When Does The Excessive Appetite Diminish?

[raypeatclips]

Yessir this is what I'm doing now :)

In fact, I already feel better this evening. Just had 4 oz of cheese and some chocolate and feeling clearer headed and energetic as well as a slightly more stable appetite :)

My only thing about chocolate though is it has caffeine, so I should probably cool it. I think I'm a little extra wired because of the caffeine... lol

Also feel my libido returning. Sugar seems to tank my libido for whatever reason... weird

You know -

I did just have another random thought though about the sugar. I wonder if it's worth purposefully engaging in extremely strenuous workouts just about every day of the week while consuming insane amounts of the carbs. Could this help force your body to adapt to them? Or would this just be a recipe for thyroid burnout?

Strongmen competitors regularly get 1000+g carbs a day, if not more. Michael phelps ate 10,000 calories a day, probably mostly from carbs.

Extremely strenuous workouts every day of the week certainly isn't what Ray Peat would suggest. I feel like you are picking and choosing what you want Peat to have said and suggest . Good luck with it all, keep us updated on your progress.

 

[foodandtheworld]

Hi, I'm a new member to this forum, but I have been lurking on it for a while after I discovered Ray Peat's work. I wanted to reply to this thread because I am having/have had a similar experience to you, Cirion, regarding appetite. While I might refer to otherpeople's works/websites in this post, I have no affiliation with them whatsoever. They were merely useful resources I came across while trying to make sense of what was happening to me. This post is long and took me a while to write, so I hope the moderators/admin allow this post to be approved because I am not a spammer. OK, getting to the post I wanted to make:

I am close to you in age, and also a man, so perhaps I might have something useful to share with you in how to understand what is happening, although I have no nutrition/science background and only recently have begun to read and listen to Peat.

I am also eating a lot (5000 calories at least everyday), even though my lifestyle is sedentary.

I believe I am going through the phase eating disorder counsellor Gwyneth Olwyn describes as "extreme hunger." This is a phase where your appetite seems endless, or normal hunger cues of fullness do not seem to arise, despite the number of calories you are consuming.

However, Olwyn sees this extreme hunger as a necessary phase when recovering from dieting.

In my case, years ago, I had an illness which caused me to lose a lot of weight quite rapidly. Foolishly, I immediately returned to daily exercise involving either weightlifting or running or other calisthenics. As well, I was consistently under-eating relative to my calorie requirements, as laid out by Olwyn (but I have seen other researchers put forth the same numbers), not even including the surplus calories that would be recommended when including physical activity in addition to your basal metabolic rate. So, I believe this had caused a similar stress to my body as experienced by people with more severe eating disorders. I later quit the physical activity, which helped, but I was still under-eating for a prolonged period of time after that.

The stress came to a head several months ago when I experienced a lot of hypothyroid-ish symptoms which manifested quite suddenly, such as losing hair at a noticeable and worrying rate, sudden dry skin, dry/chapped lips, low blood pressure such that I would get dizzy standing up from my chair, very slow pulse, very low body temperature, irritability.

One of the most annoying symptoms I experienced was one that you mentioned, which was constantly disrupted sleep, waking up only after a few hours several times during the night. Sleep had been an issue for me after the illness and unintentional dieting, but it was much worse during that time.

However, coming across Olwyn's and Peat's work, as well as other people's who treat eating disorders, helped put everything in perspective.

For example, in a clip of Peat's interview which can be found on Youtube (title "Ray Peat on hot flashes, menopause, night sweats and borage oil"), Ray says:

"The quickest way to alleviate the night sweats and hot flushes is to increase your sugar intake and your protein intake. One of the functions of the sugar is to lower the cortisol and adrenaline. And if your protein intake is too low - it should be 80 grams of good protein - among vegetables, it happens that the potato protein is the only one that ranks up there with the animal proteins, so that's even better than egg protein. but the milk, for example, and cheese and eggs and potato, are the high quality proteins and you should have around 80 grams of good protein per day. If you don't get enough sugar or starch in your diet, then you're going to use some of your protein for energy, so that impairs your liver function by starving it for protein. When the liver isn't functioning well, it can't store enough sugar to get you through the night with a steady sugar level. First your adrenaline surges to try to get more sugar out of your liver and when your liver is depleted, then your cortisol rises to turn some of your muscle tissue and thymus tissue and skin and other things into sugar, to keep your sugar up to a survival level during the night. So it's actually the cortisol surges at night that cause the hot flushes. Sugar is the first aid. Sugar and salty foods are quick relief for that, but it has to be against a background of adequate protein and other nutrients."​

This was quite an eye-opener to me, because Gwyneth Olwyn in her "FAQ" at the EdInstitute website wrote something that I found reassuring when it came to disrupted sleep and the link to eating:

Insomnia is common if you are not reaching the minimum guideline intake and/or if you are clamping down (restricting) when it comes to extreme hunger.

Either struggling to get to sleep or finding you are waking up and unable to get back to sleep are often indicators, when you are recovering from an eating disorder, of hunger.

As you up your daily intake you are liable to find your anxiety about food is ratcheting up as well. Eating disorders are inherently the misidentification of food as a threat. As a result you may be treating the minimum guidelines as your maximum and preventing your body from receiving the energy levels it actually requires during the recovery process.

Respond to insomnia with more food: up your daily intake until you find you are able to fall asleep and stay asleep, and if you find you are awake in the night, then get up and have a substantial snack (followed by upping the intake the next day).

Keep in mind that extreme hunger will take you far beyond minimum guideline intakes and that is normal and desired.​

The Youtuber Elisa made a video "Insomnia and Sleeping Problems In Eating Disorder Recovery" which I also found reassuring.

After my own experimentation, ramping up the calories to 5000 made a huge difference in my ability to sleep. Since my illness 3 years ago, I had not had a single night of undisrupted sleep. But a few days ago, I actually slept 7.5 hours straight without waking (I do not take any supplements - I just eat).

However, this 5000+ period was after I had begun re-feeding for a bit over 2 months. I had found Matt Stone's work while Googling for my symptoms, and that's how I came across Ray Peat (Matt Stone borrows heavily from Peat). Matt Stone encourages an aggressive period of refeeding, similar to the eating disorder researchers such as Olwyn (of course, there are a lot of things Peat would probably disagree with, despite Stone's borrowing of Peat's insights).

