Greetings!

Giocondi

Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2018
Messages
12
Hello all,

Finally stepping out of the shadows to introduce myself.

I'd like to use this introduction as a reference point for you kind people to gain insight as to any questions/issues I may have going forward.

Backround:
Male, 28 years old

Welp I have always struggled with excess weight my entire life. I was first introduced to the concept of dieting around the age of 11. I played little league football and would eat grilled chicken salads the night before our weekly games coupled with morning runs donning a trash bag in hopes of making the weigh-in. I believe I ended up lowering my weight through various sports and typical diet mentality. My memory is pretty horrific so I can't recall a lot of specifics and time periods tend to mesh together so forgive me.

My concerted effort to gain health (read Vanity) was around the age of 20 in college. I just started ordering and reading books on exercise and nutrition (the bad ones) and going to the gym 5-6 times a week. I followed Tim Ferriss's slow-carb diet which consisted of (lean protein, beans, vegetables) eaten every 4 hours. I will say this is the leanest I ever was and looked pretty good (no idea my bodyfat but maybe 25%, never had visable abs) I took tons of pre-workout supplements and fat burners and anything else I thought would help me out. Was always freezing and generally never felt great.

From there I kind of just kept digging through nutrition/workout books and websites trying to find the answer to my holy grail quest of looking ripped and feeling amazing.

Exercise-wise I did the standard nonsense any young man does when first going to a gym. My form was terrible and probably did more hard than good. Most recently I took another shot at the stronglifts 5X5 program and, as always, got discouraged when my strength plateaued at a pretty low weight (maybe 215 squat for a 200 pound guy). I was always deathly afraid of fat so when I would force myself to eat more in hopes of pushing through my plateau, I would start getting fat,and get frustrated and stop.

The last actual "diet" I tried was keto, did that for about 5 months in early 2017 until I was all the way down to 1400 calories a day feeling like ***t. I found Matt Stone and the "Eat for Heat" concept resonated with my forever freezing self so gave it a shot. This way of thinking lead me to this whole other realm of true health and what it really means. I know this is getting out of hand so I'll try and summarize the rest.

Started Peat 2 weeks ago and usually eat eggs, milk, oj, tbs of sugar in my 3-4 coffees, dried fruit, real sugar soda, coconut oil, butter, carrot salad, shrimp, scallops. Fats are < 1tbps a day each. Soda is once a day.

I'm here to hopefully heal my absolutely destroyed metabolism and feel great about myself while lowering my bodyfat. After ignoring my scale for a long time I just weighed myself and I am by far the largest I have ever been 235, was 190 when I stopped keto. I'm an accountant and work a desk job. Exercise has been super low, maybe some pushups at home and 1-2 mile walk a couple times a week.

If anyone wants any additional information (you masochist), just ask!

Oh worth noting is that I bought some Haidut supps (Vitamin K, Tyromix, pansterone). Experimenting with doses but right now doing 1 drop k, 2-3 drops Pan, 2-3 drops Tyro in the morning on various areas (chest, stomach, testes).

Thanks all.

Edit: Spelling
 
Last edited:

mmb82

Member
Joined
Jan 14, 2016
Messages
111
Hello all,

The last actual "diet" I tried was keto, did that for about 5 months in early 2017 until I was all the way down to 1400 calories a day feeling like ***t. I found Matt Stone and the "Eat for Heat" concept resonated with my forever freezing self so gave it a shot.

Edit: Spelling

How many calories were you consuming at your leanest in college following Tim Ferriss's diet guidelines? Also, how long did you follow the RRARF ideas by Matt Stone and how many calories were you eating when you were RRARF-ing? How many calories are you eating now while Peating? I am trying to get a sense of how long you were calorie restricted vs how long you were in caloric "rehabilitation".

