Runenights Musings

[Runenight201]

Sometimes I wonder how often I should speak, especially in any factual since, since how I act doesn't always line up with what I say. For instance I just commented on how I've been avoiding fruit, but then in the past 12 hours went on a fruit fast, and found it to be incredibly beneficial for clearing up my digestion. I found that there needs to be a good blend of juicy fruits to fibrous fruits for it to have positive effects. Too much juice, and there's too much liquid and a head high. Too much fiber and one doesn't get high enough! I really enjoyed pears, grapes, clementines, strawberries, and apple juice. Those all did my body good during the fast, and I feel much lighter after than before. I also was drinking water in between fruit meals, and I felt very hydrated.

However, no matter what, there always comes a time when my body needs starch. It always happens without fail. I get into a state where I'm hungry, and I just don't want anymore damn fruit! Today I found a good combination. Caramel spread on some flour tortillas. The starch provides a base of energy, and then the caramel spread gives a nice head high. The combo was very satisfying. Better than milk, sugar, and bread, which I believe to be just too much milk, which can have negative effects on the body. I'm starting to become weary of the amount of dairy I've been consuming. I'll be super strong, but I suspect it may be messing with optimal digestion. I still prefer wheat over any other starch. Something about it does my body the best compared to rice or taters.

I like to think I incorporate a little bit of every crazy diatribe in how I eat. I'll be a fruitarian, then a carnivore, then a McDougall, then a vegetarian...all in the same day!

 

[Cirion]

Nothing seems to clear up endotoxin like a fruit/juice/sugar fast (no meat, no dairy, no starch). I've lost 10 lbs in 2 weeks on almost zero meat/starch.

I really think the "need for starch" is actually a need for salt. I have found I can get by on very low amounts of starch (a small serving of rice cooked in bone broth) as long as I salt it extremely heavily. All of a sudden, the "hunger" disappears quite quickly by doing this. Anymore than a *small* amount of starch though and my endotoxin returns with a vengeance.

 

[Runenight201]

Congrats on the weight loss. It certainly is nice to see things moving in a positive direction.

Yes I think salt is very important, and I drink soups regularly. Today I had an egg yolk soup mixed with broth and it felt very nourishing.

I've noticed that too much fruit/juice/sugar either makes me cold or causes stomach distress after too long. That and I'm just not as strong, and can't sustain exercise for very long on solely those foods. Also my sleep will suffer, and I'll wake up after 2-3 hours very hungry. I have been drinking salted tomato juice to positive effect. Most of the other juices just don't seem to nourish me in the same way. I'm sure the salt in the tomato juice is what allows it to digest so cleanly for me.

I also notice that I don't think as clearly and I'm no where near as strong and warm without some salty starch in my diet. Too much and I certainly crash, or run into stomach bloat, so one does need to be careful.

As of yesterday afternoon I switched my starch source to a rice, corn, tomato, salt mixture. I really enjoy this dish, and it seems to nourish me in a better way than any other starch combo I've tried (although I seem to say that with every new starch meal I try!).

I also had a milk, banana, sugar, coffee smoothie for breakfast this morning, and that gave me great strength and energy without any stomach distress for my morning workout. It seems every time I have milk in my body I can workout at a controlled pace for a very long time! The key is digesting the milk without stomach distress, and the banana, sugar, and coffee helped excellently with that. I went for 2 hours this morning. It just felt so good I didn't want to stop lol.

I've got foods now that help out a lot to give me clean energy. My next challenge is to combine them all in a way so that I can consistently learn all day. Anytime I'm in a learning state I know that I've treated my body very well. Anytime I feel lazy or have trouble probing concepts is when I know that my nutrition status is faltering and I have to do something to correct it. Abundance of available energy is certainly a requirement, and is probably why I could learn in the past without paying attention to my diet. However, I definitely ran into numerous other problems, or else I wouldn't have made it here to RP.... and so once I became more stringent on my food intake, my energy availability dropped, but at least I wasn't poisoning myself. Now once I have abundant, non-poisonous energy, I can direct myself consistently towards all the goals I wish to obtain for myself!