But, during those first two months of re-feeding, I often had night sweats/hot flushes. But after listening to Peat's interview which I quoted above, it made sense. I didn't have enough calories/sugar in my diet - but that was happening for at least a year, if not more. Remember, he says sugar has to be "against a background of adequate protein and other nutrients," so presumably in my case, that "background" had been eroded.

As well, I came across a phenomenon found in people recovering from extreme diets/eating disorders, called hypermetabolism, which is linked to this period of night sweats and disrupted sleep. I would Google search the article "Hypermetabolism in anorexia nervosa" if you are curious about the science behind it. Again, I'm not suggesting you had anorexia/an eating disorder. I just found the insights from those researchers invaluable in understanding my own experience, which seems to be similar to yours as you described it. I would also search for the article "What to Expect in Recovery" on Kristen Lindsey Dudley's website, because she describes an outline of the process of recovering from under-eating, going over things like insomnia, hypermetabolism, night sweats, weight gain, and so on.

I also found Emily Troscianko's article, "How Does Metabolic Rate Really Change After Anorexia? Part 1" to be useful in understanding what was happening physiologically when I seemed to have an endless appetite:

"But hypermetabolism is a standard reaction to illness and injury as the body goes into overdrive to fight the infection or repair the damage. After prolonged semi-starvation, the body becomes inefficient at dealing with large amounts of energy. It urgently needs to use the energy effectively to replenish fat reserves and repair tissues, but it often can’t do so very well in the early weeks and months of refeeding. Evolutionarily speaking, adapting too readily and finding the food has run out again is a risk that is always being balanced against the danger of adapting only slowly to increased availability of food and wasting the opportunity to make maximum use of it."

"Part of the elevated energy need may be due to conversion of energy into heat, especially at night (hence the frequent phenomenon of night sweats during recovery) (Marzola et al., 2013). Marzola and colleagues (citing Weltzin et al., 1991, above) note that energy needs tend to normalise over the course of 3 to 6 months, which means that ‘To obtain the best chance of long-term weight maintenance recovery, AN patients should persist with an increased caloric intake treatment plan’. Their recommendation is that beyond the initial phase of clinical stabilisation, outpatients will need around 500 kcal over the amount needed for maintenance, and that this amount will need to be increased periodically to carry on sustaining weight gain, with some individuals needing 4,000 or 5,000 kcal a day."​

As the excerpt from her post concludes, perhaps a great amount of calories, 5000+ is needed during recovery. It has certainly helped me so far. After a long period of want, maybe this can eventually form "the background of nutrients" and sugar Ray mentions.

I don't mean to scare you with the articles throwing the words "anorexia" or "eating disorder" around. I also don't mean to suggest you have had the exact same genesis that has lead to your current appetite. In my case, my BMI never went below 20.5, but that was my lowest adult age weight range. Still, the illness, as well as chronic under-eating was enough to throw everything out of wack. I am wondering if it's possible that I underate as well when I was younger, which perhaps also contributed to the mini-crisis I had experienced months ago. But regardless, so far eating a lot, and importantly, consistently, everyday, while cutting all exercise except leisurely walks, has made a huge difference in recovering my health. I don't have any of the symptoms I mentioned earlier. My sleep is still not perfect - the last few days I have gotten around 6 hours undisrupted before waking up. But since I had that day earlier in the week where I obtained 7.5, I believe that sticking to the plan will eventually lead to full recovery. My temperatures are way up. Armpit is usually at least 98.3 F, but after a meal, it can go up to 99 F (compared to being around 96 F months ago). Heart rate is also consistently around 75 (compared to 50 ish months ago).

So, I might be completely wrong, and everything I just wrote might be completely irrelevant to your case.

But I would try to think - have you had a history of dieting, or under-eating, even if it were only in recent years, and even for a shorter duration? Even if you didn't really think you were doing a diet? I didn't think I was. Or, if you were doing a lot of exercise, were you under-eating to support recover from that stress? I think that it is likely that prolonged stresses of either sort could lead to similar effects as described by those who treat eating disorders.

Regarding weight gain. I also gained weight rapidly in the first two months. I think around 30 pounds. However, again, based on what I have read, it seems that is common when recovering from an extreme diet, which effectively, my lifestyle was. A lot of it is water weight/edema. In April, my weight gain has drastically slowed down. The last week I have been eating at least 5000 calories, but I think I have only gained around 1 pound in a week. My basal metabolic rate according to calculators is around 2000. So I think a lot of the energy is just going into repair (tissue, organ, endocrine, as Olwyn, Dudley, and Troscianko explain in their work), and otherwise being expended by hypermetabolism. Dudley and Troscianko describe weight gain slowing during the later stages of recovery, as this is the 'true' weight gain needed for recovery (I think Troscianko goes into more detail about this part involving a ratio of fat free mass and fat mass and so on). If you check out the Ancel Keys starvation study, the subjects gained weight rapidly, but after some months, they actually began to lose weight, despite consuming a lot of calories.

Anyway, I hope this has been useful. I didn't intend for it to be so long, but I hate when I search for something online and find that a poster eventually figured out what was the issue, but doesn't flesh out what he or she did to correct it. So maybe others will find it helpful in the future.

 

[charlie]

Hi, I'm a new member to this forum, but I have been lurking on it for a while after I discovered Ray Peat's work. I wanted to reply to this thread because I am having/have had a similar experience to you, Cirion, regarding appetite. While I might refer to otherpeople's works/websites in this post, I have no affiliation with them whatsoever. They were merely useful resources I came across while trying to make sense of what was happening to me. This post is long and took me a while to write, so I hope the moderators/admin allow this post to be approved because I am not a spammer. OK, getting to the post I wanted to make:

I am close to you in age, and also a man, so perhaps I might have something useful to share with you in how to understand what is happening, although I have no nutrition/science background and only recently have begun to read and listen to Peat.

I am also eating a lot (5000 calories at least everyday), even though my lifestyle is sedentary.

I believe I am going through the phase eating disorder counsellor Gwyneth Olwyn describes as "extreme hunger." This is a phase where your appetite seems endless, or normal hunger cues of fullness do not seem to arise, despite the number of calories you are consuming.

However, Olwyn sees this extreme hunger as a necessary phase when recovering from dieting.

