New Member from Minnesota

[Pennikins]

Hi Everyone from downright nasty cold Minnesota,

What's your age?
59

How did you find the forum?
From Ray Peat's site.

How did you find Ray Peat's work?
Through Matt Stone's books

How long have you been Peating?
Haven't really but sort of for a while. I know that sounds confusing.
I'll elaborate more below.

What is your favorite part about Peating?
Too early to tell. I'll let you know more when I really get going.

What is the worst part?
Again, can't tell you yet - will let you know though!


What are your health issues?
Let me give you a brief life history - okay, I'm long winded so it may not be too short
Always was a skinny, short little girl, born tiny 5 lbs.
Got married at 20 had first BIG boy baby at 21, two more big boys within the next 4 years. I was 5 ft tall at the time and was 100 lbs. By the time baby 3 came along I was 140lbs! I did get taller during that time and have maintained my 5'2" height.

Complained of being 'tired' all the time, had hair loss, complained that I thought it was a thyroid problem.
Complained for 30 years, TSH test always normal - dead end :-(
Then I got really heavy up to 190 lbs. Under tons of stress at work, at home, dealing with dying parents.

In 2001 diagnosed 'pre-diabetic' (or was I just suffering hormonal imbalance from too many PUFA's). Anyway . . .
Dr. suggested I eliminate all 'white' foods. Went 'Low Carb'. I did and lost 70 lbs, looked great, BUT still hair is thinning, I'm now 'cold' too, brain fog, can't think, Cold to the bone, only thing keeping me warm was my near nightly hot baths.

Over the next 6-7 years almost all the weight came back - Yeah - low carb yet - became stricter, my diabetes is stable (no meds) but, I'm really sick and tired of being 'COLD'. My 'Get up and Go' - Got up and left. I want it back. 1 1/2 years ago hear about that 'Paleo diet". Maybe that is the help I need. 'Get up and go' came back for like 3 months. Now, I'm even colder. "Get up and go - left again'

I've been working on this temp thing for nearly 3 years. Got temp up with supplements of Magnesium, Tyrosine, P5P, Iodine - from the 96's to low 97's. Come on now, what the heck? There has got to be more.

Internet search - found Matt Stone - He suggests 'eating' and 'Salt'. Wow, novel idea, Food can make you warm??
Started eating for heat. Worked!! Took about 1 year but finally - my body temp is up to 98.5 in the AM and over 99.0 after eating. Sometimes, it drops - trying to figure what foods are not heat producers - I think I'm seeing those through this 'Ray Peat' forum.

NOW the problem is my Fasting blood sugars are WAY too high. So, I need to address this Diabetes thing more aggressively.

That is why I'm here. My research has drawn me to the conclusion that - eating sugar MAY Cure my diabetes - or at least help shut down that Adrenaline an Cortisol issue that keeps my AM Blood sugar so dang high. (150-160 many days -occasional 135) - Oh usually during the day if, I'm active it hovers around 110 - I haven't seen below 100 in over 2 years.

What other questions should we ask?.......
So Now my question - PLEASE any guidance you can provide to help me 'cure' this diet induced diabetic - blood sugar issue.

My conclusion is that - although I may have been prone to diabetes - caused from eating too much margarine, Crisco, seed & nut oils and other nasty PUFA in my 20's-30's & 40's, had Thyroid or adrenal issues induced from being pregnant 3 times along with who knows what other causes, lack of Magnesium from Calcium overload (imbalance), poor stomach digestion of proteins - I REALLY, TRULY believe - I may have found the way to 'cure' this thing they call Type 2 Diabetes.

I am concerned with trying to 'switch' over to so much milk and orange juice. I love meat, always have - since childhood. Love my fruit and veggies too.

Ask away - I can tell you all what I've been doing for the past 3 years to finally get warmed up. My hair is growing back in - on my head and I even have hair on my arms and legs again! That makes we Extremely happy.

What I eat now.
2 Eggs for breakfast cooked in butter and CO. Low carb wheat toast (about 3 times a week) otherwise, a little fruit - mainly Strawberries, blueberries or raspberries. Coffee with 1/2& 1/2 and Maple Sugar.

Drink a 'cocktail' I make with Spring water, 1 teaspoon Diatomaceous earth, 2 drops fulvic acid, 1/4 teaspoon sea salt, 1/8 teaspoon potassium chloride salt, 1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice, Lugol's solution 5% 10 drops. Stir and drink to take my 'gamut' of Multi-vitamins and minerals to help support diabetes etc.

3-4 hours later - 1/2 cup applesauce and 1 slice of cojack cheese or Cottage cheese

3 hours later - lunch - varies - a burger, or chicken wings, a sandwich with ham - usually some salad.

2 hours later - Coffee time - Have a cookie or piece of cake.

