I Feel Much Worse Whenever I Try Anything Peat

[malibumaniac]

I am / was under thr impression that serotonin is bad and the cause for my life long struggle with with depression, memory issues and sickness. I'm 32.
But whenever I try most of the things suggested here that lower serotonin and increase dopamine, I feel 2x worse.

Consumimg any type of sugar or fruit juice brings instant depression. Sugar releases dopsmine.

Taking vitamin D, K , E, Calcium or saturated fat makes me feel more depressed and anhedonic. All of these increase dopamine and antagonizes serotonin.

Eating meat brings almost instant depression and causes major verbal memory issues within 15 minutes where I cannot remember words , names etc. High protein lowers serotonin

BCAA with tyrosine makes feel even worse.
With l-tryotophan it makes me feel toxic.
BCAA alone relieves some of my issues .

I feel better on a high complex carb low protein, low fat diet.

What gives? what is my issue? Too much dopamine, too little serotonin? too much too little of something else?

 

[Sobieski]

I know this is a late reply, but everyone's physiology is different. If you feel better in the long run doing what you're doing, keep at it. Low PUFA is the key.

 

[ddjd]

BCAA alone relieves some of my issues .

None of this makes sense. BCAAs reduce Serotonin considerably so your issue is not low Serotonin.

With l-tryotophan it makes me feel toxic.

why are you taking L-trytophan. It's the one of the main things peat says to avoid!!

Consumimg any type of sugar or fruit juice brings instant depression. Sugar releases dopsmine.

instead of white sugar or fruit juice. Just eat real fruit on the safe list. Honeydew melon is awesome. I doubt you'd feel bad after eating it.

 

[yerrag]

Consumimg any type of sugar or fruit juice brings instant depression.

Are you low on thiamine?

Taking vitamin D, K , E, Calcium or saturated fat makes me feel more depressed and anhedonic. All of these increase dopamine and antagonizes serotonin.

Are you taking vitamin E at a different time than when you take Vitamin K? Is it Vitamin K or K2? There is a difference.

Why don't you try eating oysters and goat or sheep liver for vitamins A, D, and K2 instead? Maybe you're lacking vitamin A?

How are you taking calcium? How are you eating saturated fat? Too many blanks for us to fill. Can you elaborate? If you generalize, your answers will also be generalized and less useful to you.

 

[Atman]

I am / was under thr impression that serotonin is bad and the cause for my life long struggle with with depression, memory issues and sickness. I'm 32.
But whenever I try most of the things suggested here that lower serotonin and increase dopamine, I feel 2x worse.

Consumimg any type of sugar or fruit juice brings instant depression. Sugar releases dopsmine.

Taking vitamin D, K , E, Calcium or saturated fat makes me feel more depressed and anhedonic. All of these increase dopamine and antagonizes serotonin.

Eating meat brings almost instant depression and causes major verbal memory issues within 15 minutes where I cannot remember words , names etc. High protein lowers serotonin

BCAA with tyrosine makes feel even worse.
With l-tryotophan it makes me feel toxic.
BCAA alone relieves some of my issues .

I feel better on a high complex carb low protein, low fat diet.

What gives? what is my issue? Too much dopamine, too little serotonin? too much too little of something else?

Stop thinking in materialistic, mechanistic terms.
"Molecule x is evil and probably the reason for my depression. If I fine tune my diet to decrease x, my life will be awesome again."

Eat nutrient dense foods and avoid PUFAs and processed foods, i.e. the basics of Peat's practical advice. If you feel better with eating potatoes and rice instead of fruits, just do so.
When you do that, your diet is better than 99% of the population. If you then still feel like ***t, diet is probably not the reason for it and this forum thereby probably not the place to look for answers.

 

[Sobieski]

Stop thinking in materialistic, mechanistic terms.
"Molecule x is evil and probably the reason for my depression. If I fine tune my diet to decrease x, my life will be awesome again."

Eat nutrient dense foods and avoid PUFAs and processed foods, i.e. the basics of Peat's practical advice. If you feel better with eating potatoes and rice instead of fruits, just do so.
When you do that, your diet is better than 99% of the population. If you then still feel like ***t, diet is probably not the reason for it and this forum thereby probably not the place to look for answers.

Nice response

 

[tara]

If you feel better in the long run doing what you're doing, keep at it. Low PUFA is the key.

+1

Are you low on thiamine?

+1. Or other B-vits, or minerals.

I feel better on a high complex carb low protein, low fat diet.

This might have the advantages of being low in PUFA, and may help keep blood sugars reasonably stable, and be lowish in tryptophan, methionine, cysteine.

But it doesn't say what you are actually eating, so it might have set yourself up with some deficiencies that make you vulnerable, and those vulnerabilities might be what show up when you try changing things. If you want to, you could enter your typical food in cronometer or similar to get a rough idea what nutrition you are getting. Then you can either look yourself to see if there are obvious gaps in nutrition, or post screenshots here if you want other comment (ignore the low calorie advice - it's aimed at restriction, not healing).
Or there could be things in there that are causing trouble.

