My Journey To Optimal Health

[Cirion]

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!

I sometimes wonder if the PUFA scare is not a little over-exaggerated. I completely get why they're demonized, but from research it seems as long as your SFA/PUFA ratio is at least 3-4:1 that it's probably pretty much fine (to be more conservative, 6:1 is probably a better number, according to a study Haidut posted recently), as the SFA helps protect against the negative effects of PUFA. I'm going to just try out the eggs again for a while and see how it goes. I think there's a big difference between PUFA from a food that's actually otherwise great, than PUFA from cooking oils or something.

Lol, funny about the Casper comment. That's cool about tanning easily. My goal will be upwards of about 1 hr, as I heard from one guy that his libido went from zero to excessive with this amount of time (with as much skin exposure as possible, I go outside for walks at work when I can, but generally don't get the same effect as tanning in a bathing suit).

OJ is definitely life. I've heard that about sugar -> cholesterol as well. Maybe my body just isn't efficient at that process yet, because my libido still seems rather lacking / lower than I'd like. Energy levels and mood/sleep isn't perfect yet but improving, so I'm sure all of those issues are related, plus I'd like to drop some of the body fat I gained starting off on Peat, higher body fat probably negatively affects things. I'm not really obese though, so I guess it's not too bad.

Interesting though on potatoes... I'm torn on that suggestion though because I really like the idea of keeping all my carbs from sugar carbs, and the amount of potatoes you'd need to get an appreciable amount of protein is probably quite hefty lol. Mushroom + maple syrup... interesting... that could definitely make eating mushrooms a lot more appetizing for sure.

Thanks! I have not heard anything yet so I guess I didn't have much luck, but I'll keep browsing the job postings online until I get something, like anything in life, persistence is key... just like this whole Peat life... always learn more every day and apply what I learn

 

[Cirion]

My first experiment with having all/most of my fats at night: somewhat inconclusive. Saving my dark chocolate until evening was a mistake. The caffeine kept me wired/awake for a long time in bed. But when I did get to bed, I didn't have to have much food at night this time. Let's see how it goes if I move the dark chocolate to earlier in the day.

I think my getting sugar only until lunch is the best of two worlds - intermittent fasting, but without the fasting. It's just a "protein/fat" fast until lunch. Easy on the digestion track, but still getting the fuel I need (plus, I simply just don't like protein/fats in the morning since it makes me sluggish/tired). I think I will keep doing carb only mornings. I also only take supplements with my final meal, because of a lot of them being fat soluble, so it's pointless to take supplements without fat. I will probably start having my chocolate at lunch time to bring some of the caffeine in earlier in the day. I would have them at breakfast, but again, dislike the idea of fats early in the day when I need to get my blood sugar up.

One interesting thing is that I woke up today at my lowest weight yet (since starting to drop weight): around 213 lb. Still heavier than when I started peat at around 205 lb, but a lot lower than the 219-220 lbs I was at my peak. My pants definitely felt slightly looser today! And considering I seem to be slowly dropping weight at 4500-5000 calories a day, I have to say, that's pretty darn impressive. My metabolism seems to be through the roof now. In the past, I've rarely been able to eat more than 3500 calories a day without gaining weight. This must be my true metabolism starting to come forth. Losing weight with 700g carbs a day, lol. SFA is about 6:1 compared to PUFA, after reading Haidut's study of losing lots of bodyfat on a 20% fat diet with 3% PUFA, 17% stearic acid (SFA) Dietary Stearic Acid Reduces Visceral Fat By 70% And Increases Lean Mass
. I tried to replicate that yesterday, and got pretty close to that. Though strictly speaking, I didn't get 17% pure stearic acid but rather high stearic acid SFA sources. Total PUFA 9g, but for almost 5000 calories, I think that's not bad. 234g protein, 108g fat, 676g carb. Roughly 20%-20%-60%. Exactly hits the 20% fat target and the 3:1 carb:protein ratio. Also managed to hit 97% of total nutrients on chronometer (my best yet)... nutrients from food is superior to nutrients from supplements. This probably helps the weight loss. And even if I can't get much lower than say 210 lb, I still consider it a win even to be weight stable at 210 lb eating 5000 calories a day. I think it's way healthier than being weight stable at 180 lb eating only 3000 calories or less which is what many "healthy" people do. No thanks, I like food, haha. Also since I'm lifting weights again, this higher weight will have my body already primed to pack on more muscle without having to gain more weight. My personal trainer pointed this out as well. The weight has already been gained, now it just needs to be converted to muscle. In the long run, this may very well set me up to get huge and muscular. I already have a decent muscle base, but I do want more.

