Just discovered Peat, need advice on my diet

[humfree75]

I started reading some of Peat's advice about a month ago, I don't know much about nutrition but so far this is what i've done :
Reduce PUFA as much as I could
Up protein intake
Up carb intake
Limit veggies to mostly tubers

Now a little about my background. I started eating paleo about a year ago, went low carb to lose weight, under 50g carbs for several months. My health improved after ditching the grains but I had low energy levels, cold feet, and was hungry all the time due to severe caloric restriction. I'm 6'4 and dropped down to 170lbs from 250lbs during the past couple of years. I'm happy with the fatloss but still have a bit of fat around my belly, which i'm sure will go away once i've started putting some muscle back on. I've been eating around 2000 cals a day for the past few months, sometimes less. i'm now up to 2700/3000 to try and add some muscle to my frame by eating more and working out, and trying not to gain too much fat in the process. I've started tracking my food using cronometer, the results are 280g carbs/175g protein/148g fat. Any advice on what I could change/improve? I know my fat intake is pretty high because I use cheese and cottage cheese as my main protein sources, but it's cheap where I live (France) and I don't tolerate UHT skimmed milk very well. Here's a typical day of eating for me :

-Morning : homemade pancake using chestnut flour/banana/egg with maple syrup and some cream, cottage cheese with some jam, some milk, OJ
-Lunch : Carrot salad with other tubers like beets, radishes, and a couple mushrooms. Chopped boiled potatoes with some ham and cheese
-Dinner : Omelet with cheese and ham, homemade liver pate, some fruit and dried fruit covered in honey/molasses or table sugar, a cup of raw milk. I'll include my cron-o-meter results, which is telling me I need to up my vitamin E and K intake.
Thank you guys in advance, this forum is filled with useful information. I wish I found out about RP sooner!

 

[artemis]

Bienvenue, humfree75! France is so beautiful, especially this time of year!

Your diet looks pretty good to me. Do you ever eat shellfish/seafood? Drink coffee?

Many of us supplement Vitamins E and K, since they're so important, and difficult to get without eating lots of nuts, seeds, oils, or green veggies.

Are there any specific health issues you're dealing with?

 

[humfree75]

Thank you! It is, especially the countryside now that spring is slowly taking over!
I used to eat a lot of tuna, up to 200-300g a day, but I gave that up not too long ago. Other than that I don't eat any seafood, oysters and shellfish are just too expensive over here for my budget. I do drink coffee though, about a cup everyday. And liver, I make my own liver pate and eat about a tablespoon a day. I was thinking about eating more plums and dried apricots for my vit E and K intake, and eventually add some well-cooked spinach with one of my meals. I know veggies aren't Peat-friendly, but can 1/2 cup of spinach really be that bad for me?
Other than low energy levels, cold hands and feet after low-carbing for so long, I have some issues with my lower back. I was diagnosed with a discs inflammation when I was a teenager, and it comes back from time to time. At first I thought it might be the rice and rice flour I use to bake with sometimes, that it might be contaminated with some gluten which might be a source of inflammation for me. But lately i've been eating a lot of potatoes and a lot of them were green below the skin, so i'm going to remove them from my diet for a while and see if my back pain comes back.

 

[tara]

humfree75

Are you noticing any difference with the changes you've made so far? Are your hands and feet starting to warm up a bit? Any more energy or more calmness? I'm glad you are eating more, especially given how tall you are, and lowering PUFAs is generally good.

Peat recommends aiming for more calcium than phosphorus - preferably 1.5:1 Ca:Ph. Looks like you are getting some calcium from all the cheese, but not quite enough to balance the phosphorus. If you can't get enough calcium from milk and cheese, Peat has suggested clean eggshell powder as next best, and then oystershell after that.

You could add a bit of gelatine or broth from gelatinous bones for more antiinflamatory proteins.

Green potatoes are horrible - I'm fussy about not eating any green bits - I cut them off with a wide berth. Potatoes seem good for some people and not others. You could try being super picky about avoiding any vaguely green bits, or if you are still sensitive then, it might be worth leaving them out for a little while to see if it helps.

I eat a bit of spinach every week - not sure if it i doing me any harm, but I seem to feel worse if I go too long without any greens. Peat has suggested broth from greens as an occasional mineral source.

Oysters are prohibitively expensive where I am too. I occasionally buy a dozen, and freeze into 4 or more portions to have very occasionally. I think next time I'll freeze singly, and have one or two a week for a while. They are one of the best food sources of zinc.

If you can add in a bit more orange juice or other fruit, you'd probably be able to bring your magnesium and potassium levels up a bit higher, and a little more fruit sugar might be a good thing.

