New to peating, your help is appeciated!

contact

Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2014
Messages
9
Hello, all.

I'm a 25 year old male from Minnesota. I come from a low carb paleo diet, like many others on this forum. For about 4 months, my diet consisted of eggs, chicken muscle, and spinach. I believed that if I ate like a caveman, I would be healthy. Despite whatever "healthy" really means, I felt horrible. I was rarely happy, had no libido, little energy, and horrible bloating. I'm pretty sure I was hypo, too.

I've been peating for about 2 weeks, and I feel absolutely wonderful. My libido is back and my body is constantly warm. But most importantly, I feel way, way less stressed. It's an incredible difference.

Despite these positive changes, I do have a few issues that I would like to iron out.

1) Acne. I've gone from drinking no milk to 1 gallon a day. I had no acne while on the paleo diet, but now I'm getting horrible acne ever since I started drinking milk. I eat 1 oz. raw liver 3 times a week. It helps a little bit, but I'm still getting a lot of acne. Any suggestions? I don't have any stomach problems, so I might not be lactose intolerant. Is it possible I'm intolerant to milk anyways?

2) I've gained about 7 lbs in 2 weeks. From what I've read on this forum, weight gain is a very common side effect when people start peating. I'm a little worried about putting on more weight, so I'm drinking skim milk, and keeping my fat intake low. Here is my chronometer if anyone's interested:

tFMSJWu.jpg

UkQP6nn.jpg


My question is: is the weight gain temporary? Do people find it temporarily goes up, and then back down again?

3) I have a little extra skin on my neck/below my chin, and I'm unsure if it's facial bloating or fat. Has anyone else had this happen to them? I'm not sure how to address this.

Any help would be appreciated. I look forward to joining you guys :)
 

Mittir

Member
Joined
Feb 20, 2013
Messages
2,033
I did not gain any weight on peat style eating. I lost about 14 percent of my
body weight over 1.5 year period. Only way one can gain weight/fat is to eat
more than one can burn. The obvious approach would be to lower caloric intake.
RP recommends replacing fat with carbohydrate if weight loss is a goal.
RP has also mentioned that replacing glucose with sugar ( fructose+glucose)
can increase metabolism to a point where one can eat extra 50 percent
calories without gaining weight. You are already following a lower fat diet.
If you switched from very low carb to peating then by repleting glycogen
storage one can gain up to 6-7 lbs. It is mostly water weight as glycogen
molecule is stored with several molecules of water.

Acne could be a sign of low vitamin A intake. All these sugar, protein and nutrients
can increase the requirement for vitamin A. You may need more than 3 oz of liver
to meet your requirements.

All those liquid looks problematic unless you are a healthy active person.
Hypothyroid people evaporate less water through lungs and skin than
a healthy person. You can easily lower your fluid intake by replacing
some of the milk with high calcium cheese. Cheese should me made from
animal enzyme rennet.
 

Gl;itch.e

Member
Joined
Apr 12, 2014
Messages
732
Age
41
Location
New Zealand
first off welcome aboard!

Are you doing the carrot salad? I find that most of my skin problems are tied to endotoxin and that carrot salad helps out immensely. Acne is often spoke about as being a consequence of raised metabolic rate and needing more of specific nutrients. Usually vitamin A.

I have put on weight since adopting more and more of peats idea's into my diet. But at the same time I was intentionally trying to put on weight. Unfortunately (in my case!) the weight gain leveled out and its actually been hard for me to keep my weight up, let alone gain more. Coming from low carb Id imagine that a lot of that weight is just going to be water, glycogen and possible some fat and muscle if you had also been restricting calories significantly. Personally I would give your body some time to adjust and if the weight doesn't leave or still bothers you maybe a very slight caloric deficit could be used to help drop a few lbs.

Not sure on the skin thing. Ray's told his story of how pregnenolone helped tighten up his skin, but anything you do with Ray's recommendations usually has an element of controlling water in the body. Have you experimented with various levels of salt and other minerals? High aldosterone may make you hold on to excess water.
 