In my case, years ago, I had an illness which caused me to lose a lot of weight quite rapidly. Foolishly, I immediately returned to daily exercise involving either weightlifting or running or other calisthenics. As well, I was consistently under-eating relative to my calorie requirements, as laid out by Olwyn (but I have seen other researchers put forth the same numbers), not even including the surplus calories that would be recommended when including physical activity in addition to your basal metabolic rate. So, I believe this had caused a similar stress to my body as experienced by people with more severe eating disorders. I later quit the physical activity, which helped, but I was still under-eating for a prolonged period of time after that.

The stress came to a head several months ago when I experienced a lot of hypothyroid-ish symptoms which manifested quite suddenly, such as losing hair at a noticeable and worrying rate, sudden dry skin, dry/chapped lips, low blood pressure such that I would get dizzy standing up from my chair, very slow pulse, very low body temperature, irritability.

One of the most annoying symptoms I experienced was one that you mentioned, which was constantly disrupted sleep, waking up only after a few hours several times during the night. Sleep had been an issue for me after the illness and unintentional dieting, but it was much worse during that time.

However, coming across Olwyn's and Peat's work, as well as other people's who treat eating disorders, helped put everything in perspective.

For example, in a clip of Peat's interview which can be found on Youtube (title "Ray Peat on hot flashes, menopause, night sweats and borage oil"), Ray says:

"The quickest way to alleviate the night sweats and hot flushes is to increase your sugar intake and your protein intake. One of the functions of the sugar is to lower the cortisol and adrenaline. And if your protein intake is too low - it should be 80 grams of good protein - among vegetables, it happens that the potato protein is the only one that ranks up there with the animal proteins, so that's even better than egg protein. but the milk, for example, and cheese and eggs and potato, are the high quality proteins and you should have around 80 grams of good protein per day. If you don't get enough sugar or starch in your diet, then you're going to use some of your protein for energy, so that impairs your liver function by starving it for protein. When the liver isn't functioning well, it can't store enough sugar to get you through the night with a steady sugar level. First your adrenaline surges to try to get more sugar out of your liver and when your liver is depleted, then your cortisol rises to turn some of your muscle tissue and thymus tissue and skin and other things into sugar, to keep your sugar up to a survival level during the night. So it's actually the cortisol surges at night that cause the hot flushes. Sugar is the first aid. Sugar and salty foods are quick relief for that, but it has to be against a background of adequate protein and other nutrients."​

This was quite an eye-opener to me, because Gwyneth Olwyn in her "FAQ" at the EdInstitute website wrote something that I found reassuring when it came to disrupted sleep and the link to eating:

Insomnia is common if you are not reaching the minimum guideline intake and/or if you are clamping down (restricting) when it comes to extreme hunger.

Either struggling to get to sleep or finding you are waking up and unable to get back to sleep are often indicators, when you are recovering from an eating disorder, of hunger.

As you up your daily intake you are liable to find your anxiety about food is ratcheting up as well. Eating disorders are inherently the misidentification of food as a threat. As a result you may be treating the minimum guidelines as your maximum and preventing your body from receiving the energy levels it actually requires during the recovery process.

Respond to insomnia with more food: up your daily intake until you find you are able to fall asleep and stay asleep, and if you find you are awake in the night, then get up and have a substantial snack (followed by upping the intake the next day).

Keep in mind that extreme hunger will take you far beyond minimum guideline intakes and that is normal and desired.​

The Youtuber Elisa made a video "Insomnia and Sleeping Problems In Eating Disorder Recovery" which I also found reassuring.

After my own experimentation, ramping up the calories to 5000 made a huge difference in my ability to sleep. Since my illness 3 years ago, I had not had a single night of undisrupted sleep. But a few days ago, I actually slept 7.5 hours straight without waking (I do not take any supplements - I just eat).

However, this 5000+ period was after I had begun re-feeding for a bit over 2 months. I had found Matt Stone's work while Googling for my symptoms, and that's how I came across Ray Peat (Matt Stone borrows heavily from Peat). Matt Stone encourages an aggressive period of refeeding, similar to the eating disorder researchers such as Olwyn (of course, there are a lot of things Peat would probably disagree with, despite Stone's borrowing of Peat's insights).

But, during those first two months of re-feeding, I often had night sweats/hot flushes. But after listening to Peat's interview which I quoted above, it made sense. I didn't have enough calories/sugar in my diet - but that was happening for at least a year, if not more. Remember, he says sugar has to be "against a background of adequate protein and other nutrients," so presumably in my case, that "background" had been eroded.

As well, I came across a phenomenon found in people recovering from extreme diets/eating disorders, called hypermetabolism, which is linked to this period of night sweats and disrupted sleep. I would Google search the article "Hypermetabolism in anorexia nervosa" if you are curious about the science behind it. Again, I'm not suggesting you had anorexia/an eating disorder. I just found the insights from those researchers invaluable in understanding my own experience, which seems to be similar to yours as you described it. I would also search for the article "What to Expect in Recovery" on Kristen Lindsey Dudley's website, because she describes an outline of the process of recovering from under-eating, going over things like insomnia, hypermetabolism, night sweats, weight gain, and so on.

I also found Emily Troscianko's article, "How Does Metabolic Rate Really Change After Anorexia? Part 1" to be useful in understanding what was happening physiologically when I seemed to have an endless appetite:

"But hypermetabolism is a standard reaction to illness and injury as the body goes into overdrive to fight the infection or repair the damage. After prolonged semi-starvation, the body becomes inefficient at dealing with large amounts of energy. It urgently needs to use the energy effectively to replenish fat reserves and repair tissues, but it often can’t do so very well in the early weeks and months of refeeding. Evolutionarily speaking, adapting too readily and finding the food has run out again is a risk that is always being balanced against the danger of adapting only slowly to increased availability of food and wasting the opportunity to make maximum use of it."

"Part of the elevated energy need may be due to conversion of energy into heat, especially at night (hence the frequent phenomenon of night sweats during recovery) (Marzola et al., 2013). Marzola and colleagues (citing Weltzin et al., 1991, above) note that energy needs tend to normalise over the course of 3 to 6 months, which means that ‘To obtain the best chance of long-term weight maintenance recovery, AN patients should persist with an increased caloric intake treatment plan’. Their recommendation is that beyond the initial phase of clinical stabilisation, outpatients will need around 500 kcal over the amount needed for maintenance, and that this amount will need to be increased periodically to carry on sustaining weight gain, with some individuals needing 4,000 or 5,000 kcal a day."​

As the excerpt from her post concludes, perhaps a great amount of calories, 5000+ is needed during recovery. It has certainly helped me so far. After a long period of want, maybe this can eventually form "the background of nutrients" and sugar Ray mentions.

