How Did I Recover?

[HyperPeatarian]

Hey,

I experienced an odd recovery which I would like to share.

I am almost 24 years old. Three years ago, I had been feeling sluggish, tired and not my best despite being still young. I measured my temperature. It was 34.7°C. My hands and my feet were always ice cold. People had been making me aware of it so many times. After researching the issue, I learned more about peating. I had been following the regimen for a year. This included avoiding PUFA and eating lots of calories. However after a year my temperature had not risen.

I gave up. Basically, I ended up not caring about my health anymore so much. I have been eating whatever I wanted (this includes PUFA) but still practiced Calisthenics which kept me in shape.

However, because I have been feeling really good, strong and energetic for the last year, I decided recently to measure my temperature. Especially since my feet feel so warm at night in bed now. To be honest, I expected the same low temperature. So it was like meh, let's do it out of curiosity.

Over the course of different days, I measured my temperature multiple times and got measurements between 36.5°C and 37°C.

How is this possible?

Seems like PUFA is not the only variable we have to consider.

 

[gaze]

Stress is what kills metabolism and it happens when during stress pufas are released into the bloodstream and oxidize, aka oxidative stress. Peats recommendations are to make someone more resistant to stress, however even someone with a high pufa diet and a good attitude in life can be healthy because at the end of the day stress is all that matters, even though it becomes harder to be stress free with a diet high in pufas. Someone eating no pufas who’s still stressed will also not be able to recover as you did, as the whole point of cutting pufas is to reduce stress. also, a major Problem is pufas accumulate very easily, so if your 50 and all of a sudden go through and extremely stressful period, or even over exercise , within a couple of weeks/months your thyroid can crash from years of pufas accumulation. Also, even with a good attitude one can gain weight/be bald/have high estrogen prolactin. Some people with very strong minds and are comfortable with who they are genuinely don’t care, and can remain stress free throughout that, but most people on this forum are extremely self aware and are not able to do that. to sum up, your no fcks given attitude is what healed you, but it remains to be seen if you can keep that as you age and accumulate pufas.

 

[Cirion]

One of my guess would be calories. A lot of people here are undereating. Unfortunately, no one listens to me about eating more because I'm the resident fat guy so of course people will say "you're fat because you eat too many calories etc." But I have a lot of data (I have been extensively tracking since March a lot of metrics like temp vs. diet changes) to prove my points that lots of calories are needed, and I've seen more than one guy here who is eating almost only 50% of what they should be and wonder why they need thyroid, but anyway, I digress lol, that's a debate for another thread.

But a few people here have ascribed to the Gwyneth Olwyn / Matt Stone style recovery system which is essentially eat whatever you want in the quantities you want to recover. Some have indeed recovered this way, but it doesn't work for everyone. This hasn't worked for me. I love the idea they present which is unrestricted calories, but it misses the finer points, so for some this just doesn't work.

You are right tho -- PUFA is not the only thing. I recently came to discover that at least for me, Cystine and Tryptophan are very devastating amino acids, and arguably even worse than PUFA, but I don't think many people here focus on Cystine/Trytophan (at least not to the degree that I have with my extensive plotting and data gathering), and haven't given them the respect they deserve. Then of course there's other factors like how many carbs are you eating which is also huge. Etc...

Congrats on your recovery btw. Sometimes it can get negative around here because people are so sick, so the recovery stories are always good to have!

 

[tara]

Glad you are feeling well. :)

After researching the issue, I learned more about peating. I had been following the regimen for a year. This included avoiding PUFA and eating lots of calories.

I'm not sure what or whose regimen you were following (other than those two factors), but I doubt it is something Peat would have recommended you follow strictly for a year if it wasn't working for you.

Seems like PUFA is not the only variable we have to consider.

I can't imagine why it would be. The body is complex and has many needs.

 

[HyperPeatarian]

Thanks for the input everyone.

Yes, perhaps it was really primitive to only cut PUFA and eating lots of calories without including other factors in. I remember tracking my vitamin and mineral intake as well though, also using additional supplements. Maybe that was just more stress for me. However, now this has motivated me to go back to reducing my PUFA load and to look into other factors as well. This time though, I will not stress myself about it.

 

[gaze]

Thanks for the input everyone.

Yes, perhaps it was really primitive to only cut PUFA and eating lots of calories without including other factors in. I remember tracking my vitamin and mineral intake as well though, also using additional supplements. Maybe that was just more stress for me. However, now this motivated me to go back eating less to none PUFA and to look at other factors as well, yet I will continue to not stress myself about it.

Yea an ideal situation would be to eat low pufa/real food, while still viewing it as food and something to be enjoyed, regardless if it’s healthy or not. The no fcks given attitude is what made humans human, as instead of focusing on food we focused on science, art, government, etc. Problem is in today’s toxic food environment we have to think more about food, but we should all strive to focus on things outside of food for the most part, while paying enough attention to eat good. The fact that you healed yourself eating anything should give some comfort though, as it proves to yourself that if you eat cake at a birthday party you won’t die but in all seriousness seriously stressing about healthy eating (real orthorexia) will eventually do more harm then good

 

[HyperPeatarian]

Yea an ideal situation would be to eat low pufa/real food, while still viewing it as food and something to be enjoyed, regardless if it’s healthy or not. The no fcks given attitude is what made humans human, as instead of focusing on food we focused on science, art, government, etc. Problem is in today’s toxic food environment we have to think more about food, but we should all strive to focus on things outside of food for the most part, while paying enough attention to eat good

Very beautifully said. I agree completely. My mood and my perception of life changed for the better when I changed my views. I suppose everything is good in balance and the psychological aspect might play a big role which we cannot underestimate.