My Journey To Optimal Health

[iLoveSugar]

I really dont eat much fruit as is except homemade lemonade or orange juice. What are better choices when you say protein/carbs? An no milk? Or just fat free milk? I don't really drink any milk right now anyway.

Well exercise itself usually doesnt result in weight loss except muscle built from weight training can slowly do that. I meant things like low fat diet or very low fat diet, food is only protein and carbs. Pretty powerful diet for weight loss and health for that matter as long as it limits fructose which can increase fat because fructose can easily convert to fat once glycogen is saturated. That's just one example out of 20.

 

[Markus]

Any idea of optimal Lysin:Arginine ratio? Just some quick looking through a lot of my old data, it seems the highest I ever got was roughly 1:1 maybe a little more. In my investigations of protein, I am mulling the idea of adding casein powder to my diet potentially. If I did that, then the lysine:arginine ratio easily hits 1:1 again. I would find that more preferable to just straight supplementing lysine (Assuming casein powder and me mix). Casein powder was one of the main proteins that Nathan Hatch used in his book F*** portion control. Also, protein powders used to be a staple in my diet back when I was healthy. I think powders probably do get digested a lot better than whole foods. But, until I experiment, it's only theory. Either way, I want to go on an animal product purge the rest of this week just to cleanse my gut, then maybe I'll experiment w/ that next.

The ideal arginine:lysine ratio is 1:1 from my knowledge.

Btw, I also prefer protein powders rather than whole-food protein sources from a digestive standpoint, but I seem to do better with pea or whey protein instead of casein.

 

[Cirion]

Yeah me and redsun have our disagreements but I agree on weight. You probably will gain a FEW lbs starting off getting your temperatures up, this is inevitable, but it shouldn't keep climbing and climbing and climbing if you are you did it wrong. I did it wrong and now I'm paying the price because once you get severely overweight it is very very very very hard to get it off, so don't be like me. Optimize not only temps and pulses but ALSO weight loss. And CO2 -- if you have a capnograph. Gaining weight is NOT necessary, at least not excessive weight gain. The fact is your metabolism should be improving. An improved metabolism should digest things better as well as reduce inflammation. It's literally impossible for an improved metabolism with less inflammation to gain weight so if someone is, it's clear they haven't improved things.

 

[Cirion]

Frustrated. No weight loss this morning. I notice the same trend every night though, so I am starting to form a hypothesis as to whats going on. I'll check my weight before going to bed then after waking up a few hrs later. Then, I'll check it again right when I wake up before work. I have noticed that the change in weight from first going bed to waking up is the point at which MOST Of the weight loss occurs. Tonight in almost 4+ hrs (after the first wake up) there was zero weight loss. If I needed more proof that inflammation/running out of glucose is the reason for inflammation/weight gain / wt retention this is definitely it. My temps still haven't recovered either from taking out the animal products, but after a bowel movement and before eating anything at least I got back to 98F. Sadly I haven't even been at 98F in two weeks thanks to meat, so it'll probably take a couple more days to get back up and also to get weight loss moving again. Also yesterday -- I still had less carbs than I need, I had more protein (from bone broth tho), AND I had fats (I had to go out to eat for lunch for a coworker's farewell lunch, and the lunch I had was a little fatty). So eh, I'll just mark yesterday off as a loss in terms of wt. loss and metabolism. I do feel marginally better this morning tho so there is that.

I think after work today I will soak in the tub for most of the evening with my new found CO2 trick... Maybe try out 8 cup this time lol...

 

[Cirion]

OK guys I'm on the verge of what I think is my next major breakthrough. It's something I have been musing on for a while not, but my thoughts are coming together on it now.

So I have been suspecting for some time now that the Liver is the key to EVERYTHING. In hypothyroid you can not hold glucose for very long, certainly not long enough to survive 8 hrs of fasting (aka sleep).

Well, I've also made the connection that weight is dropped rapidly in the first few hrs of sleeping, but stalls the rest of the night. I now believe 100% this is due to liver glucose. Your body stops dropping weight the instant you run out of liver glucose, because this is when inflammation in the body begins with cystine, tryptophan, pufa all flooding your bloodstream.

