New to this...need some guidance please

[leo]

Hi!

I have been lurking here for about 2 weeks, desperately reading each and every section trying to get a handle on this new way of eating. I have communicated with Ray Peat several times in the past but I had no idea he had a "following" or a "diet". My issues were always hormonal and I found his articles online and went straight to the horses mouth with my questions. I am so glad I have found this forum, as I was getting shy to bother him more, plus I have so many specific questions now, he could never answer them all.

A little background: I am a 61 yr old female. I live abroad so many of the things you all eat, are not available to me. By the same token, I am surrounded by tropical fruit so whiIe I may have some disadvantages, it is not all bad.

Growing up in the states, I was a very healthy, skinny, energetic child. Being from the south, butter, milk, fat were staples, as well as some limited fruits. We were not allowed coca cola or junk foods, so I feel I may have gotten a little bit of a head start regarding health.

When I married and moved was also the time that I began having my children and that is when the problems started. None were severe, just noticeable. Horrific periods, bloating, acne.....I put them all down to hormonal imbalance. I was eating a high pufa diet that included many fried foods and a LOT of junk food, to ease the stress of raising babies. It was my comfort food along with coca cola. There is a manuf.plant here and I know that they are made with HFCS and not cane sugar.

I had a premature menopause at 42 and opted out of hormonal therapy. The only lingering symptoms of menopause are insomnia/anxiety/dryness. I followed many diet regimens over the years, slimfast, atkins, south beach, low carb etc. Three years ago I dumped sugar from my diet and managed to lose 30 lbs and ended up looking the best I had looked in a long time. But anxiety and insomnia still there. Plus, I was losing my zest for life. Zero energy and just a blasé attitude, with zero motivation or inspiration. I also self diagnosed myself as hypothyroid and adrenal fatigued by reading online and figuring that was what was wrong with me. I did at one point find a generous/patient doctor here to oversee what I was doing to myself. I self medicated with Cytomel and Hydrocortison for 3-4 yrs. Never felt I was accomplishing anything except weight gain, so I dumped the HC and stuck with the Cytomel for fear of my thyroid not coming back to life. Three weeks ago I found out that Erfa is now sold here without a prescription so I jumped and bought some and started with 1 grain a day for two weeks, and this week upped to 2 grains a day. I 'nibble' a bit of cytomel occasionally ala ray peat trying to keep temps up.

About 10 days ago I jumped on this train. My family feels I'm zonkers after preaching the perils of sugar, but I went out and bought everything that was recommended here. The first few days I went bananas on the hagaan daz, but have now learned that it cannot be daily. I also went over normal fat allowance by using whole milk. I was too full to consume more protein, so all in all I gained 5 lbs and did not get higher temps. Now that I'm learning to tweak it to my needs, my temps have started coming up, I am sleeping somewhat better and mood is great. There are only two downsides: constipation which I NEVER have had in my life, on the contrary I am usually one of those persons running to the BR. So I'm assuming I will have to have some more fiber soon. The second downside, and the most concerning for me is my once normal blood pressure is moving dangerously high. I have written Peat about this but have not heard back. When tested a while back I was normal high in sodium, normal high in potassium and normal low in mag. I bathe in epsom salt baths occasionally to try to raise the mag. My feeling is all the potassium in the potatoes and orange juice, messing something up? Has anyone else had this? What should I do? I fear going to md, I will only leave with a script. I have been borderline in the past, but it had cleared itself out years ago with the no sugar diet and it was always around 120.80. Last few days it's been 155/95.

I take temps and bp almost maniacally. It's an obsession. My temps can be all over the place as well as my BP. Yes, I've checked my monitors and thermometer...they work. Sometimes after carrots, I will go to 99 and an hr later will be 97.8. Sometimes temp is good, but pulse is low. Sometimes pulse comes up to 85 and temp is in 97's. It is all very frustrating!!!

If I may I would like to list (albeit long) what I have been consuming to see if some bright person here can see if I am doing something completely wrong and that is affecting my BP.

