My Journey To Optimal Health

I figured I'd start a log, it'll be a great way to track my progress, remember what worked, what didn't work, and also get feedback along the way. I'm still pretty new here, been peating for just a week or two.

HISTORY:
Unhealthy relationship with food most of my life, through college ate whatever I wanted, had way too much caffeine/stress/lack of sleep etc. Started getting fat at the age of 24, decided I needed to start working out and watching my food etc. Been yoyo'ing between heavier and lighter weights since then after playing around with workouts, food etc, tried many diets ranging from keto, lower/higher carb, lower/higher fat, ultra high protein etc....

I very briefly tried Peat some time ago (2 yrs or so), but quickly quit because of the frequent blood sugar crashes and not wanting to keep at it, because I didn't feel too good. I realize now, that I was having that issue because of poor liver glycogen and what not. I realize now, that it's kinda like Keto - there is an adaptation period, after which things will improve, so this has been keeping me going.

I'm heavier than I'd like, and also not as healthy as I'd like. Around 15% BF, so not super high, but I'd like to get below 10%. I do notice that eating sugar improves my mood. Unfortunately, my glucose storage is poor, and quickly I will feel a depression coming forth and sometimes a headache etc. It seems like this is common though, and will get better over time. I have a hard time with night time stress, and last night what I did every time I woke up was get 1 TBSP of honey, 4 oz of OJ mixed with 1/4 tsp of salt. Seemed to help.

I'm 6'0'', 200lb, 31 year old male. My current diet is around 70-15-15 macros (C/P/F). I limit my fat to 50g, and protein to around 150g, but don't have a limit on carbohydrate. I often eat upwards of 4000 calories a day. Diet consists of non-fat milk, honey, mozz cheese, fruit, OJ, carrots, limited beef/eggs, limited starch (gonna probably stop starches soon though), (thinking of adding in some chocolate), and gonna start being better about adding in gelatin as well (have not done that up until now).

I sort of want to try the Ultra low fat way of eating to drop some bodyfat, but I wonder if keeping fat very low is better in the long run? 50g is still not a lot, after all.

GOALS:
Primary goals: drop bodyfat/get lean/feel better/improve my libido.
Secondary goals: get stronger/gain muscle mass

DAY 1 (of the log, not of Peating)
OJ, milk, and bananas so far today. I seem to have negative reactions to bananas even after the peel is spotty. I guess I should stop eating bananas from now on, too much serotonin. Guess I should stick to grapes, orange, and watermelon like Peat suggests. Mood has been spotty today, probably because of the serotonin.

 

Guys, I'm excited! My body may finally be starting to use sugar properly. I had yet another s*** ton of sugar today, the bananas didn't do good things to me, but then I had 3 lbs of grapes, and I actually felt pretty darn good. Later, I had 8 oz of OJ with salt to fuel up for my workout, and did a very brief but decently challening lower body workout (only 15 minute long workout. Attempting to see if that's better for thyroid health, short and sweet.)

Up until this moment in time I'm at 8% protein, 3% fat, 89% carb macros. I'll be eating a very minute amount of fat / a bit of protein for dinner, to help keep me sated at night.

It seems, that my body does indeed crave obscenely high carbohydrates. I actually was sort of full after the 3 lbs of grapes, which is the first time I've felt kinda "full" from just carbs. I guess Peat was right. You must eat fruit until you feel full, even if it's more food than you think should be normal. I mean, I've had 600g sugar today and I'm not done yet hahaha. So note to self - grapes are amazing for thyroid! Another thing I learned from this - It's OKAY (and in fact you probably should, starting off at least) to eat lots of sugar all at once. I thought from what I read that because the liver can only store 100g of glucose, that there's no point to eating more than this in one sitting. Based upon my experiences today, I'd disagree with that now. Instead, eat until you're satisfied.

Well guess what guys, I got really aroused after my workout (yeah, Go "improve my libido" goal haha!), and I haven't had that happen to me in quite some time... I guess the combo of Short workout (to not elevate cortisol too much) plus massive sugar intake today seemed to have done the trick. I literally left the gym with as much energy as I entered it in with. I'm thinking this should be the goal from now on, for thyroid health. If you have less energy after finishing the workout, and particularly if you have WAY less, you've overdone it, and have fun with that cortisol spike.