I don't mean to scare you with the articles throwing the words "anorexia" or "eating disorder" around. I also don't mean to suggest you have had the exact same genesis that has lead to your current appetite. In my case, my BMI never went below 20.5, but that was my lowest adult age weight range. Still, the illness, as well as chronic under-eating was enough to throw everything out of wack. I am wondering if it's possible that I underate as well when I was younger, which perhaps also contributed to the mini-crisis I had experienced months ago. But regardless, so far eating a lot, and importantly, consistently, everyday, while cutting all exercise except leisurely walks, has made a huge difference in recovering my health. I don't have any of the symptoms I mentioned earlier. My sleep is still not perfect - the last few days I have gotten around 6 hours undisrupted before waking up. But since I had that day earlier in the week where I obtained 7.5, I believe that sticking to the plan will eventually lead to full recovery. My temperatures are way up. Armpit is usually at least 98.3 F, but after a meal, it can go up to 99 F (compared to being around 96 F months ago). Heart rate is also consistently around 75 (compared to 50 ish months ago).

So, I might be completely wrong, and everything I just wrote might be completely irrelevant to your case.

But I would try to think - have you had a history of dieting, or under-eating, even if it were only in recent years, and even for a shorter duration? Even if you didn't really think you were doing a diet? I didn't think I was. Or, if you were doing a lot of exercise, were you under-eating to support recover from that stress? I think that it is likely that prolonged stresses of either sort could lead to similar effects as described by those who treat eating disorders.

Regarding weight gain. I also gained weight rapidly in the first two months. I think around 30 pounds. However, again, based on what I have read, it seems that is common when recovering from an extreme diet, which effectively, my lifestyle was. A lot of it is water weight/edema. In April, my weight gain has drastically slowed down. The last week I have been eating at least 5000 calories, but I think I have only gained around 1 pound in a week. My basal metabolic rate according to calculators is around 2000. So I think a lot of the energy is just going into repair (tissue, organ, endocrine, as Olwyn, Dudley, and Troscianko explain in their work), and otherwise being expended by hypermetabolism. Dudley and Troscianko describe weight gain slowing during the later stages of recovery, as this is the 'true' weight gain needed for recovery (I think Troscianko goes into more detail about this part involving a ratio of fat free mass and fat mass and so on). If you check out the Ancel Keys starvation study, the subjects gained weight rapidly, but after some months, they actually began to lose weight, despite consuming a lot of calories.

Anyway, I hope this has been useful. I didn't intend for it to be so long, but I hate when I search for something online and find that a poster eventually figured out what was the issue, but doesn't flesh out what he or she did to correct it. So maybe others will find it helpful in the future.

Fantastic and truth filled opening post, @foodandtheworld. Welcome to the forum.

 

[Cirion]

Very nice post and very informative! Welcome!

My history with dieting/playing with macros/orthorexia (which is the eating disorder I'd say I've had almost since I've starting working out 4-5 years ago):

My first diet ever was a Very low calorie (1500-1800 a day) diet. I got ripped down to 4-5% body fat, from a 15-18% BF because I was also lifting weights heavily 6 days a week, in just a month and a half (fast enough to make even competitive bodybuilders jealous). Needless to say, I really screwed up my endocrine system BAD. The first day after, I had almost 7000 calories lol. This diet was so dangerous I legit almost died, I'm serious. My brain fog was EXTREME. I really can't put into words how extreme my hunger was either. I WOULD LITERALLY COUNT THE SECONDS ON THE CLOCK UNTIL MY NEXT MEAL. Idiot I know :p. At least I only did this once though.

Then I did a "dirty bulk" for a few months, got fat, and loaded my body with junk food/PUFA.

After that, I did Keto for 2 years. I didn't go super low calorie, but not high enough either most of the time. I was only doing 2-3k cal most days. Interestingly enough, once I upped the calories on Keto, this is about where I felt the healthiest (for all the bad press that Keto gets, I felt good on it), that's why I did it for 2 yrs. Then I decided I wanted to try to lose bodyfat again, cue lowering calories again, cue trashing hormones... again... did this several times. Just last year, I brought up Carbs significantly, and dropped fats to almost zero, but the carbs were from starchy sources mostly not sugar. This actually felt great at first, and I even lost some body fat and looked lean again, but then my health deteriorated again (not actually sure why this happened to be honest?) and guess what, bodyfat started creeping up again (no doubt because cortisol was elevated = bodyfat gains). It didn't help at this time (four months ago) I had a breakup with my first serious girlfriend that I really loved (even though looking back, she was not right for me) and I wanted to die with depression. Then, I get the bright idea to try to restrict calories again (while also working out heavily... dumb I know... lol), needless to say, sex drive died, and body fat has been difficult to control still, though I managed to stabilize it (on less calories than my body needs to run well though).

After this, I'm fed up with having zero sex drive, depression etc, and finally at a last ditch effort, arrive here at Ray Peat, and start stuffing my face lol, but I'm still struggling. Thankfully except for the Very low calorie diet I did way back, I've never gone that low before, but I still have clearly not provided my body the nutrition it desires though, as I've had many bouts of brain fog, fatigue, insomnia, hunger, low sex drive, depression, and so on, typical Hypo symptoms. The crippling depression is all but gone now (Thank God) but I'm still having some problems with insomnia, lower than desired sex drive, and fatigue issues / hunger issues

I would probably say my thyroid has been at least some level of screwed up almost my whole life. I have battled depression almost my whole life, and knowing what I know now about nutrition and healthy lifestyles, can attribute a good portion of the cause to poor lifestyle. I believe now as a kid I was underfed by my parents (well meaning, but too "healthy" meals with low calories). I found myself always wanting to snack on foods between the bird-like meals (as a kid you're smart, I always found myself going for sweets, haha!) and when I did get the opportunity to eat a lot, I went for it (like all you can eat buffets lol). I also had HORRIBLE sleep patterns as a kid, and INSANE stress from school and later college (i got a perfect 4.0 GPA in undergraduate college, which put an insane amount of stress on my body, plus I ate junk food , over did caffeine etc etc. In grad school I put in even more stress on my body, would pull all nighters and go through coffee by the pot). Despite all this, somehow I never got fat, until I got into the workforce (go figure).

