LiveWire.

It would have been more correct if you have said "they will cause long range damage IN EXCESS". The body actually needs them to function, and if you don't have any excess of them, why try to reduce them?

Congraz. What is your like nowadays?

Thanks opson123, to keep it short:

I was jobless and recluse for several years but now I live in a tropical country (my dream since many years) and own companies in 2 different countries. I travel a lot and work with a team of 15 people. Have many different projects (ecology, permaculture, art, philantropy, etc) and work around 80 to 100 hours per week on all of this. Still find some time to have great time with my wife, read a lot, learn new things, exercise, etc.

Hope you understand if I don't come here a lot ;), I guess that some things I said will be debated and criticized but honestly I don't care, I found my path and what works for me so I will put priority on enjoying life, I think it might be my one of my last message here as I said what I had to say and don't really see what I could add more.

I have a martial arts backround, and I always liked what Bruce Lee said, "Absorb what is useful...." He studied many different forms of martial arts, he didn't necessarily agree with all their techniques, philosophies, etc., but when something worked for him he kept it and employed it into his own style. He also didn't condemn these arts just because he didn't agree with everything, it was all about respect. Some artists may have latched on to a technique and make it a main part of their style, where Bruce would find it either inefficient, not powerful enough, or even useless. Here, some of Ray's stuff works for some of us, and some it doesn't. It's okay to disagree with Ray and try something else, and if it is useful....absorb it! We all just need to be respectful of each other, and remember we are all in it together. Learn and share.

Great post Dave, thanks for sharing! Bruce is definitely an inspirational man.

Final note. I only agree with few % of what the following people/books say but they helped me in different areas:

- Toxic: Heal Your Body from Mold Toxicity, Lyme Disease, Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, and Chronic Environmental Illness by Neil Nathan

- The Paleo Approach by Sarah Ballantyne for autoimmunity. Disclaimer: I think that paleo is a buzzword but the book is interesting and valuable

- The Plant Paradox by Steven Gundry

- Kiran Krishnan for gut microbiome and health

- Dave Mayo for circadian related things

Would advise to look at polyvagal theory, heart rate variability, how to increase vagal tone, positive psychology, even personal growth/philosophy books.

Take care everybody, wish a good health to all of you no matter what are your means to attain/maintain it :yellohello.
 
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jzeno

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Joined
Nov 20, 2017
Messages
543
@Parsifal Re:Starches

FYI, Ray Peat always says "well-cooked starches", but doesn't elaborate. Charlotte Gerson elaborates in her book: https://www.truthseekerz.com/The.Ge...al.Program.for.Cancer.and.Other.Illnesses.pdf

Page 339

"Potatoes are most often boiled slowly in a covered pot over medium low heat approximately 1 hour until tender."

I won't say definitively that this preparation method will work for everyone, but if prepared well, I think people will have a better chance of success. And if people do well on cancer with these thorough cooking methods, then hey--might work for others, too.

I just shared this for others. Ray always said "well-cooked" and simply never provides a thorough explanation. Charlotte's book is chalked full of recipes like Hippocrates Soup (well-cooked vegetable soup, that Dr. Peat sometimes refers to, as well).

Thanks for sharing.
 

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