So last night I felt really bad around 7 pm. Decided to sleep, fell asleep 4 hrs, woke up and ate a bunch more food, and went to sleep again later in the night. Today managed to drop my weight slightly finally after a 2 week stall. What I did was basically "biphasic sleep" which is sleep in two distinct "blocks" of time. I now think this may be required in hypothyroid due to the utter inability to fast for 8 hrs. Realistically most of us have a job so what this may look like is sleep right when you get back from work from say 6 to 10 pm, eat a big meal (say 1000 calories) then go back to bed again from say 12-1 to 5-6 or whatever and still get your 8 hrs.

I've seen some success eating mountains of calories and I still believe lots of food is required for this reason. But no matter how much you eat, you can and WILL run out of glucose in the middle of the night, so theres literally no point to try to eat enough to make it happen because it s literally impossible no matter how much you eat, no matter what supplements you take, so its time to stop trying to fight it cuz its not possible. Its best to work around it then. The goal is eventually of course to increase liver glucose storage capacity, don't get me wrong. But I spent months (even this whole year) trying to do this to no success at all. I think then, the goal should be -- work with the storage capacity you have already. I believe eventually the storage capacity problem should fix itself as inflammation in the body drops systematically for the very reason that you don't let the liver run out of glucose. I've proven its possible to stay asleep the whole night without getting up, but that's different from lasting the night with liver glucose stores. Just to make clear that there's a difference between the two. Things like higher protein/fat intakes (may) help you sleep longer but they won't help your weight loss or metabolism goals.

 

[milkboi]

Nice, sounds like a promising approach. Maybe try sleeping 3H in the first block and then 6H in the second, because (as you probably already know) a sleep cycle is about 1,5H long.

 

[milkboi]

Or 4,5H + 3-4,5H

 

[Andy316]

Have you tried gulping a glass of pure glucose powder (Dextrose Monohydrate) at night?

OK guys I'm on the verge of what I think is my next major breakthrough. It's something I have been musing on for a while not, but my thoughts are coming together on it now.

So I have been suspecting for some time now that the Liver is the key to EVERYTHING. In hypothyroid you can not hold glucose for very long, certainly not long enough to survive 8 hrs of fasting (aka sleep).

Well, I've also made the connection that weight is dropped rapidly in the first few hrs of sleeping, but stalls the rest of the night. I now believe 100% this is due to liver glucose. Your body stops dropping weight the instant you run out of liver glucose, because this is when inflammation in the body begins with cystine, tryptophan, pufa all flooding your bloodstream.

So last night I felt really bad around 7 pm. Decided to sleep, fell asleep 4 hrs, woke up and ate a bunch more food, and went to sleep again later in the night. Today managed to drop my weight slightly finally after a 2 week stall. What I did was basically "biphasic sleep" which is sleep in two distinct "blocks" of time. I now think this may be required in hypothyroid due to the utter inability to fast for 8 hrs. Realistically most of us have a job so what this may look like is sleep right when you get back from work from say 6 to 10 pm, eat a big meal (say 1000 calories) then go back to bed again from say 12-1 to 5-6 or whatever and still get your 8 hrs.

I've seen some success eating mountains of calories and I still believe lots of food is required for this reason. But no matter how much you eat, you can and WILL run out of glucose in the middle of the night, so theres literally no point to try to eat enough to make it happen because it s literally impossible no matter how much you eat, no matter what supplements you take, so its time to stop trying to fight it cuz its not possible. Its best to work around it then. The goal is eventually of course to increase liver glucose storage capacity, don't get me wrong. But I spent months (even this whole year) trying to do this to no success at all. I think then, the goal should be -- work with the storage capacity you have already. I believe eventually the storage capacity problem should fix itself as inflammation in the body drops systematically for the very reason that you don't let the liver run out of glucose. I've proven its possible to stay asleep the whole night without getting up, but that's different from lasting the night with liver glucose stores. Just to make clear that there's a difference between the two. Things like higher protein/fat intakes (may) help you sleep longer but they won't help your weight loss or metabolism goals.