I dealt with anorexia for about 8 years before discovering Matt Stone and found RRARF-ing to be helpful from a mental standpoint. However, from a physical standpoint, I quit exercising, ate a lot, and gained weight faster than I think was necessary. In the end, I got sick of eating so much and not feeling significantly better, so I pursued other options. Eventually, the weight came off without much effort on my part once I regained my health, but it was daunting to put on 30 lbs in less than 3 months.

Back to you...other than being cold and feeling overweight, what other health issues would you say you have? It might be useful to get some labs to see if you really did mess up your metabolism and if so, to what degree. If you are not in bad health, RRARF-ing or at least eating sufficient calories can be helpful, but if you have other underlying issues, trying to boost your metabolic rate solely by eating may not work as intended.
 
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Giocondi

Member
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Feb 12, 2018
Messages
12
Hi there mmb82, thanks for your response.

I never counter calories during the Tim Ferriss experience, just ate every 4 hours within the criteria mentioned. I wouldn't say I RRARF'd in that I didin't go out of my way to slam everything I could touch in my mouth, I just ate when I wanted and didn't care about what I ate. I'd say the first two weeks I ate doughnuts and cookies frequently but that got old. I have almost a comical propensity to put on weight so that didn't help. After that I tried listening to my body (read intuitive eating) but I've been ignoring my body my whole life so that is tough right now. At this point I just kind of ate what I always viewed as the stereotypical healthy foods, protein and saturated fats with lots of veggies and some potatoes whenever I cooked. If I ate out I would just eat whatever. Past two days on peat I've been around 3000 calories via cronometer. I initially went to hard and drank a lot of milk and OJ trying to reach arbitrary quantities but felt like crap. (first two days felt amazing, then progressively felt worse).

I cant give a finite period of time when I was restricted vs abundance but I doubt I've been restrictive for a long time (past year maybe). I would have days were I felt great and just ate food and then I would get fed up with how I look and felt and focus on eating vegetables and lean meats with some potatoes and rice for a bit. I know from an analytic standpoint this makes giving a suggestion difficult.

Previous symptoms aside from the cold hands and feet (body in general) were very low sex drive, irregular bowel movements TMI (constipation, rabbit pellets, maybe a nice solid stool once in a while), I would get cold while exercising and rarely sweat. I had labs done right when I finished Keto and I have a PDF file of that if you want to see it but it's about a year old. I don't think eating is my answer, I have a good feeling that my hormones are out of wack, possible estrogen dominance or something like that. I don't believe the male body was designed to have a bunch of fat pockets around it. I'm open to try anything that has some sounds reasoning as I have already achieved maximum learned helplessness on my own search. I know there are some smart people here that could probably help out.

Thanks again for responding.
 
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Giocondi

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Feb 12, 2018
Messages
12
In Case anyone was curious, here are my labs from almost exactly 1 year ago, right at the end of my 5 month keto experience.

Date of Service: 02/22/2017
LIPID PANEL
CHOLESTEROL, TOTAL 311 H 125-200 mg/dL TP
HDL CHOLESTEROL 70 > OR = 40 mg/dL TP
TRIGLYCERIDES 61 <150 mg/dL TP
LDL-CHOLESTEROL 229 H <130 mg/dL (calc)

CHOL/HDLC RATIO 4.4 < OR = 5.0 (calc) TP
NON HDL CHOLESTEROL 241 H 159 mg/dL (calc) TP