 

[Cirion]

I do think the ideal goal should be to get to where you digest most or even all foods, even "junk" foods. But the question is how to get to that point? I do think now its impossible (I hate this word, but here it does apply) to fix digestion while heavily obese/endotoxic/diabetic/FAO-laden etc, so that's why my focus has finally shifted to weight loss (but in a healthy manner, and being careful that temperatures don't drop low while doing so). I think now its the only way. My digestion is just completely unacceptable and no amount of supplementation or food manipulation has improved it, and I think it is due to bacterial/endotoxin/iron/fat/etc overloads which must be removed first. Food manipulation and supplementation will be more beneficial when one is not heavily obese and NOT being constantly poisoned by lactic acid, endotoxin etc. It's like trying to plough through machine gun fire and put band aids on your wounds as you're getting shot and yet wonder why you're dying. You gotta get rid of the machine gun first... (endotoxin, lactic acid etc). In this scenario, I've unfortunately found that virtually all food (except sugar) is actually poisonous to my body, and so now I've basically gone full on Morse and only have sugar now, no protein, no starch, no fat. (With some exceptions). I definitely don't wanna do this forever, but for now, it's literally the only way.

 

[Runenight201]

Who am I to judge what works. Keep at it man. We're all just trying to be healthy. When you get your weight down and start paying attention to other markers of health, you may start to shift your choice of foods. I think you are doing the right thing though which is just getting the weight down lol.

 

[charlie]

gone full on Morse

I regret doing that.

 

[Cirion]

I regret doing that.

Haha, I'm not quite doing it 100%.. I'm still having small servings of meat and starch here and there but way less than I used to, as they just bloat me too much and also make weight loss not possible. Like today I am having some white rice cooked in bone broth and generously salted with tomato paste (Thanks runenight for the tomato idea)

Why do you regret it and what are you doing now?

 

[charlie]

Why do you regret it and what are you doing now?

Crashed my metabolism. Full on Peat now but making sure to get my deficiencies covered.

 

[Cirion]

Crashed my metabolism. Full on Peat now but making sure to get my deficiencies covered.

Yeah one does have to be careful. I am carefully monitoring my waking body temps like usual. I am having a hard time getting to euthyroid (98.4F+ waking temps) anymore, but at least most days I still get to around 98F waking temp. If things ever start dipping too far in the 97's then I'll know to cut my experiment short. I did have really bad 97.6F waking temp today but I underrate and under slept yesterday (had to take family to airport early in morning)

 

[Runenight201]

I think I'm at the end stages of gaining awareness over my stomach. It also is paired with an awareness over my strength and energy. I'm not sure what it is, but I seem to be able to just "know" when I need protein and fat, and then when I need starch, and then when I need water, soda, coffee, fruit, etc....

The first constraint is stomach capacity. Once the stomach capacity has been reached, the only substance that can be consumed without causing bloat is pure sucrose and coffee. If the total state of the stomach is not sufficient to digest the food consumed, than the food consumed will sit heavy and cause bloat and torpor, instead of giving energy and vitality.

Variables which determine how well the stomach can digest a particular food include water, salt, micronutrients, fiber, and macronutrient content. Keeping the energy vital surrounds appropriate matching of these variables to ensure the stomach is never stressed and is kept healthy, and most importantly, satiated. Nothing kills energy, mood, and cognition more rapidly than an un-satiated, stressed stomach.

Furthermore, to keep the tissues of the body healthy, as well as keep the energy high, different types of foods must be rotated in and out, ensuring that the variables are matched appropriately to prevent stomach stress. It may be appropriate to have apple sauce and soda in a given context, to immediately energize the body, but a diet of solely apple sauce and soda is sure to cause problems. When the body needs protein and fat, it must be given it, but in order to avoid constipation, consumption with salt, water, and micronutrients is best (such as soup!). I am not certain but I have suspicions that it's best to not combine protein/fat with starch in the optimal case. If one hasn't eaten all day, than perhaps I could see it being ok.