It's true, I'm extremely anxious about the recovery, if I gain 30 lbs it will put me in the excessively overweight category, which I do not want to be in...

What have you been eating during recovery? Anything and everything? Or are you focusing more on sugar than fat, or more on fat than sugar, or? It seems like there are many schools of thought around here (and other places like matt stone). Some say eat everything. Others saying bring fat down low-ish (with just a moderate protein intake) and just pound the sugar down endlessly. Not sure what is the best approach?

my BMI is already 27.8 and I do have a strong fear of getting fat :/ It's something that I don't think I can overcome, if I gain too much more I won't be able to fit into some of my clothes and that is just going to be devastating to me and probably cause even more stress and make me even fatter due to the stress... I've never been extremely overweight in my life but I'm about to cross that threshold and it's killing me inside

How do the people you quoted reconcile the fact that just being obese is a stressor in and of itself? You can still technically be "starving" while obese (if you're underfed and getting cortisol constantly released in your system), I get that, but how do you handle the situation? Just get even more fat and hope for the best?

What about Matt stone (you talk about him)? I've heard Matt stone is morbidly obese, he can't even make his own plan work (he's 260 lbs now) and I've heard he himself is about to give up on his own plan, ironically enough.

I've read some of the posts there too. It was so depressing to read the matt stone forums I quit (seems like most of the members get fat and stay fat), which just makes my recovery anxiety even higher. Seems like a good majority of people there get nothing out of matt stone but fat and even more depression and anxiety than they had before...

I want to trust the process but seeing failed stories like that don't exactly lift my spirits lol

Granted, Matt stone is a little more liberal than ray peat from what I understand (admittedly, I haven't delved much into MS, I stopped after I saw how many people fail under MS). At least with Ray peat, he practices what he preaches and manages to keep the bodyfat off so I trust his thoughts more.

 

[Sobieski]

Seems like a fair mix of macros. Starch just makes me crash usually, I already know this. So even if it doesn't make me gain weight, it doesn't do it for me energy wise...

Honestly, I'm about to just go back to KETO. That's actually the diet that worked best for me, with perhaps just a small bit of carbs from sugars (so not technically keto, but ultra high fat).

I guess I'm just losing faith in the RP way if no one here actually follows it lol, in which case we all might as well just do our own thing? Has a single person on this forum thrived on the true RP way of eating? Which is almost all calories from sugar, and almost none/none from fat?

It seems like all the veteran forum posters here have at least 30%, and up to 60% of calories from fats (saturated).

I guess RP did say that up to 50% of calories from saturated fats is OK though.

Cirion, sorry to hear of your issues. You haven't been doing this for very long and it does take the body a long time to recover from high PUFA intake.
If it helps, my success with the diet is that I cured my hypogonadism (my testosterone when from 400's to mid 700's, using only natural means) and I've managed to somewhat reverse the premature ageing process that I was suffering. Do not get me wrong, it's a slow process and I still experience problems but I'm a different person to what I was before I started implementing Peat's ideas. If there's one thing to take away from Peat's work, just keep PUFA low; as I believe that is THE key that will produce the majority of results.

 

[Cirion]

Cirion, sorry to hear of your issues. You haven't been doing this for very long and it does take the body a long time to recover from high PUFA intake.
If it helps, my success with the diet is that I cured my hypogonadism (my testosterone when from 400's to mid 700's, using only natural means) and I've managed to somewhat reverse the premature ageing process that I was suffering. Do not get me wrong, it's a slow process and I still experience problems but I'm a different person to what I was before I started implementing Peat's ideas. If there's one thing to take away from Peat's work, just keep PUFA low; as I believe that is THE key that will produce the majority of results.

I hear ya. I guess I just want reassurance that continuing to over-feed myself will actually work. I guess the distinguishment between Ray Peat and Matt Stone, is that Matt stone suggests eating any food, even "junk", with high PUFA. Maybe that's why a lot of Matt stone followers ultimately fail?

I'm also wondering if I should be trying to limit all fats to a moderate level (maybe 100-150g) in general while in the re-feed? I feel like eating 6-10,000 calories a day from both fat and sugar is gonna be problematic for the waistline not to mention possibly give myself diabetes? That's my other concern about this refeed...

But for now, I'm trying to hold faith, and eating lots of Saturated fats & Sugar, with minimal PUFA.

 

[X3CyO]

Should do a cronometer; see where your minerals and liquid are at.

Starches like potatoes provide a lot of potassium too.

 

[foodandtheworld]

Thank you @charlie and @Cirion for the welcome.

Again, I want to make clear that I am basically a beginner when it comes to this topic. I was just furiously reading what I thought was relevant and helpful in order to help make sense of what was happening and to devise a plan and proper mindset for recovery. That disclaimer said, Cirion, I will do my best to reply to your concerns in your post #24. Also again, I want to affirm that I have no relationships at all with any of the people whose work I refer to or recommend in my post. They were merely useful resources in helping me to interpret my situation. And also, again, I'm not a medical professional or eating disorder counselor who is diagnosing you. However, from reading your post, our backgrounds are actually quite similar, as far as training goes (I also started 4-5 years ago), and as well as early life stresses that continued through to graduate school. So that's why I believe my experience so far may be of use to you.

First, one thing that stands out in your post is that you seemed to have virtually done a 'yo-yo diet' more than once during your life. You mentioned a very low calorie diet first, and then a keto diet, and then a more general diet to lose body weight, and then perhaps another diet or two. From what I have read, every drastic diet like that that does not lead to a full and sustained recovery where you are maintaining your weight at a regular and sufficient calorie intake (Gwyneth Olwyn in her post "I Need How Many Calories?!!" recommends at least 3000 for men of average size) only pushes the weight point at which your body will recover higher. So just say you needed to get to X weight to recover from diet one. You get to X weight after eating more, but then start cutting calories again too soon (instead of maintaining at least 3000). So your weight drops again. Then you decided to eat more to recover because of hunger, alleviating symptoms of stress, so then your body has to at least hit X+A weight, and stay at that for a while to fully recover. But then you decide to eat less again because of fear of weight gain (for example), so your body weight drops again. Now, to recover, your body has to reach X+B weight, which is higher than X+A weight, and maintain that for a while to fully recover, provided you are giving yourself enough calories. I don't think these are necessarily drastic numbers, i.e., I don't think X+C weight in your case will be 400 pounds or whatever. It's more just a gradient.

