Let's Stop Pretending

[danielbb]

My question was more concrete: this Energy that is needed for life - taking action, having sex, learning new things, fighting with my mother - I always thought of it as a wholly mental thing, and even though I always believed in a synergy of mind and matter, it just never occured to me "having the energy" to do something could actually mean having a biochemical, Biology 101- making ATP in your mitochondria kind of energy.

That's the revelation here for me, and I don't know yet that it's in fact true, but if it is, it can simplify many things.

Light - from my experience and what I posted above, I think your intuition is correct. I never would have connected feelings of depression and/or other negative thoughts to diet until changing my diet made these things go away - at least for me. Many who ask me about my diet think I am kooky and say that my experiences are a one-off or an outlier. I beg to differ based on my anecdotal evidence of one and other positive things I've read here where people started feeling better and in fact healed themselves by being mindful of what they eat. Food is a drug and I have no doubts about that. I do believe we have the power to heal ourselves. God bless you.

 

[somuch4food]

My question was more concrete: this Energy that is needed for life - taking action, having sex, learning new things, fighting with my mother - I always thought of it as a wholly mental thing, and even though I always believed in a synergy of mind and matter, it just never occured to me "having the energy" to do something could actually mean having a biochemical, Biology 101- making ATP in your mitochondria kind of energy.

We really seem to have a similar mind. I have never fought head on with anybody for my whole life. I always say that it is too tiring, it drains too much energy.

I'm just starting out myself :)
What kind of physical symptoms do you have?

I have many symptoms of different kinds, but I think they are all related to the inflammatory state of my body. Chronic inflammation seems to be at the core of most health problems. I am reticent of altering body hormones through supplements and potentially make symptoms worse. I first tried going full on, eating a lot of dairy and fruits, but eating all the time makes me think about food all the time which makes me become obsessive and unable to function properly.

I am now experimenting with lifestyle changes instead. Returned to 3 meals a day without snacking (just half a teaspoon of sugar every hour in between), hadn't done that in years. Eating all the time is abnormal from an evolutionary standpoint, we had to find food before eating it. The longer breaks between meals give the body more energy to work on other parts of the body instead of being busy digesting food all the time. Inspired by that protocol:

@Wilfrid shared this link. It may give you some useful ideas:

One Cure for All Diseases - One Cure for All Diseases

Also, I started to learn more about light. I always feel worse in winter and better in summer. I also felt great on vacation in the tropics. I work on a computer all day. IMO Light deficiency is a real thing.

 

[somuch4food]

Chronic inflammation can be thought of as chronic body stress. I want to believe that if I remove enough stressors while providing adequate resources to my body, hormones will eventually balance themselves.

Stressors include eating too much, allergic reactions, endotoxins, oxidation, certain hormones, working out, psychological stress, lack of sleep, lack of light, lack of meaning, etc...

That's why I think that you can work on different fronts to achieve health. The body wants to be healthy, so the key is to provide the right environment. That's why people can feel better meditating, exercising, changing diets, finding a meaning to your life or going on vacation. The real challenge lies in making changes in our day-to-day life that enables us to sustain a healthy body.

If making diet changes is too stressful as it was for me (between work and family, I can't control everything in my diet), whatever change you may make won't have much effect because the stress removed from the digestive system will be replaced by psychological stress which will still fuel inflammation.

 

[Light]

I am reticent of altering body hormones through supplements and potentially make symptoms worse

I totally agree that's the right approach, it's a delicate balance and definitly not something you wanna screw up.
I've seen people claim that diet (like whole plant food veganism or raw veganism) completely eliminated symptoms of menopause and/ or PMS.
And it does seem clearer and clearer that a wholistic approach is neeeded, food and light and what you do and who you spend time with etc etc.

