What Made You Believe In Ray Peats Work?

[Amazigh]

I'm interested in how you came to trust and believe in Ray's work. I assume you didn't just jump in, naturally there would be some hesitation since his work is very against the mainstream. Was it keeping an open mind and slowly incorporating his ideas and seeing positive results?

For me, it's simply this: he backs up his statements with references that I can look up myself; I experiment for a bit to see if it works in my particular situation; for the most part, it has.

 

[Carina]

I'm interested in how you came to trust and believe in Ray's work. I assume you didn't just jump in, naturally there would be some hesitation since his work is very against the mainstream. Was it keeping an open mind and slowly incorporating his ideas and seeing positive results?

I had tried almost every popular diet only to end up getting a tumor in one of my breasts, having my hair fall out, my skin was aging rapidly and looking like an aids patient. When I started eating sugar as a last resort everything changed. I was no longer laying in bed from lack of energy, my hair stopped falling out, my skin looked more youthful, and I could talk and read properly again.

 

[Arnold Grape]

I had tried almost every popular diet only to end up getting a tumor in one of my breasts, having my hair fall out, my skin was aging rapidly and looking like an aids patient. When I started eating sugar as a last resort everything changed. I was no longer laying in bed from lack of energy, my hair stopped falling out, my skin looked more youthful, and I could talk and read properly again.

Happened that quickly?? Not to sound dubious, but a lot of us have been at it for years. Little bit of a turn around time.

 

[Carina]

Happened that quickly?? Not to sound dubious, but a lot of us have been at it for years. Little bit of a turn around time.

I was at rock bottom and within a few days of eating sugar things turned around. My hairline stopped falling out almost immediately after eating sugar. I'm still healing and it's been almost two years. I'm not 100% yet. I just started to lose excess bodyfat after I gained even more bodyfat from peating.

 

[burtlancast]

If ray peat's work fails for me, there's nothing else. i have almost zero hope left. I don't know what I can do to stay in this world. I am tired of being sick,

Have you tried iodine ? Not Peaty at all, but the evidence points out Ray hasn't done his homework on iodine.

There's also Vit D and magnesium.

Also, take a look here, here and here.

 

[burtlancast]

I got a burger, fries, and by accident I ordered a regular Coke instead of my usual diet Coke.

You're aware that diet coke contains aspartame, right ?

 

[danielbb]

You're aware that diet coke contains aspartame, right ?

No kidding. I have been a victim of popular marketing campaigns like the one against sugar. My Eureka moment was the discovery that sugar was a good thing for me. That led me on a quest to find out why and that led me to Ray Peat. I must say however, that everything can be overdosed and I believe there are combinations of things (e.g., sugar and fat consumed at the same time) that can be problematic even if the individual components may be good in isolation.

When I started applying some of the principles here, I gained a lot of weight (24 lbs in a couple of months) from things like milk and OJ. My caloric load and exercise were reasonable and was unexplainably gaining weight. I now believe sugar in combination with fat is a problem (at least for me). I've learned about the Randle Cycle/Effect and there is good evidence that mixing sugar and fat at the same time can be damaging to the mitochondria and our metabolism. I've found there are tweener foods like ice cream that cause me to retain water and I've interpreted that as inflammation.

I now separate my fat and carb consumption if possible (e.g., fatty food like eggs for breakfast and carbs at night or vice versa). Here is a good article I found on the subject (it has been reposted here many times) and I'll post as well as it seems to explain what I've observed anecdotally. There are also many threads on this site complaining about weight gain (or hard to lose weight) on a Peat-inspired diet. I think sugar, OJ, fruit, and healthy fat sources like coconut oil in isolation are good things but I've found the concurrent mixture of sugar and fat to be problematic at best and inflammatory at worst.

The Randle cycle revisited: a new head for an old hat

"These two opposite hypotheses may be reconciled by considering a continuum in the establishment of aberrant mitochondrial function that may evolve from a partial and discreet deficiency to a progressive failure of the oxidative mitochondrial capacities. The slowly progressing pathological process could be the consequence of a continuous overabundant diet enriched in both carbohydrate and lipid, unmatched by physical activity. In the mitochondria, the redox pressure from both substrates would provoke a continuous production of ROS, resulting first in minimal damage but deteriorating with time into more extensive and irreversible lesions. This interpretation is in agreement with recent data showing that mitochondrial alterations do not precede the onset of insulin resistance and result from increased ROS production in muscle in diet-induced diabetic mice. In addition, the importance of physical activity and energy utilization is fully taken into account in our interpretation, because they are expected to protect the mitochondria by decreasing ROS production. One may also wonder whether the beneficial effect of metformin, the most widely used drug for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, may be due to its capacity to decrease mitochondrial ROS production by inhibiting the reversed electron flow at the level of the complex 1 of the respiratory chain."

 

[energyandstruct]

Have you tried iodine ? Not Peaty at all, but the evidence points out Ray hasn't done his homework on iodine.

There's also Vit D and magnesium.

Also, take a look here, here and here.

I will try iodine. I will start w getting iodized salts

 

[iROH]

Just looked up the internet for info about omega3 because i eat mostly plant based and don't want to take supplements.

 

[Soybean]

Because the current mainstream nutrition wisdom is very limited, and I didn't feel good when I followed the mainstream ideas.

The only reason that pufa is considered good is because of its effect on cholesterol, and cholesterol is "associated" with cardiovascular disease.

And the recent sugar scare only exists because of the "association" between sugar sweetened beverages and diabetes in obese people.

And that's about all there is to it.

Ray Peat on the other hand has an integrative model of how things work, and he actually provides arguments for his ideas. Whether everything he says is really true is not the point, it is miles better than mainstream ideas.

 

[Light]

Simply - Danny Roddy has hair.
After reading Hair Like A Fox, the idea that baldness is a sign of a malfunctioning health stuck in my mind.
Yet, I became vegan instead.
All the studies supporting a vegan diet and long fasts (they seem to go together) really convinced me,
but I couldn't help but notice they were almost all bald... and old looking... especially the ones who fasted a lot.
On the other hand, Danny Roddy, Ray Peat, Gilbert ling (who is 99!) - all have hair, fairly good skin, and seem to look, talk and function younger than their chronological age.
It was theoretical and short term studies vs. long term and life-long real life results.
That was it for me - the proof is in the pudding.

 

[Hanzo]

I noticed i felt sleepy, unreasonably negative, irritated, and fatigued when i ate cake frostings, copious amounts of olive oil, and other PUFAS. When i stopped eating them i felt better. Results are what made me believe in Ray Peat and i am no expert with food whatsoever. I still pretty much eat anything. Just know what to limit etc.

 

[LuMonty]

Part of it was comparing his work and overall ideas compared to my experience. I looked back at the last 10 years of my life and realized I had been doing everything that could be considered anti-Peat. So with SSRIs, running and cardio exercise, low salt, low sugar, low cholesterol, and other mainstream medical advice doing no good, I figured, why not? Haven't been disappointed so far.

 

[skittles]

I'm a long-winded kinda guy. So sorry in advance. Ahaha

A million years ago or so (maybe more like 9 years ago) , I was deep in the low-carb paleo dogma. I felt pretty satisfied eating meat and vegetables, but I always had sleep problems, skin problems, and I was deeply depressed. I was taking one or two fish oil capsules daily and figured, maybe I ought to try the liquid fish oil instead. The next day after taking a tablespoon of the stuff, I'd break out in terrible acne. It took me a little while to make the connection, but eventually I took another tablespoon after a gap of a week or so, and lo, I broke out in acne again the next day. Googling around was where I first stumbled on Ray's work. It was too insane for me to comprehend, but over the years his name kept popping up, so I started reading through bits and pieces of it.

