Resting Heart Rate Dropping Alot After Starting Peat Enthused Diet

[Sagitarrius90]

Hello everyone

I started adopting some peat methods to lower my stress hormones to improve my sleep, health, skin, metabolism etc

I've been incorporating alot more OJ, Milk, sugar, coconut oil into my diet and eating alot more often. I've decreased my fat intake and have increased my carb content alot more.

Long story short previously my resting heart rate was around 58 60 bpm (this is having caffiene on an empty stomach for the majority of my day since I fasted) and now that I have switched over to a more peat friendly diet my BPM resting is around 48 50 bpm.

I havent increased my calories by to much I'm around 2500 on days I dont exercise and 3000 on workout days.

Is this just the healing process? Should I buy some t3 to help my metabolism? I would assume i would have to eat alot more simple sugars to support the increased metabolism from t3 but then again would doing it without heal as well?

Protein is around 160 180 from meat, liver, egg white cheese milk

Fat trace amounts from milk cheese meat and coconut oil

Carbs - OJ milk fruit sugar honey

Coffee - 300 - 400 mg x 2 a day with at least 200-300 calories worth of sat fat and sugar with it vs black coffee

 

[Ulysses]

That's a lot of protein, and in exceedingly high doses protein is thought to have anti-metabolic effects. The typical recommendation around here is 80-100 grams. Try replacing half your daily protein with carbs and see what happens

 

[Hazarlar]

I don't think that you should reduce protein ... unless you feel bad after high protein meals. It depends on your age also. There are lot of nutrients in your protein sources. Ray Peat himself has said that he feels best at 150 grams per day. I have eaten 60-100 grams of protein in one meal for years and years.

There are of course some benefits of low protein intake.

 

[Luckytype]

It could very well be you coming off the compensatory mechanisms that support you in times of physiological stress.

I dont think 160g of protein is ultra high but you do want to balance the amino acid profile of all the protein you eat. Gelatinous cuts of meat and gelatin or broth alongside your meat foods will help this.

Lately ive noticed a significant difference in temps around 140-160g protein a day usually spread across several sources

Temps will give you a good idea of metabolism too compared with looking at just HR alone

 

[Hazarlar]

I had an opposite physiological reaction when starting to Peat. My pulse was in low-carb period around 50. After starting to carb-up it was many times near 90, which I didn't like. And then after few months stabilized into 70-80. I also started to produce a lot of heat and didn't feel cold anymore on occasions I used to.

 

[Jon]

It could very well be you coming off the compensatory mechanisms that support you in times of physiological stress.

I dont think 160g of protein is ultra high but you do want to balance the amino acid profile of all the protein you eat. Gelatinous cuts of meat and gelatin or broth alongside your meat foods will help this.

Lately ive noticed a significant difference in temps around 140-160g protein a day usually spread across several sources

Temps will give you a good idea of metabolism too compared with looking at just HR alone

I agree with @Luckytype that you're probably coming off of a stress based metabolism.

The first time I tried aspirin I felt horrible. I went completely cold, heart rate dropped, and I literally slept for 12-13hours straight. I think when it turned off my stress hormones and forced my body to run on the miserable glucose oxidation it was capable of it made me crash and burn. @Nick Borcic

 

[Sagitarrius90]

I workout around 3 4 times a week about an hr just weight training. That's something whether peat approved or not I'm going to continue

It has to be switching from stress hormones to my normal metabolism because my skin,sleep and overall outlook on life is much more postive. My question is since cortisol/adrenaline lower metabolism and increase estrogen should my metabolism by higher now even though my bpm has lowered? Or is metabolism strictly bpm and body temp even if its driven by stress hormones?

Should I lower protein a bit increase sugars and keep calorie intake close to maintenance to account for a possibly slowed metabolism . I want to maintain my bodyfat %(around 12 13)

Weigh 210 height 6.0

 

[Sagitarrius90]

I suppose supplementing with t3 during this recovery (running off of my normal metabolism instead of stress hormones) wouldn't be wise? Or perhaps eat more calories (peaty type) and add t3

 

[Jon]

I suppose supplementing with t3 during this recovery (running off of my normal metabolism instead of stress hormones) wouldn't be wise? Or perhaps eat more calories (peaty type) and add t3

I'm always cautious these days on supplementing right away. Imo it would be best if you gave it a couple weeks of trying other avenues before introducing exogenous hormones to your system.