It makes sense, given that RP says that sugar is 50% less fattening than starch, it seems to be holding true for me, I'm basically able to eat 50% more calories from carbs without gaining weight. I definitely think for optimal metabolism the goal should be able to eat as many calories as you can without getting obese/excessively overweight.

My high quality coffee I ordered should be in this weekend, and I will be switching to that (currently using caffeinated chewing gum). Currently I take 300mg in the morning coupled with however much is in a couple ounces of chocolate.

 

[EIRE24]

My first experiment with having all/most of my fats at night: somewhat inconclusive. Saving my dark chocolate until evening was a mistake. The caffeine kept me wired/awake for a long time in bed. But when I did get to bed, I didn't have to have much food at night this time. Let's see how it goes if I move the dark chocolate to earlier in the day.

I think my getting sugar only until lunch is the best of two worlds - intermittent fasting, but without the fasting. It's just a "protein/fat" fast until lunch. Easy on the digestion track, but still getting the fuel I need (plus, I simply just don't like protein/fats in the morning since it makes me sluggish/tired). I think I will keep doing carb only mornings. I also only take supplements with my final meal, because of a lot of them being fat soluble, so it's pointless to take supplements without fat. I will probably start having my chocolate at lunch time to bring some of the caffeine in earlier in the day. I would have them at breakfast, but again, dislike the idea of fats early in the day when I need to get my blood sugar up.

One interesting thing is that I woke up today at my lowest weight yet (since starting to drop weight): around 213 lb. Still heavier than when I started peat at around 205 lb, but a lot lower than the 219-220 lbs I was at my peak. My pants definitely felt slightly looser today! And considering I seem to be slowly dropping weight at 4500-5000 calories a day, I have to say, that's pretty darn impressive. My metabolism seems to be through the roof now. In the past, I've rarely been able to eat more than 3500 calories a day without gaining weight. This must be my true metabolism starting to come forth. Losing weight with 700g carbs a day, lol. SFA is about 6:1 compared to PUFA, after reading Haidut's study of losing lots of bodyfat on a 20% fat diet with 3% PUFA, 17% stearic acid (SFA) Dietary Stearic Acid Reduces Visceral Fat By 70% And Increases Lean Mass
. I tried to replicate that yesterday, and got pretty close to that. Though strictly speaking, I didn't get 17% pure stearic acid but rather high stearic acid SFA sources. Total PUFA 9g, but for almost 5000 calories, I think that's not bad. 234g protein, 108g fat, 676g carb. Roughly 20%-20%-60%. Exactly hits the 20% fat target and the 3:1 carb:protein ratio. Also managed to hit 97% of total nutrients on chronometer (my best yet)... nutrients from food is superior to nutrients from supplements. This probably helps the weight loss. And even if I can't get much lower than say 210 lb, I still consider it a win even to be weight stable at 210 lb eating 5000 calories a day. I think it's way healthier than being weight stable at 180 lb eating only 3000 calories or less which is what many "healthy" people do. No thanks, I like food, haha. Also since I'm lifting weights again, this higher weight will have my body already primed to pack on more muscle without having to gain more weight. My personal trainer pointed this out as well. The weight has already been gained, now it just needs to be converted to muscle. In the long run, this may very well set me up to get huge and muscular. I already have a decent muscle base, but I do want more.

It makes sense, given that RP says that sugar is 50% less fattening than starch, it seems to be holding true for me, I'm basically able to eat 50% more calories from carbs without gaining weight. I definitely think for optimal metabolism the goal should be able to eat as many calories as you can without getting obese/excessively overweight.

