How Can I Improve Glycogen Storage?

[freyasam]

I did a very low carb diet for a year, 4.5 years ago. Ever since then, I can't seem to store glycogen because I get hungry soon after eating, and often wake up multiple times a night with ravenous hunger.

I've been following a Peat-inspired diet for nearly a year but haven't made much progress with this issue. I eat plenty of food and have put on 30 pounds of fat since switching to this way of eating. But still feeling insatiably hungry most of the time. I have macros and micros covered (heaps of fruit, some potatoes, bone and greens broth, lots of cheese, an egg or two daily, liver weekly, meat to get enough protein since I can't drink milk, chocolate, shellfish, lots of salt). Getting plenty of sun.

I eat very frequently--don't have much choice because I get hungry so often.

What else can I do to increase glycogen storage? I feel like I'm chained to the kitchen. And any stress, whether from life stress or the stress of ovulating and menstruating every month, makes this much worse. It's also hard to get back to sleep after waking up to eat, so I typically don't get enough rest due to this issue.

 

[cout12]

I don't know anything about glycogen storage but I do have a few tricks on how to eat all the time and fighting hunger without spending much time in the kitchen and without gaining weight.

If I crave sugar or have low energy I mix water with sugar and salt and drink that. And some raw carrots for digestion. Takes 2 minutes to make.

Every morning I make like 10 cookies from gelatin, sugar, salt, cocoa powder and coconut oil (heat in in the microwave for 30sec if its solid). Mix it in a bowl into some kind of paste, put in on a plate in the fridge and it becomes solid. I eat one every hour or so with some carrot for digestion. Takes 10 seconds to eat and I get 60g of protein per day from those alone.

I also have a bottle of water that I'm constantly drinking sugar water, skim milk or orange juice from. And also eating raw carrots constantly for digestion.

It's pretty hard to gain weight from these ingredients. Just make sure you get enough nutrients from other sources because these have like no vitamins and minerals.

 

[Kasra]

It's easier to fill up when you eat starch.

 

[haidut]

I did a very low carb diet for a year, 4.5 years ago. Ever since then, I can't seem to store glycogen because I get hungry soon after eating, and often wake up multiple times a night with ravenous hunger.

I've been following a Peat-inspired diet for nearly a year but haven't made much progress with this issue. I eat plenty of food and have put on 30 pounds of fat since switching to this way of eating. But still feeling insatiably hungry most of the time. I have macros and micros covered (heaps of fruit, some potatoes, bone and greens broth, lots of cheese, an egg or two daily, liver weekly, meat to get enough protein since I can't drink milk, chocolate, shellfish, lots of salt). Getting plenty of sun.

I eat very frequently--don't have much choice because I get hungry so often.

What else can I do to increase glycogen storage? I feel like I'm chained to the kitchen. And any stress, whether from life stress or the stress of ovulating and menstruating every month, makes this much worse. It's also hard to get back to sleep after waking up to eat, so I typically don't get enough rest due to this issue.

The methods for increasing glycogen storage depend very much on the specific organism/person, but if you are interested in trying some news things the first option I would suggest is to get some pure fructose (or fruit juices like apple that contain mostly fructose) and use that as your primary source of sugar for several days. Fructose is supposed to be very good at building up glycogen storages.
On the supplement side, taurine is supposed to help with that but the dose varies wildly from person to person for optimal effects. So, you have to try to find out what works for you. Typically, effective doses are 2g-5g a day.
Another supplement that Peat wrote about is uridine. Read this article or search it for "uridine".
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/alzheimers.shtml

Finally, if you are interested in trying drugs (after consulting with your doctor of course) an older antihistamine and anti-acid drug famotidine (brand name Pepcid) is exceptionally good at inhibiting glycogen breakdown and also promoting the synthesis of new glycogen. It is worth noting that famotidine is unique in its glycogen effects among the anti-acid drigs and also unlike other drugs it has no know interaction with any other drug or any known effects on liver health or metabolizing abilities. So, you could use that while loading up on sugar. Famotidine has been found to be helpful for a number of conditions completely unrelated to stomach acid such as schizophrenia and PTSD. The Peat-approved explanation of those benefits would be due to the drug improving glycogen storage/usage and thus improving brain energetic profile. Here is one study for famotidine and glycogen:
http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10 ... 012.672413
I hope that helps.