Are you sure you're not just over taxed from training consecutively for so long? As you train progressively you accumulate fatigue, and if you never take weeks off you will just keep compounding your fatigue and worsening your metabolism. The body is very good at masking this fatigue with stress opiods. Sometimes two weeks off from training is a huge help to regain your metabolism and wick out the stress hormones. There's this thread that was my experience with that if you look in the section under "fatigue":
Broad Spectrum Improvements SANS Thyroid Medication

And then there's this homies @Satellite recent experience with it if you look through the comments and the end he gave an update of what happened after some long needed time away from the gym:

(((#newhere))) --> Rookie Ray Peat Alchemist <--

 

[Jon]

@Nick Borcic oh and by my calculation you could go down to 150g protein if you wanted. That'd be about 0.8g/lb of lean mass for you. Protein raises cortisol so it's probably best to eat only what's necessary.

 

[Jon]

@Nick Borcic oh and by my calculation you could go down to 150g protein if you wanted. That'd be about 0.8g/lb of lean mass for you. Protein raises cortisol so it's probably best to eat only what's necessary.

 

[Sagitarrius90]

@Jon I appreciate the help and recommendations dude.

I have gotten to this low metabolism state over years and years of bodybuilding and putting my body thru alot of stress.

For the past two years I've been on TRT (age 28) using around 100 mg test ethanate and have access to armidex I use it whenever I feel any sort of estrogen related side but mostly for (bloat, acne , pissing less fluid then consuming, insomnia, high BP)

Now it's been about two weeks but as mentioned my BPM resting is down to 48 beats and this is still after 3 4 cups of coffee but again with around 400-500 calories of honey, milk, coconut oil.

I've read numerous articles/threads basically saying how high cortisol blocks the effects of fat loss, how estrogen hinders fat loss etc but if I switch over from using stress hormones to support my metabolism to my natural mechanisms (not a stress induced metabolism) even though my temps and resting bpm drop wouldnt I still have an increased metabolism? Or is temps /bpm the driver of metabolism regardless if its stress induced or not?

I ask his cause I dont want to get fat as hell here by trying to increase my metabolism. I'd rather keep calories close to maintenance (I've been dieting for around 6 months prior to me increasing calories) and increase my carbs dramatically and keep fats to a minimum (only from saturated or ay least try) and again 140-160 protein a day

 

[Jon]

@Jon I appreciate the help and recommendations dude.

I have gotten to this low metabolism state over years and years of bodybuilding and putting my body thru alot of stress.

For the past two years I've been on TRT (age 28) using around 100 mg test ethanate and have access to armidex I use it whenever I feel any sort of estrogen related side but mostly for (bloat, acne , pissing less fluid then consuming, insomnia, high BP)

Now it's been about two weeks but as mentioned my BPM resting is down to 48 beats and this is still after 3 4 cups of coffee but again with around 400-500 calories of honey, milk, coconut oil.

I've read numerous articles/threads basically saying how high cortisol blocks the effects of fat loss, how estrogen hinders fat loss etc but if I switch over from using stress hormones to support my metabolism to my natural mechanisms (not a stress induced metabolism) even though my temps and resting bpm drop wouldnt I still have an increased metabolism? Or is temps /bpm the driver of metabolism regardless if its stress induced or not?

I ask his cause I dont want to get fat as hell here by trying to increase my metabolism. I'd rather keep calories close to maintenance (I've been dieting for around 6 months prior to me increasing calories) and increase my carbs dramatically and keep fats to a minimum (only from saturated or ay least try) and again 140-160 protein a day

So are you trying to lose weight as well? Recovering metabolism and losing fat aren't very conducive to one another.

If anything your basal metabolism is probably lower when you're running on glucose oxidation right now. The temps and heart rate signify a lower rate of energy utilization. It's temporary, the body just needs time to optimize its metabolic pathway for glucose oxidation and restore some of its mechanisms to make this pathway more efficient. I understand your hesitation, it's hard for guys like us to imagine wasting our gains and looking less than ideal but really what's the alternative? More and more exogenous hormones to compensate for your failing metabolism because of vanity? It's a hard pill to swallow but you'll make it out ok if you accept the reality of your situation. I had to do the same thing, but man when you finally wake up feeling refreshed and not apathetic to do physical things WOW it's very liberating.