I don't know if it would make a big difference, but you could have your carrot salad away from other food - eg in the afternoon or evening. It's job is to sweep and clean the intestine somewhat, and it can do it better if the stomach isn't full of other food at the time. But it's better to eat it with lunch than not at all.

 

[nikotrope]

As a French myself (now living in Japan though), I agree that the only skimmed milk available (UHT) in France is awful. I usually drank milk from organic stores (Naturalia, Biocoop) with the brand "Bernard Gaborit". It's jersey milk which is nice and there's a low temp non-homogenized type (and you can easily skim the cream yourself) or sometimes a raw milk type.

I have been having a similar back problem since I was a teenager and a better metabolism and weightlifting resolved the problem.

Your priority is to boost your metabolism, so don't mind eating lots of sat fat if it makes you feel better.

 

[humfree75]

Are you noticing any difference with the changes you've made so far? Are your hands and feet starting to warm up a bit? Any more energy or more calmness? I'm glad you are eating more, especially given how tall you are, and lowering PUFAs is generally good.

I'm definitely seeing some improvements, although I think my body needs some more time to recover. I work in construction, so 8hrs/day of physical labor with less than 50g (sometimes a lot lower) of carbs a day wasn't a very smart move. I used to eat fermented cabbage and some other cruciferous veggies everyday so my lack of energy and cold extremities was probably my thyroid crying for help. Regarding my PUFA intake I logged my food yesterday and I was at 8g, 6.5 of those being O6. Is that acceptable or should I try and lower it? I get it mostly from the 4 eggs I eat almost everyday, and also a little bit of olive oil on my salad. In my paleo days I used to eat nuts by the handful with every meal and as a snack(especially walnuts, I have walnut trees right in my backyard), I also used olive oil with practically everything so god knows how much PUFA I was ingesting back then.

Peat recommends aiming for more calcium than phosphorus - preferably 1.5:1 Ca:Ph. Looks like you are getting some calcium from all the cheese, but not quite enough to balance the phosphorus. If you can't get enough calcium from milk and cheese, Peat has suggested clean eggshell powder as next best, and then oystershell after that.

You could add a bit of gelatine or broth from gelatinous bones for more antiinflamatory proteins.

I've been meaning to make eggshell powder for a while now, I'll give it a try. I actually ordered some collagen hydrolysate (Great Lakes) on Amazon yesterday, so it'll be part of my diet pretty soon. How much should I take daily? I'd prefer to make bone broth, since I'm sure it has a lot more than just gelatin, but I don't have access to organic bones. I'm a bit worried about the nasty stuff that I might be ingesting if I make it out of conventionally raised animals to be honest :) About the oysters I think i'll do just that, I had no idea a single oyster once a week was enough, that's great!
The problem I have with potatoes is that the ones I get always seem to be either green or sprouted, I eat about 1/2 pound of it at lunch so replacing it with white rice for a while might be worth a shot. I think it makes more sense to start by eliminating potatoes first, if the rice is contaminated with gluten, that small of a dose shouldn't give me such a bad reaction.

If you can add in a bit more orange juice or other fruit, you'd probably be able to bring your magnesium and potassium levels up a bit higher, and a little more fruit sugar might be a good thing.

That shouldn't be a problem since I absolutely love fruit! I'm slowly recovering from my fructose-phobia, and I have to say it's great to be able to eat some sweet stuff everyday without feeling guilty about it. I used to feel bad after having an apple, thinking that deadly fructose was harming my health and stalling my weightloss. I might be getting around 40/50g of fructose a day now, and it feels like a sugar-fest to me!

Nikotrope, where in France are you from? I've never seen that brand in the organic store I shop at, but I get my raw milk straight from a farm nearby. I might try to skim it myself so I can drink more of it without going overboard on my calorie intake.
I've been doing deadlifts to gain more lower back strength, but I think having a job where I lift cement bags and other heavy stuff all day long doesn't give my body enough time to recover. I'm thinking about replacing it with back-bridges to increase my flexibility. What's your weightlifting routine like?

 

[nikotrope]

Nikotrope, where in France are you from? I've never seen that brand in the organic store I shop at, but I get my raw milk straight from a farm nearby. I might try to skim it myself so I can drink more of it without going overboard on my calorie intake.
I've been doing deadlifts to gain more lower back strength, but I think having a job where I lift cement bags and other heavy stuff all day long doesn't give my body enough time to recover. I'm thinking about replacing it with back-bridges to increase my flexibility. What's your weightlifting routine like?

