Back on the Ray Peat 'Diet'.

[DannyIrons™]

A few years ago I loosely followed a Ray Peat 'diet' to help with a plethora of issues. However, after dealing with strong nauseating hunger pangs, allergies and a few other things, I decided to try the Carnivore Diet thinking it would help. It has improved it about 50%, but I don't feel that well anymore, I feel weak, tired, thin etc. and would like to return back to a carb-based diet.

Some may think I'm a fool for turning away from Peat in the first place, but I have learned a lot on my journey. I did the Carnivore diet for about 5-6 months. I now appreciate the importance of organ meats, and eating saturated fats. However, I realised how 'addicted' I was, and to a degree still am, on starchy foods. Bread, potato etc. Nearly the whole time on Carnivore I was watching videos wishing to eat them.

1) How do I best reintroduce the carbs after a Carnivore diet?
2) How do I stop these nauseating hunger pangs upon waking?
2) How to reduce my cravings for starchy foods? (The Carnivore community keep calling cravings for carbs 'healing' and that insulin resistance is caused by eating too frequently and spiking insulin).

Thanks folks,

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

A few years ago I loosely followed a Ray Peat 'diet' to help with a plethora of issues. However, after dealing with strong nauseating hunger pangs, allergies and a few other things, I decided to try the Carnivore Diet thinking it would help. It has improved it about 50%, but I don't feel that well anymore, I feel weak, tired, thin etc. and would like to return back to a carb-based diet.

Some may think I'm a fool for turning away from Peat in the first place, but I have learned a lot on my journey. I did the Carnivore diet for about 5-6 months. I now appreciate the importance of organ meats, and eating saturated fats. However, I realised how 'addicted' I was, and to a degree still am, on starchy foods. Bread, potato etc. Nearly the whole time on Carnivore I was watching videos wishing to eat them.

1) How do I best reintroduce the carbs after a Carnivore diet?
2) How do I stop these nauseating hunger pangs upon waking?
2) How to reduce my cravings for starchy foods? (The Carnivore community keep calling cravings for carbs 'healing' and that insulin resistance is caused by eating too frequently and spiking insulin).

Thanks folks,

I use to get those nauseating liver pains too in the morning and sometimes at night even. Drinking water would make it worse. I started eating raw honeycomb before bed and sometines through the night and it helped a lot. I was NEVER a sugar eater before 'Peating", so I think my liver needed glucose more than sucrose, maybe because it is a more stable energy source being burned slower. I have since slowed down my consumption of honey for fruit now and my liver still seems happy. I have also dealt with the starchy cravings. I have noticed a clear difference in my cravings throughout the day by how I start my day. If I start with a starchy carb I will crave carbs the rest of the day if I stay away from them i can go days without a desire for one. If you have to have a starchy carb let it be closer to bedtime, otherwise stick with the sweet carbs.

 

[Michael Mohn]

Fresh ripe fruits are certainly the best carbs. Honey and dates are very good too. Milk has some sugar. I've heard that it's better to reintroduce carbs slowly maybe just 50-100g per day in the beginning and not dunk yourself in a bathtub full of carbs with your first meal. Your pancreas has some time to adapt to the new demand for insulin. Starch should be avoided in the beginning unless you deplete your muscle glycogen with hard work. You crave starches because you're body needs carbs. I found starches very beneficial after sport and hard physical work. Have at least 25g protein for breakfast to counter excess cortisol. Excess starches can feed bacteria. Small portions reduce overgrowth. Carrot salad and boiled mushrooms or antibiotics & aspirin help.

 

[Vileplume]

Hey @DannyIrons™, when I transitioned from carbs to Peat, at first I just started having small portions of fruit with each meat meal. I used the costco frozen berries. After the first meal, I could feel my headspace lighten up, a beautiful feeling. The next day, I had the best poop that I had had in a year. I knew I was on the right track.

In the months that followed, I added more fruit, with my meals about 70% fruit and 30% meat, by volume. It worked really well and ended up pretty similar to the diet that @CLASH has described a few times. My temperatures rose pretty quickly, from about 97.0F to about 98.2-3F in a matter of 1-2 months.

 

[DannyIrons™]

I use to get those nauseating liver pains too in the morning and sometimes at night even. Drinking water would make it worse. I started eating raw honeycomb before bed and sometines through the night and it helped a lot. I was NEVER a sugar eater before 'Peating", so I think my liver needed glucose more than sucrose, maybe because it is a more stable energy source being burned slower. I have since slowed down my consumption of honey for fruit now and my liver still seems happy. I have also dealt with the starchy cravings. I have noticed a clear difference in my cravings throughout the day by how I start my day. If I start with a starchy carb I will crave carbs the rest of the day if I stay away from them i can go days without a desire for one. If you have to have a starchy carb let it be closer to bedtime, otherwise stick with the sweet carbs.

That's interesting, why do you feel it's your liver? Mine is that squeeze empty feeling in my stomach. Yeah you're right, I think starch just wants you having more starch, a bowl of oats and a few hours later I'd be ravenous again. Need to get on the medjools!

 

[DannyIrons™]

Fresh ripe fruits are certainly the best carbs. Honey and dates are very good too. Milk has some sugar. I've heard that it's better to reintroduce carbs slowly maybe just 50-100g per day in the beginning and not dunk yourself in a bathtub full of carbs with your first meal. Your pancreas has some time to adapt to the new demand for insulin. Starch should be avoided in the beginning unless you deplete your muscle glycogen with hard work. You crave starches because you're body needs carbs. I found starches very beneficial after sport and hard physical work. Have at least 25g protein for breakfast to counter excess cortisol. Excess starches can feed bacteria. Small portions reduce overgrowth. Carrot salad and boiled mushrooms or antibiotics & aspirin help.

I'd love some milk but unfortunately it's off limits at the moment, as it gives me some allergy issues. Thanks for the recommendations, that's really helpful. Do you drink much fruit juice?

 

[DannyIrons™]

Hey @DannyIrons™, when I transitioned from carbs to Peat, at first I just started having small portions of fruit with each meat meal. I used the costco frozen berries. After the first meal, I could feel my headspace lighten up, a beautiful feeling. The next day, I had the best poop that I had had in a year. I knew I was on the right track.

In the months that followed, I added more fruit, with my meals about 70% fruit and 30% meat, by volume. It worked really well and ended up pretty similar to the diet that @CLASH has described a few times. My temperatures rose pretty quickly, from about 97.0F to about 98.2-3F in a matter of 1-2 months.

Nice! I know that europhoric feeling. I'm glad it's working for you. What fruits do you eat, apart from berries?

 

[JanW55]

Interesting to read how meat and fruit suited @Vileplume well. I have come around to that myself, which has been somewhat surprising. Now, since getting into eating styles influenced by Tom Brimeyer / Peat thinking, I have begun to eat and do well with blueberries. Also, find those particularly tasty and satisfying consumed with very rare flank steak. Prior to TB/P, I could NOT tolerate any fruit my entire hypothyroid dominated, very-poor digestion, etc. life.

When I quit taking Levothyroxine in 2016 and it finally half-lived out of my system, my longstanding tendencies to hypoglycemia surged and I was scarfing up about a tablespoon of the white refined per night at 3 am just to keep on keepin' on, and do my "remedial work" of body-stretching, bending, tugging the innards and all that.

It was strange because my entire life before that I was more of the "salty-fatty" type (snack preference) and did not go in for sweets much. Some extremely dark, almost unsweet chocolate would do it, and I was not particularly fond of cakes, pies or whatever. Plain pound cake was all I could stand, if someone insisted on making me a birthday cake.

(In those prehistoric days there were no widely available 70%, 80%, or whatever, chocolate bars everywhere, and I'd raid Mama's baking chocolate which was very hard and unsweet and I'd gnaw that occasionally, finding that sweet enough -- and probably I was in need of other nutritional elements in there too).