Elisa Oras, an ED counselor who recovered from bulimia, makes the point in her book "BrainwashED":

After your body survives dieting (read: starvation), its number one priority is protecting us from starving in the future. It does that by storing additional body fat. Researchers call this “fat super accumulation,” and they believe it is a primary trigger for “relapsing obesity” – also known as yoyo dieting. The most disturbing aspect of fat super accumulation is that it does not require us to eat a lot. All we have to do is to go back to eating a normal amount of food.
​

Billy Craig, a diet and physiology researcher and counselor, makes a similar point in his post which summarizes the Minnesota starvation experiment, "Does cutting your calories down work?":

Firstly, if you intend on doing a refeed, you have to accept fat gain as an inevitable part of the deal. You did the damage and the quickest rehabilitation amongst Key's groups was those that ate with no restrictions. Factors to consider are that again this is real life and not lab conditions, you potentially have many diets under your belt so recovery may take longer than those in the experiment.
​

However, to possibly assuage your concerns about fat gain, he also adds that one approach to refeeding could be to:

assess your current Resting Metabolic Rate and set a plan to gradually raise it over time. Potentially raising your RMR by consuming as little as 200 calories more per day than your actual needs. Not as dramatic a recovery but less risky in terms of psychological welfare for lifelong dieters.
​

That particular method is beyond my knowledge, so I'll just it at that. Regardless, it does appear to me that some fat gain is indeed inevitable while recovering from chronic dieting or under-eating.

This is also affirmed in the concept of 'overshoot' or weight-set point overshoot in eating disorder recovery. I would read all of Emily Troscianko's articles on Psychology Today for the science behind it. Again, as I mentioned, I think it is something to do with the ratio of fat free mass to fat mass that has to be changed before full recovery is possible.

Second, as for the concern about a permanently damaged thyroid, I wouldn't jump to conclusions based on your history and current struggles. I, for instance, had had issues with constipation as far as I could remember, stretching back into my high-school days. I think this was again a hypothyroid-ish or slowed metabolism symptom from under-eating. BUT, after beginning my refeed, I haven't been constipated once, and comfortably have bowel movements at least twice a day. This is also not to mention the other symptoms I discussed in my previous post, which have all vanished. The last one of course left is sleep troubles, but as Ray Peat says, sleep is actually quite an energy intensive state, and if all your energy is going into recovering tissues, organs, other systems, that were damaged during dieting, then it would make sense that sleep is not completely restful yet - there is not yet enough energy to complete all of the recovery and have a surplus leftover for super restful sleep.

Third, as for my own diet, I don't follow anything specific. I was never vegan, vegetarian, keto, etc., and never had any food sensitivity issues, so I can eat pretty much anything, if it fits my taste. I drink a lot of juice (OJ, grape, guava, apple, pineapple). I also drink 3 cups of milk a day (2%), and honey to them, to get more calories in, although sugar is probably good too. In my first two months, I ate a lot of white rice and well boiled potatoes for the calories. I now drink a lot more juice versus eating starches, though the amount of liquid I consume now would probably have been too difficult when I first began to recovery (for me, another positive sign). I also eat what is called junk food, just to get a lot of calories. It seems that is actually recommended for people recovering from eating disorders and who need to obtain a lot of calories ASAP, but there is some debate about it. I don't have any issue with it though, and I recognize that this is just a temporary state, so I am OK with it as a means to recovery. I do try to eat liver and canned oysters at least once a week for the vitamins/minerals.

Fourth, as for Matt Stone's own weight, or the weight of some of the people who have attempted to follow his ideas, I cannot say for sure. It is possible Matt Stone is just OK being overweight (he seems like a really "IDGAF" kind of guy), and is not motivated to follow a more aggressive and consistent refeeding plan that might be required because I believe he mentioned going through a lot of dieting stress in his years. Also, for the followers, as I mentioned, it is possible they were just dissuaded from the initial weight gain, which, I believe, is a necessary phase. For example, I saw some people say they were mortified to have gained 7 pounds in a month. I gained about 7 pounds in my second week. Again, I believe this is mostly just water weight needed for cellular repair.

We also have to recognize we live in the modern era where fat and obesity has become greatly moralized and politicized. I try to think back to Nature. Do you think a wild animal would be concerned that it 'looks chubby' after recovering from a period of famine in its environment? Or for a human example, do you think an ancient warrior would say "no more cheese, sorry, I'm looking a tad plump" after a long and grueling campaign surviving on small rations? He'd probably gorge himself until he was satisfied, for as long as it took, because hunger was more of just a bodily cue, rather than this psychological good-vs-evil moral dilemma it has become to modern people.

In addition, I wouldn't put Matt Stone as the sole representative of this kind of recovery philosophy. I would search on Youtube for "minnie maud recovery" for examples of some people who successfully recovered from under-eating by consistently eating at least 2500 or 3000 calories a day, and more during periods of hunger. The "minnie maud" process is just the one I believe that was recommended by Gwyneth Olwyn, after interpreting the results from the Minnesota starvation experiment. I would check out the Youtube video "Quasi recovery | Weight overshoot in eating disorder recovery | why you shouldn't stop halfway" as a good example of personal narrative mixed with the physiology of recovery.

Fifth, if you are finding this very much a struggle, even after watching the minnie maud recovery videos, and checking out the websites I have mentioned in my two posts, I would consider a counseling session with someone who specializes in this area (eating disorder recovery). It might help disarm any worries you have and provide some reassurance whether you are on the right track. I actually found this area to be another proof of the veracity of Ray Peat's ideas, because people specializing in ED recovery affirm the centrality of metabolism in overall health, and how the human organism dynamically adjusts itself to maintain it. It's not a simple mechanical input-output model, but one that adjusts its structure depending on available energy (core of Ray Peat's philosophy, I believe).

 

[Birdie]

In my case, the huge appetite lessened after a year or two.

 

[bmoores]

I required over 7000 calories for a while coming off a keto diet. Carb restriction is so destructive that I was diabetic with excess glycolysis. If a person is fat adapted they will crave fat and have trouble metabolizing sugar. Measuring lactate dehydrogenase is instructive. Mine was 3x the norm. I also had runaway cortisol, which supplementing sugar and red light helped lower.