 

[Cirion]

Nice, sounds like a promising approach. Maybe try sleeping 3H in the first block and then 6H in the second, because (as you probably already know) a sleep cycle is about 1,5H long.

Or 4,5H + 3-4,5H

I wouldn't try to time it or set an alarm or anything (altho I think in an article Ray does say to try this), because your body automatically will wake you up when its time to have glucose, but yeah, it might look something like that.

Have you tried gulping a glass of pure glucose powder (Dextrose Monohydrate) at night?

Worth a shot. If one doesn't have the "time" to do a biphasic sleep pattern, maybe the thing to do is have a large amount of glucose quickly using a method like this (since it would take too long to try to eat a huge meal in this case). In my experience, just a glass of OJ is NOT enough carbohydrates to replenish glucose. It probably takes more drastic measures like at least 100 gram of glucose from maltodextrin/dextrose or maybe even 200 gram. Too much solid food in the middle of the night, without time to digest it, is not a good idea. I've also learned this lesson the hard way. This only works if you have time to adopt the biphasic method that I mentioned. Otherwise, probably stick to liquid/easy to digest in the middle of the night if you plan to sleep right after.

Today I have tried to be more "truthful" with myself on the calories that I "need" to function as well as keep temps at 98.6F+ at all times. Doing so I haven't eaten nearly as much food so far today. So this method should also help to reduce calories and thus further help body weight loss. The idea is to eat as much as you need to of course, to be fed and keep glucose high and body temps/pulses high too of course like always. But in the past I had use the strategy of overeating excessively during the day in a vain effort to over-feed enough to last the night. But it almost always backfires, and I end up not lasting the night anyway. I'm still planning to roughly eat the same calories that I have been, but save some of them for the nightly awakening, so more of a spacing out / intelligent partitioning of the calories.

Of course like always I will continue to track temps/pulses/wt. changes and adjust accordingly.

 

[Mufasa]

How many meals do you have in a day?

 

[Vinny]

So last night I felt really bad around 7 pm. Decided to sleep, fell asleep 4 hrs, woke up and ate a bunch more food, and went to sleep again later in the night. Today managed to drop my weight slightly finally after a 2 week stall. What I did was basically "biphasic sleep" which is sleep in two distinct "blocks" of time. I now think this may be required in hypothyroid due to the utter inability to fast for 8 hrs. Realistically most of us have a job so what this may look like is sleep right when you get back from work from say 6 to 10 pm, eat a big meal (say 1000 calories) then go back to bed again from say 12-1 to 5-6 or whatever and still get your 8 hrs.

I`ve been sleeping *in blocks* for many years. Don`t know if it`s good or bad, but can`t sleep other way, rarely make it 7-8 h in a row. I also nap as many times as possible during day/night. It makes perfect sense it has a connection with the storage capacity. I think my storage has been very low all my life.

 

[Cirion]

I`ve been sleeping *in blocks* for many years. Don`t know if it`s good or bad, but can`t sleep other way, rarely make it 7-8 h in a row. I also nap as many times as possible during day/night. It makes perfect sense it has a connection with the storage capacity. I think my storage has been very low all my life.

I don't think sleeping in blocks is "bad" per-se but it does indicate poor overall metabolic health. I don't know yet how to restore the capacity obviously or I would have done it by now, but I do think that keeping blood sugar up is the first step. Because doing that begins to improve the function of all organs, liver included, which hopefully would begin to also clear the fat from it and thus clear room for glucose. I understand what you mean, I've probably had low storage a good chunk of my life as well. The challenge seems to be don't "overfill" the liver tho as thats what makes it fatty in the first place. Its a tightrope, eat too little and that's bad, eat too much that's also bad, especially if its too much in one sitting, and especially if its too much fructose in one sitting.

Like many other things, hypothyroid is a big huge catch/22. You are always running out of glucose so always glucose deficient, yet because the liver can hold almost no glucose you're also always glucose toxic. Being hypothyroid really is the worst. You're simultaneously deficient and toxic in almost every substance. Another example is you're always protein deficient and protein toxic at the same time. This is why recovery is so hard...