I don't think you'll get fat as hell lol. A recent study showed leptin secretion and sensitivity was normalized after 3 days of over eating post starvation. If you stopped training for a bit and overate for 4 days (just to be sure) on a small surplus (150-300cals) i think you'd rehab your satiety point enough to prevent bingeing and huge weight gain. That was my experience just flying by the seat of my pants as that study hadn't come out yet lmao. After my 2 weeks off I was a new man, had a better relationship with food, felt happy, actually wanted to train again, recovered morning erections, skin stopped being so dry. I think if you are seeing improvements in your skin then it's a sign your body is actively healing itself, when you're in a stress metabolism it's like defcon 5 for your body and it only sends healing factors to the areas it deems most essential for acute survival.

 

[Sagitarrius90]

So are you trying to lose weight as well? Recovering metabolism and losing fat aren't very conducive to one another.

If anything your basal metabolism is probably lower when you're running on glucose oxidation right now. The temps and heart rate signify a lower rate of energy utilization. It's temporary, the body just needs time to optimize its metabolic pathway for glucose oxidation and restore some of its mechanisms to make this pathway more efficient. I understand your hesitation, it's hard for guys like us to imagine wasting our gains and looking less than ideal but really what's the alternative? More and more exogenous hormones to compensate for your failing metabolism because of vanity? It's a hard pill to swallow but you'll make it out ok if you accept the reality of your situation. I had to do the same thing, but man when you finally wake up feeling refreshed and not apathetic to do physical things WOW it's very liberating.

I don't think you'll get fat as hell lol. A recent study showed leptin secretion and sensitivity was normalized after 3 days of over eating post starvation. If you stopped training for a bit and overate for 4 days (just to be sure) on a small surplus (150-300cals) i think you'd rehab your satiety point enough to prevent bingeing and huge weight gain. That was my experience just flying by the seat of my pants as that study hadn't come out yet lmao. After my 2 weeks off I was a new man, had a better relationship with food, felt happy, actually wanted to train again, recovered morning erections, skin stopped being so dry. I think if you are seeing improvements in your skin then it's a sign your body is actively healing itself, when you're in a stress metabolism it's like defcon 5 for your body and it only sends healing factors to the areas it deems most essential for acute survival.

I'm at that point where I know I have to take some time off. Not that it matters but I assume you've had it alot worse than I do (I am on trt at the age of 28 because of me failing to fully recover and dug quite the hole)

With my BMR around 2100 cals (considering a normal metabolism) I wonder what it is now. I wouldn't mind eating over maintenance to help fuel my body except all math is out the window since I thought these BMR calculations are based off of healthy metabolisms. My stats are 210 pounds 12-13% bf (very confident that is where I am at) 6 feet usually workout like I said 3 4 times so considering my resting bpm is now 48 instead of 54 56 temps are roughly the same give or take .2-.3 maybe 2400 2500 with 0 exercise will put me at a decent surplus

I ran into bad fatigue honestly around 6 7 years ago and I have taken off a week or two numerous times in those years ( no more than 2 weeks ever) and I usually from past recollection put myself back in that hole by either over training or under eating.

Since then I've used caffiene to always get me thru my day or just ate more food but never really lowered my stress hormones consciencely.

I'm not dead tired since the trt is helping me out but I bet life would be alot better if I took a solid 2 weeks off and the came back with a scheduled progressive program rather than what I'm doing now which is just trying to so more reps or more weight workout to workout

 

[Luckytype]

If youre 210 and 6 feet tall your BMR is going to be higher than that in most cases. If I eat 2300-2400 calories im going to starve now. Your dieted down metabolism is your new BMR for a while.

You should keep protein where youre at, at least 150 mixed sources. You need to focus on mineral flux(salt, magnesium and calcium) and caloric energy. All spaced regularly and with no fasting in the morning. Stop worrying about water retention for now.

Also its worth noting that "not peeing what was consumed" in regard to water is not specifically a bad thing. Reason being is the body when underfed enters stess mode and in stress mode it tries quite hard to keep concentration gradients of minerals and electrolytes at certain levels. Sometimes this mean inadvertantly eliminating water. I would imagine during your two or more weeks off you urinate less.