So I ate enough fat to be satiated most of the time then took diamox, which was the most powerful glycolysis inhibitor I tested. Naltrexone and others helped as well. Pretty much everything Peat talks about. I lived with some extra body fat for a while until I was satuated by fruit sugar and sucrose, ate plenty of protein, then was able to taper off the fat. Now I’m mostly lean and a good sugar burner.

Musculature increases dramatically when you turn off cortisol and turn on thyroid and the cascade of youth hormones that come from it.

Diamox at 15-30mg was the most I could tolerate per day. I drink extra OJ to to make up for the drop in serum potassium, otherwise the diamox has side effects

My calorie consumption is still pretty high but more normal now, and I can go long stretches without constantly eating, sleep through the night, etc.

 

[teds]

How long exactly have you been ‘adapting’?

 

[danishispsychic]

Not sure if this is peaty - but for me I was able to drastically change my appetite / cravings by doing The Master Cleanse ( longest I have gone is 7 days ) or eating in a 6 hour or less eating window, or water fasting for a day or two , and I do fast with this mixture called Snake Juice ( potassium and sea salt ) ( see Snake Diet on you tube ) . Prob resets your insulin receptors or blood sugar- but really , when you do any fasting you start to really change the whole appetite thing- in my experience. I do a lot of short fasts.

 

[Cirion]

In my case, the huge appetite lessened after a year or two.

Wow, that's a long time! Glad it's improved for you though.

I required over 7000 calories for a while coming off a keto diet. Carb restriction is so destructive that I was diabetic with excess glycolysis. If a person is fat adapted they will crave fat and have trouble metabolizing sugar. Measuring lactate dehydrogenase is instructive. Mine was 3x the norm. I also had runaway cortisol, which supplementing sugar and red light helped lower.

So I ate enough fat to be satiated most of the time then took diamox, which was the most powerful glycolysis inhibitor I tested. Naltrexone and others helped as well. Pretty much everything Peat talks about. I lived with some extra body fat for a while until I was satuated by fruit sugar and sucrose, ate plenty of protein, then was able to taper off the fat. Now I’m mostly lean and a good sugar burner.

Musculature increases dramatically when you turn off cortisol and turn on thyroid and the cascade of youth hormones that come from it.

Diamox at 15-30mg was the most I could tolerate per day. I drink extra OJ to to make up for the drop in serum potassium, otherwise the diamox has side effects

My calorie consumption is still pretty high but more normal now, and I can go long stretches without constantly eating, sleep through the night, etc.

Wow, 7000 calories! You sound like me, so that gives me hope lol. It makes sense what you say. It took time to become fat adapted, so it'll take time to become a sugar burner as well. I'm glad you're doing better, it is encouraging to hear success stories.

How long exactly have you been ‘adapting’?

To sugar burning? Around 2-3 weeks now.

Not sure if this is peaty - but for me I was able to drastically change my appetite / cravings by doing The Master Cleanse ( longest I have gone is 7 days ) or eating in a 6 hour or less eating window, or water fasting for a day or two , and I do fast with this mixture called Snake Juice ( potassium and sea salt ) ( see Snake Diet on you tube ) . Prob resets your insulin receptors or blood sugar- but really , when you do any fasting you start to really change the whole appetite thing- in my experience. I do a lot of short fasts.

Interesting. I think fasting can be excellent for PUFA purging, but I feel like it's not the greatest for thyroid overall, as you're running on stress hormones during a fast. I used to do intermittent fasting, but had my Dr. who prescribed a hormone test for me tell me I had to stop doing that lol. My growth hormone and cortisol was through the roof. Fasting is probably less harmful (and possibly beneficial) if your metabolism is otherwise healthy.

So I decided to stop tracking my calories so I can try to get better in tune when I truly need to eat, rather than when I "need to" to meet macros. I feel like I have actually been eating less now (but dunno for sure since I'm not tracking). And even allow myself a little indulgence now and then - had some haagen daas ice cream last night! I think this has reduced my recovery anxiety as well.

 

[Birdie]

Wow, that's a long time! Glad it's improved for you though.



Wow, 7000 calories! You sound like me, so that gives me hope lol. It makes sense what you say. It took time to become fat adapted, so it'll take time to become a sugar burner as well. I'm glad you're doing better, it is encouraging to hear success stories.



To sugar burning? Around 2-3 weeks now.



Interesting. I think fasting can be excellent for PUFA purging, but I feel like it's not the greatest for thyroid overall, as you're running on stress hormones during a fast. I used to do intermittent fasting, but had my Dr. who prescribed a hormone test for me tell me I had to stop doing that lol. My growth hormone and cortisol was through the roof. Fasting is probably less harmful (and possibly beneficial) if your metabolism is otherwise healthy.

So I decided to stop tracking my calories so I can try to get better in tune when I truly need to eat, rather than when I "need to" to meet macros. I feel like I have actually been eating less now (but dunno for sure since I'm not tracking). And even allow myself a little indulgence now and then - had some haagen daas ice cream last night! I think this has reduced my recovery anxiety as well.

I remember Ray Peat's saying something about people who would try to get all the nutrients they needed gaining weight. That was helpful and convinced me to relax a little and think of a more long-term approach. And it was hard (I wanted to be all in) but I had to introduce sugar and more sugary fruit very slowly.

 

[Cirion]

I have really been more in tune with my energy levels, what fixes it, and whatnot lately.

RP is right on sugar/carbs. I just proved it again to myself today. I thought by increasing fat I would increase my satiety because I was having overeating issues. It did. However, I'm noticing brainfog/fatigue return again, especially after lunch today. I tested my HR rate (no thermometer on me), 74 bpm after lunch. Decided to munch on some grapes. Brain fog gone, HR 85 bpm. This shows to me that I probably want at least a 80 bpm HR for optimal energy probably closer to 90. Sugar = energy, period. Fats = satiety but not energy (not really, not like sugar anyway). Seems like there's definitely a tightrope with fats - you want and need a certain amount of optimal hormones, but too much and you'll tank your energy levels. HR of 100 ish in particular results in "euphoria" for me. More and more it seems like the "optimal" amount of fats is roughly 30% of your calories, or about 0.4g for every lb of body mass (lean mass?) or so, at least for me, this seems to hold true.

This is good news though. It used to be eating carbs made me sleepy. Now NOT eating carbs makes me sleepy, so I think I'm slowly but surely becoming a sugar burner.

