Adventures In The Land Of Milk And OJ

barefooter

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I'm two weeks into the Peat diet, and I figured I'd start logging my progress, as I'm already seeing some huge improvements. This will be pretty long as it's my first log post. To start, here's a list of the issues I had prior to starting:

general anxiety
social anxiety
nail picking
depression
unstable mood
poor sleep, trouble waking up
no dreams or stressful dreams
headaches and migraines
achy upper back and neck
jaw tension (probably from stressful sleep and grinding teeth)
skin conditions (dandruff, arm pit rash, etc.)
digestive issues
low body temp (96.5), pulse, and little cold tolerance
binge eating, excessive thoughts about food, not feeling satiated
excessive ruminating
sensitivity to bright light

This is after coming off 4 years of dietary experimentation--vegan to WAPF to paleo. These issues developed at different parts in my life, but I was generally pretty healthy growing up (or at least I thought I was). The issue that has plagued me the longest and had the biggest effect on my life is social anxiety, so completely curing it would be a life changer. I've been doing what I would say is pretty standard Peat diet after reading around a bit. I've introduced things a bit at a time, and now have all the major components in place. I'm doing bag breathing 2 or 3 times a day, but not doing any supplementation yet.

I'm eating milk, oj, grapes, melon, honey, sugar, mexi-coke, some potatoes (going to cut out after this batch), coffee (started 2 days ago), eggs, beef, lamb, gelatin, oyster, liver, ice cream.


And, my progress on the above issues so far:

general anxiety
I'd say it's been reduced by about half, which is huge considering I just started this.

social anxiety
I feel more interested in talking and sharing with people, but I'm still having a good deal of anxiety in social situations. I can definitely feel the start of changes here, and I'm hopeful that I'm on the right path to finally getting past this.

nail picking
I have been unable to control this for as long as I can remember. I'm still doing it a lot, but I had a breakthrough, and I'm now certain I'm going to beat this. The other day I started picking my nails as usual, and caught myself and realized I had no desire to do it. I had simply started out of habit, and realizing I didn't desire to do it, I just stopped.

depression
Gone! I usually think how happy I am correlates strongly to how well things are going in my life and if I'm doing really cool and fun things. I'm happy to report that I now feel happy and optimistic every day even if I'm not doing anything that interesting. It's actually a bit strange, as I've caught myself a couple times wondering why I feel so happy, when I'm not doing anything that great.

unstable mood
My moods are now very stable.

poor sleep, trouble waking up
I'm having the best sleep I can remember in a long time. Waking up feeling rested and excited to start the day.

no dreams or stressful dreams
Still not dreaming much, but I have had a few more pleasant dreams.

headaches and migraines
Still having them, and it's too soon to say if I'm improving or not.

achy upper back and neck
I just realized the other day, that I've had way less upper back and neck pain. I always thought this was related to poor posture, but I guess it's a lot more complicated.

jaw tension (probably from stressful sleep and grinding teeth)
A bit less tension, probably from less stressful sleep.

skin conditions (dandruf, arm pit rash, etc.)
This is one area where things seem to be getting worse. I'm pretty sure it's the dairy, but I don't want to cut it out, because it's doing me so much good in other areas.

digestive issues
Heart burn seems to be gone. Still having issues with burping after eating, some bloating, and gas from the dairy.

low body temp (96.5), pulse, and little cold tolerance
Waking temp is getting up into the mid 97s, and I'm finally crossing into 98 during the day. Best of all, I just feel a lot warmer. My pulse is up from 56 to 70. I was walking around late last night in shorts and a tshirt and finally felt warm. The interesting thing is that I also seem to have a much lessened stress reaction when I am a bit cold. When I used to get cold, I used to contract and tense up a lot. Now, I feel the sensation of being a bit cold, but it's not really a big deal. I haven't been exposed to much cold yet, so we'll see.

binge eating, excessive thoughts about food, not feeling satiated
I was having a huge problem with this, and it's completely gone. Despite the fact that I spend hours a day researching this stuff, I don't actually think about eating all that much. I had lunch earlier today and only ate half the food on my plate, because I was full. I never used to do that--I would often eat until I was literally so full I was in pain.

excessive ruminating
When negative thoughts come up, they seem to pass quite easily now.

sensitivity to bright light
I'm starting to notice that I can tolerate having my sunglasses off in full sun, although it's still not entirely comfortable.
 