 

[lampofred]

IMO that sounds more like phosphate excess than pure hypothyroidism. The kidneys are necessary for balance and regulation, so when you're simultaneously deficient and toxic in things, it sounds like excess phosphate, PTH and probably growth hormone and also acetylcholine are straining your kidneys.

 

[Cirion]

Busy weekend, flew down to FL for interview. For the most part seemed like it went well. Only gaffe I made was failing to return my temp badge, but in my defense my security escort didn't ask for it back and there was no guard station on the drive out, so it wasn't obvious. Oops. Hopefully they don't reject me on that count... lol. During the interview itself though the way they chose their words it made it sound like I was basically already hired... so here's hoping. It would be really stressful for my current state of health to move several states, but worth it in the end. More pay, no income tax in FL, professionally the right move, and basically living in a perpetual spring/summer (no more worrying about going hypo during the winter), and 45 minutes from a beach which is not bad so as such, it should improve my health in the end. I ate a lot of what I'd consider "junk" foods and not my normal macros etc etc, so I expected to see weight gain. Surprisingly, I'm down 2 lbs. However, I could tell this was due to lots of stress, because my sleep was really bad, I did continue to measure temps (in the 97's in the morning), and dark circles under the eyes coming back. This made me have a realization -- it's no wonder people just "Give Up" the Ray Peat methodology of improving metabolism, when you can just say **** it and use stress to lose weight and also eat anything you want. Ironically enough, stress does seem highly effective at dropping weight, at least in the short term. And the irony is that dropping stress actually makes you gain weight.... So, it's easy to see why fitness culture celebrates stress (caloric restriction and working out) to drop weight. But I'm reminded why this isn't the healthy way to do it because I've felt bad the last two days, mentally unsound, fragmented/bad sleep, and also nightmares. Not good.

 

[Vinny]

no income tax in FL,

Really? They gave up slavery? Unbelievable.... I thought such places don`t exist anymore....

 

[Cirion]

Really? They gave up slavery? Unbelievable.... I thought such places don`t exist anymore....

Lol, there aren't many states with no income tax, I think like 4-5 total. Texas is another one.

However, of course they need revenue somewhere. I think the sales tax may be higher and I noticed toll roads seem to be more commonplace also (although with GPS you can avoid toll roads).

 

[boxers]

Have you tried avoiding all screens/internet for 30 days to you see how you feel?

 

[Cirion]

Have you tried avoiding all screens/internet for 30 days to you see how you feel?

Probably not the worst idea but I can't really do it sadly. Both by necessity and lack of energy to do anything else. I look at a screen 8 hrs a day for work (so unavoidable here). Avoidable while at home, but not really, because when at home I have zero energy or motivation to do any activities outside of the house, which inevitably leads to screen time.

I feel like you're probably right, though, so it is a little bit of a cop out lol. I'm planning to get a nice big yard or at least a nice big patio if/when I can move to FL so I have no excuse to relax outside. I don't really have a yard in my condo so my motivation is a lot lower here to relax outside since I value privacy when doing so (especially if one wants to suntan mostly or even entirely nude to maximize skin-sunlight exposure, since generally it's frowned upon to flash your neighbors some privacy is kinda necessary lol)

 

[somuch4food]

because when at home I have zero energy or motivation to do any activities outside of the house, which inevitably leads to screen time.

There are many creative indoors hobbies that don't involve screen time. It's something I ought to take on too. I'm guilty of defaulting to screen time too when I have nothing else to do at the end of the day.

 

[Cirion]

There are many creative indoors hobbies that don't involve screen time. It's something I ought to take on too. I'm guilty of defaulting to screen time too when I have nothing else to do at the end of the day.

True I mean if nothing else reading is good. Sometimes I'll actually get in a mood where I don't wanna watch tv OR play video games. In these times I'll find myself watching productive videos on health stuff like listening to Peat, haidut or jodelle etc. I find that these videos often uplift/motivate me and are probably the most helpful things to do with "screen time" and probably are not bad like too much video games/ tv shows.