Nicolas' story

[nikotrope]

Greetings!
First, this forum has been immensely helpful and I want to thank everybody here.

I am 29 year old male, 5'5" at 187lbs. I am French.

A little background about me. I think I was slightly hypo all my life as I was having "growing pains" in the legs in the evenings a lot. Then at 10 I had an inguinal hernia and did surgery to fix it with general anesthesia – I saw recently somewhere that anesthesia could lower temps – so it probably added to the hypo symptoms. I began to gain weight and have more problems (in the feet, back, legs) with gynecomastia on top of that, it was horrible. I caught colds at least once a month in winter and if I went to parties with people smoking around me, next day I would have catch a cold. The first cold would trigger caugh during all winter.

All of this made me the nerd of the school and I did not have a lot of fun during that time. My father is a pharmacist, I was raised as someone who thinks doctors are not very useful but medicine is good and if you have a problem it's your genes.

4 years ago I decided I had enough of it and started to do things for my health. I began to lift weight, drank green smoothies in the morning which quickly made me eat less calories and after a few weeks I read a book about paleo and went low carb. At first I felt awesome, lost 20kg and had more energy than ever. Then I started having cravings for bread mainly, then sugary things. I ended it 6 months later after lying in bed for a month being sick. The burnout due to stress I had at work was the cherry on top.

3 years ago, I discovered Danny Roddy, Ray Peat and Matt Stone. I slowly understood what to do to get to better health but it was very slow (bad habits can be hard to kill). After going low calorie last year (1300kcal per day between september and decembrer!) I finally realized I had to eat more (2000kcal was inconceivable at that time). I slowly went from 1300kcal to 3000kcal and more currently. I did weight lifting on and off this year but stopped last month to focus on my temps. I also have taped my mouth at night for the past couple months, it improved my wake up temp.

I have normal temps (wake up at 97.6 to 97.8, then 98.6 all day long after breakfast and shower) and I eat to appetite. I have been better since august for the temps, but with the coldness and darkness of the past couples months my temps dropped. I have been able to return to normal temps last week.

Resolved symptoms:

- Catching colds all the time (I have been cold-free for a year, I am so happy!)
- Neck/Shoulder/Arm pain, I once thought I had carpian canal syndrome (I still have a small pain from time to time when I don't eat peaty)
- Acne on legs
- Lack of energy
- Tartar on teeth (I had a lot even 1 month after the dentist, I have almost none for more than 6 months now)
- Bleeding gums
- Probably more...

Ongoing symptoms:

- Fat and/or Water retention (it won't budge, and if I deviate from peat recommandations, I gain weight)
- Runny nose (again I had this all my life, but it's getting better and better)
- Dry red eyes (I once tried contact lenses, I have had red eyes since then)
- Tinnitus (again I don't remember the time when it was fine)
- Gynecomastia

I really think it's estrogen dominance and also the liver not working normally. It might be endotoxin too.

Here's what I eat:

- 2l semi-skimmed milk
- 500ml orange juice
- 250ml red bull
- 250g brown sugar
- 100-200g eggs/beef/liver/shellfish (a few times a week each)
- 2 tbsp coconut oil
- gelatin sometimes
- and other sugary things if I'm still hungry

I sometimes take aspirin and vit e/d/k supplements. Activated charcoal too (small doses at night).
I have been eating starch (rice, potatoes) until recently. I have tried cooked bananas last week and it didn't caused troubles.

I really don't know what to do here. There's a lot of different opinions on this forum and I don't know if:

- I should go fat-free
- I should eat more sugar
- I should stop milk (because of the estrogen and too much calcium with estrogen dominance might be not good)
- Or something else

Please help me!

 

[north]

Maybe drop the brown sugar and not use that much. Peat says supplemental sugar isn't optimal because of its lack of nutrients. Better with OJ.
Maybe try to get more protein, like gelatin 50g per day regularly?
How much salt do you get?
Hows digestion/bowel movements? Make sure intestines isn't slow to not reabsorb estrogen.
Could you track an average day in cronometer?

 

[tara]

Welcome Nicolas

Glad you've found some progress.

 

[nikotrope]

I used white sugar before, no difference with the brown one. I don't like oranges that much it's fine for a few glasses, but replacing all this sugar by OJ is kind of impossible (and a lot more liquids). I'm trying to get more fruits though, I've tried cooked organic bananas a few days ago and I felt fine.

I am trying to eat more jelly but I only get 5-10g of gelatine that way. I have a green can from Great Lakes but the smell is awful to me (most people says it is odorless but even in hot liquids for gravy or stuff like that the smell and taste remain repulsive to me). So I don't really know how to incorporate 50g of gelatin my diet. I use BCAA sporadically.