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barefooter

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Never a boring day when your life is a science experiment. I've been visiting my parents for the last two days, and made a couple of interesting observations. One is that I have no desire to eat their junk food. I often binge on their snacks when I'm here, but have zero desire to do so anymore. I feel so satiated from what I'm eating that I simply don't crave it. Yesterday I was having a good day, but not feeling quite as good as the days prior. In the late afternoon, I was having a bit of trouble relaxing, and I also wasn't feeling much like being social. I drank another glass of milk with sugar, and after about 20 minutes of sitting out in the sun, finally became very relaxed. I had traveled that day, and I think I simply had not eaten enough. I'm finding that I need to take in a lot of extra calories to feel truly well at this point. I think I should just eat a lot and frequently, until my metabolism is fully healed.

After drinking the milk and relaxing, I noticed something interesting--that I was breathing through my nose, and it felt completely comfortable/natural. I've been a mouth breather my entire life, and been trying to switch to nose breathing for the past 5 years. I made some progress when an improved diet reduced mucus, but it was still often a struggle to get enough airflow through my nose. As I was no longer having mucus, but still unable to convert to full nose breathing, I wondered if I possibly had under-developed nasal passages, and would be stuck a mouth breather forever. It turns out I must have had inflamed nasal passages, as I'm now breathing through my nose more comfortably than I can ever remember.

My acne that developed after starting milk has mostly cleared up. After seeing recommendations, I ate some liver a couple days ago, and that seemed to take care of it. I'm going to make it a habit to keep up the weekly liver. I'm hoping I'm adjusting to the milk more, but it's still giving me some stomach bloating and gas. I'm just going to stick with it for now, and try adding even more sugar to my milk, as I seem to do a bit better when it's sweetened.
 
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barefooter

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[ moderator edit: thread merged with "Done with naturopathic doctor" ]

I thought this guy was a great doc, but I've been becoming less impressed, and after my last visit I'm done. My first problem with him, was that months ago he was completely uninterested in testing me for pyroluria, after I told him I had 20 of the 30 symptoms on a list, and thought I was very likely to have it. I ordered a test on my own, and as I suspected, I do have it. I let this slide, but after my last visit, I see no point to see him anymore.

I told him that I had observed my temperature to be quite low, and since changing my diet my temp was going up and my mood and other symptoms were improving. He seemed somewhat happy for me, but didn't seem to think temperature was an important metric of health. I also told him that I've been eating tons of dairy and fruit, and that I have zero craving for vegetables, which I find fascinating. I assumed he'd have an inquisitive mind and also find this very interesting. He did not, and told me I should reduce dairy and increase vegetables. I guess I shouldn't have expected more, as it's very hard for someone to hear differing viewpoints when they're entrenched in the system.

The way forward for me is through self experimentation, lots of research, and maybe learning to read my own lab work.
 

charlie

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barefooter said:
I think I should just eat a lot and frequently, until my metabolism is fully healed.

When your metabolism is healed be prepared to eat, a lot. :lol:
 
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barefooter

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Charlie said:
When your metabolism is healed be prepared to eat, a lot. :lol:

I was assuming I would need more food during the healing process, but I guess it makes sense that I would need even more when my metabolism is really churning. I always felt like I ate a ton of calories, but just had inefficient digestion, which is one reason I was thinking I may actually eat less when I'm fully healed. My appetite does seem to be picking up a bit, so we'll see how things progress.
 