My energy has actually been fairly stable today since the 3 lbs of grapes as well. I was a little worried that my energy would crash because I had some mini-interviews today for a company I'm thinking of working for (if I get the job, I can move to Melbourne FL which is literally minutes from the beach, hell yeah, I'm actually trying to get this job because of the location, it would be AMAZING if I can get it because I plan to take full advantage of the beach / Sunlight!! My goal would be to Sun bathe 1 hr a day (I've heard anecdotal stories of people going from zero libido to excessive libido with literally just this one change, I'm excited to try it lol)) St Louis freaking sucks for sun / warm weather.... I gotta get out of here haha... I have another invite-only networking event for another company that also has jobs in Melbourne FL later this month. Between the two companies, I'm hoping I have a good shot to get one or the other! Sunlight will really help me further with any thyroid issues for sure.

Edit - finished the day with 920g carbs, whoo boy i felt good hahaha carbs are definitely happy drugs lol.

 

Day Two:

I have decided to try a day completely dairy free and see how I feel.

Thus far today: 30g protein from gelatin powder, some OJ, lots of oranges (around a dozen).

Gonna try to phase down my fat from 50g -> 20g or less while keeping my sugar/carbs as high as I want (no limit).

Feeling pretty decent. I'm trying to get to where I feel really good in the morning. Usually my mood is worst in the morning and improves over the course of the day. Today it's been a little better in the morning, so, progress!

Haidut had insane libido/test with 60g protein from gelatin/glycine a day, and a zero tryptophan diet (among other things). I'm gonna do 30g at morning and 30g at night. I don't like gelatin too much though, so I'm gonna switch to straight up L-Glycine powder.

I've also had an epiphany - I think I know why I "need" 12 hrs of sleep, and why I still wake up tired even after that much.

As many of you know, a healthy person can store 7-8 hrs of glucose in the liver. Guess what, this coincides with the typical recommend nightly rest - 7-9 hrs. I don't think this is a coincidence. When the liver glucose is depleted, adrenaline spikes, which results in awakening, and helps you get ready for the day. However, in someone like myself, when your ability to store liver glucose is compromised, you can't make it 7-8 hrs without refueling the liver stores. Because of that, adrenaline spikes too early (as early as 1-4 hrs after going to bed), and wakes you up before sleeping through the night. Then, if you don't refuel the glucose after waking up, but instead to just go back to bed and ignore it, more adrenaline is released, which further increases cortisol. Even a healthy person can't usually go more than 8 hrs without food without adrenaline secretion. So going 12 hrs, if you aren't healthy is a very poor move. I wake up tired, because cortisol is sky high, and adrenaline low from being overworked the whole night. Low adrenaline + high cortisol = groggy and not wanting to get out of bed. So, what I'm going to do now, is force myself to get up after around 8 hrs of sleep, and hopefully, retrain my body. It'll suck the first day or two, but I think it'll work in the long run. I should also add, DO NOT USE ALARM CLOCKS (I never do anymore almost). Alarm clocks are an excellent way to trash your cortisol levels. I often wake every 3-4 hrs. So what I'll do, is after 8 hrs total in bed just get up, rather than go back to bed again, even if I feel groggy.

So getting some sugar+salt is probably vital every time you happen to wake up before you intend to (per Peat's suggestion)

The takeaway is I don't necessarily think there is such a thing as "too much sleep", that's the simplistic answer. I do, however, think there is such a thing as "too much fasting time", at least in a metabolically compromised individual, and thus a limit to your sleep *without eating a meal*.

A lot of the way the body works is finally starting to make sense to me - I did not realize that adrenaline, and cortisol are two different hormones (but related). I always was confused why cortisol results in fatigue when it's supposed to wake you up (it's not, that's what adrenaline does).

I remember one time when I basically did the "warrior diet" which was one meal a day. That REALLY messed me up lol... Basically I ran on pure adrenaline the entire day because my body was so stressed from fasting. You can see how that would wreak havoc on the endocrine system. I think that typical 8-16 Intermittent fasting is also a poor idea for the same reason, unless you're healthy, and even then, I'm dubious.

 

Smart post. Ironically, when i first read your post I thought "I couldn't even sleep 12-14 hours if i tried." I suspect that little kids can sleep that long because they are so healthy, and liver glycogen storage is so superb. I typically sleep 7-9 hours a night without waking. Some things that help me sleep well are without disturbance are:
1.) Eat shortly before bed. Ice cream and skim milk or milk with casein protein are good choices.
2.) Take some cynoplus or tyromix. Small dose preferably.
3.) Take aspirin.

 

I'm trying to limit my supplements until I've done all the dietary changes I can, but I'll keep that in mind.

I'm definitely getting used to the INSANE amount of carbs that are needed during recovery. I may hit over 1000g carbs today (already at 860g). I just hope that my limiting fats to like 30g will keep me from gaining too much waistline, lol. I have some brutal insulin resistance I guess.

Had some 70% chocolate this evening for my token allowance of saturated fats instead of dairy. Good stuff.

I'm noticing a trend the last two days. Throughout the morning to early afternoon I feel a little bad, but then as I reach 500g sugar or so, I start to feel better. I guess I just need to load up a LOT of sugar earlier in the day, so that I get the energy I want throughout the rest of the day. I suppose it's because after the "fast" (sleeping), all of my glucose stores have been drained.

Hoping that sleeping less (8 hr instead of 12) will also reduce this problem. 4 less hrs of abusing my body with stress, and thus sugar needed to recover from it.

 

Day three:

*edit* Wow, let's just say I needed saturated fats, and think I made the right call today. Have had several intense, ahem, arousals, especially after eating saturated fats + sugar together ;-) This doesn't really happen to me so much when I have saturated fats + starch together. Something about sat fat + sugar seems to be a magic combo... hmmm...

Learned from yesterday that I just don't think 80/10/10 will work for me. All the sugar does overall improve my mood (to really high levels in some cases even!), but appetite is endless, can't make it through the night without adrenaline responses, and libido, while it does have its ups (like after hitting the gym especially), seems lower than I'd like most of the rest of the time.

Plus, with 800+g carbs, it's unrealistic how much fruit I need to buy, and I feel silly filling up my cart with fruit lol, plus that gets expensive!!

Adding saturated fats again today. Energy seems a little more stable so far. Studies show that fats are necessary for endocrine health anyway, no getting around this fact. And now I can decrease my fruit intake from something like 10 lbs a day to maybe 3... Lol. Not to mention the fact that now I can get most/all my calories from solids, rather than liquids. It was impossible to get 800+g sugar from just fruit, just too much, unless you make eating a full time job...

Something I've noticed about the gym--I look forward to it now!! Probably because now I don't trash my cortisol levels doing it. I'm in and out in 15-20 minutes flat, get a quality set or two, and call it a day. I'm starting to believe you only need one challenging set per exercise to get sufficient muscle stimulus. There's a big difference between stimulus, and annihilating, and unfortunately I think most people (myself included) didn't know the difference.

Feels kinda satisfying to just walk in to the dumb bell rack, grab something heavy, crank out a solid set, and leave like it's no big deal without even breaking a sweat.

I actually got sore legs/glutes from my leg day even though it was super short. In fairness, I took a week off the gym so no doubt that played a factor too though.

 

Sticking with higher saturated fats for now, may bump it up even higher, seems to be working in terms of satiety and stable energy, and reducing my calories a little so that I can reduce the damage to my waistline lol.

Had around 15-45-40 (protein-fat-carbs) yesterday. Almost 75% of fats from saturated sources, mostly high cholesterol sources like egg and beef. Was able to reduce my calories by over 1000 and be relatively sated, so that's good. I know some weight gain is to be expected starting off, but definitely want to avoid unnecessary gains.

Since my libido was very strong on Keto, I suspect it was both the saturated fats & the cholesterol. So now I'm trying to maximize cholesterol and see how that works out for me. Only difference from Keto is that not only will I be high in Sat fat/cholesterol, but also Sugar/carbs. Hopefully, it'll prove to be a deadly duo, lol.

I do 1-2 TBSP of coconut oil per meal now at the suggestion of many people I've seen post around here. Trying to get my cholesterol intake to at least 1000mg a day (RP recommends minimum of 600mg I believe, but I know I was WAY higher than this on Keto, possibly 2000-3000mg a day, and felt fantastic - often had 12 eggs a day, so I treat the 600 as a minimum, with higher amounts better for optimality). I think getting a few extra PUFA grams are acceptable if it means a big boost to cholesterol (It's impossible to be under 4g PUFA with eggs in the diet, so I just accept it). If out of 200+g of fat I only have 10g PUFA, I really don't think that's a big deal % wise.

I think what got me into trouble on KETO was I was quite high on PUFA (I loved to have Nut butters in particular...) So actually, if I were to do keto again, I'd probably do amazing on it. That said, I don't feel right when I have less than 200-250g carb a day, in terms of chronic pains in my body, so I don't think full on keto will ever be a good idea again for me. You could argue some of my chronic pains were due to PUFA's, which is total possible, but my understanding is you want at least a 2:1 carb:protein ratio, which I wasn't getting.

 

Still needing to eat a LOT even with high fat I can feel my body weight increasing, and I don't like it, but I don't know what other choice I have if I want to heal myself.

I don't understand why I'm hungry going to bed on 5000 calories? Then of course, I end up waking up to adrenaline at like 2-3 am, and have to eat even more to go to bed (had to have 4 oz of cheese & OJ with salt), that did the trick, but I'm annoyed at my glucose storage capability.

On the bright side, I do feel my libido increasing slowly from the higher fat intake, so I'm gonna keep at it, this is generally a sign that my health is slowly improving.

 

I'm finding that I'm craving sugar more these days more than anything else, which I take to be a good sign. I'm a little annoyed that I'm kinda bloated lately, but I'm hoping that will go away as I continue to eat lots of sugar and I've also increased my salt intake, which I figure may be part of the bloating (a lack of salt causing the bloating I mean).

I find the optimal amount seems to be around 1/2 TSP per 8-12 oz of OJ or so. For an experiment today I did 1 TSP per 8-12 oz of OJ (salt), but I think this was too much, I got really thirsty for plain water after I did that much salt. OJ is pretty rich in potassium so I almost never drink it without salt now. Saline solutions apparently have upwards of 9 grams of sodium per liter, but I think that's just way too much, I would be really thirsty after that much.

I have been having 16 oz of beef a day lately. Now for lunch, I got out my beef and some grapes, realized after a bite of the beef that I was repulsed by it, and instead went straight for my grapes and ate those instead. Had zero desire for protein or fats and only a desire for sugar. That's good, I think! And it also is telling me 16 oz of beef is too much protein and fat for me in one day, because my body is now rejecting it.

I am also trying to bring down my PUFA, so I have reduced my egg intake. I was having up to 6 eggs a day, now only 2, may drop to 1. Because I seem to be enjoying/craving sugar a lot these days, I will probably slightly tone down protein and fat to more "adequate" levels for hormonal production (somewhere around 100 gram fat and 100-150 gram protein probably).

Probably also stick for Skim or 1-2% milk for my calcium instead of cheese (because it seems rather difficult to keep fat at lower levels with cheese).

 

I wonder if, with your high protein and keto diet history, you might have some iron overload. Have you ever gotten an iron panel to measure your serum iron, iron saturation, iron binding capacity, and serum ferritin? Just curious.

 

I don't believe I have, but I can look through a couple of older tests to see if iron was tested. It's quite possible and definitely something I've considered. As a male we can't purge iron as easily as women, so it's definitely easier to overload.

I dunno what the optimal amount of iron for day is for a male, but in cronometer I almost always exceed 100%, sometimes way more 200-300%+. 16 oz of beef has over 100% of Iron in chronometer. Definitely could be a reason I don't like it anymore, for sure.

The optimal diet sure is challenging to put together, haha! Low pufa, low tryptophan, low iron, etc, argh! It seems to eliminate almost all foods!! lol

Problem is I like beef because of the Zinc content. I can't seem to find oysters in my grocery store or I'd eat those. Maybe I'll look at a couple of more stores. Someone's gotta have them! I want fresh and not canned, if possible. Oyster is way higher in zinc on a per gram basis compared to beef. I do supplement zinc though.

Maybe if/when I move to the beach in Florida that oysters will be way easier to obtain, and freshly caught at that. That'd be nice!

 

Need to quit TV/video games at least for a while I think... mostly I have a pretty low stress lifestyle, but doesn't matter, years of causing built up stress seems to be taking its toll, and I have to take extreme measures into my own hands. I think these are screwing up my sleep mostly every night too. Still having sleep issues and glycogen storage issues at night. I rarely seem to last more than 3 hrs without losing glucose stores.

Also going to bring down iron (no more than 8 oz a beef a day), and bring up more pro metabolic protein sources like glycine/gelatin and maybe casein. Might get my iron checked when I can, and if its high maybe do some blood donations.

Now that it's spring, I'm trying to get more sunlight too. I plan to get sunlight every day I can, and days that I can't, I will go to the tanning bed. Been slightly decreasing fat intake as well. My macros look kinda like this now... I think I feel best now at a 3, especially a 4:1 carb/protein ratio, and around a 2:1 carb:fat ratio.

15% protein 25-30% fat 55-60% carb

Tomorrow is the networking event with the company from FL that I'm amped for. I gotta bring my A game so I get a job there! Just gotta have a lot of carbs that day so my mood is hyper haha

Gonna also try for lower tryptophan content diet for a bit which may mean axing / severely limiting dairy for a bit.

Normally I vacation with my parents/brother every year but I need some time to myself this year to help heal. They like to do other stuff than just chill all day, but I need a solid de-stressing time. I plan to take at least a week long vacation to a nice beach somewhere and just soak up as much sun as humanly possible while continuing to eat lots of fruit, OJ, etc etc... I may even do a week long Juice fast at this point in time after hearing some benefits to it, plus this would put me at basically Zero PUFA - and another member said that Zero PUFA let him be in the sun all day with no sunburns, which would be awesome = more time in the sun in the vacation :)

 

First night's rest following quitting TV/video games.