Mittir

Member
Joined
Feb 20, 2013
Messages
2,033
I have just noticed your calcium intake is 5000 mg which is double the
upper limit of RDA. I personally do not take more than UL RDA of 2500 mg.
RP recommends 1200 to 2000 mg of calcium daily. He used to drink a gallon
of milk a day. He mentioned that Masai drank about 5 quarts a day in certain
time of the year. He does not mentioned any scientific study that shows
safety of 5000 mg of calcium intake.

You are drinking about about 7 quarts of fluid a day. That seems too high to me.
I am just curious where did you get the idea of drinking so much fluid in a peat
style eating. RP recommends milk mainly for protein and calcium and one can
easily get that from cheese without ingesting large amount of fluid. I know DR
started this milk and OJ eating movement.

Your cronometer shows you are getting about 10,000 IU of vitamin A.
RP thinks that is a good amount for someone with healthy thyroid function.
Salt plays a big role in water retention and you are probably getting lot less sodium
than you need. Milk is also high in tryptophan, adding some gelatine can help.
Some people get digestive problem from gelatin. Casein in cheese is better than milk
in keeping serotonin level lower. He thinks added vitamin A milk can be quite allergenic
due to a solvent they use. You can buy unhomogenized full fat milk and remove the fat manually.

Edit: He does cites a short term study that used 1 gallon of Milk , 3 quart fat free milk
and cottage cheese from 1 quart of milk.
Ray Peat said:
In a 1938 experiment (Brown, et al.) that intended to show the essentiality of unsaturated fats, a man, William Brown, lived for six months on a 2500 calorie diet consisting of sucrose syrup, a gallon of milk (some of it in the form of cottage cheese), and the juice of half an orange, besides some vitamins and minerals. The experimenters remarked about the surprising disappearance of the normal fatigue after a day's work, as well as the normalization of his high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and the permanent disappearance of his frequent life-long migraine headaches. His respiratory quotient increased (producing more carbon dioxide), as well as his rate of resting metabolism. I think the most interesting part of the experiment was that his blood phosphate decreased. In two measurements during the experimental diet, his fasting plasma inorganic phosphorus was 3.43 and 2.64 mg. per 100 ml. of plasma, and six month after he had returned to a normal diet the number was 4.2 mg/100 ml. Both the deficiency of the "essential" unsaturated fatty acids, and the high sucrose intake probably contributed to lowering the phosphate.http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/ph ... ging.shtml
 
OP
C

contact

Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2014
Messages
9
Mittir said:
I did not gain any weight on peat style eating. I lost about 14 percent of my
body weight over 1.5 year period. Only way one can gain weight/fat is to eat
more than one can burn. The obvious approach would be to lower caloric intake.
RP recommends replacing fat with carbohydrate if weight loss is a goal.
RP has also mentioned that replacing glucose with sugar ( fructose+glucose)
can increase metabolism to a point where one can eat extra 50 percent
calories without gaining weight. You are already following a lower fat diet.
If you switched from very low carb to peating then by repleting glycogen
storage one can gain up to 6-7 lbs. It is mostly water weight as glycogen
molecule is stored with several molecules of water.

Acne could be a sign of low vitamin A intake. All these sugar, protein and nutrients
can increase the requirement for vitamin A. You may need more than 3 oz of liver
to meet your requirements.

Yes, I've read that an increase in milk can increase the needed amount of Vitamin A. If my acne doesn't get any better by Sunday, I'll increase my liver intake from 3 to 6 oz per week.

All those liquid looks problematic unless you are a healthy active person.
Hypothyroid people evaporate less water through lungs and skin than
a healthy person. You can easily lower your fluid intake by replacing
some of the milk with high calcium cheese. Cheese should me made from
animal enzyme rennet.

I'll look into hypothyroidism with liquids vs cheese.

Mittir said:
I have just noticed your calcium intake is 5000 mg which is double the
upper limit of RDA. I personally do not take more than UL RDA of 2500 mg.
RP recommends 1200 to 2000 mg of calcium daily. He used to drink a gallon
of milk a day. He mentioned that Masai drank about 5 quarts a day in certain
time of the year. He does not mentioned any scientific study that shows
safety of 5000 mg of calcium intake.