A typical day:

wake up: instant nescafe coffee/cane sugar/lowfat half and half

breakfast: orange juice (store bought, not our season for sweet oranges yet) with a shot of whole milk, fat free cottage cheese, papaya

mid morn: grapes (or other fruit) and cheese

lunch: a protein (lobster, or shrimp, or octopus, or organic ground beef or lean fish)*i live by the ocean.
fruit
maybe some buttered potatoes or buttered white rice or arroz con coco (white rice with coconut)

mid aft: glass of organic low fat vanilla milk with shot of oj, or an orange julius drink

1 large grated carrot with coconut oil, white vinegar and sea salt. MY TEMPS SHOOT TO 99 MOST DAYS


dinner: home made beef consume (am confused as hell as to difference between consome, stock broth etc. We have a meat here called "jarrete" which is the back of the hind leg...similar to ossobucco and we just boil that for 3 hrs. and skim off the fat and drink the liquid. Hope this is enough.

orange juice with low fat milk

right before bed: milk, or HD ice cream

Some notes of interest in why I eat certain things:

1. The local milk disgusts me..I've been to the plant. So I buy organic valley whole milk in tetrapak. They sell very small organic low fat milks by the same brand, but they are flavored with strawberry, vanilla or chocolate. I drink them to LOWER the high fat consumption I was on the first few days when I was drinking solely whole fat milk.

2. Cottage cheese is imported. It is low fat, but the ingredients list is alarming. It the Breakstone brand. Other cheeses here are very high fat, so for now, I am ignoring the health implications of eating such a processed food. I like it very much with papaya.

3. We have very sweet oranges during dry season so alas now I can not get good fresh oranges for squeezing. I buy Tropicana no pulp, not from concentrate. I never drink it alone...always with cheese or milk.

4. I buy unrefined coconut oil....I cannot find anywhere why refined is better. Does anyone know?

5. The HD ice cream is either vanilla or chocolate as they only have four ingredients. I wish they were more dangerous and I LOVE them, and it is quite the effort not to overdo!

6. Butter is organic valley salted butter

7. Salt is himalaya or celtic sea salt.

8. Exercise/stress: Thankfully I am not into it. I have a lower back problem and the most I can do is take walks, or flail my arms in the pool. Being 61 I have already had the luxury of removing negative people from my life and not care what anyone has to say about it. So I feel I've overcome the "adrenal" thing that may have been happening years ago, when I lived to please.

9. Supplements: I dropped all my supplements when I started eating Peat to not muddle the waters. On day 2 I added aspirin in the a.m. and one before bed. On day 4 I thought I was having a HEART ATTACK in the middle of the night....the pain in my esophagus was excruciating.(I was sure to take it with full stomach) I have since dumped the aspirin. Is it completely necessary? At the beginning I thought the improved sleep was due to the aspirin, and not the sugar, but since dumping the aspirin, I am still sleeping fairly well so.....

I do not have more coffee than the early a.m. since caffeine WILL keep me awake at night. Is decaf ok? what does the coffee do?. I am not clear on that.

I am sure I will think of more the minute I push send, but I guess this is ok for a start.

Thank you for listening to me! I am happy to be here! My goal is to be healthy, sleep well, and of course, be slim and gorgeous!

 

[j.]

Himalayan salt I think is high in iron.

I don't take aspirin. I think the main reason for taking aspirin is that it opposes estrogen. There are other things that oppose estrogen as well, such as orange juice, guavas, I think honey, appropriate levels of vitamin A, E, and K, avoiding water from plastic containers.

 

[j.]

What type of light bulbs do you use?

 

[j.]

Also, apparently there is new research (to me at least), showing that exposure to sources of blue light after sunset increases insomnia. There is a software called f.lux that reduces the blue emissions from the computer screen after sunset. Some people who want to reduce the exposure to blue more use orange glasses or filters.

 

[leo]

Thank you for your replies. I will stop with the Himalayan since I do not want more iron, being postmenopausal for so long so thank you.
I do not use light bulb therapy yet. One mountain at a time..ha. I live in the tropics so I get good sunlight so far.
Also sleep is better.
My main concern now is the high blood pressure that just shot up out of nowhere this week. I am baffled by what could be causing it. Last time I was on t3/t4 meds this happened and now that I have added Erfa to my Cytomel it has happened again, so I want to think there is a connection, but it could just be coincidence. I read today there is a link between High BP and sugar. Could it be I am consuming too much? I have about 3 glasses of oj a day and about 4 tsps in coffee. Other sugar is fruit. I thought we were supposed to eat a lot?

Thanks for any insight.

 

[j.]

Just a quick note, if you use CFL light bulbs, the so-called energy saving lights which aren't warm white LED, you might be doing your body damage, since the blue frequencies stress cells, and there is also little of the red frequency which protects from that stress.

 

[SAFarmer]

My main concern now is the high blood pressure that just shot up out of nowhere this week. I am baffled by what could be causing it. Last time I was on t3/t4 meds this happened and now that I have added Erfa to my Cytomel it has happened again, so I want to think there is a connection, but it could just be coincidence. I read today there is a link between High BP and sugar. Could it be I am consuming too much? I have about 3 glasses of oj a day and about 4 tsps in coffee. Other sugar is fruit. I thought we were supposed to eat a lot?

Thanks for any insight.

I have same problem and would also appreciate any help/references to this from Ray Peat or others.
I started T3 a week ago and my BP was very good, but just after I had added T4 (25mcg) my BP started going up. I also have upped my sugar intake. Don't know if that can cause problems ?
My heart rate is also higher (70 - 80 from 60), which is good, but my temps are still low. Was 34.5 C (94.1 F ) again this morning.

 

[Mittir]

If you want to loose weight replacing fat with sugar is the best option.
Sugar increases metabolism, thyroid function, carbon dioxide and lots of other
wonderful things. Saturated fat is safe but does not increases metabolism like sugar does.
RP has mentioned that 1-2 minutes* of bag breathing 2-3 times a day lowers blood pressure
in few days. Overdoing bad breathing can cause major problems like kidney stones.
Starch increases cortisol and is more fattening than sugar.
Light therapy is the easiest way to improve metabolism. Incandescent light has much
better ratio of red to blue than sunlight. There is more red light after sunrise and before sunset.
RP suggest avoiding direct sunlight from 10/11 am to 2/3 PM, ultra violet ray is too high during this time.
Getting sunlight through glass helps with lowering ultra violet rays.
You did not mention beef liver in your food list. Beef liver is full of vitamin A, B vitamins, copper.
These are major nutrient in improving health, especially liver.
I do not trust packaged food. You can use your local dairy to make your own farmers cheese.
it is very simple, just adding lemon juice to warm milk. There is a thread on this.
Ratio of calcium and phosphorus plays a big role in blood pressure.
You need at least 1500 mg of calcium and equal or less amount of phosphorus.
Cottage cheese and farmers cheese are low in calcium.
Vitamin D is also important in processing calcium.
Liver is a major source of vitamin K. You can eat well cooked kale
every other day for vitamin K. You can use cronometer to track your
calorie and nutrient intake.
Decaf coffee is a great source of magnesium, potassium and niacin
and like regular coffee this blocks iron absorption. Excess iron is bad for health.
Regular coffee has caffeine and it helps with increasing progesterone.
It is always a good idea to increase thyroid supplement very slowly.
Body needs to get adjusted to increased metabolism.

 

[leo]

MIttir thank you for your suggestions.

I will look into the light therapy next week...these past few days have been sort of stressful trying to read the entire forum contents and get the food right, taking temps, bp etc. But I have it in the back of my mind, and will not forget. I aim to do all I can to make things better.

Liver. Well, no. I can't get it down my throat. Psychologically I reject it as well because in my mind, it was what you would eat to get iron up when I was a child. I look at it and just see iron. Is there a good substitute?

Excuse my ignorance but is farmer's cheese the same as cottage cheese? Ok...I will search the forum for this recipe and try it as I agree the packaged cottage cheese ingredient list is alarming.

I love kale and can get it easily....this was a fabulous tip...thank you.

Coffee and iron: do you have to have the cup of coffee SIMULTANEOUSLY while you eat something with iron? Since the effects of caffeine are in the system for hours, would an early am cup of coffee protect me at a noon lunch?

Thyroid: Yes, I know the perils of thyroid supplementation....have been at this for years. I am just stumped as to why t4 would RAISE pressure....doesn't make sense to me, but so far, that is the only correlation I see, as I don't see how switching to less pufa and consuming more dairy and sugar would do it. If someone has any insight I would certainly appreciate it, as it is high again today (I skipped my bedtime dose of Erfa last night and have not taken any this a.m.---at this point prefer to go hypothyroid than to walk around with high BP...I'll see if it works).

I certainly appreciate the help I am getting here....thanks to all.

 

[leo]

SAfarmer: may I ask which t4 you take?

The first time this happened to me, I was on Thyrogold, an over the counter glandular. I ended up in ER. High BP and high pulse and pounding heart. Dumped that, and went back to ole faithful of Cytomel which has never caused me any problems.

In my quest to get healthy and avoid processing, I decided to try natural dessicated Erfa, which is supposed to be very similar to Armour. I wanted the added benefits of natural being calcitonin, t1, t2 etc, which Cytomel does not provide. I held the first grain for 2 weeks, as instructed and only just added the second grain, and am beginning to experience this high BP.

I really cannot think of what else it could be. I will be my own lab experiment this weekend...so I have cut out the thyroid med for now and I will let you know if the BP starts to come back down.

If not, by Monday I will be majorly hypothyroid and with a high BP, at which time I may have to go to the dr's. ugh

 

[SAFarmer]

I take a synthetic T4 called Eltroxin probably similar to Synthroid or Cynomel(levothyroxine).
The T3 I use is Tertroxin, probably similar to Cytomel ( triiodothyronine )

I don't think it's the T4 however. I have been rereading some Peat articles again and think maybe I am not taking in ENOUGH salt, although I add salt to my 5 cups of milk coffee a day. Maybe the T4 added makes me need more salt ?

http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/salt.shtml

 

[j.]

It's not necessary to have coffee when you consume something low in iron, such as orange juice. What makes a difference is having coffee at about the same time you consume a high iron meal, such as meat or liver. I think you can drink coffee at the same time up to an hour after the meal for it to have an effect.

One thing to avoid is drinking orange juice while having a high iron meal, because it increases iron absorption. Coca cola might not be ideal but it's better than orange juice when one consumes meat.

 

[j.]

Leo, how many doses per day do you take? Do you take the 2 grains at once?

 

[leo]

SAfarmer: I am afraid to add more salt at this point. Having added more on this woe may be a factor, I may be salt sensitive?

J: I was taking 1 grain (60) in the a.m. and 1 grain (60) before bed. I did not take last night nor this a.m. to test to see if it is a reaction to the t4 in the med. Like I mentioned, t3 alone has never caused this. The only correlation I am seeing is that this happened once before when I was on t4 combo.

Coffee: I am still confused a bit....if for example tonight I have a steak, I need to have a cup of coffee afterwards to avoid the iron ...but then how does a decaf help that if it has no caffeine? Or is there something else in the coffee that does this? Sorry to be dim....

 

[leo]

Is the ossobucco soup high iron?

 

[Mittir]

Caffeine is not responsible for inhibition of iron absorption. So, both
regular and decaf coffee block iron absorption.
Liver is extremely rich in nutrient, especially the nutrient needed for human liver.
Chicken liver has milder taste, though lacks copper. Shellfish are rich in copper.
RP thinks an average person need about 5000 IU vitamin A.
Quart of whole milk provides about 1600 IU vitamin A.
100 grams of chicken liver gives you 11000 IU
One large egg yolk 250 IU
You can use cronometer.com for vitamin and mineral content of your food.

 

[leo]

Ok. I eat a lot of shellfish so I can balance the copper with the chicken liver....as in pate? hmmm This I can do.

Also, is there anything wrong with this:

8 oz OJ, with 2 large organic RAW eggs, 8 oz low fat milk....all in blender and drink it as a breakfast? It's what we used to call orange julius. Raw eggs ok?

Thanks... As a side note, bp has come down somewhat. Ray Peat wrote back to up vitamin k2 and I did, but alas my supplements have soy...so will be dumping them soon and ordering the thorne variety.

Thank you so much...I know I am bothering with so many questions...but it is the beginning and I am just learning....I am sure I will settle down with a great plan very soon.

 

[4peatssake]

Ok. I eat a lot of shellfish so I can balance the copper with the chicken liver....as in pate? hmmm This I can do.

Also, is there anything wrong with this:

8 oz OJ, with 2 large organic RAW eggs, 8 oz low fat milk....all in blender and drink it as a breakfast? It's what we used to call orange julius. Raw eggs ok?

Thanks... As a side note, bp has come down somewhat. Ray Peat wrote back to up vitamin k2 and I did, but alas my supplements have soy...so will be dumping them soon and ordering the thorne variety.

Thank you so much...I know I am bothering with so many questions...but it is the beginning and I am just learning....I am sure I will settle down with a great plan very soon.

to the forum leo!

Please ask away - there are lots of knowledgeable people here who are happy to help you.

OJ, egg and milk in a blender is great if tolerated! I do OJ and milk together too, but if I do eggs I usually fry them in coconut oil or make eggnog with just the eggs, milk, sugar and a dash of vanilla.

 

[j.]

J: I was taking 1 grain (60) in the a.m. and 1 grain (60) before bed. I did not take last night nor this a.m. to test to see if it is a reaction to the t4 in the med. Like I mentioned, t3 alone has never caused this. The only correlation I am seeing is that this happened once before when I was on t4 combo.

I think your doses might be too big. Here is the explanation: The body produces 4 mcg of T3 in an hour. When you take more than 4 mcg at once, the body might detect that it has too much T3 and produce anti-thyroid adaptations. 1 grain has 8 mcg of T3, so your dose might be too big. I would try taking no more than half a grain in an hour, so you could take 2 grains in 4 doses. Having thyroid with food also makes its absorption slower, which is beneficial.

 

[j.]

Raw eggs ok?

Raw egg yolks are ok. Raw egg whites are not. They inhibit absorption of vitamin B7.

Have you been eating raw egg whites every day?