Starch is still somewhat problematic. I have not fully solved that mystery yet, but I think consumption of starch with pure sucrose is necessary, and when my body is ready for starch today I will experiment with it. Last night I combined starch with apple juice and bloated up horribly. I originally was just going to consume pure starch, in the form of potatoes, and while it did my body good, I still recognized hunger, but a threshold on the amount of potatoes I could consume, and knew that protein and fat were not correct solutions. I was toying between fruit and sucrose, and chose the former, to negative consequences. Will report back when I re-run the starch experiment.

Thus spoke Runenight201

 

[Runenight201]

Interviewed for a new job as a math tutor. Part of the interview process was a math assessment exam. Covered concepts from 4th grade up to 9th grade. While I knew how to do all the concepts, I made very many careless errors, such as improperly converting mixed fractions to improper fractions, slipping up multiplication and division operations, forgetting to carry over terms, etc... While attempting to do all these problems, I noticed I was very agitated, as though my brain, which had the underlying knowledge, could not function well enough to coordinate the connections necessary to properly carry out the operations.

Passed by the hair on my skin, but I was looked upon with disappointment, as someone who has a degree in engineering could not complete basic operations. I would imagine many people would be embarrassed by such a situation, but I knew that at the fundamental level, what was occurring was subpar performance by my brain due to subpar nourishment. Add to that the stress of completing a timed exam and then surrounded in a noisy work environment, which made it even more difficult for my brain in its suboptimal state to operate, as it had to deal with processing random noise, and the stress of realizing that I'm not performing optimally, and I'm not surprised at all by my performance.

I had been eating a diet of meat and sugar, and no starch for the past 2 days. It's now apparent to me how terrible this diet is for optimal brain functioning. I had been flattening out my stomach which is why I continued with such a diet, but this experience made me aware of how such a diet is unacceptable. While there I was noticing the kids who were being tutored, and some were able to sit there and appropriately learn the concepts, while others were displaying clear signs of ADD and inability to focus, all signs which I have recognized in myself. In my opinion there is nothing more to intelligence than being properly nourished so that the brain can properly focus and grow, over the course of many hours, days, weeks, months, and years.

Luckily I got the job, and after heading home and eating a meal of lard soup, pasta with butter, and coffee, I feel my mind has sharpened drastically, and if I were to repeat the same assessment I'd probably pass with flying colors. So, while eating lots of meat will make you strong and won't inflame your body, it is not conducive towards optimal brain functioning and learning. While my assessment of the specifics of a diet's impact on learning are personal and may not be applicable to the other, I am certain that there is an area of the brain, directly in the center, that is lit up when the brain is fully functional. To me, this represents the ability of the brain to coordinate the left and right hemispheres together and sling information around efficiently and without errors. Every time I feel functional, this area of the brain is lit up, and I feel in control and able to focus and think clearly. I did notice while taking the assessment that this area was not lit up, which is why I had such a difficult time with the assessment.

Now I have to imprint this state of higher functioning, so that I can continue to eat to maintain such a state, so that I can learn how to be the most effective tutor possible and also grow my brain to learn higher level mathematics so that I can begin teaching at the collegiate level, which is much more lucrative and enticing to me. I still have much to develop, but I'm excited. It is a path, and it feels much better to have some type of path to follow rather than wandering aimlessly in this world.

 

[Cirion]

I keep warning you about the meat man =P At least you got the job. Still waiting to hear back about how I did on my interview over 3 weeks ago...

Cystein and trytophan are the two devils (ok well three including PUFA) for the mind. I've gotten both down to 0.3 gram a day now, the lowest I have ever done while keeping overall protein at an acceptable level. Gonna see how that works...

I don't miss timed tests. If I have my way in life, I'll never do one again. Years of that in college ruined me. I wonder if its possible to succeed in timed/stressful environments without stressful hormones? The feeling of "rushing" is gonna increase stress hormones no matter how well fed you are...

 

[Runenight201]

I keep warning you about the meat man =P At least you got the job. Still waiting to hear back about how I did on my interview over 3 weeks ago...

