Parsifal
Member
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2015
- Messages
- 1,081
Aren't you affraid with Zn supplements? Most mineral supplements seem to be very large particules (larger than cells) from rock, nothing comparable to Zn in foods?
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Here's a mildly tipsy and lightly relevant discourse about calories in history. I think under-eating causes loads of health problem and it's probably more pervasive now than ever. Smart people are probably more prone to under-eating because of their tendency to over-power instinct.
You read about relatively lightly worked monks and nuns in middle ages western europe eating 5,500 calories a day and more. We have their account books and know the foods they consumed. They kept meticulous records. The Superiors were always worried about the finances of the monastery/nunnery and the food supply because they faced revolt if they failed to serve up good grub. Loads of meat and fish and beer and bread daily. It was a population control mechanism, in part. The bargain joining most Catholic orders was you gave up having a family in order to not be hungry, and to also have some measure of professional and intellectual satisfaction and camaraderie. The average peasant (man and woman) spent something like four months a year mindlessly threshing grain with a stick. No joke, you spent a great portion of your life beating a pile of hay with a stick, when you weren't manualy cutting it with a scythe, and you were often quite hungry.
The nunneries and monasteries, on the other hand, carried out centuries running plant and animal breeding experiments and kept important records and ran other important social functions. As a novitiate you gained access to the smartest people in your society and what few books there were. (Scottish nuns bread the greyhound into existence and ran the races and set the odds, developing the beginnings of a lot of modern statistical methods.)
What's my point here? Well we can plainly see what some white people who deliberately prioritized good food over other other priorities like personal freedom chose historically. They would eat huge quantities of beer and bread and meat and dairy products. 5K calories and more every day. They lived a long time in very good health. We know this from their meticulous records. It's an interesting historical "experiment."
I think eating disorders are super widespread now because of sedentarism and social disorder. Most of us are built to burn through loads of calories walking around in the sunshine and doing a bit (not too much) of hard manual labor. Eating alone is also toxic. People who are relatively sedentary instinctively eat what the body demands (often alone, outside of healthy social contexts) in the modern world then and start getting fat. People of a certain temperament freak about the weight gain and then develop eating disorders. But the real problem is we're not built to be sitting around inside all the time, often socially atomized. It's the lifestyle, not the food. Active people eating according to instinct rarely get fat. By active I don't mean daily 45 minute gym sessions. I mean spending hours a day on your feet and doing a little bit of work. Caloric flux.
You have to get the calories up. Shoot for 4K. Wheat is fine. Butter and ice cream are great. The trick is to burn it off. Gotta find the time to walk or bicycle. Wake up early and bicycle for an hour. (**** gyms, it's gotta be outside, no matter the weather.) Do another hour in the evening. Eat and move. Move and eat. When you pop pills and rub creams and alcohol sprays on yourself you don't know how crazy you look to sane and healthy people. Quite rightly.
It will be temporary.Aren't you affraid with Zn supplements? Most mineral supplements seem to be very large particules (larger than cells) from rock, nothing comparable to Zn in foods?
I never said I was under weight or in recovery so I don't see where you've got that from?
you're just simply making assumptions but thanks for your little piece.
but I'm already very skinny and would be scared I'd lose too much weight.
Do we have evidence of them being lightly worked? In some cases they would have worked long days in horticulture and agriculture with no tractors, right? Possibly also carrying a fair bit of water? Some parts of Western Europe had freezing winters and little residential insulation, too, which I imagine would increase calorie needs?You read about relatively lightly worked monks and nuns in middle ages western europe eating 5,500 calories a day and more.
I analyzed the foods and noticed that in that time I was eating more beef, like 3 times per week.
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Zinc deficiency is my hope at the moment.
I'm not discounting the importance of social stresses etc - I think these are very important. But some people really do have nutritional deficiencies that they'd benefit from addressing too. I don't know if Ulla is zinc-deficient, but I'm pretty sure you can't know that she isn't, either.You are not zinc deficient. It's probably nothing to do with your diet. You probably don't socialize enough, don't like the people you're around, or don't like the work you're doing.
There's this hugely destructive internet enabled culture of enabling people to pretend their problems are diet, not more obvious and immediate stressors they probably realize full well on some level.
some people really do have nutritional deficiencies
Speak for yourself. :)Nobody reading this forum. And certainly nobody keeping food logs and noticing how much beef they ate. Everybody reading this forum is probably high on neuroticism.
You are not zinc deficient. It's probably nothing to do with your diet. You probably don't socialize enough, don't like the people you're around, or don't like the work you're doing.
There's this hugely destructive internet enabled culture of enabling people to pretend their problems are diet, not more obvious and immediate stressors they probably realize full well on some level.
Yes we appear crazy to healthy people because they for some reason have resiliency that many people on this site don't have. I am happy for you that you can eat whatever and suffer no ill effects, but the people here cannot. You have to realize that just because eating "normal" or whatever works for you doesn't mean it works for everyone. I am one of those people in their twenties you talk about having health issues, and I can assure you I am eating enough I average 4k calories.
we drank a lot and barely ate a thing
Nobody reading this forum. And certainly nobody keeping food logs and noticing how much beef they ate. Everybody reading this forum is probably high on neuroticism.
Perhaps the alcohol reduced gut microbes and not eating as much did the same?
retinol as a molecule to reduce skin inflammation (which is why retinol works so well, at least for me).
I don't think microbes are the root cause here. Healthy gut function should be completely resilient to that, you could give farty beans to a normal person for weeks and they would have zero acne. It is true that doxy is useful, but that seems unrelated to it's anti-bacterial properties: it acts on the skin similarly to retinol as a molecule to reduce skin inflammation (which is why retinol works so well, at least for me).
Yeah retinol is great, but I think he has tried that already and didn't see any improvement.
So you would give doxy a shot if you were me? Have you experienced doxy?
I took doxy for years in my early 20's. I definitely would not recommend it. As soon as you stop, acne comes back and probably worse than before. And over time, doxy may or may not continue to work. I don't think it's a good thing to be taking antibiotics long term. I doubt Ray Peat would recommend doing that, he's extremely cautious about taking most supplements long term. So then what do you do, take it short term? But as I said, as soon as you stop the acne will come back. For me, a safer and equally powerful short term fix that will never fade in intensity is retinol. If I take 50K IU of retinol daily for a few days, I expect to see complete recovery of all existing acne even the large cystic one. Strangely eating beef liver is not effective, I still eat it because I think it has lots of stuff, but not really for acne. Is it caused by a vitamin deficiency? No, maybe not. When I use it like that, I use it like a drug, the molecule reduces skin inflammation. Or maybe I am deficient, and my health or diet is not efficient at storing it and thus it is lost very quickly. I don't know, maybe even the red light I am using are burning the retinol a bit too fast. But what is certain is that diet makes a major difference. When I was doing low fat milk and orange juice (mostly, but also some stuff like liver), I would still get acne often. I didn't want to change because I saw no alternative: when I introduced a new food, I seemingly got more acne, so I thought I had no choice. But in retrospect even that diet sucked, after revamping what and the way I ate (now eating high sat fat and a bit of starch no fruit), the acne got in control. I don't know the specific reason, if it's due to what I read (sat fat being good for liver and gut endotoxin protection) or just the better health I regained. I still occasionally get a bit of it but not every month. But that's without supplementing retinol or doing anything special.