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barefooter

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I didn't wake feeling very rested the night before last, so I decided to try eating even more before bed last night. I had a half pint of ice cream an hour before bed, and a tall glass of milk with sugar and salt 20 mins before bed. I had to get up a bit early, but still felt very rested--more rested on 6 hours of sleep than 11 the night before. Even though I was leaving my parents place to come back to Seattle and start the work week, I felt incredibly happy and energetic--not even dreading work at all. I was having a great time driving through the mountains enjoying the scenery, drumming on the steering wheel, and laughing and crying about how beautiful life is. Yes, I shed a few tears of joy, which is incredible as I typically keep my emotions all bottled up.

Being another travel day, my meals have been a bit off, and I again had a very slight down turn in the afternoon. Feeling a little down, achy head, tired. I think it was a combination of being in an office with poor lighting, stale air, and not eating enough. I would have loved to eat a pint of ice cream and take a nap, but I'm still stuck at the office. I left the office for 30 mins to take a walk and get some chocolate milk and OJ. Pounded the milk and 1/3 gallon of OJ, walked some more, and now I'm starting to feel better. I still have a slight feeling of guilt when eating to make myself feel better. I have to remind myself that I have a damaged metabolism and poor energy storage. I'm still very delicate to stress at this point, so something minor like not eating for a few hours is enough to throw me off. I'm hopeful that when I'm fully well I'll be resilient to stress and able to go longer without eating should the situation arise.
 
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barefooter

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Earlier this afternoon I was beginning to feel hopeful that I was starting to digest milk better, as I was having much less gas than usual after my very milky breakfast. However, I'm now quite gassy and feeling a bit bloated 4 hours after my lunch, which included a similar amount of milk. The mixture was the same at both meals (whole milk, freeze dried coffee, sugar, salt, gelatin), but I heated it up for breakfast and had it cold with lunch. I'm wondering if there's a chance I tolerate warm milk better, so I'm going to begin experimenting with only drinking warm milk. I'm not sure if I remember right, but I'm also starting to think I may notice doing better when I have warm milk before bed instead of ice cream, but never made the connection until now. It seems others have noticed a difference from temperature too.

http://peatarian.com/5261/tolerating-wa ... t-not-cold
 
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barefooter

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My first two weeks on Peat were going extremely well, and I was feeling better than I had in years with only minor annoying issues. I was having a little gas and bloating, but not that bad, considering I was doing 2 quarts of milk a day, coming from rarely drinking milk. Now on my third week, I'm running into some troubles and not sure how to proceed.

My bloating has been getting really bad, I'm burping and having a lot of gas, and I'm starting to feel tired and a bit depressed. I'm also feeling more anxious again. I'm a bit down, because I was feeling so great and felt like the Peat diet could finally help me overcome my issues. I still believe this, but I think it's going to be a slower transition than I had hoped for. I'm guessing I have some kind of bacterial overgrowth that I need to beat back first. I'm thinking it would be best to get the milk back out of my diet even though I crave it so much and it is so satisfying to me.

However, I'm really not sure what else I should be eating. I was doing paleo, and then GAPS prior to Peat, and I don't just want to go back to that and kill my metabolism again. Does anyone have any advice on how I can proceed? I just ordered some thyroid supplements, so I'm thinking it might be a good idea to find a diet I can digest more easily and boost my metabolism with the supps. Then, once I'm feeling better I can gradually get the milk and other components back in. I'm also wondering if I wasn't geting enough A (despite weekly liver) as I was having some scalp and other skin issues. I'm also wondering if I should be cutting back on the OJ, fruit, and white sugar, and maybe consider replacing some of it with white rice and potatos. Also, I know yogurt is not optimal, but I'm pretty sure I digest it better, so would it be good to still keep getting a little dairy in yogurt form? Sorry for so many questions, but I'm just a bit confused as I keep trying different things and hitting dead ends. Any advice from those that have made it through similar situations would be much appreciated. Thanks
 
