Ray Peat Diet When You Have Sibo/digestion Issues

[chedd]

Hello everyone!

Before coming across Ray Peat and this forum I experimented a lot with nutritional ketosis and while it definitely seemed to help with brain fog, bloating, and fatigue I came to experience some negatives such as muscle wasting, stressed adrenals, dehydration etc. I tried cyclical ketosis and it didn't really work for me. I felt like it took me three days to transition back into ketosis after a refeed during which time I didn't feel too great, then I was out the of the fog for a few days while in ketosis and then back into the fog when I did a refeed and all my ibs symptoms would come back. It seemed like I was putting unnecessary strain on my body by shifting back and forth but this might just be because I was dealing with so many digestive/autoimmune issues already...I don't know. Anyway I really like the feeling of being in ketosis and for a while I was convinced that this was the ideal state to be in. However, now I'm starting to wonder if it might be dangerous to be in ketosis, even cyclical ketosis over a long period of time. (I was a Jack Kruse/Dave Asprey follower before making my way here)

From what I've read and understand ketosis is the state in which you burn fat for fuel. The process is triggered when your body runs out of glycogen stores. I experienced some muscle wasting when being in prolonged states of ketosis and I'm at my ideal body weight with hardly any muscle to lose so this worries me. It seems like ketosis is the body's second line of defense once glycogen stores run out and we aren't really meant to be in ketosis all the time. By forcing the body into ketosis, it seems like we are purposely removing that first protective layer so the body is forced to burn fat and once fat is gone it starts to burn muscle. Does the body really discriminate as to where that muscle is coming from? If I don't get enough fat while I'm in ketosis will my body take muscle from my heart of other major organs? When people experience muscle wasting what does that look like on the inside? According to webmd "As the body loses muscle mass, it loses heart muscle at a preferential rate."

Could you possibly be damaging/weakening your heart muscle or other major organs by trying to maintain nutritional ketosis part of the time or all of the time? Is ketosis a state we should even be trying to achieve at all apart from what happens naturally when we go to sleep or fast?

As I'm starting to transition to a Peat inspired way of eating there are some issues that have come up. I don't seem to tolerate fructose or dairy very well at all but would like to include more carbs in my diet. Would jasmine rice be the best option and is there concern about the arsenic exposure? Also, my brain feels amazing when running on ketones, is it possible to experience this effect on a higher carb diet? I feel like because of the sibo, carbs cause instant bloating and brain fog. Also, I seem to experience edema when I add more carbs, is there any way to avoid this? Sorry this post is kind of all over the place! I have been eating HFLC for so long and am trying to find a sibo friendly way to eat following Ray Peat principles.

I also plan to look into environmental stress factors that could be contributing to the problem. Jack Kruse claims that Ray Peat was right before EMF became a part of the equation. Responses to Ray Peat's Conclusions | Jack Kruse Optimal Health Forum I am living in a city where some degree of exposure to EMF is unavoidable so would a higher fat diet be more protective in this case? Has anyone here had success lowering pufa and eating along the Ray Peat guidelines while maintaining a higher fat intake?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[PakPik]

Hello chedd, welcome :)

I hope you get some good answers for your digestive and metabolic problems. I've been there (I've had super bad SIBO and metabolism), so I can sympathize.

First of all, I would suggest watching this documentary on a 1 month experiment on High fat-low carb Vs. High Carb-low fat. It's very entertaining and informative and they touch on the subject of muscle loss. Gues Who Wins?Van Tulleken Twin Doctors Go On Month Long High-fat And High-sugar Diet (BBC Document)

I experimented a lot with nutritional ketosis and while it definitely seemed to help with brain fog, bloating, and fatigue

I understand that ketones can be a good source of energy for the brain, but this comes at the expense of a stressed out metabolism; in other words, ketones are produced in a state framed by the stress hormone cascade. That CANT be good. Chronic high cortisol, adrenalin, estrogen, et al, is tremendously damaging to the body. The confusing part is that cortisol, for example, tends to give a sense of focused brain energy and also to the rest of the body; so, a person might feel good on high stress hormones -for a while-.

If you're new to Peat, I suggest you check his remarks on the stress hormones, why they matter and how to modulate them.

It seems like ketosis is the body's second line of defense once glycogen stores run out and we aren't really meant to be in ketosis all the time

Yes

the body is forced to burn fat and once fat is gone it starts to burn muscle.

That's not completely accurate; in fact the body always needs a surplus of glucose, it doesn't matter if fat is still available, it needs to get glucose and will get it from the muscles or dietary protein if there's no glycogen.

Does the body really discriminate as to where that muscle is coming from? If I don't get enough fat while I'm in ketosis will my body take muscle from my heart of other major organs?