My high quality coffee I ordered should be in this weekend, and I will be switching to that (currently using caffeinated chewing gum). Currently I take 300mg in the morning coupled with however much is in a couple ounces of chocolate.

When you say sucrose is less fattening and you are eating 50% more than before I'm guessing this is from OJ and not actual white sugar?

 

[Cirion]

When you say sucrose is less fattening and you are eating 50% more than before I'm guessing this is from OJ and not actual white sugar?

Yes... oj, fruit, maple syrup - anything with quality vitamins/minerals in it. I wonder if it also has something to do with the fact I had Calcium fortified OJ yesterday in high quantities. I think I will only drink that for a while and see if I continue to have good results. I ended up in something like a 1.5:1 Calcium : Phosphorus ratio (seems nearly impossible to hit 2:1 without a combination of dairy AND calcium fortified OJ, or using calcium supplementation)

Plain sugar is probably not ideal since it doesn't have any nutrients in it. But it's still probably better than starch in most cases.

But yeah, I do think quality vitamins/minerals from real foods is one of the secrets to fat loss for sure. More accurately, making sure your body gets the specific vitamin/minerals it needs is the secret (seeing as how some bodies may be deficient/overloaded in one or two minerals and another person won't be). The easiest way to do so, is just make sure you get a good amount of everything (which is why I like to track on chronometer), and minimize what you don't want like Iron for ex. Any deficiency or overload is going to cause things to be bogged down and make fat loss more difficult. I didn't use to respect how important this is, but now I think I do. This is something that is a nail in the coffin for "If It Fits Your Macros "IIFYM"" crowd for sure. Those folks think you can basically generally eat whatever you want as long as it meets your fat/carbs/protein macros, but that's so far from the truth.

"CICO" (Calories in Calories out) remains a truth, but the complicated truth is that "it depends", on the type of calories, what nutrients you are getting etc. I never realized this until I came to RP.

 

[Jennifer]

I sometimes wonder if the PUFA scare is not a little over-exaggerated. I completely get why they're demonized, but from research it seems as long as your SFA/PUFA ratio is at least 3-4:1 that it's probably pretty much fine (to be more conservative, 6:1 is probably a better number, according to a study Haidut posted recently), as the SFA helps protect against the negative effects of PUFA. I'm going to just try out the eggs again for a while and see how it goes. I think there's a big difference between PUFA from a food that's actually otherwise great, than PUFA from cooking oils or something.

Lol, funny about the Casper comment. That's cool about tanning easily. My goal will be upwards of about 1 hr, as I heard from one guy that his libido went from zero to excessive with this amount of time (with as much skin exposure as possible, I go outside for walks at work when I can, but generally don't get the same effect as tanning in a bathing suit).

OJ is definitely life. I've heard that about sugar -> cholesterol as well. Maybe my body just isn't efficient at that process yet, because my libido still seems rather lacking / lower than I'd like. Energy levels and mood/sleep isn't perfect yet but improving, so I'm sure all of those issues are related, plus I'd like to drop some of the body fat I gained starting off on Peat, higher body fat probably negatively affects things. I'm not really obese though, so I guess it's not too bad.

Interesting though on potatoes... I'm torn on that suggestion though because I really like the idea of keeping all my carbs from sugar carbs, and the amount of potatoes you'd need to get an appreciable amount of protein is probably quite hefty lol. Mushroom + maple syrup... interesting... that could definitely make eating mushrooms a lot more appetizing for sure.

Thanks! I have not heard anything yet so I guess I didn't have much luck, but I'll keep browsing the job postings online until I get something, like anything in life, persistence is key... just like this whole Peat life... always learn more every day and apply what I learn

I agree! I believe there's a big difference between the PUFA from fresh, whole food sources like eggs and avocados and the PUFA from highly concentrated and chemically processed seed oils.

Huh, I'll have to try an hour of sun exposure and see what happens. Sun definitely affects my libido positively, as well as getting enough sleep, enough fruit sugar, being around someone I'm attracted to (obviously lol) and getting just enough fat in my diet. Too much fat and my circulation suffers – my limbs start falling asleep easily.

