My Journey To Optimal Health

[Cirion]

Guess I have the brain of an old person even though I am in my early 20s...

Lol, I can understand the struggle. But we're all gonna make it brah

 

[Cirion]

I now realize Digestion is the key to almost everything and that it is easy to tell if you digest things well (or not). Simply check your body weight before and fairly soon after eating something. Doing this check, I find that things like starches, fatty foods, too much liquids quickly bloats my body weight up. All of which is what Sea (former poster) said - starch,fat,and liquids are problematic if you're hypo. I would add that excess protein may also be problematic to digest. For the most severe cases (like myself) it seems fruit is about the only thing that I can handle, and maybe white rice. Which, by the way, is essentially the Kempner rice+fruit diet lol. Leaner cuts of beef I can handle a little bit to a degree also though. You want to eat foods that don't just sit in your gut and putrefy and not digest and turn into usable energy.

By doing the body-weight check I realize, for example, that potatoes (which I have been having a lot of at night) always bring up my bodyweight a couple lbs. Conversely on days where I lose weight, my bloat is low to almost zero (Body weight before going to bed virtually the same as waking up earlier in the day. This can help you course correct dynamically also, although may require more effort than some are willing to make. If you find yourself bloated more than you like mid-day, just stop eating offending foods the rest of the day. No need to fast. Just stick to white rice and fruit the rest of the day. Fasting is not helpful. But abstaining from bloating foods, absolutely can be. Now, recognizing all this, I am hoping that now I'll be able to get my weight loss to be more consistent, and hopefully eventually I can digest more foods too.

So Ray was right. In the case of hypo, starch should indeed probably be zero (except for maybe white rice which seems to be fairly benign).

I find that I can eat virtually unlimited fruit and not bloat at all ever. For example yesterday had 3 lbs of grapes and my body weight didn't budge up at ALL. 100% of it was immediately digested and used for energy it seems. But if I ate, let's say, 3 lb of beef, I absolutely would be bloated like crazy.

So basically every food has a level of digestive power required, and if it takes a lot of digestive power, it will slow everything down and reduce how many calories you can intake before getting fat essentially. People with strong metabolism/digestive can eat mountains of calories and not get fat, whereas people with hypo will struggle to control weight with minimal calories unless you focus on simple foods like fruit.

 

[Vinny]

I now realize Digestion is the key to almost everything and that it is easy to tell if you digest things well (or not). Simply check your body weight before and fairly soon after eating something. Doing this check, I find that things like starches, fatty foods, too much liquids quickly bloats my body weight up. All of which is what Sea (former poster) said - starch,fat,and liquids are problematic if you're hypo. I would add that excess protein may also be problematic to digest. For the most severe cases (like myself) it seems fruit is about the only thing that I can handle, and maybe white rice. Which, by the way, is essentially the Kempner rice+fruit diet lol. Leaner cuts of beef I can handle a little bit to a degree also though. You want to eat foods that don't just sit in your gut and putrefy and not digest and turn into usable energy.

By doing the body-weight check I realize, for example, that potatoes (which I have been having a lot of at night) always bring up my bodyweight a couple lbs. Conversely on days where I lose weight, my bloat is low to almost zero (Body weight before going to bed virtually the same as waking up earlier in the day. This can help you course correct dynamically also, although may require more effort than some are willing to make. If you find yourself bloated more than you like mid-day, just stop eating offending foods the rest of the day. No need to fast. Just stick to white rice and fruit the rest of the day. Fasting is not helpful. But abstaining from bloating foods, absolutely can be. Now, recognizing all this, I am hoping that now I'll be able to get my weight loss to be more consistent, and hopefully eventually I can digest more foods too.

So Ray was right. In the case of hypo, starch should indeed probably be zero (except for maybe white rice which seems to be fairly benign).

I find that I can eat virtually unlimited fruit and not bloat at all ever. For example yesterday had 3 lbs of grapes and my body weight didn't budge up at ALL. 100% of it was immediately digested and used for energy it seems. But if I ate, let's say, 3 lb of beef, I absolutely would be bloated like crazy.

So basically every food has a level of digestive power required, and if it takes a lot of digestive power, it will slow everything down and reduce how many calories you can intake before getting fat essentially. People with strong metabolism/digestive can eat mountains of calories and not get fat, whereas people with hypo will struggle to control weight with minimal calories unless you focus on simple foods like fruit.

It seems I`ll be buying a weight scale.

 

[Cirion]

It seems I`ll be buying a weight scale.