The body can sense it is breaking itself apart; for example muscle catabolism liberates large amounts of tryptophan, cysteine and methionine to the bloodstream. The increasing level of these aminoacids in plasma makes thyroid gland function go down. You can see this as a body's attempt to protect itself by lowering metabolism Thyroid peroxidase activity is inhibited by amino acids – Functional Performance Systems (FPS)

So, remaining on ketosis comes at the price of overt thyroid blockage/hypothyroidism, and a host of famine related problems such as immunosuppression, etc..

The body uses certain hormones in order to know what tissue to catabolize or not; according to Peat the muscles, the liver and the thymus are among the first to suffer catabolism. If I'm not wrong the heart is more or less spared (unless there's some kind of extreme wasting).

Could you possibly be damaging/weakening your heart muscle or other major organs by trying to maintain nutritional ketosis part of the time or all of the time?

Yes; the body may be able to sustain famine metabolism for a little while without major consequences, but if chronic, sooner or later there will probably be considerable organ wasting, etc.

Is ketosis a state we should even be trying to achieve at all apart from what happens naturally when we go to sleep or fast?

I don't think so. Ketone production is tied to a very detrimental metabolic/immunological/endocrine state of being.

my brain feels amazing when running on ketones, is it possible to experience this effect on a higher carb diet? I feel like because of the sibo, carbs cause instant bloating and brain fog. Also, I seem to experience edema when I add more carbs, is there any way to avoid this?

High carb diet can feel amazing when you get the hormones, metabolism working in a relatively good order; the problem is, someone coming from the ketosis framework can get some seemingly new symptoms or get old ones seemingly worsened when switching to a high carb diet at first; this has a lot to do with reactivation of immune system, or better yet, the stopping of the immunosuppression of ketosis. So a person might experience "inflammation" symptoms due to this. Supplying enough carbs will also , hopefully, lower cortisol and adrenaline, so the person might feel fatigued and foggy from this (lowering these stress hormones might reveal the true energetic state of the person). High fat diet induces overt insulin resistance, which means a person that switches to high carb will experience some difficulties metabolizing carbs at first, and Hypothyroidsm also lowers the ability to metabolize carbs.

All in all, with metabolic problems it is better to make gradual changes in order to let the body adjust. Many forum members came from high fat low carb backgrounds and you can read their recovery stories and gain some insights and hope :)

With SIBO you may want to apply some antimicrobial strategy; I personally treated the worst of it with raw garlic preparation (I couldn't tolerate any kind of carb before), and the remaining SIBO improved slowly over time with a bunch of body wide health strategies. SIBO will come back if the immune system keeps being supressed and if the person remains in a stressed, hypothyroid state; so these are important targets to address in order to beat SIBO. By the way, diet plays a huge part and one has to experiment and see which carbs are better or worse; SIBO usually requires avoidance of complex/fermentable carbs and fibers, and simple sugars are the most recommended carbs.

Hope this helps!

 

[chedd]

Hi Pak!

Wow thank you for such a thoughtful response.

It's nice to hear from someone who was in the same boat.

I enjoyed the documentary and was surprised that the high sugar twin scored higher on the brain test. I also could relate to the high fat guy who lost more muscle mass than fat.

I think it was the high cortisol I was feeling in ketosis and that felt amazing at first because I was used to being fatigued all the time. It was kind of like a manic energy though and trying to maintain that state all the time did not work. I ended up feeling kind of unbalanced and detached and sometimes my energy would crash at work or school and I would feel like I was going to pass out.

I will look up some of Peat's writing about stress hormones.

The body can sense it is breaking itself apart; for example muscle catabolism liberates large amounts of tryptophan, cysteine and methionine to the bloodstream. The increasing level of these aminoacids in plasma makes thyroid gland function go down. You can see this as a body's attempt to protect itself by lowering metabolism Thyroid peroxidase activity is inhibited by amino acids – Functional Performance Systems (FPS)

This is interesting and explains why my hair thinned out so much when I went low carb. I've suspected a thyroid issue for a while now and was hyperthyroid before going low carb. Would you recommend going to a doctor to get a thyroid lab done or is there one I can get online? I'll look through the board because there is probably an answer for this on here.

The body uses certain hormones in order to know what tissue to catabolize or not; according to Peat the muscles, the liver and the thymus are among the first to suffer catabolism. If I'm not wrong the heart is more or less spared (unless there's some kind of extreme wasting).

This is kind of a relief for some reason. Hopefully no long term damage was done!

High carb diet can feel amazing when you get the hormones, metabolism working in a relatively good order; the problem is, someone coming from the ketosis framework can get some seemingly new symptoms or get old ones seemingly worsened when switching to a high carb diet at first; this has a lot to do with reactivation of immune system, or better yet, the stopping of the immunosuppression of ketosis. So a person might experience "inflammation" symptoms due to this. Supplying enough carbs will also , hopefully, lower cortisol and adrenaline, so the person might feel fatigued and foggy from this (lowering these stress hormones might reveal the true energetic state of the person). High fat diet induces overt insulin resistance, which means a person that switches to high carb will experience some difficulties metabolizing carbs at first, and Hypothyroidism also lowers the ability to metabolize carbs.