Fell asleep quite easily. Still woke up after 4 hrs. Went back to bed, woke up one more time, awake after 8 hrs total.

Noted something interesting: after 8 hr sleep, I felt a strong adrenaline response which prompted me to wake up and eat breakfast soon. However, it seemed like a "cleaner" adrenaline response than normal, if that makes sense. Normally after 8 hr of sleep I'd be groggy, and adrenaline wouldn't even work right. However, the fact that my adrenaline now worked today, means to me that some healing of the hormones are finally occurring. After I ate, I got a strong sedated feeling (probably because I dropped my stress hormones from eating) and decided to sleep another couple of hrs (I have that luxury with my job luckily), and when I woke up, I actually felt pretty decent (not amazing, but decent).

Definitely not bringing the TV/games back for a while, let's see if this progress continues.

Also trying to bring my fat down a tad and my protein up, so that I can bring fat down but keep satiated.

Vigorously keeping my glucose up. If I ever feel fatigued, I eat carbs right away. I know this is the way that I will heal my glucose utilization issues. Haven't had any major crashes lately, if I feel one coming on I go straight for sugar.

I find that a huge dose of salt really helps me get back to sleep. I'll put a whole TSP of salt into a glass of OJ and that works quite well for me.

Also continuing to get as much sunlight as I can. Going to go for a walk outside again for my lunch break. When it gets real hot I'll do some sun tanning at my condo complex at the pool when I can.

 

So, after reading all the benefits of caffeine, I decided to try again, but smarter. I had one piece of caffeinated gum (100mg caffeine) with a whole liter of OJ. Probably overkill amount of sugar for 100mg caffeine for a healthy person, but I didn't want to take chances.

OMG, I have not felt this good in quite some time. Insane euphoria, instant large boost to libido, mood, confidence, energy. And, it seems like I'm not crashing. The euphoria has somewhat subsided into a more stable mood, but not a crash, which is new for me - I normally always crash.
Also, in the past, 100 mg of caffeine has never done this for me. I'd have to have like 400 mg at least to get this kind of effect (and would crash hard afterwards)

Sugar + caffeine = heaven lol

I think caffeine is here to stay!

I think if I want to high dose caffeine that sugar will necessarily increase so I'll drop fat a little probably. I'm also hoping that maybe I can drop some of this gut fat I've been developing with the help of caffeine and lowering fat slightly. Really trying hardcore to get sunlight too. Been getting like 1.5 hrs of sun every day lately.

I ordered this coffee which supposedly is amazing http://www.longevitywarehouse.com/food-for-the-immortals-organic-longevity-coffee-light-roast-12-oz (thx @lisaferraro !!)

I'm also making sure I get 2-4 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar a day. Hoping this will help my gut bloating. Previously I was just doing the carrot without any vinegar.

Also starting to have 12 oz of shrimp every day for some extra fat-free protein as well as the benefits that come with shellfish.

Oh, and my networking event with the company located in FL is today... bring it on!!!

Got a date with a cute girl tomorrow at a coffee shop too, perfect, haha. Time to order some of the strong stuff, along with extra cream and sugar... I'm sure I'll rock that date haha!!!With my mood like a rockstar, I feel like I can do anything

If this is what it feels like all the time to have a fully healed metabolism, wow, I've been missing sooooo much on life I feel so sorry for almost all americans who are so messed up, hopefully Peat gets more visibility soon... and I'm not even close to healed yet I have no doubt! It can only get better

 

Finally some weight loss as well as reduce in bloating, I take this as a good sign of improvements despite not tracking calories too heavily! Unfortunately, I made a lot of changes at once, so it's hard to know precisely what did it, so for now I'll keep up the protocol. I'm still quite heavier than when I started Peat, but just the fact that weight is going down is huge

