Impossible to Lose Weight / Recover from Fasting

[Risingfire]

That IS a lot! RP recommends 4 mcg of T3 an hour. I take 8 mcg of Tyronene every 2 hours and one drop of Tyromix at bedtime.

Yea Ray has had quite a few recommendations such as 40/10 T4/T3 and 1-2 mcgs as needed on an hourly basis. To jump up to 4 grains in 4 weeks is insane

 

[LadyRae]

@abady your approach works for me too. I sleep better in fact, probably because I don't have food digesting and bugging me in the night.. my biggest meal for sure is around 1:00 or 2:00 p.m. I might have something small around 5:00 or 5:30 but definitely not a meal...

 

[Serge]

A good article on the effects of meal timing How Does Meal Timing Impact My Blood Sugar? – Sigma Nutrition

 

[abady]

Early time restricted eating has been gaining alot of popularity in the fasting community. Due to my work schedule I ended up eating late at night quite often. Id like to to try the reverse and see if i can make it work.

eating early is waay better than late from my experience I am pretty sure its gonna work better for you!

i mean it make sense u eat big when cortisol is high in the morning(cortisol is a hormone that help and regulates the energy consumed from protein carbs n fats)

later in the day the cortisol levels are so low, so for me if i eat more at night i gain all that food as fat always even if its healthy ray peat foods.

i eat when my cortisol is high and this is what helped me!.

 

[abady]

@abady your approach works for me too. I sleep better in fact, probably because I don't have food digesting and bugging me in the night.. my biggest meal for sure is around 1:00 or 2:00 p.m. I might have something small around 5:00 or 5:30 but definitely not a meal...

yess! its amazing i love this way of eating! even for me eating at night give me insomnia i just keep thinking about eating and not focusing on relaxing and sleep!

but also I am maybe so strict on myself by 3PM! like maybe 6-7PM yall can eat non-starchy veggies to fill u up if you want but not much!

 

[abady]

A good article on the effects of meal timing How Does Meal Timing Impact My Blood Sugar? – Sigma Nutrition

ty for sharing that!

for me honestly, the effect of meal timing is as IMPORTANT as avoiding pufas. people must try this out, its magical you just stay lean and lose fat eating this way.

 

[LadyRae]

@Serge great article! Not dumbed down....

 

[DaveFoster]

Background:​

6'2, 250 pounds, male, 25 years old. 5 years ago I was fairly fit and healthy, 185 pounds, worked out 5 times a week. After low calorie dieting for 1 year to try to cut my small amount of belly fat (which didn't work) and having no energy, I gave up on dieting and very quickly gained about 30 pounds of fat, as well as stretch marks on my belly. I then tried low carb, and eating only one meal a day, which made me gain an extra 10 or 15 pounds across the following year or two. Then, since that wasn't working, i tried doing fairly extreme fasts (7 day fasts, 3 day dry fasts, extended periods of one meal every 2 days, etc), which ultimately made me gain another 15 or 20 pounds or so. In those 5 years, strictly avoided sugar, but also avoided almost all PUFA (high fat diet). My energy from 5 years ago has never come back since dieting, and if anything is much worse after all the low carb and fasting.

Finding Ray:​

About a year ago, I found Ray's work, and slowly started adding sugar and fruit into my diet, as well as gelatin, coffee, etc. All this extra sugar didn't make me gain weight (but didn't make me lose weight either), to my pleasant surprise, and made my brain fog disappear as well as generally feeling all around better and happier. About 4 months ago, I decided I wanted to try to lose weight again, so, after listening to Ray mention this weight loss diet in an interview with the Strong Sistas, I did a diet of just milk, OJ, 1 carrot and 1 egg a day. I lost about 8 pounds in the first month, which ever since has also stopped working to lose weight. Since this diet was tiring and I had stopped losing weight for a month or two, i have slowly added back in other fruits, honey and cheese.

I have also recently started talking IdeaLab's Tyromax, going at about the equivalent 1.5 grains for the first 2 weeks, before upping it to 4 grains for the following two weeks, since I wasn't getting any effects from 1.5 grains (and Dr Broda Barnes says 4 grains is the upper limit one should take of thyroid). This hasn't affected my weight at all, and has infact made me very tired. I am planning on taking a few days/weeks off from thyroid, since it isn't working and is making me tired.

I have absolutely no energy for working out, which I used to enjoy quite a lot before dieting and fasting, and struggle to complete even a few sets of exercises before being way too tired to continue.

My diet is quite peaty (milk, juice, fruit, honey, cheese, coffee, red meat + bone broth, sugar, coconut oil and butter, daily carrot salad, weekly oysters + liver).

Lifestyle wise I went through a fairly stressful period 2-3 years ago, but I am no longer very stressed, and make sure to get some sun and walk each day.

What Do I Do?​

Can anyone advise me on how to actually lose weight and regain my energy? I feel like nothing at all works for me, and can barely even imagine successfully losing weight anymore (learned helplessness?) after trying and failing so many different things.