Yeah the temps and pulses are critical measurements, but weight is also really important to track, because I can get great temps and pulses going to bed on heavy starch foods, so in this case just temp and pulse isn't enough BUT I do still believe waking temps and pulses are sufficient generally but of course I do want to be sure weight is moving in the right direction so of course I also weigh in morning.

Really, knowledge is power. You must be your own coach, track how things are affecting you. While I might not be able to handle much fat, or dairy, or whatever, maybe for someone else it makes their temps and pulses perfect, that's for someone else to determine for themselves. I am trying to avoid all dogma now EXCEPT that metabolism (temp and pulse) is key always though, and chasing better digestive power is also eventually desired, other than that, pick the foods and drinks which best help you reach your goals.

 

[Cirion]

Been doing some more data assessment. The nice thing about having a brain that is almost properly functional again due to improving metabolism, is that my critical thinking skills have improved dramatically. Ray is right, I am smarter than I was, literally a higher IQ, simply due to improving my metabolism. I was bloating again bad the last couple of days, and thought I was doing everything right with macros but then it hit me with 100% clarity - Liquids.

My next experiment is going to be drinking little or even no liquids (only getting liquids from fruit) and that's about it. I had been going hard on mexican colas (as many as 4-5 in a day) and also my big 40 oz sugary drink every day and wondering why progress seemed to stall again. In addition, I've been going to my data and doing some 7, 14, even 21 day rolling averages to all but eliminate scatter in my data.

here are some 21 day (3 week) rolling average data points, showing my best metabolic points and the corresponding macros/calories. 21 days washes out pretty much all the day-to-day scatter at this point.

Waking Temp: 98.23F -- still 0.4F shy of my 98.6F target
Waking Pulse: 78.8 bpm -- still 6 bpm shy of my 85 bpm target
Wt. Chng: -0.09/day
Protein: 164g
Carbs: 910g
Fats: 42g
Calories: 4,548

Today I have only had 1 mexican cola and 1 coffee, otherwise no liquid except from grapes. I measured my body weight before and after eating 8 oz of meat. I thought that protein and fat was bloating. I may have to re-assess my assumptions. My weight remained unchanged before and after.

EDIT - 16 oz of meat later, still no noticeable bloat. I no longer think meat is the problem I thought it was, at least not with beef. I still think dairy/tryptophan is a problem, at least for me, because I absolutely do get bloated from cheese or milk. My temperatures have been through the roof today too. I am really hot and at like 99.8F temp. Reducing liquids really does heat you up. I might actually experiment with a tad bit more fat in the next week to see what happens in the context of a low liquid diet (good fats like cocao butter, like CLASH recommends). Dietary fat is EXTREMELY caloric dense, so I can see how it can have some merit, in the context of low liquid diet. Perhaps this is one possible reason that keto may be effective for some people? It's funny because in popular fitness culture we are taught that caloric dense foods are the devil and the quickest way to get fat because they "bypass normal hunger signals", meanwhile we're taught to eat almost zero calorie foods like low carb veggies, and make sure to drink our "8 glasses of water a day"...

I now think the key to hypothyroid recovery is not only lots of calories, but high caloric density, and minimal liquids. Once again, Ray is right. I just didn't appreciate just how important liquid avoidance was, but now I realize it's in fact been one of the things holding me back from feeling better and also losing weight.

Sea said the hardest things to handle in hypo is high liquid, and I am one to agree at this point. Ray hints at this as well, but he seems to think you counteract this effect simply by adding salt to liquids. I disagree. But he does also say, that hypothyroid individuals purge liquid at slower rates. So it simply stands to reason one should consume less liquids if you're hypo. I think he said a hypo person can only evaporate around a quart a day of water, so if you're like me with probably 50+ lb of water, that's simply not gonna work to consume water on top of what needs to be evaporated.

 

[Vinny]

Ray hints at this as well, but he seems to think you counteract this effect simply by adding salt to liquids. I disagree.

Why, Masta?
And, how not to drink a lot of liquids living in a very hot climat, like Cyprus for ex, and not screw ur kidneys (they love water, don,t they?)?

 

[Cirion]

Why, Masta?
And, how not to drink a lot of liquids living in a very hot climat, like Cyprus for ex, and not screw ur kidneys (they love water, don,t they?)?

This is me speaking and not Ray. I do think putting salt in water can offset the electrolyte problems. However, and I am not sure if Ray speaks to this, but drinking liquids can heavily dilute your digestive tract, so unless your digestion is rock solid (which it won't be in a hypothyroid individual) you will struggle to properly digest nutrients from solid food mixed with lots of liquids or worse yet, a pure liquid diet.