Changes:
-Dropped dietary fat down a notch
-Having a little more protein a day. Added in a couple whey shakes a day with maltodextrin added in to avoid protein only meals. Having 12 oz of shrimp a day. Also had a little non fat cottage cheese w/ maple syrup (weird, but pretty good lol), drinking a little more skim milk.
-Stopped eating eggs entirely last couple of days (so, PUFA reduction)
-Added caffeine back into my diet. I make sure to couple caffeine intake with plenty of sugar. If I suspect a crash may be coming on, I load up on plenty of sugar. Doing this, I haven't crashed yet on caffeine. Caffeine gives me a HUGE rush of energy / mood increase now, when I couple it with sugar intake, so much more than when I used to run off of stress hormones. I may be even more in love with caffeine now lol. I find it easier to control my fat intake when I'm having caffeine. Caffeine seems to help suppress my fat appetite. I just have to be careful to still intake sugar to avoid crashes. Caffeine seems like a quick "Cheat code" to increase my temperatures and heart rate, much more easily than food alone, especially if I'm having a lot of liquids (which tend to decrease temperature). Speaking of temperatures, I find keeping my house at a very warm temperature really helps keep my own temperature up, again very important if I drink a lot of liquid. I'm an OJ addict these days in particular.
-Taking vitamin E now
-Taking activated charcoil
-Taking zinc
-Eliminated any supplement that is not a veggie/gel capsule (in an attempt to reduce silica)
-2-4 TBSP a day of apple cider vinegar

Areas of improvement to make next:
Sleep (I drink too much liquids these days, particularly late in the evening, which makes me wake up during the night way too much)
Caffeine (I had caffeine way too late in the afternoon yesterday, kept me up really late)

I have a suspicion that what I've done is improve my gut health (through use of activated charcoil, apple cider vinegar) as well as reduce FFA's, PUFA's, and increase insulin sensitivity by reducing overall fats and adding caffeine

 

I'm working out again 3x a week, but taking caution not to overdo it too much. 3x seems good because I can take at least one day off between sessions. With Very high carb intake, I find that I don't get brain fog from working out any more. Sure, the muscles still get fatigued, but my brain doesn't get fatigued like it did before on lower carb. I feel like as long as I continue to eat carbs until any remnant of fatigue disappears, and that I don't train excessively to failure, I should be good in terms of stress responses. Hoping too this will help my body composition out and accelerate some fat loss, maybe some muscle gain.

This, in combination with all of the other changes I've made, and I actually felt quite good yesterday. I found I had a lot more confidence (randomly chatted up some nice girl at the grocery store... I never do this normally), and was really wired with energy lol. I also slept pretty well, and had some nice dreams. Without going into detail, I had a very ... ahem... "nice" dream which resulted in me waking up with a nice strong morning wood. In fact I was upset I woke up early from it, lol. Have not had such a dream in months. So this is huge progress.

Only woke up once briefly in the night to get some OJ and salt, and went back to bed, 8 hrs of sleep only waking up once, not bad. I had 250G protein yesterday. Seems like almost my magic number, I managed to feel fairly satiated on this amount, may even bump up to 300g on some days, meanwhile I kept my fat intake at like 50g, and carbs very high (600-800). I feel like I've found a winner with High protein High carb Low fat, always nice to have my own experience back up research experimental claims (that high protein helps the liver, alongside high sugar / saturated fats / salt etc). The more I learn about RP the more I realize just how genius alot of recommendations are - for example, OJ truly is like the perfect food, no wonder I'm addicted to it. I found out that my store carries Calcium fortified OJ, so I'm gonna start drinking that to get some extra calcium.

I am continuing to get sunlight or go to the tanning bed on days I can't get much sun as well. I think this is also helping. I'm also getting the most tan I've ever been in my whole life, which is nice lol. People are starting to comment on it too. I used to be pale white all my life. I do seem able to handle more UV rays as I decrease my PUFA intake, but I still have to be careful, just not as careful as before, to avoid sunburns. Still, I'm able to get as much as 1.5 hrs of sunlight without sunscreen now without getting burned, which is huge for me.

Because yesterday seemed like a really good day, I wanna track for myself (and maybe others who are interested) what I had that day:

Foods:
OJ (forget how many cups, but a lot)
skim milk
2 TBSP gelatin
16 oz grass fed beef - preferring the leaner 85/15 because of wanting to reduce fats - (I know I know, I said I'd tone down, but it's all I had handy lol) cooked in 1 TBSP of coconut oil
12 oz shrimp cooked in 1 TBSP coconut oil
2 protein shakes (each with about 25g protein, 80-100g carbs from malt dextrin)
2 cup non fat greek yogurt with 1/2 cup of natural maple syrup
Lots of grapes (3 lbs or so)

Between the beef and the coconut oil almost all fat I do get is saturated per RP's suggestions.

I take a very surgical approach to my supplements. I have a very specific reason for each supplement and I'm not just randomly throwing darts at the wall.