3 -4 hours later - Supper. Meat, potatoes and a veggie (and the PM shorten version of just vitamins and mineral supplements)

3 hours later - bedtime snack - popcorn or cheese, occasional cookie or cake

There you have it - We do eat out 2-3 times a week - usually pizza and wings, burger or cold cut sandwich.

I'm concerned about the dairy as it causes me to produce upper mucous - runny nose, coughing for about 1/2 hour after I eat it. Then it's gone. (Gas is produced too - later on!)

I haven't drank orange juice or any juice in nearly 13 years. Oh my. Not sure what will happen.

Just want to get the BG low in AM and under control so I can start to lose weight and be at least a little smaller.

Any and All help - GREATLY appreciated (Sorry this was so long - I warned you I was long winded!)

~Penny aka Pennikins

 

[j.]

I would drop the chicken wings, they are high in PUFA I think. Honey is I think one of the easiest sources of sugar to process. I would consume a lot of that, to taste.

 

[Pennikins]

I agree - I love chicken, but lately I am finding that it drops my body temp, unless I eat a lot of carbs with it.
And something in the chicken is also causing a tiny bit of heartburn. Something I have rarely but am noticing it more often when I've eaten chicken.

Honey, yep, I use that in cooking/baking. I'm not crazy about the taste of honey. I prefer Maple syrup and Maple sugar.

~Penny

 

[himsahimsa]

I also use Lugol's but you are on an (over) loading dose and it is reacting with other elements of your cocktail so you are not even getting the benefit of the I[sup]2[/sup]. Lugol's has to be taken in isolation to actually get the I[sup]2[/sup] part, otherwise you may as well just eat potassium iodide (KI)or some other ionic salt. If the brown color disappears, it has reacted and become ionic. Iodine as I[sup]2[/sup] reacts with pretty much everything and where you want it is the mucus lining of your mouth and stomach so it can diffuse into your protein. I like the Lugol's. It conjugates the PUFA. It's needed for construction of "receptors", and so on.... . I Loaded with 50mg/D and then dropped back to 12mg/D for two years and I like the way it feels. Anyway, you are taking way too much even by Brownstein's reckoning.

BUT....If you are going to try Peat's method, he has stated in an interview that about 1/2 milligram per day is as high as he thinks you should go. I'm dropping to Peat's recommendation. Also, it's maybe best to take certain things, like iodine, at extended intervals. They are absorbed and stored and used and that's good but they are not constantly in circulation. So for 5% Lugol's at Peat's rate, that would be one drop every second week.

Diatomatious earth is like ground glass, don't eat it, it's tearing up your intestines. If you want an adsorbent, use clay or charcoal but not more than once a week unless you have been poisoned (so keep and eye on hubby). Intestinal leakiness is one thing everybody agrees is very bad and DE causes it directly by abrasion, by cutting.

I don't know how to say this with out giving offense so just know that I don't mean to.
I'm 5'9", 176 pounds, fairly athletic, and male, and the food on your list would be literally three days of meals for me, more actually, so you must have one hell of a metabolism. But if you are struggling with weight ....

Switching diet.:
Shock is bad. Stress is bad. Your system is used to a certain influx of materials. You intestinal biota is used to a certain nutrient distribution. If you start dumping a totally different nutrient/environment on those bugs, they will freak out. Some will die and all will pump out stress chemicals, all kinds of chaos will go on. That will lead to a drastic increase in endotoxin production and that will poison you. Natural healing takes time. You grow a new you. Start slow. Introduce new items at a rate that allows you and you bugs to adapt. Avoid stressing you or them. Practice bacterial husbandry.

But you can and should dump the PUFA flat, there is no downside. However there is a lot of PUFA in your diet and getting PUFA gone is basic to the strategy RP promotes. You should think about that before you jump into this. And inventory your cupboard. If you just add milk and OJ to what you currently eat, it will definitely not be an improvement.

The whey fraction of milk is usually the most troublesome. You might go mostly with curds and drained (Greek) yogurt to avoid it. If anything makes you less healthy, don't eat it. Milk and orange juice have a nutrient distribution that RP recommends. If you just can't eat them without being sick, you could certainly round up the same nutrients from a mix of other materials. Maybe as your overall health gets more solid your tolerances will change. Maybe not.

Ray Peat keeps emphasizing that context matters. The idea is to get healthier not do penance.

(Yogurt + orange juice + sugar + vanilla = Orange Julius)

 

[Pennikins]

Thank you for your feedback.

I truly appreciate the information.

I noticed that lately the Iodine was losing it's color in the 'cocktail'. I had just recently added the fulvic acid and think that is what removed it - changed it. Also I felt my thyroid gland swell. Not sure if that is 'lack of or too much of'. I can feel it in my throat - when I first started Lugol's back in March of last year, I felt the swelling too. It caused me to cough a lot. Once the iodine was able to de-tox me a bit the cough and swelling went away. So, I'm discontinue the fulvic acid for now. Or I'll take it at a different time.