Stress hormones tend to rise in response to stress, to help access extra reserves of energy to deal with the demand. Lowering stress hormones by artificial meas while the stress/energy demand is still too high doesn't always lead to good results. It's not always easy to get the whole picture, but I think trying to broaden it may help.

You can make a rough assessment of your base metabolism by monitoring resting body temps.

I't's not clear whether you tried replacing some of your usual foods, or just added more food and felt worse.

If by sugar you mean refined sugar, then Peat doesn't usually recommend it as a staple.

Fruit juice can be helpful if you need it, but if you already have plenty of carbs in your system, you may not need more. Or you may have a personal reaction to a particular species, or a reaction to poor quality.

Peat has mentioned gelatin with muscle meat as a way to balance amino acids.

I tend to think it makes sense to look at diet and other basic needs first before considering whether supplementation might be useful.

 

[jitsmonkey]

consider the possibility that your gut is the primary issue
antibiotics like Doxycycline could be just the ticket to start with.
my n=1 sample size confirms this 100%

 

[goodandevil]

I am / was under thr impression that serotonin is bad and the cause for my life long struggle with with depression, memory issues and sickness. I'm 32.
But whenever I try most of the things suggested here that lower serotonin and increase dopamine, I feel 2x worse.

Consumimg any type of sugar or fruit juice brings instant depression. Sugar releases dopsmine.

Taking vitamin D, K , E, Calcium or saturated fat makes me feel more depressed and anhedonic. All of these increase dopamine and antagonizes serotonin.

Eating meat brings almost instant depression and causes major verbal memory issues within 15 minutes where I cannot remember words , names etc. High protein lowers serotonin

BCAA with tyrosine makes feel even worse.
With l-tryotophan it makes me feel toxic.
BCAA alone relieves some of my issues .

I feel better on a high complex carb low protein, low fat diet.

What gives? what is my issue? Too much dopamine, too little serotonin? too much too little of something else?

Ray has said that cortisol can make people feel good, have you tracked your resting temperature with your emotional changes?

 

[X3CyO]

As someone with prior lifelong gut problems, changing the food did nothing. It was keeping digestion fast, and peristalsis consistant until eventually things started to work. Thats one of the overall benefits of the foods that peat uses.

Based of what youve said mirroring what ive done and similar symptoms, Id say you may have intestinal damage.

My interpretation is the gut wants to heal. Serotonin stimulates peristalsis. Foods that dont irritate, are well cooked and easily digested dont stimulate as much serotonin.

Stopping the serotonin artificially, removes the symptoms and tricks the body into thinking things are okay, but the problem still remains.

Sometimes thats enough rest for the body to effectively remove the problem.


Id try gelatin but dont overdo it. Id stick to 15grams to 30 daily. Redbull never caused me problems so I used that a lot. Figured the b taurine and small bit of caffiene would help peristalsis.
Eventually used coffee, carrots, and gelatin powder mixed in plain yogurt. Slowly added whole fruit ontop that. Juice used to really tear up my stomach, and any starch that was undercooked. Pressure cooked rice and potatoes were great during this time in my life too. Stopped all supplements and drugs even though it was hard to psychologically. (Picked up the coffee habit, and eventually smoking for a small period of time which was powerful in regards to peristalsis stimulation personally. I know that some people with crohns can say the same although most information will link tobacco with any problem under the sun. But I think it just comes down to dose, adulteration and frequency like any other drug.)

Maybe thatd help you as well?

Good luck

 

[fradon]

I am / was under thr impression that serotonin is bad and the cause for my life long struggle with with depression, memory issues and sickness. I'm 32.
But whenever I try most of the things suggested here that lower serotonin and increase dopamine, I feel 2x worse.

Consumimg any type of sugar or fruit juice brings instant depression. Sugar releases dopsmine.

Taking vitamin D, K , E, Calcium or saturated fat makes me feel more depressed and anhedonic. All of these increase dopamine and antagonizes serotonin.

Eating meat brings almost instant depression and causes major verbal memory issues within 15 minutes where I cannot remember words , names etc. High protein lowers serotonin

BCAA with tyrosine makes feel even worse.
With l-tryotophan it makes me feel toxic.
BCAA alone relieves some of my issues .

I feel better on a high complex carb low protein, low fat diet.

What gives? what is my issue? Too much dopamine, too little serotonin? too much too little of something else?

i think most harmful or bad serotonin comes from LEAKY GUT and this leads to inflammation as you can get high amounts of serotonin in the blood but

YOU still need serotonin to move your bowels and you need it to antagonise dopamine/adrenaline or else you are going to be wired,/anxious/nervous
but that is brain serotonin not gut serotonin. if you have low brain serotonin you can get dopamine loops or OCD.

 

[TripleOG]

As someone with prior lifelong gut problems, changing the food did nothing. It was keeping digestion fast, and peristalsis consistant until eventually things started to work. Thats one of the overall benefits of the foods that peat uses.

+1

Gut motility has easily become priority #1 for me. Everything falls in line when digestion is fast and consistent.

