I Am New To Ray Peat And I Have Some Questions

Francisco

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Aug 7, 2019
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56
I have recently decided to go Peat-o mode and thought I’d post my current diet, my dietary history, issues I’m hoping to remedy, and how I’m feeling so far.
I’m here looking for advice, so feel free to give me some.

This will be a long post, so I understand if I don’t get many replies. Feel free to skip to the diet section if you don’t want to read all this.

Background:

So, for about 2 years now I’ve been on a long and confusing journey through the world of diet and nutrition. There have been many foibles and misadventures up to this point, but I feel as if I’m on the right track.
I was on the low-carb bandwagon from January of this year until very recently. I started making significant changes to my diet almost two years ago when I decided to cut dairy out and severely restrict sugar and carbs overall. My reason for doing this was that I had severe acne at the time and had heard that dairy and sugar can be major triggers. I hardly deviated from this restrictive regimen until around summer of last year when I began eating some fruits in small quantities, as well as brown rice and occasionally bread. I was still very wary of dairy and would only consume greek yoghurt and butter every now and again. The foods I ate during this time were mostly green smoothies, nut butters (I became quite the connoisseur), granola (sometimes), Clif bars (often one a day), and I would eat out at Chipotle or get cheap sushi from a supermarket near me. I understood little about food quality (I didn’t even understand what organic actually meant until last year), and honestly I didn’t care too much. Looking back now I realize that my diet was pretty bad, but at the time I didn’t feel too terrible; although my health would continue to get worse as my diet became more restrictive.
If we fast forward a bit to January of this year, I am feeling burned out. It’s the dead of winter, which is always a bad time for me, and my diet was starting to make me feel like ***t. I had lost about 20 pounds of weight since November 2017, and hair had thinned considerably in a short amount of time. I had terrible dandruff, worse than I had ever experienced (and am still trying to remedy), and I felt weak and cold all the time. I felt exasperated.
Then I stumbled upon the world of alternative diets.
Up until that point I had been basing my diet around mainstream health advice, until one night when I was scrolling through YouTube and I came across a video by Amber O’Hearn (I think that’s her name). Amber is a strong advocate of the carnivore diet. I only watched a couple of her videos, but I had already begun my descent down the rabbit hole. Next I discovered Joe Saladino, who at the time was a new convert to the carno movement. I felt awful and was desperate for a solution, and this new perspective felt like salvation to me. That was when I came across Frank Tufano, the Greek god of the primal pantheon. I binged watched all of his videos and became a wholehearted disciple of the carnivore diet in a single night.
For dinner that night my mother had prepared baked fish wish breadcrumbs on top, and when I got my plate I scraped off the breadcrumbs and just ate the fish. I remember my sister looking at me like I was some kinda freak as I did it.
Anyways, I had dived into the deep end of the low-carb world, and unfortunately things would only get worse from there.
I was convinced that all my ailments were stemming from the small amount of carbs that I was consuming, and so I went as low as I could. I had very little money at the time, so I had to survive off of eggs most of the time. Being able to get some ground beef was a luxury I could afford maybe once a week. So my diet had become even more restrictive, and, if I had to guess, I would say I was consuming significantly less than 1000 calories per day on average. My diet consisted mainly of 4 or 5 eggs for breakfast with butter and salt, and an apple or two and a few hefty spoonfuls of PB (because I couldn’t afford to go full carnivore, but I still considered myself an adherent to the diet). I often wouldn’t eat anything for lunch, and dinner would usually be just meat, often with rice.
Needless to say, I felt worse than ever. My dandruff and my hair only got worse, I dropped another 10 pounds or so, I felt weak and cold all the time, I had heart palpitations often, and I was constantly stressed out, on-edge, and easily irritated.
Over time I began to back away from the carnivore diet, as I realized it wasn’t benefitting me, and did sorta the reverse of how many people’s dietary journey goes: Carnivore>Keto/Low-Carb>Paleo.
Since I hopped off the low-carb bandwagon, I’ve been following a trail that’s led me to the work of Dr. Ray Peat. Unlike my quasi-religious conversion to carnivore and low-carb, my approach to Dr. Peat’s work has been more tentative. After being stuck in the keto/paleo milieu, the perspectives and advice presented by Dr. Peat seemed outlandish at first, but rather than discard them or just accept them outright, I chose to approach them with skepticism and much trepidation.
Recently I’ve been putting the knowledge I’ve gleaned to practice; seeing how I fare with certain foods and trying to find what works best for me.
I’m very new to this and any advice would be helpful.

Diet:

One thing I’m sure I need to be doing is upping my calorie intake significantly. Up until now I’ve been averaging at around 1500 calories per day, sometimes less. I think my unintentionally low-calorie diet I’ve been following for almost 2 years has probably been most detrimental to me.

I am constantly tweaking my diet at the moment, but here’s a general outline:

-I have been eating two eggs a day for the past week. Previously, I would often eat up to 8 eggs a day, because they were one of my few good sources of nutrition, but I now realize that probably isn’t such a good thing.
-For about 2 weeks now I have been consuming at least 2 cups of OJ per day.
-A little over a week ago I began to reintroduce dairy back into my diet, first starting with hard cheeses like Parmigiano Reggiano, and I seemed to tolerate that perfectly well so I started drinking milk again this week, for the first time in years. So far I seem to be doing well with milk, nothing terrible (I have another thread talking about my experience so far with milk, if you want more info on that).
-I began drinking coffee this week, which I haven’t consumed in awhile. I never was a huge coffee drinker, but I would have tea quite often.
-I have pretty much eliminated starch from my diet in favor of sugar. I seem to be doing fine with that.
-I have begun consuming gelatin this week. I usually mix 2 tablespoons of grass-fed beef gelatin with OJ.

One benefit I’ve noticed is that I feel much less stressed (placebo?), but I think it’s too soon to call anything.
I will post updates as I continue on this journey.
 
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Tarmander

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Apr 30, 2015
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3,763
Good luck man.

Sounds like you are on your way. Don't be afraid to take Peat in from high altitude...meaning, avoid PUFA, but do not make a religion out of it. Maybe eat lower starch, higher sugar, but some people do really well on starch and maybe you are one of those (like me :)). Just do not get locked into anything and push on, feeling bad, because of what Peat says. As long as you are avoiding Fish oil, gums, and the broadly stressful things, you are doing well.
 
OP
Francisco

Francisco

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Aug 7, 2019
Messages
56
Good luck man.

Sounds like you are on your way. Don't be afraid to take Peat in from high altitude...meaning, avoid PUFA, but do not make a religion out of it. Maybe eat lower starch, higher sugar, but some people do really well on starch and maybe you are one of those (like me :)). Just do not get locked into anything and push on, feeling bad, because of what Peat says. As long as you are avoiding Fish oil, gums, and the broadly stressful things, you are doing well.

Like I said, I think I’m on the right track. Compared to other diets I’ve tried, I’ve found this “diet” to be the most satisfying. I’m actually able to consume all macronutrient groups and feel good about it. I remember when I took my first “dive” a couple weeks ago and drank two cups of freshly squeezed orange juice. I felt guilty at first, but afterwards my body felt better and I realized that bad feeling was in my head. So much of dieting is psychological, and it can be hard to unshackle yourself from rigid dietary dogmas, but once you do it’s so freeing.
I’ve been doing well on just sugar, but I might incorporate small amounts of starch back into the mix once I feel my digestion is in a better place.
Im just glad I can consume fruit and dairy again; I used to live off that stuff lmao
 

Gone Peating

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Sep 16, 2018
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1,006
If you are an average sized male I think you should be eating at least 2500 calories a day and that's if you are sedentary.

You don't need to be so restrictive either, try a bunch of different fruits and foods in general out - as long as it is not high in pufa or does not contain vegetable oil it's probably safe if it doesn't cause digestive trouble or make you feel bad.

Don't feel weird if you want to snack often when first beginning to peat - I needed to eat something ever 1.5 hours or so for the first few months
 

victormgc

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Joined
Sep 19, 2018
Messages
49
Starting to eat enough calories was huge for me. I used to eat 1400 calories a day, because I got used to eat little since I was a child. Because of that my metabolism got hurt really bad and it thriggered a lot of health problems.
I've raised the calories to 2500 in the last month and I'm feeling so much better! More energetic, warmer, stronger..
You should really focus on this.
Good luck with your journey!
 

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