Peat pitfalls

huntingBears

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What are some of the common mistakes people make when starting this diet?

I'm supplementing vitamin D and avoiding all pufas and grains, basically just eating milk, cheese, orange juice, eggs, grated carrot, occasional liver/steak/shellfish, coffee

Do you need to be supplementing specific things for it to work well? I'm surprised by how little stomach problems I'm having with so much dairy where before on paleo I completely eliminated it and thought I was intolerant.

I've been drinking kefir which I know is not advised but I'm going to continue anyway and see what happens.
 

cliff

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The biggest mistake I see is using low quality foods, not eating enough sugar and eating too much fat. Not too many other mistakes you can make.
 

Dean

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Yeah, I think the pitfalls are giving in to the early negative impacts and results and accepting it may take quite a bit of time before it looks and feels like you are getting anywhere good. Dairy intolerance and/or lack of access and affordability of grass-fed is a major problem I think that also goes hand in hand with the too much fat/precipitous weight gain problem. I cannot tolerate drinking low-fat or skim milk, so I am going to have to either restrict dairy or accept major weight gain.

It also seems like major, major supplementation is necessary for most. As effed up as we are from what we've been eating and is in our food supply, diet alone won't do it. So there again, expense can be an issue.
 
OP
H

huntingBears

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What is the major supplementation? I sup vitamin D and might start E but apart from that I don't want to go down the progesterone route or anything like that, I have health concerns but nothing majorly serious (i hope) just digestive, energy and skin problems that probably aren't that bad overall
 

Dean

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Well, from reading around it just seems like alot, even most, of the people seriously Peating are taking alot of supps to counteract this or that and also using alot of pharmaceuticals, like serotonin antagonists. I'm trying to convince myself I can succeed without them or keeping them to a bare minimum. When I blitzed through many of Dr. Peat's radio interviews several months ago, I do recall him mentioning a few times that "through diet" is best, yet he does throw supp/pharma recommendations around quite alot as well. Perhaps he is just recognizing that people are too impatient to wait it out. I don't know. Things like desperation and the inherent experimental spirit of cynics/skeptics could be part of it too.

If you are just looking for a few tweaks in terms of optimal well-being though and aren't having any problems tolerating all the dairy then it sounds like you are in good shape to get what you want/can out of Peating without getting drawn into or feeling the need to supplement or medicate.
 
J

j.

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Regarding supplements, an ideal diet wouldn't require them. For example, Peat mentions that if we didn't eat PUFAs or had access to a variety of fruits which contain salicylic acid, then taking aspirin wouldn't bring benefits. So, do you have access to red grapes or other fruits high in salicylic acid daily? If so, forget about aspirin. If not, aspirin might bring some benefits, especially for example if you sunbathe, because it would reduce u.v. damage. Now, if you decided to take aspirin you need to either consume vit K through food, which you can extract from some vegetables, or take a supplement.

Regarding vit. A, some people seem to get acne when they are exposed to the sun unless they take incredible amounts of vitamin A, which you can't get thorough diet. So if you are one of those, you need to take vit. A.

Regarding thyroid, pregnenolone, etc., they're found in animals, in the thyroid glans and the brain. If you don't eat thyroid glans or brains, and don't have the patience to wait years to remove PUFA from your tissues, then you might want to take thyroid or pregnenolone supplements.
 

cliff

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I think that's another big mistake people make. Over supplementing with every peat approved supplement
 

BingDing

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Well, eating kefir is one, LOL. Just kidding, when you're eating 99% Peat like you are, a few small slips aren't going to matter. It's a long term effort and there aren't any shortcuts. Eliminating stored PUFAs is one part of it, that can take many years depending on how much you have stored.

Some of the supplements discussed are about keeping stored PUFAs in the fat cells rather than letting them get released in an uncontrolled manner, which is metabolically analogous to eating them. They can be slowly processed by the liver without bad effects, though I admit I haven't quite grasped that whole deal.

Magnesium isn't necessarily a Peat thing but Mg deficiency is widespread and common, and should be addressed. Oral Mg supps never did a thing for me (off and on for 30+ years) but topical Mg oil was nearly miraculous, made a big difference.

Salt is important, you might not even get the 1 tsp RDA cooking everything from scratch. 2 tsp/day was recommended in one thread, that seems a pretty good starting point.

Pregnenolone is not the same as thyroid or progesterone, it's not even a hormone but a hormone precursor. Some people have noticed hair falling out but other than that it seems like nothing but good. From this article:


RP: Natural pregnenolone is present in young people of both sexes at a very high concentration, and one reason for the large amount produced in youth is that it is one of our basic defenses against the harmful side effects that an imbalance of even our natural hormones can produce. In excess, natural cortisone or estrogen can be dangerous, but when there is an abundance of pregnenolone, their side effects are prevented or minimized.

In a healthy young person or animal, taking even a large dose of pregnenolone has no hormone-like or drug-like action at all. It is unique in this way. But if the animal or person is under stress, and producing more cortisone than usual, taking pregnenolone causes the cortisone to come down to the normal level. After the age of 40 or 45, it seems that everyone lives in a state of continuous "stress," just as a normal part of aging. This coincides with the body's decreased ability to produce an abundance of pregnenolone.

And

“When using pregnenolone, men and women alike report feeling a profound mood of resilience and an increased ability to confront challenges successfully.” -Ray Peat

I advise taking Charlie's advice and starting slow. I started preg with oil on the back of my hand and 40 mcg rubbed in, increased that to 80 mcg/day on my skin after a few weeks, then less than 40 orally, now 80/day orally after about three months.

Good luck, remember that what you did in the last six months determined what you are today. When you look back six months from now with Peat, you will be different.
 
J

j.

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Another thing that some people seem to forget is the light stuff. I'm a 10-month PUFA avoider but started using incandescent lights only today. I was using fluorescent bulbs, which contain more of the blue wave, which is stressful and reduces energy. There is a lot of information to absorb.
 

jyb

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Dean said:
Well, from reading around it just seems like alot, even most, of the people seriously Peating are taking alot of supps to counteract this or that and also using alot of pharmaceuticals, like serotonin antagonists. I'm trying to convince myself I can succeed without them or keeping them to a bare minimum. When I blitzed through many of Dr. Peat's radio interviews several months ago, I do recall him mentioning a few times that "through diet" is best, yet he does throw supp/pharma recommendations around quite alot as well. Perhaps he is just recognizing that people are too impatient to wait it out. I don't know. Things like desperation and the inherent experimental spirit of cynics/skeptics could be part of it too.

If you are just looking for a few tweaks in terms of optimal well-being though and aren't having any problems tolerating all the dairy then it sounds like you are in good shape to get what you want/can out of Peating without getting drawn into or feeling the need to supplement or medicate.

People "seriously Peating" are also those who might be the most hypo to start with and can't be cured as easily as others. Those drugs are for temporary usage and only if still hypo after months of diet and then months of thyroid/pregnelonone if diet failed.
 

gretchen

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Nov 30, 2012
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Not taking your temperature is a mistake; you need to know just how low it is, especially in the morning.

The diet tastes good, better than anything you've done probably in years, so you will probably eat more and gain weight, which will cause you to freak out if you don't understand your body temp and metabolism are low.

Some problems like getting up to pee at night and increased urination in general are hard to deal with, especially after you get used to the constant fluids, which are delicious and hard to cut back on.

Some people criticize certain aspects of the diet, like the sugar which can make you feel bad.

Hypothyroid is not well understood and you may hear its an "excuse" or objections to whether you can know that is what you have without lab tests, so you want to kind of keep quiet.
 

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