This is the most important thing for me --being able to think clearly and maintain good brain function. When I get brain fog I get very anxious and I don't know what to do with myself. I feel like I might have messed up my metabolism/thyroid from eating low carb for so long but I'm having trouble figuring out how to move out of this way of eating because I've been getting massive brain fog from carbs. I've still been eating about 70g of fat a day (<5 grams pufa) but I think I'll slowly start to lower that. If I cut back on fat a lot I feel really hungry and my energy levels are not stable. I was never hungry when I was in ketosis so it's confusing trying to understand my bodies signals now that I am not in a ketogenic state.

I also worry that going too low on fat all of a sudden would release a lot of PUFA. However, I've also read that eating high fat is damaging if you are not in ketosis so I'll probably see how low I can get it without feeling too unbalanced. I dealt with the "keto flu" many times when I was doing cyclical ketosis and can't fathom how people are maintaining that long term. It felt like I was on a crazy rollercoaster and the small burst of clarity I was getting in ketosis was just not worth all the mood and energy issues the rest of the time.

Physiologically higher carbs seems to = higher temp, libido, fertility, thicker hair but doesn't higher everything go against longevity? It seems like biology wants us to be higher energy and fertile but it's not really interested in having us stick around for too long. Maybe this goes into a quality vs quantity debate though.

With SIBO you may want to apply some antimicrobial strategy; I personally treated the worst of it with raw garlic preparation (I couldn't tolerate any kind of carb before), and the remaining SIBO improved slowly over time with a bunch of body wide health strategies. SIBO will come back if the immune system keeps being suppressed and if the person remains in a stressed, hypothyroid state; so these are important targets to address in order to beat SIBO.

I was taking garlic at one point which seemed to help but I was also eating ketogenic and went on antibiotics and then everything seemed to go down hill. I will probably try that again now that I feel a little more stable. Hopefully I can iron out some of these issues and focus on other things!

Thank you again for your help and I will continue to search the forum for answers to some of these questions!

 

[PakPik]

I enjoyed the documentary and was surprised that the high sugar twin scored higher on the brain test. I also could relate to the high fat guy who lost more muscle mass than fat.

Fun, wasn't it? :) The results didn't surprise me one bit, though... the high fat guy was under massive physical stress.

I think it was the high cortisol I was feeling in ketosis and that felt amazing at first because I was used to being fatigued all the time. It was kind of like a manic energy though

Yes, manic is a good description; in fact, too much cortisol+estrogen for example, and it ends up in psychosis. It feels the brain is on fire due to high levels of nervous excitation/excitotoxicity, and it finally kills the neurons. Understanding how to normalize the excitatory processes is very helpful for healing the brain.

Would you recommend going to a doctor to get a thyroid lab done or is there one I can get online?

It may be a good idea to get some baseline numbers and keep the record, although I must say that lots of hypothyroid people get nice thyroid labs. It's a good idea to read in the forum or Peat about possible interpretation of labs.

Peat considers sleep quality, energy levels, how easy it is for muscles/nerves to relax (for example the Achilles' heel test), and body temp and pulse as better tests for thyroid function.

The prolactin test is very popular around here and can give a good idea of stress levels.

If I cut back on fat a lot I feel really hungry and my energy levels are not stable. I was never hungry when I was in ketosis so it's confusing trying to understand my bodies signals now that I am not in a ketogenic state.

As the body interprets ketosis as famine, it makes sense that it shuts your hunger down since it "understands" there's not an abundance of food around.
With sugars added, the body interprets as *not* being in famine, so it will rev up its repair and normal metabolic processes, so it makes sense that providing sugar will make the body ask you for more of it and whatever else it has been missing. The hunger can also be due to sugar crashes from insulin resistance, so it is key to focus on improving the ability to oxidize sugars/insulin resistance.

"keto flu"

=massive immunosuppression leading to things like bacterial endotoxin translocation from the gut, viral reactivation, etc...

Repairing these kind of things can take some time and definitely lots of perseverance. Hope you find your way out of SIBO!

 

[DaveFoster]

Physiologically higher carbs seems to = higher temp, libido, fertility, thicker hair but doesn't higher everything go against longevity? It seems like biology wants us to be higher energy and fertile but it's not really interested in having us stick around for too long. Maybe this goes into a quality vs quantity debate though.

No. There's some evidence that a higher pulse and basal body temperature results in higher mortality, but as far I know, there exists no account for elevated adrenaline and cortisol concentrations. The former will elevate heart rate, while the latter will increase temperature.