Supplements:
Salt (lots, I try to have as much as 1 TSP (1.5 grams) of salt per 8-12 oz of OJ) - needed to keep adrenaline down
Multivitamin w/o iron - fills most gaps in nutrition if I have any
Magnesium glycinate - need lots of magnesium to keep electrolytes up
Vitamin E (3,200 IU) - trying to dose this fairly high after Haidut's success on high dosing. Not going as crazy as him (2,000 mg a day) but definitely high - helps with stray PUFA's
Caffeine (300 mg) - improves liver health, dosage is right on the mark with the 3 mg/ kg body weight recommendates. May eventually upgrade to 600 mg, which is the max recommended.
Activated charcoil (1500 mg) - help improve gut / remove bloating
Apple cider vinegar (2 TBSP, 1 TBSP each 1 @ breakfast 1 @ dinner) - also should help with gut
BCAA (5g twice a day, one @ breakfast one @ dinner) - I take this also at the suggestion of a lot of posts from Haidut - help balance out anti metabolic amino acids
Gelatine 2 TBSP (1 @ breakfast 1 @ dinner) - helps balance out AA's. May try to increase this further, upwards of 6 TBSP a day.
RestorT supplement from my personal trainer - main ingredient zinc picolinate with a few others. 25 mg Zinc. - Zinc helps T levels. One of the reasons I eat shrimp every day too. Also shrimp has Taurine (I may eventually add Taurine to my supplement list. I think I need Vitamin K2 as well. K2 and Caffeine go well together according to Haidut.)

A lot of people here recommend aspirin, but I'm hesitant to go that route, I guess because I'm worried about the bleeding (which I think K2 is supposed to help with). I don't even really do Vitamin D anymore because I'm getting more sun, and tanning bed, which should cover that need. I have considered calcium supplementation, but once I start drinking calcium fortified OJ that shouldn't be needed anymore. It does seem a little challenging to achieve a 2:1 or higher Calcium:Phosphorus ratio.

Oh and note to self that I only ate protein and carbs

 

Enjoying this keep it up :)

 

Thanks, I've still got a lot of progress to go, but I've made a lot since starting as well. My main struggle these days is morning fatigue. I woke up well enough today, but the energy quickly faded, I guess because the stress response got brought back down. This seems to be a trend for me. Hoping this will improve as my glucose storage ability improves. My energy tends to increase throughout the day with almost a peak towards the evenings, presumably because that's after I've eaten a lot of carbs throughout the course of the day.

What I hope will help is stop sleeping so much. It's sucking today for example to force myself to get going, wanting to go back to bed, but it'll make getting to sleep each night easier and eventually hopefully get me to sleep 8 hours straight without waking once, is the goal. I know that sleeping 12 hrs a night, while waking up 3-4+ times a night, just isn't sustainable, so I'm trying to break that cycle.

I have enjoyed just waking up early though, way earlier than I need to, because then I can just chill and take my time in the morning and not rush out the door. This probably helps with stress levels. I also enjoy lots of anime these days, I said I would quit TV and video games but I quickly found this isn't practical for me lol. The compromise I have found is instead of watching high stress shows like say the walking dead, I instead watch anime that are usually pretty funny and should actually lower stress. I'd like to consider trying to wear blue blocker glasses at work to see if that helps me too.

I think part of my problem is too much serotonin in the diet. All the dairy proteins. Seems very challenging to get high protein without high tryptophan too. I guess increasing my gelatin from the 2 to 6 TBSP as I am thinking of doing will help with this though, displace some of the tryptophan with glycine.

It's also highly possible I'm starting to release PUFA which is making me feel this way. After so long of eating lots of nuts, nut butters, I probably have a LOT of pufa, ugh.

I am thinking of starting to eat white mushrooms every day. I have heard this can help displace some serotonin/estrogen.

Other possibility is wrong macronutrients at night. I am hearing more and more that you primarily want sugar and saturated fats / salt at night, not protein/sugar (which is what I did). I didn't want to have fat last night because I had hit my desired fat amounts already earlier. I think Haidut says to have most of the protein throughout the day not at night. I expect the reason for this is because protein lowers blood sugar, making the carbs you intake not last as long (and you need them to last 8 hrs), whereas saturated fats have the opposite effect - they make them last longer. With that in mind, I think I'd like to start just having carbs @ breakfast and no protein (to quickly get my blood sugar up from nightly fast) except for maybe bcaa and gelatin, protein & carbs between breakfast & dinner, and carbs & fats at dinner/bed time (Seems like ice cream is the go to staple around here at night).