I've lived in Lille and Paris. They have a list of distributors on their website: http://www.bernardgaborit.fr/ou-nous-tr ... tributeurs

I have been kind of hypothyroid pretty much all my life and despite doing lots of sports, I wasn't getting muscle mass. It's only when I fixed my metabolism that I gained muscle mass easily and fixed all my pains. I am doing pulldown, bench press and leg press, one set to failure once or twice a week. And I've gained more muscles with 10 minutes of weightlifting per week than hours of sports and crossfit-like workouts.
If you do deadlifts, squats could be good for your back too. I've done deadlifts, squats and overhead presses in the past with success. back-bridges are probably a good thing too, some yoga since you are using your muscles all day could be a good thing too.

But really the important thing before thinking about working out (and since you have an active job, I don't think you have to) is to fix the metabolism. Keep eating like you do, or even more if you feel hungry. Once metabolism is fixed, your body will fix itself and put muscle mass if it needs to. At least it's my experience and also the experience of several people on this forum.

 

[tara]

About the oysters I think i'll do just that, I had no idea a single oyster once a week was enough, that's great!

I just looked up oysters, and 1 is not enough to meet a weeks needs. 2/day or 12 a week is more like it, depending on size.
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fin ... cts/4192/2

But I dont think I can afford a dozen a week, so I'll still be skimping on them.

 

[humfree75]

Nikotrope, how did you go about fixing your metabolism? You just started eating more than you used to? I have an insatiable appetite, if I eat as much as my body tells me to it ends up being a crap-ton of food. I mean I could eat 5000+ calories and still feel like eating some more, as I have when I had "cheat days" during my weight loss journey. I'd like to eat until I'm full everyday, but this is what got me to weight 250lbs in the first place, so i'm still a bit hesitant to up my daily cals over 3000.
I do squats sometimes, I don't have access to a gym (I live way out in the boonies) so I use a beer keg filled with sand. Other than that I only do calisthenics, 4 days a week for about 15 minutes.
Good news is I found a decent brand of skim milk, it's UHT but it tastes decent and I seem to digest it well, so I can lower my fat intake and get more carbs in. My macros the past few days were about 400g carbs/160g protein/70g fat. Is there really a metabolic advantage in eating higher carb/lower fat, especially the days I eat in a caloric surplus? I definitely have more energy and my mood improved, but i'm still not sure if it's because of the higher carb intake or the overall calories.

I just looked up oysters, and 1 is not enough to meet a weeks needs. 2/day or 12 a week is more like it, depending on size.
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fin ... cts/4192/2

But I dont think I can afford a dozen a week, so I'll still be skimping on them.

Too bad, but that sounded too good to be true! I'll try to eat 2-3 a week anyway. Believe it or not I've never had oysters, so we'll see how that goes :)

 

[nikotrope]

I can't answer to anything for sure because it's individual.

Improving metabolism can be done with supplements (thyroid) and by good nutrition (milk, fruits) but without more calories it will stress the body and not improve metabolism that much (but it will not decrease metabolism IMO). I don't feel carb/fat ratio has any metabolic advantage, but more carbs when active is probably useful.

I don't have a way to lose fat magically. I always did it by doing a calorie deficit. But now I can lose weight at 2000kcal, last time I lost weight I had to eat only 1300kcal.

It seems that a really low fat diet would be a great tool to lose fat weight even with a calorie surplus but I didn't experience that. Other people on the forum did and studies seem to support this idea.

 

[humfree75]

Just a quick update after one month of increased calories, i gained close to 7 lbs but it doesn't look like any of it is fat, so I'm guessing it's mostly water and glycogen. My energy has significantly increased, and so has my libido (which was close to non-existant for several months). I'm still eating about 3000+ cals a day, and increased my meal frequency to try and heal my metabolism. Quick question though, is it fine if I mix baking soda and milk together? I'm making myself 1L of milk mixed with BS and sugar that I bring to work and sip on it when I'm taking a break. I started mixing baking soda with OJ and recently added it to my milk+sugar aswell.
Also for those who are wondering, here's a before/after picture to give you an idea of what I looked like when I was 90lbs heavier! Looking at that picture now it was about damn time I did something about that belly

 

[Peata]

I can't answer to anything for sure because it's individual.

Improving metabolism can be done with supplements (thyroid) and by good nutrition (milk, fruits) but without more calories it will stress the body and not improve metabolism that much (but it will not decrease metabolism IMO). I don't feel carb/fat ratio has any metabolic advantage, but more carbs when active is probably useful.

I don't have a way to lose fat magically. I always did it by doing a calorie deficit. But now I can lose weight at 2000kcal, last time I lost weight I had to eat only 1300kcal.

It seems that a really low fat diet would be a great tool to lose fat weight even with a calorie surplus but I didn't experience that. Other people on the forum did and studies seem to support this idea.

i have had the same experiences.