Anyway, when my thyroid crashed, sugar became the mandatory dose, and it surely saved the day.

I believe I quit having to take the Tablespoon in the middle of the night about 1 year ago, and at long last, now, I am feeling like I originally did about "sweet" things -- not preferable, no cravings for sugar, etc.

So enter fruit, into the saga, I've found that the blueberries are eminently digestible, go well with plain unadorned meat, and seem very sweet!

TL;DR version here: is that what works evolves and to each, her/his own, finding out works!

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

That's interesting, why do you feel it's your liver? Mine is that squeeze empty feeling in my stomach. Yeah you're right, I think starch just wants you having more starch, a bowl of oats and a few hours later I'd be ravenous again. Need to get on the medjools!

It is strange, but comforting to know somebody else that gets that same feeling. I describe it as my liver or stomach eating itself. I have never been a sugar person so, though I am sure my liver is happy to get it, it is more use to dealing with starches which satisfy longer. That is why i think honey at bedtime helps because it takes longer to blow through.

 

[Peatness]

I've linked this post previously because I believe it is gives excellent advice on some of the issues transitioning to higher carbs can bring on. I wish i knew this thing before I embraced a high sugar peaty diet

RP Says Glucose Helps T4 To T3, Then Why Fructose?

I am reading this statement below i got from a site: Did you know that your liver stores sugar (called glycogen), and that you NEED a steady flow of sugar to keep glycogen stores topped off? Without a healthy storage of glycogen, your liver won’t convert thyroid hormone T4 (inactive) to T3...

raypeatforum.com

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

I've linked this post previously because I believe it is gives excellent advice on some of the issues transitioning to higher carbs can bring on. I wish i knew this thing before I embraced a high sugar peaty diet

RP Says Glucose Helps T4 To T3, Then Why Fructose?

I am reading this statement below i got from a site: Did you know that your liver stores sugar (called glycogen), and that you NEED a steady flow of sugar to keep glycogen stores topped off? Without a healthy storage of glycogen, your liver won’t convert thyroid hormone T4 (inactive) to T3...

raypeatforum.com

Aha! Thanks for that explaination Pina! I knew honey is a steadier energy for me and that sugar all day wasn't it. My protein is always 70 to 120 so I knew I had that covered, and don't take thyroid or any other suppliments except niacinimide and Progest-E over the last months or so. Last night I sipped on a half a mexican coke after dinner and I got that hungry liver feeling again in the night and got up to eat some honey and boy my liver makes so much noise. It and it feels like a relief.

 

[JanW55]

Aha! Thanks for that explaination Pina! I knew honey is a steadier energy for me and that sugar all day wasn't it. My protein is always 70 to 120 so I knew I had that covered, and don't take thyroid or any other suppliments except niacinimide and Progest-E over the last months or so. Last night I sipped on a half a mexican coke after dinner and I got that hungry liver feeling again in the night and got up to eat some honey and boy my liver makes so much noise. It and it feels like a relief.

@Rinse & rePeat have you ever tried maple syrup? Honey puts me into more hypoglycemia seems like, it's just TOO sweet to endure, and although I've never been a fan of the taste of cola drinks, at least in the good ole daze of my childhood they had real sugar and were not all that sweet really as I recall.

NOW if one reads the labels the so-called Mexican ones are as crammed with High Fructose Corn Syrup, artificial colors, preservatives, and the same raft of mess as everything else. Plus the wonderful canned pepper-based ancho chile and similar sauces are infiltrated with soy and wheat, as well as canola oil and cottonseed oil like never before. Horrendous. That has come about in the last ten years that I've noticed around here.

Anyhow, I had never cared for maple syrup's taste but I've come to be able to swill a sip of the organic kind maybe once every couple of days and at least it has calcium per label -- not a lot but something to recommend it anyway as a low blood sugar remedy spot-fix. SIBO conquering efforts have correlated with hypoglycemia reductions fortunately too.