This results in a two fold problem - you get a functional nutritional deficiency due to expending lots of energy to get less energy from food (My temps tank when I drink too much liquid, a sign that I've expended energy to digest food/liquid), you get bloated from all the liquid, and then feel like you need to eat more which puts you in a vicious cycle of bloating basically and inability to recover from hypothyroidism because you're in a functional calorie deficit even while eating lots of food, and the bloating screws up your hormones by increasing estrogens and well, it's just a bad cycle.

If you're in a hot climate and sweating a lot yeah you will likely need to drink more. Ray does say let thirst be your guide on when to drink. And then be sure to add salt to water you do drink if possible as sweating makes you lose salt. Personally I still wouldn't drink water even in a hot climate. I'd much rather drink orange juice or grape juice or something. Drinking water alone is like eating a zero calorie food. Pointless and just expends energy.

This is just me musing and absolutely not a recommendation to do anything but I wonder how long can a fat bloated person survive without liquids vs. someone lean? It seems to me that someone fat has lots of water and can probably last weeks without water, no? again, I don't recommend actually doing this. Just some musings...

Another thing of note is that the higher your body temp is (which will happen with lower liquid diet) that the faster you will evaporate liquids in your body (by definitions, more heat = faster evaporation) and so keeping body temps high directly lowers bloat just from heat.

 

[Cirion]

Tried starch again last night (potatoes), but even in the context of almost no liquids, they STILL bloat me noticeably. Starch just doesn't work for me. I might even have to stop jello. That also seems to bloat me. I guess because of the liquid calories (orange juice).

I did have a slightly lower body weight this morning, but not to my liking. Body temp was mediocre at 97.9 but did increase to 98.2F after going to the restroom and before coffee or any food, so that does make it my best monday in about 3 weeks, so that's something I suppose, which is still enough to prove to me that low liquids is the way to go. Probably even better once the starch goes for good. Heart rate was pretty good though at about 81 bpm.

 

[oldmanthunder]

Has it occurred to you that your mood could be influenced by your temperature/pulse and not vice versa. It’s cool that you’re trying to gather ‘objective’ data but the data is so personal that it’s bound to be biased and therefore have an emotional impact on you.

 

[Cirion]

Indeed, my mood is influenced by temp and pulse. But if you are implying placebo effect. Nah. I have way too much experience under my belt to rule that out at this point and it's always the same foods causing me problems. My digestion is severely impaired though, which makes my ability to handle much of any foods a problem. Digestion is indeed strongly correlated to mood, given that 95% of serotonin is formed in the gut.

Sea said that starches, fats, and liquids all are problematic for someone like me, and all my experiences are starting to prove that.

 

[oldmanthunder]

Digestion starts in the mouth. a lot of people don’t digest starch and fat well because they don’t chew enough or salivate enough. 50% of the amylase you secrete is through saliva. Try to see next time you eat starch and fat whether you are taking the time to properly chew your food or if you gulp it down quickly. Eating quickly is terrible for digestion, you want to eat slow and relaxed, digestive function like stomach acid, bile and enzymes only work properly when in a parasympathetic state (ie relaxed)

 

[YourUniverse]

Tried starch again last night (potatoes), but even in the context of almost no liquids, they STILL bloat me noticeably.

Me too. I wonder if potatoes need to be peeled, boiled, AND fried/baked

 

[Cirion]

Me too. I wonder if potatoes need to be peeled, boiled, AND fried/baked

I keep wanting to not believe Ray on starch, but every day I realize how much smarter than me that Ray is. The fact is virtually everything I do is inspired by Ray, with the exception of consuming liquid calories (OJ and milk) or other dairy.

I like starch because it's easy to salt and tasty to do so, and that it's really, really hard to get almost 1,000 grams of carbs without starch AND without liquids... lol. I am not the biggest fan of dried fruit because it seems to irritate my teeth, but maybe I have no choice if I wanna get all my carbs from sugar.

 

[milkboi]

I keep wanting to not believe Ray on starch, but every day I realize how much smarter than me that Ray is. The fact is virtually everything I do is inspired by Ray, with the exception of consuming liquid calories (OJ and milk) or other dairy.

I like starch because it's easy to salt and tasty to do so, and that it's really, really hard to get almost 1,000 grams of carbs without starch AND without liquids... lol. I am not the biggest fan of dried fruit because it seems to irritate my teeth, but maybe I have no choice if I wanna get all my carbs from sugar.