For the salt, I was at something like 5g of sodium a few months ago and it helped me raised my temps then dropped all added salt this month on most days and kept the higher temps and I feel fine. What could do the salt apart from raising temps?

I have 1 to 2 bowel movements each day, it's not perfectly regular though. But I have had loose stools for a couple months, since I stopped most starch/fibers.

I've attached a few screenshots of chronometer for reference. I used to go way more than that in magnesium and potassium (through potatoes, then cocoa/chocolate, then bananas). And I was still hungry after all this and ate a bit of ice cream before bed (I am not hungry on days I eat 3200kcal or more apparently).

 

[nikotrope]

Welcome Nicolas

Glad you've found some progress.

Thank you! It took time but I am very happy I kept trusting what RP demonstrated in his articles.

 

[nikotrope]

Made a few searches on the forum and I should add salt again because I have had eye twitching for a few days now and saw that salt retains magnesium. Since even while supplementing magnesium I still have twitching I will add more salt in my diet again and see how it goes.

 

[tara]

I think Peat has said that salt can also help lower adrenaline and aldosterone, make it easier for the body to control fluid balance, and increase metabolism. He describes it as one of the safest supplements. He seems to usually talk about it in terms of eating salty food.

 

[superhuman]

up your protein for SURE, will help ALOT

 

[nikotrope]

I think Peat has said that salt can also help lower adrenaline and aldosterone, make it easier for the body to control fluid balance, and increase metabolism. He describes it as one of the safest supplements. He seems to usually talk about it in terms of eating salty food.

I've tried to get more salt, but it was very hard to get to 5g of sodium. I can't salt too much of my fluids or meals because it rapidly becomes too salty for my taste. Soups and broths are fine to get salt, I drank miso soups to get salt but fermented soy is not very peat friendly and has a bit of PUFA in it. So I need to find something that is practical and that I like.

 

[nikotrope]

up your protein for SURE, will help ALOT

I've seen you had good results with 250g of protein, I usually consume 120-150g but I don't know how could one such an amount?! How much carbs/fat do you consume? What do you eat apart from cottage cheese?

There's no low fat cheeses in France and almost no cottage cheese (we have something similar but it's always with ferments and more similar to yogurts than cottage cheese). Doing my own would be too time consuming I think.

Do you think you have/had estrogen dominance? I see a lot of males in the forum with good results but not a lot with more than 20% BF (I think). I say that because most males getting results seem to only have low temp and/or low energy but don't seem to really have estrogen dominance.

 

[jyb]

I've seen you had good results with 250g of protein, I usually consume 120-150g but I don't know how could one such an amount?! How much carbs/fat do you consume? What do you eat apart from cottage cheese?

I do well on a high dairy food diet, with most sugars coming from milk (lactose), and quality orange juice as needed. I eat my dairy whole, so it high fat. I do not well at all on low fat. I wanted to share this because on Peat forums you'll find people who seem fine experimenting/living on a low fat diet, others like me who do not. I was hungry or didn't sleep well (basic hypoglycaemia symptoms, I found out) when restricting fat and compensating with carbs. I'm not saying you should do this or that, just giving you options if you fail on a particular route and need ideas to improve your metabolism.

 

[nikotrope]

Thanks for your feedback @jyb. Finding what you need requires a lot of experimentation. Maybe I should eat more fat, more sugar, more something. I've started a log to define how I feel each day (are my eyes drier, is my arm painful, is my nose congested, how was my sleep, etc). It should help me to define when I feel better or not.

 

[tara]

I think Peat has said that salt can also help lower adrenaline and aldosterone, make it easier for the body to control fluid balance, and increase metabolism. He describes it as one of the safest supplements. He seems to usually talk about it in terms of eating salty food.

I've tried to get more salt, but it was very hard to get to 5g of sodium. I can't salt too much of my fluids or meals because it rapidly becomes too salty for my taste. Soups and broths are fine to get salt, I drank miso soups to get salt but fermented soy is not very peat friendly and has a bit of PUFA in it. So I need to find something that is practical and that I like.

I know there are people who force in salt like a supplement in other ways, but if you are adding as much salt as your taste buds can enjoy, that may be a reasonable guide.
I generously salt eggs, liver, meat, soup, potatoes.
I sometimes add just a little salt to coffee, carrot salad, and baking soda to juice.
I would like to find a suitable portable salty snack, but haven't yet.

When I make my own cheese, that could take a bit of salt too.
Making your own is very easy. Heat milk, add vinegar slowly till it curdles, strain, salt. The most time consuming part is heating the milk slowy enough that it doesn't burn to the pot, but you can do other things at the same time. There are more complicated recipes, but this is very quick. I recently got some rennet to make a batch, and there were longer waits involved, but it tasted better to me than the vinegar method.

Keeping a log for a while sounds like a good idea.
I agree with jyb about trying things and seeing what works for you.