P. S. At least the nixtamalized masa is still available from those aforementioned purveyors so I am grateful for that.

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

@Rinse & rePeat have you ever tried maple syrup? Honey puts me into more hypoglycemia seems like, it's just TOO sweet to endure, and although I've never been a fan of the taste of cola drinks, at least in the good ole daze of my childhood they had real sugar and were not all that sweet really as I recall.

NOW if one reads the labels the so-called Mexican ones are as crammed with High Fructose Corn Syrup, artificial colors, preservatives, and the same raft of mess as everything else. Plus the wonderful canned pepper-based ancho chile and similar sauces are infiltrated with soy and wheat, as well as canola oil and cottonseed oil like never before. Horrendous. That has come about in the last ten years that I've noticed around here.

Anyhow, I had never cared for maple syrup's taste but I've come to be able to swill a sip of the organic kind maybe once every couple of days and at least it has calcium per label -- not a lot but something to recommend it anyway as a low blood sugar remedy spot-fix. SIBO conquering efforts have correlated with hypoglycemia reductions fortunately too.

P. S. At least the nixtamalized masa is still available from those aforementioned purveyors so I am grateful for that.

Fortunately my Mexican Coke is the good old stuff! I did use maple syrup a lot before Ray Peat said it has too many toxins. I especially like to use the more nutritious B grade maple syrup to make fresh lemonade with a pinch of cayenne pepper, so good! I still use maple syrup here and there, but the acacia honeycomb has been magical! Where are you getting Mexican coke from with corn syrup? Here is mine.

 

[JanW55]

@Rinse & rePeat thanks for clarifying, I see you are referring to the "Real Thing" there, not a cola-substitute. I do seem to see something about "engineered" on the lower left part of the label there (in your picture), not sure. Hopefully it is saying None In There. (Blurry, can't tell.)

Perhaps not too worrying, if so. For an occasional soft drink use I mean. Might refer to the sugar cane? Just searching real quick on THAT, it's being done to increase the sucrose yield and resist pests. For a fuel OK maybe, but what about human consumption, interesting...

On the topic of carbonated bevs, I used to have an occasional "Dr Brown cream soda" with a lunch in a deli, and had to abandon them when THEY definitely went to HFCS, the cruds. Probably 7 years ago? The hypersweet but metallic aspect of HFCS just ruined the taste of that stuff for me, regardless of health consequences of HFCS anyway.

As far as where we see Mexican sodas: Mercado Fresco locally. I was confounding two different recently-encountered orange sodas it turns out. My husband always liked Orange Crush in his youth, then upon seeing the ingredient list on THAT had said no thanks. (Granted, back in the 1950s and thereafter for a long time, there were no product labels and no declaration about what was in ANYTHING that was remotely reliable if there at all). Red Dye #2 certainly got "busted" decades later as being the red in everything Baby Boomers loved, such as fruit "punches" and the like. Supposedly #40 was "better", hmmm... and replaced it. Pot calling the kettle metal?

Then we found Jarritos the Mexican orange soda was locally available and he became fond of that and would get it on rare occasions it was available at a sandwich/lunch restaurant. Seems like Jarritos has a brown cola version. The Jarritos website says it's real sugar in that one (as in the orange one too). The Jarritos orange one does say sodium benzoate, citric acid and yellow 6 and red 40 (to make it orange presumably).

I will try to steer him to get the Jarritos brown-cola (or if Mercado Fresco has it, the Coca-Cola in your picture), rather than the Orange Colored Jarritos, at any rate.

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

They have ruined everything JanW55! Fortunately I never like carbonated beverages, even as a kid, but I do use the Mexican coke to block iron in beef and balance it's protein at the same time. It is hard to want hot coffee all the time in sunny California. I only use a half of one or less once in awhile. The thing that I like about Mexican Coke vs everything else is the real sugar, the glass bottle and the fact that Mexico does not flouridate their water. I am allergic to flouride so it is a lifesaver for me traveling, going to friends houses and restaurants when I can't drink their water or use their ice, basically the lesser of all the other evils for me.