I take a lot of Iodine, as per suggestions on the Iodine group on yahoo. I titrated up to my current level of nearly 100mg a day, It is suggested by many on that group that have Diabetes Type 2 to gradually increase to 200mg and then Back off. That I felt was way too much, so never proceeded beyond the 100mg a day. And usually we don't take any on Sat or Sundays. Two days of no supplements, just eating food.

I feel I've have detoxed the heavy metals out of me after nearly 50 years of amalgam fillings. I had them all removed about 7 years ago now. But as you know all that metal can build up for a long time and be hard to get rid of. I've done 2 liver cleanses with the aid of my doctor - which helped too.

I don't just take Lugols as it upsets my stomach.

I take 2500mg L-tyrosine within minutes of getting out of bed. P5P 70mg and Iosol 2. Those I've taken for nearly 2 years, It has really helped my adrenals and thyroid. Brought my temp up to 97.3 but until I started the 'refeeding' (suggested by Matt Stone) and added the Lugols' my Temp never budged. Once I started those two protocols my Temp slowly increased and now for the most part I'm pretty warm almost all day. If I don't eat or am late eating, it starts to drop.

AS for the DE. I started taking it to see if it would strengthen my hair and nails. It did. I don't take much 1 teaspoon a day. Also, I used DE to help with parasite potential. I've been considering 'weaning' off it anyway.

I've been leery of clay's as if they constipate me further (been an issue with the thyroid dysfunction for years - only Vit C and magnesium seem to keep me moving!) I would not be a happy camper.

Now as for the amount of food I eat, well, it looks like a lot, but really, I do portion control, eat smaller meals very frequent. I'm not at my computer that has my Nutrition program (Nutibase 11) but when I can get up to it, I'll do a daily check as to my Calorie, CFP percentages. This program also tells me the amount of nutrients I'm getting. And I've definitely been lacking in certain minerals, vitamins etc. But I'll recheck it and get back to you. Last time, the amount of calories was about 1400 a day. Not much considering a woman still needs to eat about 2000 a day, to get the nutrients she needs.

I DEFINITELY will be changing my diet 'gradually'. I worked in the Veterinary field for nearly 30 years and any major diet change can cause undue stress in animals, needless to say it does the same in us Humans!!

I figured I start with a meal a day for a couple weeks, then gradually increase and make subtle changes along the way.

Again, I truly appreciate your input, especially since you have been doing this much longer. I am feeling better, just by being warmer but this high morning BG has been an issue for over a year. Just figure I should be able to get things better regulated in the Blood Sugar department.

~ Penny

 

[himsahimsa]

Your poisoning yourself. No use picking up bits and pieces of Ray Peat methods. Shop for a box.

 

[Pennikins]

I'll try to pick a pretty one! Oh, wait a minute - I'm being made in to 'dust' instead!

Actually, I'm pretty darn healthy. Blood work is great, except for the early morning BG.

I look 15 years younger than I really am. Although I may be heavy, I'm still very active, and carry most of my weight in my belly and 'butt'. My belly has lost nearly 5 or more inches since September so it is getting down there. I've been getting the cortisol under control by using something to control the HPA axis and early morning cortisol release. I think most of my problems stem from adrenal issues and of course Pufa's.

When you are low carb as I was for nearly 12 years - and eat a lot of Almond Flour and other seed flours, there was a lot of bad oils in that way of baking. Even though we have only used Coconut oil and Butter for nearly 13 years and a small amount of Olive oil, there was certainly an overload of Pufa's in food we eat when eating out. Deep fried Chicken wings - even once a week was probably very detrimental to say the least. (I never ate any French fries during those 13 years of low carbing - just the fried chicken).

Anyway, it's all a constant learning curve and since low carb doesn't work, neither does paleo, nor does SAD.

That is part of the reason for looking into the Peat method. I've read other 'Cure Diabetes books' that turn you into a vegetarian (sort of) and I'm not one for that. So I hope to use the Peat method, or parts there of, To try to balance the adrenals and thyroid -well actually increase thyroid activity and quiet down those adrenals. Thus see if this won't help the morning BG.

A person I respect, always says to "Take Charge of your own health" and also read as much as you can, Next is to take away what you think you can USE and leave the rest behind.

I'm still working on the 'health' part and considering I knew or know several people that were diagnosed with pre-diabetes when I was and they are all dead or had massive heart attacks, bypass surgeries, strokes and more. I consider my-self fortunate that I'm in pretty good health. Just tweaking it to make it better.

Thanks for the input. I'll re-evaluate my iodine intake.

~Penny

 

[himsahimsa]

I'm not being figurative about ground glass. Diatomatious earth is exactly ground glass. There are safer ways to get silicon into your diet. And, iodine is great stuff but it is a highly reactive element.