 

* edit note to self... maple syrup needs to be a staple in my life... probably the manganese but I feel like it has a strong dopamagenic effect! Had cottage cheese w/ maple syrup for lunch. I feel like I have strong clarity of mind now, with a boost of clean energy. 2 cups nonfat CC / 1/2 cup of syrup. I read earlier that it's because Manganese directly inhibits iron absorption - as I've mentioned previously in my log, iron depletion is something I've been needing to do. Therefore, I do believe I've managed to fix my iron dilemma, that's one piece of the puzzle complete in the search for the optimal "Meta" diet

Apparently the fatigue from working out legs on Tuesday hit me badly yesterday, and I had to sleep 14 (!!!) hours last night. I do not seem to react well to forced exercise. I really need to be careful, even with high carbs it seems.

On the brighter side, my experiment with only have carbs until around noon seems to be decent in terms of energy, though getting 14 hr sleep no doubt helped too haha. All I've had up till now is OJ, except for a little bcaa and gelatin *another note to self, don't have bcaa by itself anymore. Read earlier that bcaa by itself and not with a big protein meal is a poor idea generally. Probably gonna not have gelatin by itself from now on either. Mornings will literally be straight up carbs from now on, that's it.

I will be having most of my lean proteins around lunch with some more carbs, and then finish the day off with carbs/fats and a little more protein, and see how that impacts my sleep / waking up energy. My hope is a dinner of SFA should help my carbs last longer, possibly the whole night. All I know is that a protein heavy dinner hasn't been working for me, I always wake up fatigued, so I gotta try something different.

I also continue to think I need to reduce/deplete serotonin in my diet. But it seems impossible, because literally every protein source (except Gelatin) has tryptophan it seems, and in much higher quantities than I want. Plus, to get enough calcium, you pretty much have to eat dairy, which is extremely high in tryptophan, though I suppose eggshell is an option, and I did find calcium fortified OJ to drink. Also, research shows high protein diets help reverse fatty liver. Sometimes I feel like information conflicts with itself...

My other dilemma is raising cholesterol without raising PUFA too much. Another impossible task it seems, because eggs are the king of cholesterol, but also a bit high in PUFA. Gonna go ahead and double my cholesterol intake from about 1000 mg to 2000mg, using around 6 eggs, and have some chocolate probably as well to add SFA/dopamine enhancement. Lindt chocolate is pretty amazing, as it doesn't have any bad additives like most chocolates do.

I want to do the following:

Maximize calcium
Maximize cholesterol
Maximize dopamine
Maximize glycine, proline, alanine
Minimize PUFA, negative effects of FFA's
Minimize phosphorus, iron
Minimize estrogen, serotonin, tryptophan,cystine,methionine *note to self, try adding mushrooms to diet. supposedly helps mitigate estrogen

I am an engineer professionally, and often do optimization problems. This however seems like a hopeless optimization problem lol. I may have to just accept some PUFA from the eggs and just make sure my SFA/PUFA ratio is reasonably high. Honestly it seems like as long as SFA/PUFA is at least 3-4:1, it's not that bad, from what research has shown.

Like any optimization, the trick is to Maximize your "Fitness function" (for the math nerd out there you know what this means), but basically it means to Maximize the ratio of benefits to drawbacks of the diet. Because it's unrealistic to make PUFA or tryptophan go down to zero while meeting other needs, the best I can do is damage control. One thing I have thought of, at the suggestion of another user, is to maybe occasionally do a "juice fast" which means basically drink juice all day and intake no other source of calories. This should help cleanse the system of PUFA and serotonin. I plan to consider doing this if I take a vacation this year for sure. Combination from sunlight + PUFA/serotonin depletion should be great.

I am determined to find the "Meta" diet though!! I love impossible challenges lol. Bring it on I don't care about monotony, so once I can make the "ideal" diet, I plan to eat basically the same stuff every day.

 

I've noticed the same thing with myself except I have a love affair with avocados so mine is not a low PUFA diet. I was actually just talking with Blossom about this in an other thread. Normally, I'm so fair I give Casper a run for his money but on a fruit-based diet, I tan easily. I sunbathed for the first time this spring on Monday, getting about 20 minutes exposure, and I already have a tan.

Another OJ addict here! I've been going through at least 2 liters of it a day. I buy it fresh pressed from the supermarket. The stuff is insane! Anyhow, Ray says fruit sugar helps raise cholesterol levels so with the amount you're getting, you may find yours improves without having to resort to eggs. I was able to raise mine 30 points just on fruit alone so...

In regards to low tryptophan sources of protein – I recall Ray saying mushrooms are a good source of quality protein like potatoes so maybe they could replace some of the meat and dairy? I just saw on the Food Network last night where a chef was cooking with mushrooms that taste like maple syrup/butterscotch called "Candy Cap." I'd like to get my hands on some of those.

Oh, and maple syrup is life!

I'm glad you're seeing such positive improvements and I hope you get the job in Florida!