GLUCOSE 90

AST 21 10-40 U/L
ALT 16 9-46 U/L
URINALYSIS, COMPLETE W/REFLEX TO CULTURE TP
COLOR YELLOW YELLOW
APPEARANCE CLEAR CLEAR
SPECIFIC GRAVITY 1.005 1.001-1.035
PH 7.0 5.0-8.0
GLUCOSE NEGATIVE NEGATIVE
BILIRUBIN NEGATIVE NEGATIVE
KETONES NEGATIVE NEGATIVE
OCCULT BLOOD NEGATIVE NEGATIVE
PROTEIN NEGATIVE NEGATIVE
NITRITE NEGATIVE NEGATIVE
LEUKOCYTE ESTERASE NEGATIVE NEGATIVE
WBC NONE SEEN < OR = 5 /HPF
RBC NONE SEEN < OR = 2 /HPF
SQUAMOUS EPITHELIAL CELLS NONE SEEN < OR = 5 /HPF
BACTERIA NONE SEEN NONE SEEN /HPF
HYALINE CAST NONE SEEN NONE SEEN /LPF
CBC (INCLUDES DIFF/PLT) TP
WHITE BLOOD CELL COUNT 4.9 3.8-10.8 Thousand/uL
RED BLOOD CELL COUNT 5.23 4.20-5.80 Million/uL
HEMOGLOBIN 15.4 13.2-17.1 g/dL
HEMATOCRIT 45.9 38.5-50.0 %
MCV 87.7 80.0-100.0 fL
MCH 29.5 27.0-33.0 pg
MCHC 33.6 32.0-36.0 g/dL
RDW 12.8 11.0-15.0 %
PLATELET COUNT 198 140-400 Thousand/uL
MPV 9.4 7.5-12.5 fL
ABSOLUTE NEUTROPHILS 2087 1500-7800 cells/uL
ABSOLUTE LYMPHOCYTES 2269 850-3900 cells/uL
ABSOLUTE MONOCYTES 319 200-950 cells/uL
ABSOLUTE EOSINOPHILS 201 15-500 cells/uL
ABSOLUTE BASOPHILS 25 0-200 cells/uL
NEUTROPHILS 42.6 %
LYMPHOCYTES 46.3 %
MONOCYTES 6.5 %
EOSINOPHILS 4.1 %
BASOPHILS 0.5 %
HEMOGLOBIN A1c 5.3 <5.7 % of total Hgb

TSH 1.97 0.40-4.50 mIU/L TP
VITAMIN B12 1032 200-1100 pg/mL TP
REFLEXIVE URINE CULTURE NO CULTURE INDICATED TP
TESTOSTERONE, FREE,BIO AND TOTAL, LC/MS/MS AMD
TESTOSTERONE, TOTAL, LC/MS/MS 550 250-1100 ng/dL
TESTOSTERONE, FREE 68.7 46.0-224.0 pg/mL
TESTOSTERONE,BIOAVAILABLE 150.3 110.0-575.0 ng/dL
SEX HORMONE BINDING GLOBULIN 36 10-50 nmol/L
ALBUMIN,SERUM 4.8 3.6-5.1 g/dL
 

mmb82

Member
Joined
Jan 14, 2016
Messages
111
Previous symptoms aside from the cold hands and feet (body in general) were very low sex drive, irregular bowel movements TMI (constipation, rabbit pellets, maybe a nice solid stool once in a while), I would get cold while exercising and rarely sweat.

I agree that your hormones are likely off based on the symptoms and your tests. I would also venture to say that you likely have some kind of gut dysbiosis based on your bowel movements. You can try some magnesium and vitamin C to "get things moving", but that will only deal with the symptoms of whatever is causing your bowel troubles. If you do have gut dysbiosis, it could also potentially interfere with your ability to absorb nutrients, so you are likely to have nutrient deficiencies in the long run.

My suggestion to you is to work with someone who is trained in this kind of stuff and can get you the labs you need, write up a treatment plan for you, and get you feeling better. If you need to fix hormone imbalances, I would not advise that you try to do this by yourself; taking hormones and hormone-like substances without knowledge of what you are doing can leave you in a bigger hole than you started. Fixing gut issues can also be a hassle if you take a shot in the dark and don't know what pathogenic bacterial/fungal strains (if any) you are dealing with.
 
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Giocondi

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Feb 12, 2018
Messages
12
Thanks for all the kind words and advice, I'll try and schedule a visit with a doc soon and get some labs done.
 

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