 

[freyasam]

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

haidut, you have some interesting ideas. Taurine sounds really good. I will see if I can get some locally, and if not, maybe try Red Bull.

Pepcid--hmmm. Wouldn't that lower stomach acid and create new problems?

 

[Such_Saturation]

Ray Peat said you need thyroid to have good glycogen storage. And by the way, starch has no fructose at all.

 

[freyasam]

I react violently for days after taking tiny amounts of thyroid, of any type or brand. It's not possible for me to take it. But yes, when I was able to take Armour in 2013, my problems with insatiable appetite were improved. But I can no longer take Armour. Or cynomel, cynoplus, T4 only, or even chicken neck soup.

 

[freyasam]

Here's my recent post on the subject:

viewtopic.php?f=56&t=5518&p=65206#p65206

 

[Such_Saturation]

I react violently for days after taking tiny amounts of thyroid, of any type or brand. It's not possible for me to take it. But yes, when I was able to take Armour in 2013, my problems with insatiable appetite were improved. But I can no longer take Armour. Or cynomel, cynoplus, T4 only, or even chicken neck soup.

Just endogenous thyroid, I mean. It gets better after one year or so (in my case).

 

[freyasam]

After one year of doing what? Eating "peaty" alone, or taking specific supplements?

 

[Such_Saturation]

After one year of doing what? Eating "peaty" alone, or taking specific supplements?

I think I tried all supplements except acetazolamide at one point or another, yes. No starches though.

 

[freyasam]

I wanted to bump this to see if anyone had any more suggestions. It's a real drag feeling hungry all the time, no matter how much I eat!

I've ordered taurine, per haidut's suggestion, and am waiting on that. But as I live outside the US, it takes a while to arrive. I've been drinking Red Bull, which has taurine, but it hasn't made much of a difference.

 

[Kasra]

You just gotta follow the feels, m8

These problems are almost always resolved by less restriction rather than more.

 

[tara]

I wanted to bump this to see if anyone had any more suggestions. It's a real drag feeling hungry all the time, no matter how much I eat!

I don't claim to know what will help you, and I'm sure you know yourself better than I possibly can. But I'm curious.
How far have you really tested this? What happens if you really keep eating when you are hungry? What happens if you eat little or no starch for a day or two, and keep eating lots of sugars (ie fruit, milk, honey, maybe a bit of sucrose) until you are no longer hungry? Is it really impossible, or does it just seem a lot? How much would that be? Any negative reactions?

I was out for dinner the other day and had a meal that had a moderate portion of rice but little sugar, and a moderate portion of meat (and quite possibly some PUFA - I'm hoping not too much). I was starving again by the time I got home, about an hour after I stopped eating. Usually I have better staying power than that in the evening, though not in the morning. At the time I was thinking maybe the starchy rice was making me hungrier than I would have been with my now common habit of more sugar and less starch. I'm not rigorous in my observations, but I have a suspicion. From memory, I had juice and coffee when I got home and was satisfied.

 

[freyasam]

How far have you really tested this? What happens if you really keep eating when you are hungry? What happens if you eat little or no starch for a day or two, and keep eating lots of sugars (ie fruit, milk, honey, maybe a bit of sucrose) until you are no longer hungry? Is it really impossible, or does it just seem a lot? How much would that be? Any negative reactions?

I've had this symptom for over 4 years, so I've tested it quite a bit. I pretty much have to keep eating when I'm hungry; otherwise I feel severely nauseous and adrenalinized (tachycardia, anixety/panic).

On certain days (particularly days 10-24 of my cycle, peaking around ovulation days 16-18), however, it sometimes feels like no amount of food can satiate me. Like I'll just eat practically everything in my refrigerator before bed so the adrenaline will go down enough so I can sleep, and it's just not enough. Or I fall asleep, then wake up 4 hours later ravenously hungry. It's a nightmare.