You are drinking about about 7 quarts of fluid a day. That seems too high to me.
I am just curious where did you get the idea of drinking so much fluid in a peat
style eating. RP recommends milk mainly for protein and calcium and one can
easily get that from cheese without ingesting large amount of fluid. I know DR
started this milk and OJ eating movement.

While lurking around this forum, I have read that it is good to drink as much milk as you can handle. I started at a small amount of milk, and slowly increased it each day without any stomach problems. It helps me get a lot of protein and carbs. I don't know who DR is.

Your cronometer shows you are getting about 10,000 IU of vitamin A.
RP thinks that is a good amount for someone with healthy thyroid function.
Salt plays a big role in water retention and you are probably getting lot less sodium
than you need. Milk is also high in tryptophan, adding some gelatine can help.
Some people get digestive problem from gelatin. Casein in cheese is better than milk
in keeping serotonin level lower. He thinks added vitamin A milk can be quite allergenic
due to a solvent they use.

I might try increasing my sodium intake.

I have been planning to add gelatin for awhile now. I will try adding gelatin with milk, and see how I feel.

I did not know cheese is better at lowering serotonin levels. I will look into that.

You can buy unhomogenized full fat milk and remove the fat manually.

How do you do this??


Gl;itch.e said:
first off welcome aboard!

Are you doing the carrot salad? I find that most of my skin problems are tied to endotoxin and that carrot salad helps out immensely. Acne is often spoke about as being a consequence of raised metabolic rate and needing more of specific nutrients. Usually vitamin A.

Yes, I am eating the carrot salad each day. I believe it's one grated carrot, 2 tsp organic distilled white vinegar, 2 tsp refined coconut oil, and 1/2 tbsp salt, correct? And yeah, I might be increasing my liver intake soon to increase my Vitamin A intake.

I have put on weight since adopting more and more of peats idea's into my diet. But at the same time I was intentionally trying to put on weight. Unfortunately (in my case!) the weight gain leveled out and its actually been hard for me to keep my weight up, let alone gain more. Coming from low carb Id imagine that a lot of that weight is just going to be water, glycogen and possible some fat and muscle if you had also been restricting calories significantly. Personally I would give your body some time to adjust and if the weight doesn't leave or still bothers you maybe a very slight caloric deficit could be used to help drop a few lbs.

Yeah, I thought of this, too. I think I'll wait awhile, and see if my weight gain stops or not.

Not sure on the skin thing. Ray's told his story of how pregnenolone helped tighten up his skin, but anything you do with Ray's recommendations usually has an element of controlling water in the body. Have you experimented with various levels of salt and other minerals? High aldosterone may make you hold on to excess water.

It's difficult to know how much sodium you need. Some people say it's 2 to 4 tbsp a day, and others say just eat salt whenever you crave it. I probably should increase mine.
 

Echo

Member
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
16
Raw grass-fed milk is great. The $1 a litre milk in your supermarket, not so much. It was very inflammatory for me (my scalp would itch and hair fall out).

Also liver flushing cured my chronic acne (face and body). I was mostly clear by the 3rd flush and 100% clear after the 4th.
 
OP
C

contact

Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2014
Messages
9
I would love to get some raw milk. It's difficult to find where I live.

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions!
 

aguilaroja

Member
Joined
Jul 24, 2013
Messages
850
contact said:
...I've been peating for about 2 weeks
1) Acne. I've gone from drinking no milk to 1 gallon a day....
2) I've gained about 7 lbs in 2 weeks...

Welcome to the forum. Thanks for the report and it is great to hear you are feeling better.

Weight measurements can fluctuate considerably in the short term, depending on many factors. Weight gain of 3.5 pounds or 1.6 kilos per week would be very pronounced over a long term.

One big possibility for weight fluctuation is fluid intake/output. It is known, for instance, that a hulking athlete can lose 10 kilos/30 plus pounds during an afternoon exercising in hot weather, and quickly gain it back through hydrating (or dying without sufficient rehydration).