I must admit that for myself i'm kinda low on patience and maybe low on time, so I do supplement with hormones (just T3 and T4 for now),
but I have no one dependant on me so I can afford to experiment

 

[Light]

Light - from my experience and what I posted above, I think your intuition is correct. I never would have connected feelings of depression and/or other negative thoughts to diet until changing my diet made these things go away - at least for me. Many who ask me about my diet think I am kooky and say that my experiences are a one-off or an outlier. I beg to differ based on my anecdotal evidence of one and other positive things I've read here where people started feeling better and in fact healed themselves by being mindful of what they eat. Food is a drug and I have no doubts about that. I do believe we have the power to heal ourselves. God bless you.

Thank You :)

I did mean to ask you yesterday, as I read your post, how your heart is doing, but I thought it might be too pushy...:)

 

[dreamcatcher]

Let's stop pretending that this whole addiction thing is in your head.

Let's stop pretending that creativity is born out of will.

Let's stop pretending that agency is more than a reduction in stress.

Let's stop pretending that depression is your fault.

Let's stop pretending that anxiety is your fault.

Let's stop pretending that food has no impact on your mood and well-being.

Let's stop pretending that alcoholics choose to be addicts.

Let's stop pretending that smokers choose to be addicts.

Let's stop pretending that, "It's all in your head."

Let's stop ignoring the gut's central role in mental health.

Let's stop pretending that meditation is the cure to everyone's problems.

Let's stop blaming people for being people.

In other words, from New Age to science based knowledge.

 

[somuch4food]

I've seen people claim that diet (like whole plant food veganism or raw veganism) completely eliminated symptoms of menopause and/ or PMS.

Veganism is way more than food. It can bring many lifestyle changes: peace of mind (you are saving animals by not eating them), add meaning to your life (not hurting any living thing), etc. Removing animal proteins can help in the short term because they are harder to digest, but you will eventually need animal products.

On the other hand, Paleo is also popular and many claim to relieve their symptoms with it.

What this means is that food affects the body. Different foods have different effects on people depending on the state of their body. I don't think we will ever fully grasp how the body works. So we should focus more on the big picture and less on all individual systems (talking to you, mainstream medicine).

 

[danielbb]

Thank You :)

I did mean to ask you yesterday, as I read your post, how your heart is doing, but I thought it might be too pushy...:)

Thanks for asking. I believe it is 100% but only time will tell obviously. I feel 100% healthy and meticulously monitor my blood pressure, heart rate, and body temperature. I took myself off of statin drugs and blood pressure medication. My doctor disagrees with that very strongly but I don't believe in drugs anymore other than for acute symptoms like antibiotics for an ear infection, for example.

I believe food is a drug and that is the key to understanding chronic disease in my opinion. Something made me this way and the genetic argument does not explain things adequately for me. I learned what to eat from my parents (mostly from my mother) and heart disease runs on her side of the family. Food choices are what I believed was passed down from her that was more important to this disease in addition to perhaps a higher propensity for the disease based on genetics.

I had a heart attack at age 44 and had one stent inserted. They told me it was my smoking habit so I quit. Six short years later, they found another coronary artery blocked along with the stented artery which caused me to have open heart double-bypass surgery at age 51. At that time, I figured out it wasn't smoking that caused the disease. I am now 58 and have tried every diet and listened to every theory. Ray Peat is counter-intuitive but he makes sense to me based on scientific reasoning and meticulous resaerch. I've applied his principles and they have worked. Other things like ED, depression, negative thoughts, inflammation, skin issues, low body temperature and thyroid have been healed. I feel like a 25 year old man - perhaps better.

 

[Light]

In other words, from New Age to science based knowledge

I think that's it, while remembering that science is in a never ending self correction and nothing is 100%,
and also, I guess i'm making the same point the Romanticists - that focusing on facts can feel like it comes at the expense of the spirit,
I know that for me it's a balancing act - not to let the search for knowledge squeeze the soul out of living, but not to go so new age that I get stupid,
unfortunately from time to time i've done both

What this means is that food affects the body

Yeah, and the mind.
I wish I knew it when I was younger and healthier...