Yes, I've gone with no starch up to three weeks. It makes no difference with this issue. It doesn't seem to make any difference at all whether I get carbs from starch or sugar.

When I've asked Dr Peat about this, he has suggested b vitamins (which I took for months and saw no change) and thyroid supplementation (which I cannot tolerate).

 

[nikotrope]

I wanted to bump this to see if anyone had any more suggestions. It's a real drag feeling hungry all the time, no matter how much I eat!

I've ordered taurine, per haidut's suggestion, and am waiting on that. But as I live outside the US, it takes a while to arrive. I've been drinking Red Bull, which has taurine, but it hasn't made much of a difference.

Estrogen depletes glycogen stores. Estrogen also blocks the release of hormone from the thyroid gland. You don't tolerate caffeine nor thyroid, which makes sense if you have poor glycogen storage. You also said you lost a lot of muscle mass so it reduced your glycogen stores even more. Even if you eat a lot, estrogen wastes a lot of the carbs you eat by converting them to fat and not storing them in glycogen stores.

I am pretty sure you have a sluggish liver and you need to fix it first (estrogen dominance, caffeine intolerance and poor glycogen show that). Someone already told you that in another of your threads. Haidut says glycine and taurine are good ways to improve the liver (and taurine is good to improve glycogen), but he also said in another thread that for liver health, it takes a long time before seeing improvements (~3 months, maybe less in high doses). High doses of vitamin k2 could also improve things.

White sugar made huge improvements to my health and probably to my glycogen. As haidut said, fructose could really help you. I know it lacks nutrients but with enough milk and fruits, I think it's not a problem. My diet is like 2l of low-fat milk, 1l of juice/soda, 200g sugar, 100g meat/fish and 100g white rice. The sugar is a mix of white sugar, brown sugar and honey.

Since you can't tolerate thyroid nor caffeine, you could try niacinamide if you didn't. I've used it for a few days and got similar effects as caffeine. Try small doses though (250mg was too much for me the first time). Lots of RP quotes about niacinamide: http://www.functionalps.com/blog/2012/0 ... acinamide/

 

[freyasam]

I am pretty sure you have a sluggish liver and you need to fix it first (estrogen dominance, caffeine intolerance and poor glycogen show that). Someone already told you that in another of your threads. Haidut says glycine and taurine are good ways to improve the liver (and taurine is good to improve glycogen), but he also said in another thread that for liver health, it takes a long time before seeing improvements (~3 months, maybe less in high doses). High doses of vitamin k2 could also improve things.

Thanks for the ideas; that's helpful. You're right; I need to work on liver health before these other issues will improve. How much vitamin K are you taking? It seems some people here recommend 15mg, and other recommend much more.

 

[freyasam]

And I was taking vitamin K at 4-6 mg and niacinamide at 150 mg, 2-3 times daily. I was on the niacinamide for a couple months and the K for several months. But I stopped a lot of supplements because I felt like they weren't doing anything. I guess I should try them again.

 

[thebigpeatowski]

I agree with nikotrope, this sounds like a liver issue to me. I had the same symptoms of waking up starving sometimes with a pounding heart, being hungry every two hours, also weight gain and liver pain. I did the fructose route last year (ate bags and bags of 100% pure non-GMO fructose). Then I gradually started mixing the fructose with organic cane sugar at a half and half ratio, also kept my fat intake very low while doing this.

It took several months, but I no longer have the glycogen storage issue. I hope you find what works for you!

 

[nikotrope]

And I was taking vitamin K at 4-6 mg and niacinamide at 150 mg, 2-3 times daily. I was on the niacinamide for a couple months and the K for several months. But I stopped a lot of supplements because I felt like they weren't doing anything. I guess I should try them again.

I take 15mg per day, I think it should be temporary and more would be too expensive. I agree it's hard to know if it works or not. I've dropped supplements for some time and then took k2 and caffeine and it was the first time I really feel an effect with supplements I took (and I try a lot of different things).