Recently implemented advice from the Stan Efferding thread to "walk 10 minutes after eating to aid digestion." It's now a staple. Helps tremendously. Interestingly, riding a stationary bike doesn't offer the same benefit.

 

[Jon]

A couple people have already eluded to this somewhat, but you may be over thinking things a bit.

I am also someone who suffered digestion issues most of my life and I can tell you that the most powerful digestive aid was letting go of my need to try to control and understand everything about my health and diet. Your mentality and attitude towards your situation are important, this was the first thing that made me feel better. I first acknowledged that I had self worth, that with time I would figure it out, and that I wasn't in a box yet so something inside me is working hard to persevere.

Depression is tricky and it loves to lie to you and make you dig a deeper hole for yourself. Like the others have said "Do what you feel best doing"

I myself don't do everything 100% textbook Peat. I eat primarily starch, eat about 0.8grams of protein per pound of LEAN mass, and get in 0.3g of fat per pound of lean mass. 3/4 of my carbs come from starch the other 1/4 from fructose, and most of my fat comes from saturated fat but I still have roughly 4grams of PUFA a day. I supplement VERY conservatively as I've seen nothing but adverse effects from getting in anymore than what is necessary to fill the upper limit rda of any one nutrient and only take extremely small amounts of things like aspirin if I think I've incurred substantial physical and/or emotional stress.

My bloodwork done a month ago shows my testosterone is up to 818ng/dl from 650ng/dl about 6 months ago. Things like my tsh, pth, glucose, and triglycerides are all within better ranges as well and I attribute this to just doing what made me feel good. I delt with symptoms of hypothyroidism, ibs, pre diabetes, insomnia, and depression for 9 years before this recent turn around and it's all because I finally gave my body what it was telling me it wanted and stopped trying to force it to do something it was telling me was wrong. A member on here once disagreed with peats views saying that you cannot tote all these things as healthy but instead you should be seeking balance and using these substances and methods to obtain such. Balance is unique to us all.

 

[BigChad]

A couple people have already eluded to this somewhat, but you may be over thinking things a bit.

I am also someone who suffered digestion issues most of my life and I can tell you that the most powerful digestive aid was letting go of my need to try to control and understand everything about my health and diet. Your mentality and attitude towards your situation are important, this was the first thing that made me feel better. I first acknowledged that I had self worth, that with time I would figure it out, and that I wasn't in a box yet so something inside me is working hard to persevere.

Depression is tricky and it loves to lie to you and make you dig a deeper hole for yourself. Like the others have said "Do what you feel best doing"

I myself don't do everything 100% textbook Peat. I eat primarily starch, eat about 0.8grams of protein per pound of LEAN mass, and get in 0.3g of fat per pound of lean mass. 3/4 of my carbs come from starch the other 1/4 from fructose, and most of my fat comes from saturated fat but I still have roughly 4grams of PUFA a day. I supplement VERY conservatively as I've seen nothing but adverse effects from getting in anymore than what is necessary to fill the upper limit rda of any one nutrient and only take extremely small amounts of things like aspirin if I think I've incurred substantial physical and/or emotional stress.

My bloodwork done a month ago shows my testosterone is up to 818ng/dl from 650ng/dl about 6 months ago. Things like my tsh, pth, glucose, and triglycerides are all within better ranges as well and I attribute this to just doing what made me feel good. I delt with symptoms of hypothyroidism, ibs, pre diabetes, insomnia, and depression for 9 years before this recent turn around and it's all because I finally gave my body what it was telling me it wanted and stopped trying to force it to do something it was telling me was wrong. A member on here once disagreed with peats views saying that you cannot tote all these things as healthy but instead you should be seeking balance and using these substances and methods to obtain such. Balance is unique to us all.

How did you fix the gut issues

 

[jet9]

+1

Gut motility has easily become priority #1 for me. Everything falls in line when digestion is fast and consistent.

Recently implemented advice from the Stan Efferding thread to "walk 10 minutes after eating to aid digestion." It's now a staple. Helps tremendously. Interestingly, riding a stationary bike doesn't offer the same benefit.

What (foods, etc) works for Gut motility?

 

[FrostedShores]

Two things that have drastically improved my own depression/mental health:

1) Getting my liver in better shape. Search the forum for ways to do this. Best way in my experience is high-dose caffeine + K2 MK-4.

2) Getting inflammation under control. Might sound weird, but the best thing I've found for this is baking soda (sodium bicarbonate). For whatever reason, aspirin doesn't work as well for me as plain old baking soda.

Other things that have been helpful, but not as significant: avoiding starch, avoiding citric acid (the manufactured kind that's added to everything; not the kind found naturally in things like orange juice), increasing intake of cholesterol and saturated fats, and improving the gut (cascara sagrada has been very helpful; activated charcoal less so).

 

[FrostedShores]

What (foods, etc) works for Gut motility?

Bamboo shoots work well for me.

 

[Andy316]

@malibumaniac You still around mate? Did anything help since you posted.