Sorry for not being clear. I meant getting your protein from the mushrooms not potatoes. Though, if you wanted to get it from potatoes but don't want the starch, you could juice them? Potato juice is actually an old remedy for ulcers and inflammation and Ray told me that intestinal inflammation can cause low cholesterol. I've used potato juice during a juice feast/fast before. It tasted gross, but my gut was happy.

To help with sleep, have you ever tried having chamomile tea (just steeped chamomile) with honey or maple syrup in the evening? It contains apigenin which relaxes the nervous system and is an aromatase inhibitor.

 

[Cirion]

Sorry for not being clear. I meant getting your protein from the mushrooms not potatoes. Though, if you wanted to get it from potatoes but don't want the starch, you could juice them? Potato juice is actually an old remedy for ulcers and inflammation and Ray told me that intestinal inflammation can cause low cholesterol. I've used potato juice during a juice feast/fast before. It tasted gross, but my gut was happy.

To help with sleep, have you ever tried having chamomile tea (just steeped chamomile) with honey or maple syrup in the evening? It contains apigenin which relaxes the nervous system and is an aromatase inhibitor.

Oh gotcha. I haven't had chamomile in a while but I might try it again sometime.

Update:
Today I woke up at my lowest weight yet (211 lb). This is actually very shocking to me, because my macros yesterday were: 150g protein, 90g fat, and 964(!!!)g carbs. It almost seems like at this point, that the more carbs I have, the more weight I lose. Almost all of these carbs were from Calcium Fortified OJ. The only other carbs I had were from maple syrup and a tiny bit from ice cream / yogurt. So this also seems to dismiss the myth that liquids make you gain weight. I really couldn't begin to understand why this is happening, but I'm certainly not going to complain about it lol. Maybe some of the following did it for me.

1.) Mega dosing Vitamin E (I'm experimenting and taking the same dosage that Haidut took, 2000 mg a day mixed tocopherols). Just for fun, I may even up the dosage some more, and try the Shute brothers dosage (about twice that). Yes, I'm crazy haha. This probably helps to counter-act the negative effects of PUFA from the eggs I like to have at dinner.
2.) Increased caffeine intake (I had 600 mg yesterday up from 300 mg) - according to Haidut this is the optimal dosage a day for someone of my weight/size.
3.) Intermittent "Protein/Fat" fast, I didn't have much protein or fat at all until almost the final meal of the day. I found that caffeine suppresses my protein/fat appetite and it's sufficient for me to just have carbs to avoid any stress response from caffeine.
4.) Dramatic increase in calcium intake (from my calcium fortified OJ), bringing my Calcium to Phosphorus ratio to 2 finally. 11,000 mg calcium: 4,900 mg phosphorus ratio.
5.) 1 hr of quality sunlight yesterday
6.) Taurine supplementation - had over 1 gram of it
7.) Less tryptophan? This is a strong possibility. I have heard that in some people Tryptophan can cause bloat. Only tryptophan I had was the bit in the greek yogurt I had. No cheese or milk yesterday.

 

[Dolomite]

@Cirion , that is wonderful! Your log and enthusiasm are giving me some inspiration to use more calcium to get my Ca/Phos ratio higher. @marikay mentioned that she lost weight when she got her calcium to phosphorus ratio up, too. I have my coffee grinder out and ready to grind up the eggshells that are dry and ready.

I will also be looking at calcium fortified OJ.

I am not sure I could work on carbs alone for breakfast but I plan to try it.

Thanks for keeping us up to date with your progress.

 

[Cirion]

@Cirion , that is wonderful! Your log and enthusiasm are giving me some inspiration to use more calcium to get my Ca/Phos ratio higher. @marikay mentioned that she lost weight when she got her calcium to phosphorus ratio up, too. I have my coffee grinder out and ready to grind up the eggshells that are dry and ready.

I will also be looking at calcium fortified OJ.

I am not sure I could work on carbs alone for breakfast but I plan to try it.

Thanks for keeping us up to date with your progress.

Haha, great! The more I see results the more I get excited. I have lived my life far too long in a depressed state, and now i'm starting to see my true personality start to come out perhaps the first time in my life. Try the higher Ca/phos ratio for sure! And I know that it's only going to get better from here. I'm still a little overweight, and still a little compromised overall, so I know that I'm going to just feel even better as I improve my protocol and lean out. And it's getting to be summer soon, the perfect time to get sun

The updates are also to keep me accountable, and keep track of what works! I have a bad memory so it's hard to remember otherwise haha

I never would have imagined it would be possible to lose weight on 5000+ calories a day in the past. This is incredible. RP is a genius!! I will never "Diet" again lol.

I find that I sometimes wake up a little peckish, but as soon as I get caffeine, my protein/fat appetite goes away. Again, just make sure you couple the caffeine with sugar and salt - or the stress responses will ensue.

Also, maple syrup is the nectar of the gods - I try to get at least 1/2 cup a day of it now. I feel AMAZING and my body temps go up every time I have it. It's the manganese, great stuff! This makes me believe that controlling Iron intake is one of the big keys to metabolism alongside calcium.

 

[Jennifer]

I have lived my life far too long in a depressed state, and now i'm starting to see my true personality start to come out perhaps the first time in my life.

That's awesome, Cirion! I can relate.

I will never "Diet" again lol.

Now that's the spirit! YAY for the abundance mindset!

 

[Cirion]

That's awesome, Cirion! I can relate.

Now that's the spirit! YAY for the abundance mindset!

Yeah, the modern life is so full of stressors that to finally begin to understand what a non-stressed state feels like... well, it's different to say the least. Americans in particular seem obsessed with stressing themselves out on purpose, I have never understood my fellow countrymen. In many cases, its a badge of honor if you work 80-100+ hours a week and never sleep etc. I used to be like this while I was living that college life, but I've had enough of that nonsense now. I actually have no interest to progress too far up the corporate ladder, because the stress increases as your pay grade increases, lol.

Just got back from a one hour long walk in the sun shirtless to maximize sun to skin contact... feeling pretty good. Now time for more OJ lol.

I think I will try out epsom salt float pod (1000 lb of epsom salts) this week, maybe tuesday, I've heard good things. I am doing all I can to pamper myself these days.

 

[Cirion]

I've decided I'm going to start dropping down my dairy intake, and then drop it off entirely. Unfortunately, I have a fair bit of cheese and milk/yogurt in my fridge, so I will try to eat some of it rather than waste it all first. I've mentioned this before, but this tryptophan is killing me, I feel so bloated all the time, I'm pretty sure this is the reason. It's not as bad since I cut fat-filled dairy from my diet (I was so bloated then I felt like I would explode), but it's still bad. Because I now drink calcium fortified OJ, I won't really miss dairy anymore. I'll mostly be getting my protein from gelatin, shrimp, maybe casein/whey with a little beef now and then. A healthy individual should be able to handle dairy, but I'm obviously not healthy enough to properly handle it yet.

My belly just seems huge, after having had 2.5 cup of fat free yogurt today, almost like I'm pregnant or something lol. Kinda annoying though. I also noted this afternoon I had a brief period of fatigue. Probably because the tryptophan converted to too much serotonin in my body.

 

[Taotatoes]

Just catching up here on your log. Very interesting. We have a lot in common. I too lean out on high sugar and by eating higher calories closer to maintenance. Not that somatype holds any scientific bearing these days but would you classify as a mesomorph?

 

[charlie]

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.

+1 I eat cottage cheese and maple syrup often. I also throw in a splash of honey for taste.

 

[Taotatoes]

+1 I eat cottage cheese and maple syrup often. I also throw in a splash of honey for taste.

Yuuuum. I gotta try this. I sometimes use jellies!! Omg. Grape jelly on cottage cheese... it good shiz.

 

[Cirion]

Just catching up here on your log. Very interesting. We have a lot in common. I too lean out on high sugar and by eating higher calories closer to maintenance. Not that somatype holds any scientific bearing these days but would you classify as a mesomorph?

Hey thanks for following. I felt kinda lonely posting by myself a lot haha, so welcome!

I actually would have called myself an "ectomorph", aka "skinny fat" most of my life until a few yrs ago when I started working out and eating more. I weighed around 160 lb for a long time. Now I'm like 210, but really not that much more fat than I was then in terms of BF%, but I am trying to remove some bloat currently.

Anyhow, so I'm trying to compile a list of foods and their Fernstrom ratios (Tryptophan / LNAA) where LNAA = Tyrosine + Leucine + Isoleucine + Valine + Phenylalanine . Here is what I have so far.

Eggs: 0.034
Mozz/Cheddar Cheese: 0.079
Grass Fed Beef: 0.0264
Gelatin: 0.000
Shrimp: 0.056
Casein: 0.043
Whey: 0.083
Skim Milk: 0.038
Whole milk: 0.041
Nonfat yogurt: 0.072
Lowfat cottage cheese: 0.032

From what I have read so far, this ratio seems more important than tryptophan directly, because LNAA's are antagonist to Tryptophan. Note that nonfat yogurt is the nearly the highest in this list with cheese/whey being the worst offenders. This might help explain my serotonin bloat yesterday. As we can see, by far the most effective way to decrease this ratio is to add gelatin (which is, in fact what RP recommends). Also note that cottage cheese is among the lowest here, so that means cottage cheese probably is pretty good to eat. Cheese, whey, and yogurt seem like the worst offenders, and probably shrimp shouldn't be overdone either. Casein, skim milk, eggs, and cottage cheese seem okay. Of course, in an ideal world, with trying to bring down serotonin, we'd like to get it down to 0, but unless you want a pure gelatin diet that's not really practical. By mixing already low foods with gelatin though, we can get pretty low...

Given how bloated ~0.07 gets me, I probably want to be at least half that (probably more like 0.03 or less, with likely even lower than that, at least for a while, to get the bloat down). Maybe even more like 0.02. Looks like a lot of gelatin is in my future... At least it looks like I don't have to give cottage cheese up. Good, because I like CC+maple syrup...

 

[Taotatoes]

Interesting! Looking forward to following your progress. Bloating stinks. Fingers crossed you find a solid routine sooner than later for it. Most of my life long bloating issues were remedied by removing cruciferous and brassica veggies, as well as nuts and boxed cereals.

 

[Jennifer]

Yeah, the modern life is so full of stressors that to finally begin to understand what a non-stressed state feels like... well, it's different to say the least. Americans in particular seem obsessed with stressing themselves out on purpose, I have never understood my fellow countrymen. In many cases, its a badge of honor if you work 80-100+ hours a week and never sleep etc. I used to be like this while I was living that college life, but I've had enough of that nonsense now. I actually have no interest to progress too far up the corporate ladder, because the stress increases as your pay grade increases, lol.

Just got back from a one hour long walk in the sun shirtless to maximize sun to skin contact... feeling pretty good. Now time for more OJ lol.

I think I will try out epsom salt float pod (1000 lb of epsom salts) this week, maybe tuesday, I've heard good things. I am doing all I can to pamper myself these days.

Mm...yeah, I feel there's a no pain no gain mentality that's prevalent. Not that working hard is bad, but I do think it can be taken to extremes or be extra damaging when what we're working so hard for isn't based on our own dreams but someone else's. You know, painting the canvas of our lives with someone else's paint brush? Anyhow, I feel the same way as you. I'm over it. My body made that decision for me, anyway.

Hehe! The OJ – it's like rocket fuel! It's so dang good that I'm totally invested in surpassing the level of orange I attained that one summer of spectacular cantaloupe.

We've had nothing but rain here so I haven't been able to test the effects of an hour of sun exposure yet. I seriously can't move to the beach fast enough.

Huh, epsom salt float pods – are they like float tanks? Those things freak me out! I'm so claustrophobic, I'm not sure how I even survived the womb. I'm curious to see what you think of it, if you do try it out. Good for you for giving yourself some TLC.