I am currently thinking of perhaps needing to supplement pregnenolone/DHEA (even though I am fairly young, which makes me think they probably wont work for me, but I don't have many other ideas), or even progesterone (which Ray mentions in Nutrition for Women section on Fasting as being the only steroid capable of restoring the thymus after damage from fasting, but I am a bit iffy on this as a young man since it can shrink penis etc).

Please recommend any ideas to me that could help me break out of this slump, regain my energy for working out and lose my excess 50 pounds of weight. Seems like absolutely nothing works for me. Open to any and all ideas.

I have some ideas. I offer one-on-one coaching, and your experience is actually very similar to me. You're on the right track, and I think it's great that thyroid (a stimulant) makes you tired! That's a great sign. Why would a stimulant make you tired? Well, it must be signaling on pathways related to excitation.

I'd generally recommend labs at this point, specifically a full thyroid panel including total T3, total T4, reverse T3 and TSH. It's likely that you need a higher ratio of T3 to T4, but the labs would confirm this.

 

[theslickpanther]

Thanks for the replies and ideas everyone.

@haidut @Vinny

I did do a blood test last week, my results are below:

DHEA Dehydroepiandrosterone: 8.1 ng/dL (range 2.4-15.8)
Serum Cortisol: 9.0 mcg/ml (range 3.7-19.4) (morning blood test btw)
Estrogen E2: 25.0 pg/ml (range <44)
Testosterone: 491 ng/dL (range 47-981)
Free Testosterone: 20.0 pg/ml (range 10-50)
Prolactin: 8.34ng/mL (range <20)
Vitamin 25OHD: 36.8 ng/ml (range 30-100)

Total Cholesterol 184 mg/dl (range 150-200)
Blood Sugar: 99 mg/dL (range 60-115)
Calcium 9.7 mg/dL (range 8.4-10.8)

TSH: 1.74 mU/L (range 0.35 -4.94)
FT3 3.31 pg/ml (range 1.58-3.91)
FT4 1.15 ng/dl (range 0.7-1.48)


Comparing these results to a blood test I did a year ago before starting peating, most things have moved in the right direction. Testosterone is slightly up (from 408 last year to 491 now) (although free Test is quite down, no idea why, from 30.0 to 20.0), Estrogen (from 32 last year to 25 now), prolactin (from 11.5 to 8.3) and cholesterol (from 209 to 184) are all down. My DHEA went from 4.7 -> 8.1 as well, which seems quite good.

Although ideally my TSH should be < 1, in general I think my blood work is not too bad (at least compared to what it was a year ago), aside from quite low testosterone for someone my age. What do you guys think?

Have you done any blood work for steroids, including thyroid? Sounds like the fasting and low-carbing tanked your metabolic rate and now you gain fat on even less calories than before this journey started, which is quite common. Virtually all people who took part in the "Biggest Loser" show definitely feel your pain.

"Biggest Loser" Contestants Regained Weight. Peat Perspective

Hi there I'm new to the forum though I've been reading it for a few months. I am pretty new to my Peat journey. I am assembling some questions as I am needing some help to understand some issues. But in the meantime I am really trying to understand from a Peat perspective how to lose belly fat...

raypeatforum.com

My suspicion is that cortisol will come back elevated or at least the cortisol/DHEA ratio will be way above optimal (<0.5 is best). Androgens such as T and/or DHT may also be low. TSH may be high, depending on how much you suppressed your thyroid with the fasting/stress.

I do definitely feel like my metabolism is tanked compared to where I started my journey, despite being ~50 pounds heavier. Is there any cure to this "Biggest Loser Effect", or have I irreparably damaged my metabolism?

It looks like my cortisol/DHEA ratio is 9/8.1 = 1.11, so quite a ways off the <0.5 optimal range. Do these results confirm your overall suspicions?

 

[Vinny]

Thanks for the replies and ideas everyone.

@haidut @Vinny

I did do a blood test last week, my results are below:

DHEA Dehydroepiandrosterone: 8.1 ng/dL (range 2.4-15.8)
Serum Cortisol: 9.0 mcg/ml (range 3.7-19.4) (morning blood test btw)
Estrogen E2: 25.0 pg/ml (range <44)
Testosterone: 491 ng/dL (range 47-981)
Free Testosterone: 20.0 pg/ml (range 10-50)
Prolactin: 8.34ng/mL (range <20)
Vitamin 25OHD: 36.8 ng/ml (range 30-100)

Total Cholesterol 184 mg/dl (range 150-200)
Blood Sugar: 99 mg/dL (range 60-115)
Calcium 9.7 mg/dL (range 8.4-10.8)

TSH: 1.74 mU/L (range 0.35 -4.94)
FT3 3.31 pg/ml (range 1.58-3.91)
FT4 1.15 ng/dl (range 0.7-1.48)


Comparing these results to a blood test I did a year ago before starting peating, most things have moved in the right direction. Testosterone is slightly up (from 408 last year to 491 now) (although free Test is quite down, no idea why, from 30.0 to 20.0), Estrogen (from 32 last year to 25 now), prolactin (from 11.5 to 8.3) and cholesterol (from 209 to 184) are all down. My DHEA went from 4.7 -> 8.1 as well, which seems quite good.