Cystein and trytophan are the two devils (ok well three including PUFA) for the mind. I've gotten both down to 0.3 gram a day now, the lowest I have ever done while keeping overall protein at an acceptable level. Gonna see how that works...

I don't miss timed tests. If I have my way in life, I'll never do one again. Years of that in college ruined me. I wonder if its possible to succeed in timed/stressful environments without stressful hormones? The feeling of "rushing" is gonna increase stress hormones no matter how well fed you are...

Yea luckily I present myself well and am not unattractive. It’s become apparent to me that people give “healthier” looking people the benefit of the doubt. In fact, this has almost been detrimental to me as I’ve gotten numerous jobs now based on social cameradrie over competence. Im not going to lie a lot of my jobs have been because of that, and it’s allowed me to not fully develop myself, as I just coast through. Time to change that, as the more lucrative the position the less importance is played on just appearance and social skills and more so on actual abilities.

There’s different types of stress, of which the most pernicious in my opinion is gastrointestinal stress. I never mind time constraints if I’m fed and functional. Sometimes I quite enjoy it.

Well if meat lowers my intellect it’s off the table for sure. I will be playing around with it in my diet over the next couple of days and paying attention to cognitive function. It could simply be that I was overdoing the meat in relation to carbohydrates and so my body had insufficient energy to properly feed my brain .

 

[Cirion]

Yeah it's true, a pill people don't want to swallow is that attractive people are more successfully solely on their looks and charm. People naturally gravitate towards healthy and attractive people.

I don't think meat needs to be off the table entirely, but I just read in Vani Hari's "Food Babe" book that meat should be a condiment and not the main course. As long as you do that its fine. And by that I mean a COUPLE ounces instead of half a pound or a pound. She eats 8 oz of meat a WEEK. I think the problem is most Americans treat meat as the main course, instead of the supplemental side dish that it probably should be. In the west we are in love with things like a huge slab of steak with maybe a side of potatoes and a small side of veggies. It should be the other way around with the veggies/fruits being the main course with a SIDE of meat maybe. I've definitely come around to the fact that zero meat is probably not good, but LOW meat is more than plenty to meet nutrient needs especially if its organ meats. It's easy to fall into the trap of "this food is good, so more is better right?" that's often not the case tho.

I do think meat has valuable nutrients, ESPECIALLY organ meats., which I'm emphasizing now.

I'm experimenting with about 4 oz of liverwurst a day. Even just 4 of of liverwurst has over 600% RDA of B12. 4 oz of liverwurst pretty much meets zinc needs, it meets selenium needs etc. And 4 oz is tolerable in terms of PUFA, cysteine, tryptophan etc. I was doing 8 oz but even that was too much. If even 4 oz is too much, I'll cut it in half again, but 4 oz is finally feeling like it might be the right #. 8 oz starts to literally make me dumber quite quickly.

 

[Runenight201]

Yeah it's true, a pill people don't want to swallow is that attractive people are more successfully solely on their looks and charm. People naturally gravitate towards healthy and attractive people.

I don't think meat needs to be off the table entirely, but I just read in Vani Hari's "Food Babe" book that meat should be a condiment and not the main course. As long as you do that its fine. And by that I mean a COUPLE ounces instead of half a pound or a pound. She eats 8 oz of meat a WEEK. I think the problem is most Americans treat meat as the main course, instead of the supplemental side dish that it probably should be.

I do think meat has valuable nutrients, ESPECIALLY organ meats., which I'm emphasizing now.

I'm experimenting with about 4 oz of liverwurst a day. Even just 4 of of liverwurst has over 600% RDA of B12. 4 oz of liverwurst pretty much meets zinc needs, it meets selenium needs etc. And 4 oz is tolerable in terms of PUFA, cysteine, tryptophan etc.

Do you enjoy the taste of liverwurst? I could never get behind organ meats because of how awfully they tasted.