 

[Cirion]

Interesting! Looking forward to following your progress. Bloating stinks. Fingers crossed you find a solid routine sooner than later for it. Most of my life long bloating issues were remedied by removing cruciferous and brassica veggies, as well as nuts and boxed cereals.

Haha, that's the kind of diet that would likely promote bloating, for sure. I avoid high fiber veggies now for the most part, and completely avoid nuts (aka PUFAs) and any starches now also. Much appreciated, hoping that my deliberate attempt to lower serotonin in the body will resolve my problems for sure.

We've had nothing but rain here so I haven't been able to test the effects of an hour of sun exposure yet. I seriously can't move to the beach fast enough.

I hear ya. I want my beach job too...

Huh, epsom salt float pods – are they like float tanks? Those things freak me out! I'm so claustrophobic, I'm not sure how I even survived the womb. I'm curious to see what you think of it, if you do try it out.

Lol, yeah we'll see how it goes!

I just looked up the Fernstrom ratio of grass fed beef and was pleasantly surprised to find out... it's only 0.0264. I think all my weird fatigues from eating beef was because of too much Iron, not tryptophan, as a result (In fact, this was already a theory, looking back at my log). As such, in order to balance the "bad", I just have to eat plenty of maple syrup alongside beef, and viola, I have the perfect food combo! In addition, the total amount of tryptophan in beef seems to win out over most other proteins, not just the ratio. Only 170 mg of tryptophan per 4 oz. Hmm... Maple syrup coated beef... I wonder what that tastes like haha

 

[Jennifer]

Hmm... Maple syrup coated beef... I wonder what that tastes like haha

When I first started Peating, I ate Applegate Farms' beef hotdogs with maple syrup, cooked chicken breast, scallops, fried and scrambled eggs (scrambled was like a sponge) in maple syrup, drenched my potatoes in maple syrup and drank maple milk. I would eat an old boot if it were covered in maple syrup...well, a pleather one anyway. :) Do you like garlic? I liked mixing some garlic powder and sea salt with the maple syrup in my meat and potato dishes.

 

[Cirion]

No huge updates to share, but a few things of note...

I now realize the importance of BCAA. I had read of their benefits from Haidut, but now I realize BCAA contains 3/5 LNAA - which means they are basically as effective as Glycine to bring down the fernstrom ratio of food. I was able to bring down the F ratio of mozz cheese down from 0.08 to 0.03 (almost a 75% reduction!) just by adding two scoops (10g) of bcaa and 2 tbsp of gelatin to 4 oz of cheese. And I proved to myself it works - I barely had any "post food sleepiness" after having the cheese like I normally would. I probably will still cut out dairy from my diet mostly. Because I think I have a serotonin problem, I believe I need to get even lower than 0.03. But at least I can eat some of my dairy I already bought without wasting it (I hate to waste food). I'm setting a goal to myself to get around a net total of 0.02 on the Fernstrom ratio every day and see what this does for me.

I am also considering doing a Master cleanse and/or juice fasting after hearing the benefits of it. This should have a double benefit of making me drop some weight and also cleansing junk like PUFA/pesticides from my system.

I haven't dropped any more weight lately, but I don't think I've really gained any either. I seem to fluctuate up and down a few lbs every day. Not too awfully concerned or surprised, I am still having a lot of calories after all. I'm just happy I can still fit in my 32" waist pants lol, though they are tight on some days and looser on others. I feel like my weight lifting may be setting me back, so I have been trying to cool it. I didn't complete my full lower body workout but rather cut it short when I started to feel fatigued. If there's one thing for sure, I'm more in tune with the amount of stress I can handle. In the past I would have just powered through that workout, but my body was subtly telling me it was done.

Lower body workouts in particular seem to stress me out. I can usually finish my upper body workouts just fine. My stress tolerance in general seems rather poor, even with my high carbohydrate intake, which I find somewhat annoying. Maybe though, it's just that I'm finally getting more in tune with my tolerance levels, whereas before I ignored them.

I also want to wean off my supplements at the suggestion of a few people. Maybe quit them entirely. With my current foods, I often hit 95-97% on chronometer so I think it's almost time to ditch the supps and see if that improves my health.