You can blunt the response of percieved stress by adding gelatin of some sort. The sensors of the body cant tell muscle meat profiles from your own potential myolysis during training.

Why are you on TRT? And is it TRT or "TRT"

And what are your temps - both waking and midday?

Breaks are great but to be frank you may want to keep in the back of your mind you may do better with more.

 

[Jon]

I'm at that point where I know I have to take some time off. Not that it matters but I assume you've had it alot worse than I do (I am on trt at the age of 28 because of me failing to fully recover and dug quite the hole)

With my BMR around 2100 cals (considering a normal metabolism) I wonder what it is now. I wouldn't mind eating over maintenance to help fuel my body except all math is out the window since I thought these BMR calculations are based off of healthy metabolisms. My stats are 210 pounds 12-13% bf (very confident that is where I am at) 6 feet usually workout like I said 3 4 times so considering my resting bpm is now 48 instead of 54 56 temps are roughly the same give or take .2-.3 maybe 2400 2500 with 0 exercise will put me at a decent surplus

I ran into bad fatigue honestly around 6 7 years ago and I have taken off a week or two numerous times in those years ( no more than 2 weeks ever) and I usually from past recollection put myself back in that hole by either over training or under eating.

Since then I've used caffiene to always get me thru my day or just ate more food but never really lowered my stress hormones consciencely.

I'm not dead tired since the trt is helping me out but I bet life would be alot better if I took a solid 2 weeks off and the came back with a scheduled progressive program rather than what I'm doing now which is just trying to so more reps or more weight workout to workout

I wouldn't get caught up in the minutiae details bud. Just stick with the TDEE you have now, it might be a tad high but it's not going to make a huge difference as both metabolically compromised and healthy individuals have been shown to lose weight at similar rates i.e. You may be burning less but not MUCH less. Anyway your goal should be to develop a trust worthy appetite and not have to rely so much on counting calories. A healthy metabolism tells a person what they should eat, when they should eat, and when they should stop.

As bad as I was, my appetite was one of the first things to rectify itself and I literally told myself I don't care how fat I get, I'll eat if my body tells me to. But after a couple days I actually lost weight (mostly water from edema) and found myself satiated very quickly with food. I also found that my protein needs were much less than I thought as I get away with 80-100g of protein a day at a lean mass of 126.4lbs at 5'6" 29yrs old training 4 days a week and actually since dialing back my training mania I've gained 3lbs of lean mass :) I'm also much better able to recognize the signs of fatigue and worsening metabolism and have realized that I can only train progressively for 3 weeks at a time before I must take a week completely off of training. Doing this has made me so much healthier, along with no longer counting macros or calories, as I've found my metabolism is pretty trust worthy and keeps me around my TDEE naturally. If I notice an increase in appetite I know that I'm approaching an over taxed state and I know it's either time to take a day off or a recovery week. Your goal should be to develop your natural instincts and hone your body's innate signals so that you can become more pro active to these signs.

Formulas, numbers, and figures serve as a nice arbitrary starting point, but they are just that. Bio feedback is the ultimate intel you can receive, you just have to learn how to recognize it and stop feeding in to the mainstream agenda of fighting your body to make you healthy, it doesn't really make sense right? It's just a ploy by the rich who know better to entrap people into dependency on their drugs and trick them into eating their food and to pay their doctors to bolster their lobbiests. Listen to yourself, not others who want your money.

 

[Sagitarrius90]

TRT - test replacement therapy.

My test levels were that of a 70 year old last year at the age of 27 and this was with low estrogen. So for about close to a year I've been taking 100 test ethanate once a week and it's worked wonders. I dont want to take more just because I'm afraid the doc will cancel my script if I start to abuse it.

I agree I need to incorporate a variety of salts into my diet( sodium magnesium etc) and no fasting.