Although ideally my TSH should be < 1, in general I think my blood work is not too bad (at least compared to what it was a year ago), aside from quite low testosterone for someone my age. What do you guys think?



I do definitely feel like my metabolism is tanked compared to where I started my journey, despite being ~50 pounds heavier. Is there any cure to this "Biggest Loser Effect", or have I irreparably damaged my metabolism?

It looks like my cortisol/DHEA ratio is 9/8.1 = 1.11, so quite a ways off the <0.5 optimal range. Do these results confirm your overall suspicions?

It`s good you took some tests and posted them here, but to be honest, I don`t know what to make of them. I don`t know, because the results seem pretty good. You even ... improving?

But, the question still remains: why a 25 yo with such good blood work is putting fat? I don`t want the answer to this.....

The cortisol/DHEA ratio..... Cortisol is regarded here very detrimental, but I`m not completely sure about this. I remember I read some users highly against this theory.... Yours is only slightly elevated (I mean the ratio) - so what? Is it enough to make you 50 pounds heavier? I really doubt, but who knows....

You seem (judging from the results) like a pretty healthy guy (like me) who, for unknown reason, is putting fat (like me). All right, Im` twice older than you and for me going up is somehow natural, but what about you?

Are you really hypothyroid? I think this is very important to know, but it seems, from what I learned so far, hypo is tricky to be diagnosed.

You said you take thyroid and it didn`t do well on you, it made you tired, correct? Again, I`m not sure what to make of this, except to conclude you probably don`t need it....
So, if you don`t need thyroid, than you put fat for another reason.... which is? May be you don`t metabolize sugar?
I know for me, that I put fat from carbs. I know it for sure. That is why, until I make a thyroid panel, I experiment with elephant doses of Biotin, which is supposed to restore sugar metabolism, plus niacinamide and other B vitamins to support. Started recently, not much to say yet, will post whatever happened. Will go to the lab soon for thyroid tests.

I`m quite convinced we put fat from not utilizing glucose for fuel. The question for me is: why is so? Is it because we`re hypo? Is it because our cells are full with pufa fats and do not accept sugar for fuel? Is this what made us hypo (if we are) or we`re hypo because we can`t run on sugar?

 

[BeanSprouts]

Background:​

6'2, 250 pounds, male, 25 years old. 5 years ago I was fairly fit and healthy, 185 pounds, worked out 5 times a week. After low calorie dieting for 1 year to try to cut my small amount of belly fat (which didn't work) and having no energy, I gave up on dieting and very quickly gained about 30 pounds of fat, as well as stretch marks on my belly. I then tried low carb, and eating only one meal a day, which made me gain an extra 10 or 15 pounds across the following year or two. Then, since that wasn't working, i tried doing fairly extreme fasts (7 day fasts, 3 day dry fasts, extended periods of one meal every 2 days, etc), which ultimately made me gain another 15 or 20 pounds or so. In those 5 years, strictly avoided sugar, but also avoided almost all PUFA (high fat diet). My energy from 5 years ago has never come back since dieting, and if anything is much worse after all the low carb and fasting.

I'll tell you how to actually lose weight, not with "eat 3000 kcal of sugar a day" meme answers. You need to go back to the caloric deficit and lift. It's a personal topic with me because so many midwits wasted my time by feeding me utter crap about dieting.

What happened to you is that you were cutting too hard. At 6'2", you don't cut to 155 lbs or whatever; you're naturally going to be over 180 lbs. You're too tall to be that skinny. If you wanted bigger abs, you had to just work correctly and consistently. You cut too hard, then when you stopped, you started binge eating. All these meme diets you listed are things to excuse binge eating. "Low carb" means that bacon-wrapped fried butter is "healthy," and OMAD says nothing about your caloric intake. I've eaten large pizzas in one sitting, and that's OMAD. For the fasting, you just rebound the second you come off the fast. Proof of this is the obesity rate in many Muslim nations.

You have low energy because you're really fat. Every step you take is a 250-pound energy expenditure. If we rounded that weight up, you would be 300 lbs. Being fat is also estrogenic. Lose the weight and start working out again, and it will come back. To do that, you need a caloric deficit, or you're just wasting your time. Every person I see promoting these alternative diets is either fat themselves, has no progress pictures, or is on """trt," secretly meaning PED use, which means nothing they did diet-wise mattered. It's true on this forum just like everywhere else. DHEA won't do anything. Pregnenolone won't do anything. You have to just stop eating as much.

It is physically impossible to gain weight in a caloric deficit. People put words in Peat's mouth, claiming he drank a gallon of milk a day and stayed lean. He did not; he barely ate anything and drank a ton of coffee, which made up for the energy deficit.