 

[Waynish]

Being blameless in Buddhism or Christianity is not the same as being free from responsibility. It is only when you expand your responsibility honestly that you receive the gifts... Avoidance of responsibility and desire for vindication will only cause problems. Yes, there are biological causes and effects. Nicotine can increase metabolism and be therapeutic, for example... However, those who have cultivated can use so-called "addictive" drugs for days in a row, and then just stop because they feel like it. I have seen it with my own eyes plenty of times.

 

[Light]

Other things like ED, depression, negative thoughts, inflammation, skin issues, low body temperature and thyroid have been healed. I feel like a 25 year old man - perhaps better.

Wow!
That's really great :)
Success stories like yours really give me hope,
do you mind listing what you're doing specifically, and how long it took you to see real changes?

BTW I sterted a thread about how peating made me wanna smoke after 9 years of quitting, did you experience anything like that?

 

[Light]

It is only when you expand your responsibility honestly that you receive the gifts.

I've certainly seen my life improve during times when I took more responsibility, more ownership.
I guess it's what @jamies33 meant to say when he posted this:

I like this 90 second clip of Jeff Bezos

It's really the opposite of learned helplessness

 

[somuch4food]

It is only when you expand your responsibility honestly that you receive the gifts... Avoidance of responsibility and desire for vindication will only cause problems.

Avoidance of responsibility is at the heart of my shyness. At one point, it went as far as answering "I don't know" when asked about what I wanted to eat by my boyfriend. I was scared of his reaction, feared making a mistake, did not want to take ownership of such a simple decision. Making decisions is always hard for me.

I want to have more responsibility and more impact on people's lives, but I feel it would deplete my energy so fast that it would not last. I would have to give up, let people down, which would make me feel more depressed. It is a difficult balance.

 

[danielbb]

Wow!
That's really great :)
Success stories like yours really give me hope,
do you mind listing what you're doing specifically, and how long it took you to see real changes?

BTW I sterted a thread about how peating made me wanna smoke after 9 years of quitting, did you experience anything like that?

I believe nicotine has some therapeutic properties so I do use 4mg gum about once or twice per day but no, I have no desire to smoke.

To give you hope @Light, the most important thing I have discovered is the expression "At first, do no harm." That means that I believe the chronic problems we are all experiencing (e.g., heart disease, low thyroid, constipation, depression) to one degree or another are related to the Standard American Diet (SAD). You know what I mean, pizza, French fries, subs, fried chicken wings, other fried foods, chips, Oreo's, and any other processed food you can think of.

Jack Lalanne summed up healthy dieting in one sentence "If man made it, don't eat it." That means you have to get off of processed food and that is the beginning of HEALING. I read a book "The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite" by Dr. David Kessler and he talks about how processed food is more addictive than cocaine and DESIGNED to be that way. I have no doubts that is where my problems with disease originated from. My main disagreement with Dr. Kessler is his demonization of sugar. They use sugar to make poisonous substances like PUFA and Soy palatable. It took about two to six weeks of getting off of processed food before my ADDICTIVE impulses for it went away.

I read a book by Dr. Caldwell Essylsten (Forks Over Knives fame) and he claimed you could reverse heart disease through veganism. That empowered me and got me feeling not so "sorry" for the "genetic" hand I had been dealt. So I went full bore with his ideas. Mostly eating salads and fruit. Something was not quite right. Grumpy, headaches, low body temperatures, and other symptoms - probably mostly related to all the raw vegetables I was eating. One evening about a year ago, I got into a silly argument with my wife as we were driving to the shop to pick up my car and on my way home I spotted a Wendy's restaurant. I said, by golly, I need some comfort food to calm my nerves. So I stopped and ordered a cheeseburger, fries, and by accident a regular Coke as I would normally have ordered a diet Coke. I went to bed that evening and had the best night sleep in 20 years. I felt like a million bucks the next day at work. Went back to my vegan diet but for the next two weeks kept thinking about that amazing night. The thought occurred to me that what I had to eat that night is what caused that reaction so I started to experiment. I started with potatoes and got a mild response. Then figured it must have been the cheeseburger and still no response. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks - it was the Coke. I eagerly went out and got a Coke after that revelation, and I reproduced that amazing result. Trust me when I tell you if I could only eat ONE thing in a day it would be my Mexican Coke before bed at night. Some have had trouble sleeping with my Coke idea so please keep that in mind.

I was highly conflicted and confused about feeling so good on Coke. So I began researching the benefits of sugar and that led me to Ray Peat. Not only did he talk about the benefits of sugar but he talked about the benefits of salt, milk, orange juice, gelatin, carbon dioxide, caffeine, and other things which are all kind of out of the mainstream. Regarding do no harm, through Ray I discovered the poisonous nature of PUFA which I have come to attribute as the number one cause of chronic disease in our society. By ridding myself of PUFA, I noticed inflammation (face, eyes, skin) magically leaving my body.

Ray writes about runny nose being an inflammatory reaction to what we eat. So I started trouble-shooting my diet for runny nose. 1) No PUFA, 2) No Legumes - especially Soy 3) No Carrageenan - found in most commercial ice cream, no PROCESSED food. Still had a runny nose. Then I removed starch, as in flour, from my diet and my runny nose went away permanently. About 2 to 4 weeks after my runny nose went away, I noticed I no longer had any signs of depression or negative thoughts. That is when I linked those symptoms to an inflammatory reaction to what we eat. I've tried everything Ray recommends and only one thing has not worked - coconut oil. It caused my runny nose to return. I've reasoned that all oil is processed and therefore I do not put ANY oil in my body. My feeling is oil is for cars and not for the body. If I need to sauté - I use butter or water and they work fine. I still eat chicken wings and barbequed ribs but I bake them instead of frying them. Frank's Original Hot Sauce by the way is one processed food that does not have questionable ingredients in my opinion.

My "healing" diet mostly consists of 1% milk, NOW beef gelatin, orange juice, honey, fruit (except bananas), liver (once per week), oysters (once or twice a month), some other muscle meat including burgers (no bun), pork chops, ribs, chicken, homemade ice cream (on occasion), and most importantly Mexican Coke. Most of my starch is limited to well-cooked mashed potatoes or white rice. My macros are approximately 120 g protein, 250 g carbs, and about 30-50 g of fat per day. I try to stay between 1800 and 2000 calories per day if possible.

Another member pointed out that Italian flour (e.g., Pivetti) does not have the additives of US flour. I tried it and I did get a slight runny nose but on occasion will use it (e.g., chocolate chip cookies or carrot cake). For pasta, spriralized zucchini is a wonderful substitute.

I am not telling anyone what to eat or what not to eat. I know, based on trial and error, and backed up by the wonderful research of Ray Peat, that it is possible for each one of us to figure out what heals and what harms. What works for me may not work for you but I challenge you, experiment with one ingredient at a time, either adding or subtracting from your diet until you feel better. You have the power to heal yourself.

 

[Light]

I read a book by Dr. Caldwell Essylsten (Forks Over Knives fame) and he claimed you could reverse heart disease through veganism

I've spent most of 2018 doing the whole plant food veganism,
while it helped with digestive issues it didn't help with brain fog and lethargy which are my biggest problems, so I ended up here.

I know, based on trial and error, and backed up by the wonderful research of Ray Peat, that it is possible for each one of us to figure out what heals and what harms

I hope that's true, and I guess it'll take a few months to really know.
Thank you for sharing your story, you're a good writer and it is a very easy fluent read :)

I want to have more responsibility and more impact on people's lives, but I feel it would deplete my energy so fast that it would not last

Have you started to notice any changes in either your shyness or your energy level?

 

[danielbb]

I hope that's true, and I guess it'll take a few months to really know.
Thank you for sharing your story, you're a good writer and it is a very easy fluent read :)

Thank you kindly for saying that. In addition to being an electrical engineer (where I learned how to troubleshoot complicated things), I am also a patent attorney so I write for a living.

One thing I forgot to mention, and it may be related to my discussion about depression. After my sugar/Coke discovery and also after curing my runny nose, I started feeling so well that I asked the question "What exactly is alcohol doing for me?" So I experimented and went with out it for about two weeks last November. After about two weeks, I discovered that alcohol is entirely overrated and not necessary to have a good time. On November 19th, 2018 it will have been one year without alcohol for me and I've never felt better. I've been to many parties and social gatherings this past year and do not miss it one bit. Club soda is my drink of choice now for social occasions. I am only bringing this up because that also could be related to healing depression. If I had to name one substance that made me feel better it was the Coke. I have no doubts that sugar in most of its forms (not high fructose corn syrup) is a healing substance because it suppresses stress hormones.

 

[Light]

Depression was so all consuming I haven't been to a party or had alcohol in years.

If I had to name one substance that made me feel better it was the Coke.

Why specifically Mexica Coke?

 

[somuch4food]

Have you started to notice any changes in either your shyness or your energy level?

I had good days, but mostly feeling the same as before. I haven't found a way to keep my digestive issues in check yet. I can feel that I have a bit more motivation. I'm thinking about life projects more. I do not feel energized yet though.

Why specifically Mexica Coke?

Because it doesn't have HFCS in it I think.

 

[Light]

I haven't found a way to keep my digestive issues in check yet.

Same boat, and dairy made things worse than they have been for months.
Trying to add more wheat bran (making crackers), aspirin and salt which are supposed to de-inflame the gut and cut dairy.
I also started taking thyroid yesterday which may help.
Keep me posted if you find something that helps, I'll do the same.

 

[DaveFoster]

I beg your pardon, but it seems to me recently that men are taking on less responsibility and more cred itit than they deserve,
now it is man who creates life? give me a break.

The man metaphorically touches God, and the woman channels the relationship and creates new life. Without the woman, the man could not enter into such a state and vice versa.

I also don't see why masculine energy would be closer to the divine, that is the energy of war, violence, agression - all sometimes necessary in life, yes, but are hardly a menifestation of the teachings of Buddha or Jesus.

The terms "man" and "woman" have less applicability than "masculine" and "feminine." "Man" refers to a manifestation of masculinity and not necessarily any specific man. An aggressive lust for power derives from lack, a feminine force, albeit a central component of most men.

Masculinity and femininity realize their identity through unity. Treatment of either as an individual entity falls short of their potentials. Both men and women experience lack to some extent, and it's the polarity and convergence of both that matters.

even though I always believed in a synergy of mind and matter, it just never occured to me "having the energy" to do something could actually mean having a biochemical, Biology 101- making ATP in your mitochondria kind of energy.

Yes, the statement, "I have no energy," similarly refers to the same processes on the cellular level mainly because our language describes both phenomena, and further that the small mimics the large, as with the Hermetic maxim "as above, so below."

BTW, boy did you pick the right avatar...

Guy of Lusignan had such desire for Sibylla, Queen of Jerusalem, that she chose him over lords of greater houses as the successor to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Locked in conflict with Salah ad-Din, the nobles of the High Court commanded a divorce, agreed to by Sibylla but with a caveat that the Queen could once again choose her own husband. Once divorced with Guy, she then once again chose him to be her husband against the wishes of her brother King Baldwin IV and all the nobles at court.

Guy usurped the throne and eventually fell to capture by Salah ad-Din. Sibylla abandoned her kingdom to be with her lover amidst the enemy and would later die there from sickness, all as her kingdom crumbled around her.