Try fruit syrups, like apple syrup and date syrup. As sugar-dense as whole-foodish food can get. :)

 

[Runenight201]

Tried starch again last night (potatoes), but even in the context of almost no liquids, they STILL bloat me noticeably. Starch just doesn't work for me. I might even have to stop jello. That also seems to bloat me. I guess because of the liquid calories (orange juice).

I did have a slightly lower body weight this morning, but not to my liking. Body temp was mediocre at 97.9 but did increase to 98.2F after going to the restroom and before coffee or any food, so that does make it my best monday in about 3 weeks, so that's something I suppose, which is still enough to prove to me that low liquids is the way to go. Probably even better once the starch goes for good. Heart rate was pretty good though at about 81 bpm.

You could try starch with soups. I can’t eat plain salted potatoes, but I make a mean potato, corn, tomato, green onion, onion, lard, salt soup that digests very well and gives me good energy and strength. Something about the salt water helps the starch digest much easier. I like to eat it with cheese, and afterwards my stomach was flat and my muscles were filled and strong.

 

[Bart1]

@Cirion
Great log. Will start following it. I’m a 38 year old male. Been struggling for some years with my health. About a year ago discovered Peat, after suddenly a steep decline in health/energy. Woke up one day feeling stoned/drunk after experimenting with iodine because I thought that would help my thyroid. Never felt normal again. Have jumped on a lot of Peat things but as of late beginning to see issues with that as well (probably had them already but now they come apparent). I think a have some form of liver disease, low kidney function (nails reveal that) insulin resistance, gut disbiosis.

 

[Bart1]

Edit:sorry about double post
Great log. Will start following it. I’m a 38 year old male. Been struggling for some years with my health. About a year ago discovered Peat, after suddenly a steep decline in health/energy. Woke up one day feeling stoned/drunk after experimenting with iodine because I thought that would help my thyroid. Never felt normal again. Have jumped on a lot of Peat things but as of late beginning to see issues with that as well (probably had them already but now they come apparent). I think a have some form of liver disease, low kidney function (nails reveal that) insulin resistance, gut disbiosis. As of late trying to fix my poir digestion, especially to help my kidneys. They chronically hurt. I have bought BCAA’s to try some aminos to help with malabsorption

 

[Cirion]

@Cirion
Great log. Will start following it. I’m a 38 year old male. Been struggling for some years with my health. About a year ago discovered Peat, after suddenly a steep decline in health/energy. Woke up one day feeling stoned/drunk after experimenting with iodine because I thought that would help my thyroid. Never felt normal again. Have jumped on a lot of Peat things but as of late beginning to see issues with that as well (probably had them already but now they come apparent). I think a have some form of liver disease, low kidney function (nails reveal that) insulin resistance, gut disbiosis.

Yeah increasing calories will expose any existing problems. Many just give up and go back to calorie deficits and/or fasting but this doesn't resolve the problems, so that any attempts to eat higher calorie will bring them right back (*raises hand* with extensive experience here lol). This go around, I'm forcing myself to figure it out. I've learned a lot, with much to learn still. I won't consider myself more than a novice until I can get my average temps to 98.6F and pulses to 85 bpm. I inch ever closer, so I'll know I'll get there, but not gonna lie, gonna sigh a huge sigh of relief once I get there so I can FINALLY start to put my attention to other things than life than thinking about health 24/7

 

[Bart1]

Yeah increasing calories will expose any existing problems. Many just give up and go back to calorie deficits and/or fasting but this doesn't resolve the problems, so that any attempts to eat higher calorie will bring them right back (*raises hand* with extensive experience here lol). This go around, I'm forcing myself to figure it out. I've learned a lot, with much to learn still. I won't consider myself more than a novice until I can get my average temps to 98.6F and pulses to 85 bpm. I inch ever closer, so I'll know I'll get there, but not gonna lie, gonna sigh a huge sigh of relief once I get there so I can FINALLY start to put my attention to other things than life than thinking about health 24/7

Yeah know what you talk about ! Increasing calories for me is difficult, I’m not hungry at all, bloat from almost everything.

 

[Cirion]

Check it out guys. If I wasn't convinced starch is the devil. I am now.

These are 14-day rolling averages from my personal database. Clearly, increased starch directly lowers body temp and pulses. I'm done with starch now. After seeing these plots, I can not in good conscious eat it anymore.

14-day data is quite trust-worthy because it eliminates most of the day-to-day scatter (At least in pulse and temps). Wt change is still somewhat volatile.

**note when I say decrease temp and pulses I mean long-term, short term, starch can and dose raise temp and pulses, misleading you into thinking it's helpful.