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barefooter

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I was planning to post more regularly, but I haven't been super motivated. However, I do have lots of interesting observations to report on--unfortunately a larger share of bad this time. After my last post, I started having a serious problem with bloating and gas from all the milk. I realized I needed to make a change and decided to try cutting milk out for a couple of days. I ended up only going part of a day, and felt better, but eventually my strong craving for milk drove me back to the grocery store :). I decided to try lactose free milk, and I've been drinking that for the last 1.5 weeks. The bloating is now completely gone, and I have much less gas. I'm not 100% sure if it's the lack of lactose or the fact that the milk is ultra pasteurized. Next time I buy milk I'm going to try getting the same brand that is ultra pasteurized, but not lactose free. It could just be that the bacteria in the other brand of milk was causing me problems, as I'm already pretty sure I have a bacterial overgrowth.

I've also been depressed the past week. I've been noticing that when I feel depressed, my temp usually reads low in the mid 97s. It seems that if I can get it up into the 98s (especially mid 98s) I typically feel better. This morning I wasn't feeling super great about life, but I had lots of milk, coffee, coco oil, and sugar with breakfast. By early afternoon, my temp was up to 98.4, and I felt a great sense of inner peace, calm, and contentment. However, it seems like it takes a ton of sugar to get me to that temp, and I easily get cold again and depressed after not eating for even just a couple of hours. I'm considering making some kind of drink with sugar, salt, and maybe gelatin that I can sip on throughout the day. At this point, that may be the only way to keep my temperature and mood more stable.

I'm still trying to figure out why the first two weeks on Peat I felt so upbeat all the time. I'm second guessing if maybe more of it was the psychological effects of trying something new and being excited about it. I was sleeping great, feeling great, and it just felt so easy. Now it feels like it's an uphill struggle. Like I need to be constantly slamming large amount of coffee and sugar to keep my mood up. I'm pretty sure I'm eating way more sugar and coffee than I was when I started too.

Also, I've been upping my coconut oil intake. For a while, I had been forgetting about it and hardly using any. Last night I had a tablespoon, and it had a pretty strong effect on my temp. I seem to tolerate it well, so I'm going to aim for a few tablespoons a day.

I've been a mouth breather as long as I can remember, and now that my nostrils are less inflamed, I'm trying to make a real effort to breath through my nose. I'm guessing I've been over breathing for a very long time, and that has caused me to have low levels of CO2. I've been experimenting with doing more bag breathing and also reading about the buteyko method.

Finally, I'm beginning to wonder if excess consumption of carrot, squash, sweet potato, and other beta carotene foods in the past may have caused some of my problems. I used to eat a ton of carrots and squash. I've always loved both, but most recently when I was doing the GAPS diet they were my main carbohydrate source. I seem to remember hearing Peat say that carotene behaves like PUFA in the body and is anti thyroid. My calluses are quite orange, so I'm guessing I was getting way too much. As of today I've started rinsing the carrot after I grate it for the salad to get some of the carotene out.
 
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barefooter

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Wow, got my temp way up to 98.8 earlier! It's down a bit now, but I'm feeling really good, and a bit sweaty :). Main difference today has been way more coconut oil, and about 50% more coffee. I'll keep up with these changes tomorrow and hopefully it will be an awesome day.
 
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barefooter

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Peata said:
How much coconut oil would you say you're having?

It's hard to say exactly, but I'm guessing between 3-5 tablespoons a day straight, plus whatever I cook with (very little, I barely cook anymore). I have no problem taking it straight, and I'm now downing a little bit every couple of hours. I'm also hoping it will help with my suspected bacterial overgrowth that has yet to improve.
 
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barefooter

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I had trouble falling asleep last night, but woke up this morning feeling pretty alert and motivated after only 5 hours of sleep. I'm curious if my improved sleep quality had anything to do with the very high temp I was able to get up to the night before. I'm still feeling a bit depressed, and not sure if it's my job (not interested/motivated at all) or something more physiological--maybe a combination of the two. When I was doing super good on Peat, my job wasn't getting me down, even though I was no more excited about it. Maybe it's just something that wears me down, and if I'm not producing enough positive energy, it brings me below the threshold into depression.

I had a bamboo shoot salad today for the first time, as I'm experimenting with reducing carotene. We'll see if I notice any difference over the carrot. It's definitely not as tasty. I actually remember liking bamboo shoots from when I've had them in a stir fry. With just coconut oil, salt, and vinegar they are pretty bad. I don't mind much, but I have to question if it's good to be eating something I don't feel completely positive about. I also have a bunch of grated carrot in the fridge that I washed thoroughly to remove excess carotene, so I'll probably alternate between the two.
 

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barefooter said:
Peata said:
How much coconut oil would you say you're having?

It's hard to say exactly, but I'm guessing between 3-5 tablespoons a day straight, plus whatever I cook with (very little, I barely cook anymore). I have no problem taking it straight, and I'm now downing a little bit every couple of hours. I'm also hoping it will help with my suspected bacterial overgrowth that has yet to improve.

One last question, do you have the coconut oil straight off the spoon but part of, or around, other food?

Because I'm wondering how that would affect my blood sugar to just have the fat and nothing else with it.
 
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barefooter

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Peata said:
One last question, do you have the coconut oil straight off the spoon but part of, or around, other food?
Because I'm wondering how that would affect my blood sugar to just have the fat and nothing else with it.

I do both, but I mostly have it at or close to the same time as other food. I'll often use around 1/2 tablespoon to swish around and wash my mouth out with (I do swallow it) after I eat. I'm having some issues with white tongue, so I've been experimenting with rinsing with baking soda (I do spit this out) and then coconut oil when I can after eating. This is probably how I consume most of my coconut oil now. It does seem to have helped a bit with the white morning tongue, although it could just be coincidence.
 
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barefooter

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My 250W heat lamps just came in the mail--it's a light therapy party tonight!!
 
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I didn't manage to find a light reflector rated past 100W, so no party until I can get to a proper hardware store in the next day or two. However, I did have a very interesting discovery when I was driving around doing errands. I was in a pretty good mood, but nothing exceptional, and I didn't feel super warm. I had eaten a very quick dinner before running out, so I was going on a bunch of milk, a little OJ, and a little ice cream. On my way from the grocery store to the hardware store I started snacking on the grapes that I had purchased. I would eat a big handful, and then instinctively reach for more. Pre-Peat me would have thought this was unhealthy compulsive eating, but I figured I'd experiment to see if my body knew what was best. I ate a pretty good amount of the grapes on the way to the store, and by the time I parked, I was feeling noticeably warmer. It seemed strange, because I often consume way more sugar in the form of OJ, and don't notice such a quick temperature spike. Walking around the store there was definitely a little more pep in my step, and I was really in a fantastic mood, despite the fact that I really don't like shopping.

It could all be a coincidence, but I'll definitely be experimenting with grapes more. I also ate a small can of oysters after the grapes, and after sitting at home for a few, my temp is way up to 98.4. I do remember eating grapes a few times the first two weeks I was on Peat, but haven't been having them for the past couple as I was thinking they were sub optimal. I wonder if they could be part of the reason I was doing so much better at the start.
 

tropicaldaze

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Your descriptive craving for chocolate milk made me go to the kitchen, make some simple syrup, throw in a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder from this huge container my wife bought a few years ago and after it was chocolate syrup, throw in a quart of milk I bought a little while ago at Whole Foods, even though chocolate, sometimes, makes me manic(I have treatment resistant bipolar illness). Then finished it off with a cup of oj & teaspoon of sea salt.

I drive my wife nuts with my dietary experiments but with my physical and mental health in decline, I'm desperately trying to save my life. Surviving isn't the same as living but we need to survive in order to save our lives.
 

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