 

[JanW55]

@Rinse & rePeat , I see, real sugar, the glass bottle and no fluoride, good way to go, makes sense!

Plus from the ingredient list there, really sounds like the true "Real Thing" I remember from 1964 when our Grandpa took me and my little sister -- we were 9 and 5, to a tiny, old, local store (featuring the pot-belly stove and all that!) near his house (rural area), and he bought us each a 6.5 ounce "dope" as his family called them (he was born 1895 and recalled when the product contained coca leaves, you see) for 5 cents I believe it was per bottle. I don't think I'd ever had Coca-Cola before (our mother said it would "stunt our growth" as would coffee and tea for that matter, per her belief) and it was interesting, very tart and tangy and not very sweet, I thought.

Did not get any more Coke until college 7 years later and by then it was primarily available in larger bottles and did not taste the same. Did get a "fountain coke" from an old South drugstore in the college town around that time, and it was a third taste, not like the 6.5 oz or later larger bottle size either -- they used to mix the "base" with the fizzy carbonated water right there, before giving you the cola in a cup; that tasted sweeter than that larger bottle version and much sweeter than the 6.5 oz bottled one.

Needless to say, I reminisce here but frankly only the FIRST one described, of all 3, was a riveting, noteworthy taste, I think!

I'll try to get one of those Mexican Cokes, sounds very very alike to that early one I had! (Haagen-Dazs vanilla float here we come!)

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

@Rinse & rePeat , I see, real sugar, the glass bottle and no fluoride, good way to go, makes sense!

Plus from the ingredient list there, really sounds like the true "Real Thing" I remember from 1964 when our Grandpa took me and my little sister -- we were 9 and 5, to a tiny, old, local store (featuring the pot-belly stove and all that!) near his house (rural area), and he bought us each a 6.5 ounce "dope" as his family called them (he was born 1895 and recalled when the product contained coca leaves, you see) for 5 cents I believe it was per bottle. I don't think I'd ever had Coca-Cola before (our mother said it would "stunt our growth" as would coffee and tea for that matter, per her belief) and it was interesting, very tart and tangy and not very sweet, I thought.

Did not get any more Coke until college 7 years later and by then it was primarily available in larger bottles and did not taste the same. Did get a "fountain coke" from an old South drugstore in the college town around that time, and it was a third taste, not like the 6.5 oz or later larger bottle size either -- they used to mix the "base" with the fizzy carbonated water right there, before giving you the cola in a cup; that tasted sweeter than that larger bottle version and much sweeter than the 6.5 oz bottled one.

Needless to say, I reminisce here but frankly only the FIRST one described, of all 3, was a riveting, noteworthy taste, I think!

I'll try to get one of those Mexican Cokes, sounds very very alike to that early one I had! (Haagen-Dazs vanilla float here we come!)

Like your wonderful memories, I miss a lot of things from the old days too. I remember the milk man dropping off 4 bottles in glass and leaving at my grandmother's front door! Nothing tastes as good as it did back then. I hope you do find yourself a real Mexican Coke. I still am not a carbonated beverage girl, but a Mexican Coke that has been watered down from melted ice can be such a refreshing pick me up!

 

[baccheion]

Are you allergic to egg whites? Egg yolks? Can you access truly pastured organic (soy-free corn-free) eggs?

 

[DannyIrons™]

Are you allergic to egg whites? Egg yolks? Can you access truly pastured organic (soy-free corn-free) eggs?

I can actually eat eggs without too much trouble

 

[baccheion]

I can actually eat eggs without too much trouble

I mean have you ever had labs to check reaction to each? If not allergic, switch to all/only (truly pastured organic soy-free corn-free) raw eggs.