It took a long time, making stupid, stupid mistakes, experimenting a short time with an uninformed Peat diet, then a longer time experimenting with paleo, experimenting a little longer with Peat, then back to paleo for a year, until finally I got very, very sick on paleo, while intermittent fasting and trying to lose some fat with low carb. I tend not to tell anyone this, but I'm pretty sure I was either in a pre-cancerous state, or dying from infection. Something was wrong with my throat, I couldn't speak anymore because it felt like something was obstructing my larynx. I was chronically clearing my throat, and sometimes one side of the back of my throat would randomly become so lopsided swollen, it would touch the other side. There was a big nodule on my thyroid. Doctors didn't seem to take it seriously because I was a young guy, despite the fact that my TSH was high, my Testosterone was low (they said, 'well, I'm not too concerned. You have facial hair, so..'), my white blood cell count was chronically high for several blood tests in a row over the course of a year, and nobody seemed to care. Despite being able to clearly feel the nodule with my fingers, the ultrasound tech insisted he couldn't find it with the machine. The ENT said something along the lines of 'yeah, it looks like one side of your vocal tract is all swollen and bumpy. Just stop talking for a few weeks.' And I did, but it didn't help. In fact, after three weeks of absolutely zero talking, it seemed to get worse. Not to mention, I was so energy depleted and depressed, I recall one day going for a walk and stopping to lay in the grass in the park, because I felt as though my brain might just completely shut off, and I would drop dead on the sidewalk. But doctors just shrugged and said 'you're young'. I was certain I'd be dead within a year.

I was laying in bed one day, and not even trying to find an answer, by some divine intervention, I noticed someone mentioning Ray Peat in a forum completely unrelated to health/nutrition. I started reading his articles in earnest, found this forum, started listening to interviews, and over the next two years or so, I began implementing his ideas to the best of my abilities. It was an uphill battle with peaks and valleys, progress and setbacks, but I started actually getting better. Occasionally, I'd deviate for a week or two, but I'd notice my issues coming back.

I stayed on a high-calorie Peat diet until I reached a more stable state, despite gaining a quite a bit of weight and having some adrenaline issues (probably from waaay too many calories), but I figured these were minor grievances compared to the hell I was living in before. I remember working at the cafe, some mornings my voice would be horrible. But I'd have a few shots of espresso with lots of sugar and a bottle of orange juice or root beer, and suddenly I could speak again. Everyone thought I was crazy. They figured it was all in my head, and I was probably just 'not projecting' or whatever. Sugar is terrible for you after all, right? There's no way it could possibly be fixing my voice, right? The worst part of this journey was trying to get anybody to listen. And now, I see so many sick people around me, doing 'all the right things', and I feel like I could help them, if only I could just get them to listen to me. But alas, I've come to terms with the fact that people (including myself) just need to learn things the hard way.

A while back, I started to focus less on 'Peaty' foods per se, but stuck with a lot of Peaty principles (high carb, low PUFA, etc), and now something like 7 years later, I'm almost completely healed. Still not perfect, but worlds of difference compared to a few years back. I think eating a lot of starch for a while helped me with glycogen storage. I'm not ravenously hungry anymore, like I was a few years ago. When I started heavily Peating 3 years ago, I could eat an entire chocolate bar, a tub of ice cream, a bag of frozen mangoes, a pound of meat, a jug of OJ, milk, gummy bears, and more, all in the span of a day, and never quite feel satisfied. But in the past week or so, I've been gravitating back away from starch-centric to sugar-centric, and for the first time ever, I'm finding myself deeply satisfied and energized by sugars (thank you @Waremu ). A glass of OJ and a coffee with milk and sugar is satisfying to me. 1/6 of a chocolate bar is satisfying to me. My cupboard is currently loaded with rice and potatoes and pasta and beans, and I dunno if I'm gonna just ditch them or slowly chip away at them over the next few months.

Anywho.. that's my Peat story.