It is quite possible that drinking more than a gallon of fluid will cause swings in the daily weight, since the fluid weight intake is more than 8 pounds/3.8 kilos. Mittir astutely mentions that evaporative losses may be less in those with low thyroid function. In any case, the fluid volume by itself represents a measurable weight change, before sweating and urinary output which in turn are influenced by weather and activity.

I think it is an overstated and non-representative observation about the trend of weight gain by Peat-ing. Of the dozens of Peat-influenced people I know who boosted their metabolism, the trends has been weight "optimization"-weight loss for the overweight and weight gain for the drastically thin.

I re-emphasize the theme of milk "quality". I am traveling in a place where I can get numerous local, regional, and national milk including various organic/natural etc. varieties. Though I don't consider myself a "sensitive" person about food tolerance, I have been surprised by the variation in well being with different varieties of milk, even of high repute and fresh locally sourced. You might see if a different supply affects the acne issue, while also adjusting milk intake and using cheese & other nutrient sources.

I entirely agree with Mittir's views that plentiful milk/dairy intake is different from maximum milk intake. "DR" I think refers to "Danny Roddy", whose views I do not know especially well. I primarily read Dr. Peat's views directly.
 
OP
C

contact

Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2014
Messages
9
Thank you for the detailed explanation, aguilaroja.

It's difficult to replace milk and get the same amounts of protein and carbs. I am open to suggestions.

I have searched a few local supermarkets, and haven't had much luck with cheese. Almost all of them contain enzymes. I did find a ricotta cheese without enzymes, and it tasted okay.

I've had a cold this past week, and haven't been feeling as well. I've also felt disorientated and irritable at times. I hope this gets better, as it is difficult to concentrate.

I think the liver has helped my acne a little bit, but it hasn't gone away completely. I think I will increase it from 3oz per week to 6. Also, is there any advantage to eating liver once a week compared to spreading it out a few days a week?

Also, I would still love to know how to remove fat from unhomogenized full fat milk.
 

tara

Member
Joined
Mar 29, 2014
Messages
10,368
I now prefer a smaller amount of liver more often. My only evidence for it being beneficial to me is that if I try to eat the same amount in one sitting once a week, I'm sick of it half way through, and then craving it again after 4-5 days. Now I eat a smaller amount 4-6 days/week, always enjoy it with my breakfast, and miss it if I skip a couple of days.

The cream will float to the top of unhomogenised milk if you let it stand. I think you can scoop a lot of it off the top with a spoon, if you have it in a suitable shaped jar.

It's very easy to make your own fresh cheese. Heat milk to near boiling, stir in vinegar or lemon juice a little at a time till it curdles, strain, add salt to taste.
 
OP
C

contact

Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2014
Messages
9
It's been about 2 months since I started peating. I thought of making a new thread, but I figured I'll just post here instead.

Here's the positive:
-I feel ridiculously relaxed, and have very little stress or anxiety. I feel so relaxed that it's tough to become motivated to get any work done.
-There is a huge difference in my libido. While I was eating paleo, I had no interest in sex or masturbation. After peating for 2 months, the difference is night and day. I might go as far as to say I have more libido than I did when I was a teenager. It's crazy!
-I stopped drinking milk, and I now eat cheese instead. When I made this change, my acne has become almost non-existant.
-Most of my bowel movements are good.

The bad:
-My teeth look bad. There's white spots over many of them, and they hurt when I touch them. I suspect I have a lot of cavities. Apparently coffee, OJ, sugar, and cheese are some of the worst foods for teeth.
-Weight has continued to climb. I've gained 8 pounds since my first post, making my total weight gain 15 pounds since peating.

Other than the condition of my teeth, I'm feeling really good. I just started rinsing with water and baking soda after meals, and switched to using straws when drinking OJ and coffee. I might need to see a dentist. I'm open to suggestions to improve/take care of my teeth.

I've been looking to buy a water purifier that filters xenoestrogens. Does anyone have a recommendation?
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom