Advice on physical changes/diet?

[DKayJoe]

Hi all, thanks for reading.

I am 2 days into a radical shift in my diet, previously I was consuming a low carb pale diet with a fair amount of PUFA. The past few days I have been consuming the following...

3 Litres of organic skimmed milk with 1 ½ litres of orange juice (not from concentrate) throughout the day.

About 150-300g of cooked potatoes, served with plenty of butter and salt alongside 50-100g of lamb or beef liver or muscle meat (mainly lambs heart) cooked in coconut oil and salted in the evenings. Along with grapes or watermelon for desert. With a coffee with plenty of milk and sugar.

A shredded carrot with white vinegar, salt and coconut oil first thing upon waking.
2 fresh oysters in the evening.

All in all around 2000-2200 calories.
I am also supplementing with 1000IU mixed tocopherol vitamin E and 100mg of pregnenolone. I also take small amounts of chopped ginger with my coffees.

The thing is I seem to have broken out with what is looking like the beginning of a severe acne flair up on my forehead, I have suffered with acne for the past few years (since turning 20, I am now 23). Although I am used to acne I have not experienced anything like this, they are not large pustules but many small red dots all over my forehead.

Did anyone else have a similar reaction when changing there diet so radically? I am wondering if this is my body telling me to stop doing what I am doing (my suspicion would be some sort of adverse effects to the milk consumption) or that maybe it's starting to flush toxins from my body in a big way. The first day I also had a bit of an achy stomach however that seems to of subsided.

On the plus side I am finding it much easier to go to bed when I want to (around 10pm) and seem to have more energy...

Any thoughts/advice would be appreciated, thanks.

 

[nikotrope]

Having problems like acne shows that your new diet improves your immune system and metabolism, as it was suppressed before with paleo. That's a good thing.

As long as you eat like that with some beef liver once or twice a week, your vitamins and minerals levels should improve over time. If you have some digestion problem, it could take longer. Drink that much liquid at first can be hard on the stomach.

As you will realized by reading more thing on the subject, it is not an easy road but you should see improvement over time.

 

[DKayJoe]

Thanks, I realise it's going to take some time to see improvements, It's just to have such a flare up straight away was kind of harsh to see. It seems to of halted in severity though and seems to be healing up. Time will tell though.

Another thing that is worrying me however is I seem to of developed a dull headache over the past few days as well, I say dull because in general it just feels like my head is swollen although if I tip my head upside down or strain then I feel head pain. Any ideas?

Other than that my sleep quality over the past few days seems to have been a lot better, normally I wake up in the night after a few hours but that hasn't happened once and I seem to be getting up a lot easier as well. Also my cravings for bad/junk foods has pretty much completely disappeared, despite having easy access to free junk foods almost all day every day.

Edit : Thinking about it, could this be temporary symptoms from a shift in the production of enzymes? I wasn't following a strictly Ketogenic diet but some days would shove me into Keto and others I would hit around 70 - 100g carbs. Could my body simply not of caught up enzyme wise for digesting all the sugars for energy? Or would the fact I'm hitting 100 - 150g protein a day make this redundant anyway? Just a thought.

 

[tara]

Hi DKayJoe,
I wouldn't ignore headaches, or assume they are a positive thing. If it's still there, it would be good to see if there are changes that avoid this.
My first guesses, but could easily be wrong, are that you are taking in a lot of fluids and not many calories, and that either or both of these or the overall low calorie density could be relevant.
Have you checked your temperatures and pulse a few times at rest? Together they can help get a picture of thyroid function. Sometimes people who are hypothyroid have trouble handling too much water.
As a young man, you may well need a few more hundreds of calories for optimal health and growth.
You could experiment with simply adding some more high density carbs and/or reducing some of your fluids eg by replacing some of your milk with cheese or condensed milk.

If 2000-2200 cals has been typical or more than typical for the last while, then chronic undereating may have contributed to your issues. If this is less than you were eating, it might explain you your headaches.

Sometimes adding more salt can help, if it tastes good.

Personally, I can get headaches form either too much or too little fluid, and I usually find 2-3l OK, but it varies a lot from person to person. Hunger has also been a pretty reliable trigger for me.

 

[DKayJoe]

Hi everyone, thanks for the replies.

My symptoms seem to have died down after the initial few days although I have upped my calories to around 2500-2800 due to natural hunger. I have also started salted my drinks. I have 48oz of great lakes gelatine on the way as well as 4kg of bones to make stock over the weekend so I'm going to ease off of the milk a little and replace it with gelatine. Since starting this diet the main thing that seems to upset my stomach (funny noises and uncomfortable feeling) is the potato, which is funny as I don't recall it ever doing this beforehand, however in small amounts it is perfectly managable.

I am about a week into the diet change and so far the main changes I can see are :

- Increased acne on my forehead and back, I have always suffered with acne on the back. Strangely it used to be many small spots all over, now it seems many of the small spots have cleared up but I have a few large ones instead. The acne on the forehead is new, many small spots however after the initial flare up it still seems as if it's not getting worse and are slowly disappearing.

-Increased itching around my hairline, I actually found Ray Peat through researching ways to stop hair loss. Although it is far from the only or most important reason I am trying this diet it is hopefully something I will be able to achieve. At the moment however it seems as though my hair-line is itching, however, this has always been intermittent and I might just be going through a shed. I realise this one will take months to see any real change so I'm just going to wait it out.

- Headaches, the frequency has died down greatly as well as the intensity, This seems to of happened once I started salting my drinks and cut back on the liver a bit. I am going to wait another week and see what happens, if it still persists I will have a think at re-organising my diet.

- Redness on my face, dryer skin and some hot flushes, I actually tended to have the dryer skin/redness in my face when I was a teenager, my friends used to say it looked like a Zorro mask :) so that one doesn't bother me too much although it seems odd considering the amount of fluids I am drinking. The hot flushes are new though, I seem to just be hot more easily at the moment, I will be in a lesson with a room full of people wearing jumpers and complaining of cold temperature and I'll be sat there in a t-shirt feeling hot.

- Improved sleep quality, this one is an absolute godsend for me. I seem to be able to go to bed at a reasonable time as well as sleep all the way through the night, I am also waking up feeling well rested and can get out of bed easily with 8 hours. Sometimes I have only been able to get 6-7 in due to a busy schedule but can still get out of bed a lot easier and seem to be able to function throughout the day.

- Improved energy and mental clarity, also a godsend. I'm actually starting to feel like I can function properly again which hasn't happened in a while, I'm hoping this isn't temporary and will only get better.

- Reduced food cravings, on my previous diet I would literally get physical cravings for sugary snacks such as chocolate, cookies, ice cream. Although I still eat a small amount of ice cream sometimes I used to go through an entire tub like an animal, now I seem to be able to control myself much better.

- Better mood, there are actually times throughout the day where I naturally just end up smiling, although it's sad to say it's been a long time since this has happened. I went through periods of depression in my teens and early twenties although never sought professional help. Although I wouldn't say I am depressed or have been for a while my mood has increased greatly, I find I am more sociable, generally happy and optimistic.

Overall the upsides are greatly outweighing the downsides at the moment, after a month I am going to start on a proper testimonial and track my progress from there, I am going to incorporate gelatine into the diet and see what happens from there.

Damn this got long, thanks for reading if you got here! :)

 

[tara]

Sounds like you are getting some good results. Glad you are eating more. If you are hungry for more you can probably increase it further.
Peat said something like "A craving for sugar usually indicates a need for sugar". This is completely the opposite to all the previous messages I'd got about sugar. So now I don't try to resist this craving, I just try to make sure as much as possible of the sugar I consume comes with other nutrients too.

 

[arien]

I experience a similar headache whenever I eat too much liver. Not too noticeable, but if I bend over and more blood rushes to my head, it briefly gets very bad.

The excess vitamin A will exceed your liver's storage capacity and rampage through your body activating processes inappropriately, as it is fat soluble and cannot be excreted via the urine. In my case, it is sometimes accompanied by visible tooth demineralisation. Also, the first time I took K2, I had a similar experience.