I think RP says to not eat beyond satiety, but I have to disagree with this statement now. If you're full, but fatigued - this means you need sugar. It also means next go around you may wish to swap some protein and/or fats for sugar, to avoid having to eat beyond satiety.

My opinion now then is: Hunger = you didn't eat enough protein and/or fats. Fatigue (Low temp and/or HR) = you didn't eat enough sugar. This is my experience. Hunger COULD mean you didn't eat enough sugars also, but not necessarily. I think the endless hunger occurs when your protein and/or fats are just simply too low for your current metabolism. I'm still used to metabolizing some fats, so if I go super low fat, constant hunger ensues..

I say eat sugar even if full, if you're fatigued, because otherwise Adrenaline will kick into high gear to bring your blood sugar / energy levels up, which is gonna wreak havoc on you in the long run. My understanding of the Peat way of eating is to increase the metabolism - so you want to avoid a fatigued state of being at all costs, any time spent fatigued is more damage to the metabolism and make recovery take much longer. I bet the quickest recovery will occur if you spent almost all your time in a high metabolism state.

 

[Birdie]

It's hard to find the ratio that works. I was dizzy and sleepy a lot. And now, when I get it wrong, dizziness or fatigue still sets in. But, before finding Peat I didn't know how to adjust. A coke will help me when it hits and that's easy even if I'm full. But, have to say that later in the day I'd be afraid of the caffeine and nothing else works as well for me. Luckily, problem seems to hit only if I eat wrong ratios earlier in the day.

 

[Cirion]

It's hard to find the ratio that works. I was dizzy and sleepy a lot. And now, when I get it wrong, dizziness or fatigue still sets in. But, before finding Peat I didn't know how to adjust. A coke will help me when it hits and that's easy even if I'm full. But, have to say that later in the day I'd be afraid of the caffeine and nothing else works as well for me. Luckily, problem seems to hit only if I eat wrong ratios earlier in the day.

Yes, everyone will be different. As I said earlier, I find that the main thing that will differ is the ratio of fats to carbs. For someone coming off of keto / low carb, the fat:carb ratio will probably need to be higher starting off. As you become more attuned to sugar burning, that ratio can start to come down until you reach the optimal fat % of about 30. There are times when very low fat, 10-20%, or even less, may be beneficial, but I don't think it's sustainable for an extended period of time.

I am noticing a trend myself where my energy is OK in the morning but declines around the afternoon. But I have come to realize that's just simply because my carbohydrate intake is too low the first half of the day.

 

[danishispsychic]

Wow, that's a long time! Glad it's improved for you though.



Wow, 7000 calories! You sound like me, so that gives me hope lol. It makes sense what you say. It took time to become fat adapted, so it'll take time to become a sugar burner as well. I'm glad you're doing better, it is encouraging to hear success stories.



To sugar burning? Around 2-3 weeks now.



Interesting. I think fasting can be excellent for PUFA purging, but I feel like it's not the greatest for thyroid overall, as you're running on stress hormones during a fast. I used to do intermittent fasting, but had my Dr. who prescribed a hormone test for me tell me I had to stop doing that lol. My growth hormone and cortisol was through the roof. Fasting is probably less harmful (and possibly beneficial) if your metabolism is otherwise healthy.

So I decided to stop tracking my calories so I can try to get better in tune when I truly need to eat, rather than when I "need to" to meet macros. I feel like I have actually been eating less now (but dunno for sure since I'm not tracking). And even allow myself a little indulgence now and then - had some haagen daas ice cream last night! I think this has reduced my recovery anxiety as well.

In terms of thyroid ... My body temps went up on the Master Cleanse ( lots of maple syrup ) and my hair grows more and nails too. It depends if your thyroid is compromised by infection or toxins/virus as well. I have to opposite experience, my Thyroid works way better on Juice Feasts, The Master Cleanse in short spurts and Salt Flushes. Skin clears up, no PUFA. I do iodine painting on my feet and Epsom Salt baths too when fasting cleansing. No supplements either. I dont take any supplements internally anymore.

 

[Cirion]

In terms of thyroid ... My body temps went up on the Master Cleanse ( lots of maple syrup ) and my hair grows more and nails too. It depends if your thyroid is compromised by infection or toxins/virus as well. I have to opposite experience, my Thyroid works way better on Juice Feasts, The Master Cleanse in short spurts and Salt Flushes. Skin clears up, no PUFA. I do iodine painting on my feet and Epsom Salt baths too when fasting cleansing. No supplements either. I dont take any supplements internally anymore.

I can see how a fast from anything but sugar could certainly help force your body to be a better sugar burner. An interesting thing to consider for sure. Like you said, the fact that you're basically zero PUFA on something like that probably is one of the biggest helpful factors of a juice diet. The juice diet is probably way better overall than complete fasting, because you're still getting energy and calories, but only from sugar and not from PUFA. Low PUFA does lots of interesting things. I saw a forum member post saying he can stay out in the sun all day and not get sunburn with no PUFA intake. Useful to know, with summer coming up, and me wanting to get more sunlight, lol.

How much do you limit PUFA otherwise? What's your diet look like normally? Curious because you don't take internal supplements anymore. I know Kreese takes 0 supplements as well and seems to be doing quite well also. I've heard mixed opinions here on supplements, I definitely like to take as few as possible because I'm frugal & intuitively it seems like you shouldn't need to supplement so much if the diet is good.

I really struggle so far with low PUFA intake. It seems like I always get like 10g PUFA a day because I love high (well, high for Peat foods) PUFA foods like eggs too much lol

 

[danishispsychic]

here is my diet lately - one meal - usually fish or shrimp/ rice ( white ) or veggie curry and rice - i dont eat land animals , and one fruit smoothie with dried coconut on top sometimes i add noni - one or two coffees in the am, ( decaf and black - brewed in my moccamaster) lots of lemonade and limeade with sugar - and at night i usually have a seltzer/bitters/ sweetened lime juice drink. i eat at around noon and 5pm. so i do best with one cooked, one raw meal (fruit based ) . i usually fast on the weekends or drink most of my meals then. sometimes i will have a sugar coke. i drink a slurp of blackstrap mollasses and/ or some 15+ manuka honey each day. coconut oil pull everyday- sometimes with charcoal added . no more aspirin, progesterone, supplements, carrot salad , coconut oil and all that. i keep it simple now - body temps are perfect finally. i try to do a longer master cleanse at least once a month by the full moon or new moon.( parasites )