Although I vehemently disagree with the carnivore diet, one of the proponents of it, Shawn Baker, did state how he noted many people recovering from autoimmune disease, fatigue, poor health, etc... from not even going all out with the organ meats but simply sticking to beef and water. One of the carnivore facebook groups I was in way back when (before I got kicked out for trolling them, in a tasteless display of behavior on my end to be fair), was adamant how beef and water healed. So I'm not sure how necessary organ meats are, but I certainly cannot stomach them. I do remember one time I overdid the liver and I got the worst bout of cystic acne afterwards, but that happens if I overconsume meat in general, and I'm always punished with some negative health effect from mis-consumption of ANYTHING.

Red Bull is a kick **** product. Sippin on some sugar free red bull right now and definitely noticing quicker reaction time, although I think I'm not really solidifying information, just processing it very quickly. The sugar red bull is way to intense for me.

 

[Cirion]

Yeah I wouldn't go crazy with organ meats. Because they are so rich in nutrients, one could run into issues with actually getting too much if you abuse it (especially if you ascribe to threads like the huge vitamin a toxicity thread as liver is super rich in vitamin A).

You're relatively healthy so its not as critical to you but someone like me with lots of issues needs them. Im gonna start supplementing Thymus to try to fix some things as I now suspect the Thymus (which is destroyed quickly in hypo according to Ray) regulates sooo many things, and since its the first organ in the totem pole of damage in hypothyroid, seems to make sense that it could also be the first thing you need to repair to start bringing your health back into a positive spiral. I even suspect now the thymus is more important than focusing on the liver, as a damaged thymus makes fixing the liver impossible. Work from the ground up, not the top down, basically. Interestingly, the thymus is suspected of causing all auto immune diseases as well (well, the lack of thymus I should say =P) so maybe auto immune diseases are nothing more than a destroyed thymus from stress and supplemental thymus alongside lowering stress, maybe its the answer? Well, I plan to find out. Charlie is sourcing a thymus supplement soon with no added liver =) I feel like charlie and I have been slowly converging on what is HOPEFULLY finally the "healing" diet so to speak... well, maybe I'm a fool for thinking its as simple as the thymus. It won't be the first time I've thought something and been wrong lol. I've always suspected though that auto immunity can be cured. The mainstream solution is "just don't eat trigger foods". I don't accept that answer. My mom has hashimotos, an autoimmune condition. The doctors say "you have to take thyroid for life". I don't accept that answer either, and I've told her this. I feel like virtually all disease is curable and reversible, perhaps even diabetes type 1.

 

[Runenight201]

Yeah I wouldn't go crazy with organ meats. Because they are so rich in nutrients, one could run into issues with actually getting too much if you abuse it (especially if you ascribe to threads like the huge vitamin a toxicity thread as liver is super rich in vitamin A).

You're relatively healthy so its not as critical to you but someone like me with lots of issues needs them. Im gonna start supplementing Thymus to try to fix some things as I now suspect the Thymus (which is destroyed quickly in hypo according to Ray) regulates sooo many things, and since its the first organ in the totem pole of damage in hypothyroid, seems to make sense that it could also be the first thing you need to repair to start bringing your health back into a positive spiral. I even suspect now the thymus is more important than focusing on the liver, as a damaged thymus makes fixing the liver impossible. Work from the ground up, not the top down, basically. Interestingly, the thymus is suspected of causing all auto immune diseases as well (well, the lack of thymus I should say =P) so maybe auto immune diseases are nothing more than a destroyed thymus from stress and supplemental thymus alongside lowering stress, maybe its the answer? Well, I plan to find out. Charlie is sourcing a thymus supplement soon with no added liver =) I feel like charlie and I have been slowly converging on what is HOPEFULLY finally the "healing" diet so to speak... well, maybe I'm a fool for thinking its as simple as the thymus. It won't be the first time I've thought something and been wrong lol. I've always suspected though that auto immunity can be cured. The mainstream solution is "just don't eat trigger foods". I don't accept that answer. My mom has hashimotos, an autoimmune condition. The doctors say "you have to take thyroid for life". I don't accept that answer either, and I've told her this. I feel like virtually all disease is curable and reversible, perhaps even diabetes type 1.