 

[Jsaute21]

For me - it was randomly getting my testosterone checked a long long time ago (2013 or so.) I had long been a healthy, athletic and virile young lad but had just entered a very ortharexic period combined with intense over training. Long story short my T came back at 224, and the woman called me and wanted to put me on TRT. I bypassed that option and became fairly obsessed with raising my T/becoming very insecure about having low t at such a young age. I was blindsided by it. I continued to eat nuts, muscle meats, brussell sprouts, while eating absolutely no sugar, and limited carbs and i still didnt feel great. Like many of you i was subject to horrible content on raising hormones naturally, such as low carb, paleo, etc. There were some decent principles ironed out but the combination of dietary/lifestyle/training advice out there was lacking scientific backup, thus I was never able to make substantial progress. I was able to get my T up to 488 or so just by dialing back training a bit. Then in 2016 or so, I came across anabolic men, which is a pretty tremendous website. I stopped eating nuts and all vegetables besides mushrooms, spinach and onions. I started loading up on potatoes, white rice, butter etc. My T went up to the 800's within months of eating this way. Free T was off the reference range high to boot. However, I still had some weird symptoms as occasional OCD, lower then ideal sex drive etc. I came across an article from a guy Tim Berzins who was working with anabolic men, who spoke of the importance of metabolism & thyroid. He cited Broda Barnes, Ray Peat and other geniuses, while citing the value of sugars through fruit and even sucrose. I then found Peat. Since I found Peat, I feel as if the most substantial progress has been made. I don't know what my T is currently but i would imagine it is between 600-900. I could care less to be honest. Peat is BY FAR the best resource i have ever come across. He is so non linear, while being factual. Before I was very black/white in how i thought about health (i.e you either have high t or low t.) Peat has introduced so many variables such as thyroid deficiencies, vitamin deficiencies, dopamine/serotonin balance, the importance of casein & gelatin intake and so much more.

Sometimes I overdo metabolic enhancers such as caffeine, t3, nicotine and i need to get better using these in moderation, but I am in a much better spot since finding him. My energy and mental/physical capacities have grown considerably since finding Peat & @haidut. I hope they realize the impact they have had on people's health and how appreciated it is.

 

[energyandstruct]

I have come to not “believe” in peat per se but think that he has thought provoking ideas, his views on nutrition are largely right plus tasty,, but genuinely I do not really believe in the utopian project of orthomolecular medicine. The idea that you can cure everything, including the deluge of modern toxins, just through diet, nutrition, and a couple of hormones is totally wrong or me. Ray way overestimates the capacity for healing in these conditions imo.

 

[Lord Cola]

The idea that you can cure everything, including the deluge of modern toxins, just through diet, nutrition, and a couple of hormones is totally wrong or me.

Does he claim this? I've heard him talk about the effects of one's surroundings many times.

 

[Jasjeet]

I literally started applying Peat's approach (via Kate Deering's book) about 2 weeks ago and I've seen HUGE improvement in the most annoying health problem in my life so far! For the past 4 years I've had quite bad inflammation in my nose, particularly in my left nostril, which has meant I've been sleeping (very badly) via breathing through my mouth. This has been causing me tiredness, bags under eyes, brain fog and general discomfort. What did I do? Stopped eating raw spinach (which I used to eat pretty much every day in a salad), nuts, beans and other foods that I felt I should be eating because they were 'healthy' but actually wreaked havoc in my stomach: red onions, peppers, chickpeas, wine. Only vegetables I eat are raw carrots (long live the raw carrot!) and sometimes cucumbers. Feel a million times better already.

Peat's approach works because it's based on getting results empirically, not based on theory.

It's criminal he is not more well-known.

 

[energyandstruct]

Does he claim this? I've heard him talk about the effects of one's surroundings many times.

When he talks about this it’s almost always in psychological terms—the attention stimulating effect of interesting surroundings a , or just about light. Never about mold or environmental toxins making everyone sick

 

[GorillaHead]

Raypeat got me because science is very sound. While there are something very minor things I disagree with, his understanding and deep belief in how important outside factors shape humans resonates with me