What really caused me to break was dieting and doing 20 hour fasts I legit couldnt sleep at night even though I ate close to 2k calories before bed and was a wreck. 2 weeks into a relatively strict peaty diet I do look alot better but I found it did unmask my "true" metabolism (one not being dominated by stress).

with regards to BMR I agree. I did an equation on finding my bmr it involved my bf and it came to about 2100 with 0 activity then multiply it by 1.2 for sedentary 1.3-1.5 for moderate acitivtity. I figured on a day like today with 0 activity my bmr would be around 2400 2500 but since my body temps and pulse dropped I want to account for reduction in BMR

 

[Sagitarrius90]

I wouldn't get caught up in the minutiae details bud. Just stick with the TDEE you have now, it might be a tad high but it's not going to make a huge difference as both metabolically compromised and healthy individuals have been shown to lose weight at similar rates i.e. You may be burning less but not MUCH less. Anyway your goal should be to develop a trust worthy appetite and not have to rely so much on counting calories. A healthy metabolism tells a person what they should eat, when they should eat, and when they should stop.

As bad as I was, my appetite was one of the first things to rectify itself and I literally told myself I don't care how fat I get, I'll eat if my body tells me to. But after a couple days I actually lost weight (mostly water from edema) and found myself satiated very quickly with food. I also found that my protein needs were much less than I thought as I get away with 80-100g of protein a day at a lean mass of 126.4lbs at 5'6" 29yrs old training 4 days a week and actually since dialing back my training mania I've gained 3lbs of lean mass :) I'm also much better able to recognize the signs of fatigue and worsening metabolism and have realized that I can only train progressively for 3 weeks at a time before I must take a week completely off of training. Doing this has made me so much healthier, along with no longer counting macros or calories, as I've found my metabolism is pretty trust worthy and keeps me around my TDEE naturally. If I notice an increase in appetite I know that I'm approaching an over taxed state and I know it's either time to take a day off or a recovery week. Your goal should be to develop your natural instincts and hone your body's innate signals so that you can become more pro active to these signs.

Formulas, numbers, and figures serve as a nice arbitrary starting point, but they are just that. Bio feedback is the ultimate intel you can receive, you just have to learn how to recognize it and stop feeding in to the mainstream agenda of fighting your body to make you healthy, it doesn't really make sense right? It's just a ploy by the rich who know better to entrap people into dependency on their drugs and trick them into eating their food and to pay their doctors to bolster their lobbiests. Listen to yourself, not others who want your money.

Thanks jon

Appreciate the help everyone I'm going to try it out. A.) Tske some time off gym and bump up calories B.) Increase calories and reduce volume

Going to stop dieting for thr time being until I get some metabolism improvement and wait for things like bpm sleep temps to all improve before increasing training volume or starting another cut

 

[Jon]

If youre 210 and 6 feet tall your BMR is going to be higher than that in most cases. If I eat 2300-2400 calories im going to starve now. Your dieted down metabolism is your new BMR for a while.

You should keep protein where youre at, at least 150 mixed sources. You need to focus on mineral flux(salt, magnesium and calcium) and caloric energy. All spaced regularly and with no fasting in the morning. Stop worrying about water retention for now.

Also its worth noting that "not peeing what was consumed" in regard to water is not specifically a bad thing. Reason being is the body when underfed enters stess mode and in stress mode it tries quite hard to keep concentration gradients of minerals and electrolytes at certain levels. Sometimes this mean inadvertantly eliminating water. I would imagine during your two or more weeks off you urinate less.

You can blunt the response of percieved stress by adding gelatin of some sort. The sensors of the body cant tell muscle meat profiles from your own potential myolysis during training.

Why are you on TRT? And is it TRT or "TRT"

And what are your temps - both waking and midday?

Breaks are great but to be frank you may want to keep in the back of your mind you may do better with more.

That's very interesting about the body's sense of the difference between exogenous and endogenous muscle protein. I'd never though of that before. Perhaps this is why gelatin supplementation during starvation actually worsens atrophy? Maybe it's tricking the body into thinking it's catabolising more gelatinous tissues and so to prevent that perceived atrophy it starts tapping into its muscle stores to provide the aminos it perceives to be in debt of? Haha some bs logic in there but I'm curious as to why that happens with gelatin or glycine in calorie deficits.

 

[Sagitarrius90]

@Luckytype sorry I didnt addies your entire post I overlooked the temperature questioning

Pre peat style diet and doing fasts drinking tons of caffiene etc

Morning 97.6
Evening 98.8

Peat style temps

Morning 97.3-97.6 ( increasing it started a week back at 97.3 lowest)
Evening 98.2