I think a lot of diseases are curable but I’m careful to state certainty on such things, especially cuz I have no clue how one would go about curing many things. I’m just fortunate enough to have attacked the problem for long enough to mostly solve it for myself, and even then i can slip up and feel bad for a day or so. I do know that a very carefully targeted dietary, supplementary, and medicinal interventions are necessary, and with the right knowledge, awareness, experimentation, etc... most people could drastically change their current baseline of health. However some people may have gotten a terrible inception, womb environment, and childhood environment and nutrition, and by the adult years there may only be so much that can be done. Perhaps these drastic cases must accept certain suboptimal functioning, but I do think even these drastic cases could feel energetic and happy even with negative symptomatic expressions.

Just had whole milk with sugar. Damn that was nice. The Red Bull was definitely giving me a brain high but had no caloric depth. The milk gave me both!

 

[Runenight201]

Been having the observation lately that food "poisons" me. It doesn't matter what I consumed, it always seemed to have some negative effects. My most perspicuous states are when my stomach is clean, but naturally I get hungry and I must eat, and the poison returns. How do I combine all the ingredients to make an elixir, not a toxin? Well I think I may have finally figured out how to not ruin myself with food.

I kept going back to starch, because starch grounds the energy. But too much starch is no good. I then created a tomato sauce to aid the digestion of starch. This helped immensely, but I still felt off. Earlier today I solved the problem by consuming red bull, followed by water, coffee, milk, sugar, bananas, and sprite. Definitely not a perfect solution, as I was dealing with a myriad of (while minor) negative effects. Not too mention my tomato sauce had too many lentils and not enough tomatoes, which definitely constipated me up slightly. Nonetheless, my brain was happy, mostly due to the sugar, which at least allows me to operate in the world in a pleasant manner.

So after fasting for about 5 hours on coffee, soda, and water, my stomach had reset, and I was again in that lucid, yet hungry state. Here we go again, time to play with the algorithms one more time. This time I slammed that sauce back on the saucepan, added MORE tomatoes and mushrooms, and then consumed my rice and tomato dish. Much better, but STILL not perfectly satisfied. I'm growing weary of the soda, for it makes me happy, but does not improve my cognition. I can feel the cheapness of the solution, happiness, at the expense of cognitive performance! What to do from here? I felt myself getting increasingly agitated. Anger.... My mind was off, maybe I can just exercise it off, try and do some push ups, my wrists feel weak, painful.... what's going on?!? Weak body...insufficient protein, I need animals. Milk? It felt bloaty. Eggs? Too fatty....Ah yes, the good ole animal flesh. Whipped it out from the Tupperware and heated it in the microwave. Greedily salt it down, my mouth is already salivating, I FEEL this to be correct...begin eating and....oh how pleasurable that meat was. An immediate comfort to my agitation. An influx of well-being and strength. A soothing blanket laid across the brain. A whisper from a soothing voice saying, "This is correct".

Have I found a solution? A refined sucrose free solution? A dairy free solution? Perhaps... we'll see how I go about correcting my states in the subsequent days, but one thing is certain, rice, tomatoes, and meat are to be staples. A little coffee can never hurt either

Edit: About 30 mins after consumption of meat I still felt not ideal. Certainly better than before meat consumption, but my brain felt too subdued. Coffee helped to a certain extent, but I decided to just take the soda plunge. Felt much better afterwards. Still not 100% all systems go. I’m thinking I need more fat with the tomato, rice, meat meal. I will be adding sour cream to the next meal and seeing how that fares.

 

[Runenight201]

There’s something to the damn tomatillo sauce they serve at chipotle.... instant brain activity, stomach warmth, pleasure. I have been on and off searching for a substance to mimic the stomach warming effect that alcohol has. Well, I think pepper sauce is the key. The recipe for the red tomatillo sauce seems a little intimidating to me to mimic. Definitely a region of cooking that I have not ventured into, but may be key to master for maintaining optimal health states. I haven’t felt my stomach this content in a while. It’s like a sterilizing fire for the stomach. Hell I ate it with some damn fried tortilla chips and I feel better than a lot of “cleaner” dishes that I’ve eaten

 

[Runenight201]

Eat your spinach!