Hi!
I have been lurking here for about 2 weeks, desperately reading each and every section trying to get a handle on this new way of eating. I have communicated with Ray Peat several times in the past but I had no idea he had a "following" or a "diet". My issues were always hormonal and I found his articles online and went straight to the horses mouth with my questions. I am so glad I have found this forum, as I was getting shy to bother him more, plus I have so many specific questions now, he could never answer them all.
A little background: I am a 61 yr old female. I live abroad so many of the things you all eat, are not available to me. By the same token, I am surrounded by tropical fruit so whiIe I may have some disadvantages, it is not all bad.
Growing up in the states, I was a very healthy, skinny, energetic child. Being from the south, butter, milk, fat were staples, as well as some limited fruits. We were not allowed coca cola or junk foods, so I feel I may have gotten a little bit of a head start regarding health.
When I married and moved was also the time that I began having my children and that is when the problems started. None were severe, just noticeable. Horrific periods, bloating, acne.....I put them all down to hormonal imbalance. I was eating a high pufa diet that included many fried foods and a LOT of junk food, to ease the stress of raising babies. It was my comfort food along with coca cola. There is a manuf.plant here and I know that they are made with HFCS and not cane sugar.
I had a premature menopause at 42 and opted out of hormonal therapy. The only lingering symptoms of menopause are insomnia/anxiety/dryness. I followed many diet regimens over the years, slimfast, atkins, south beach, low carb etc. Three years ago I dumped sugar from my diet and managed to lose 30 lbs and ended up looking the best I had looked in a long time. But anxiety and insomnia still there. Plus, I was losing my zest for life. Zero energy and just a blasé attitude, with zero motivation or inspiration. I also self diagnosed myself as hypothyroid and adrenal fatigued by reading online and figuring that was what was wrong with me. I did at one point find a generous/patient doctor here to oversee what I was doing to myself. I self medicated with Cytomel and Hydrocortison for 3-4 yrs. Never felt I was accomplishing anything except weight gain, so I dumped the HC and stuck with the Cytomel for fear of my thyroid not coming back to life. Three weeks ago I found out that Erfa is now sold here without a prescription so I jumped and bought some and started with 1 grain a day for two weeks, and this week upped to 2 grains a day. I 'nibble' a bit of cytomel occasionally ala ray peat trying to keep temps up.
About 10 days ago I jumped on this train. My family feels I'm zonkers after preaching the perils of sugar, but I went out and bought everything that was recommended here. The first few days I went bananas on the hagaan daz, but have now learned that it cannot be daily. I also went over normal fat allowance by using whole milk. I was too full to consume more protein, so all in all I gained 5 lbs and did not get higher temps. Now that I'm learning to tweak it to my needs, my temps have started coming up, I am sleeping somewhat better and mood is great. There are only two downsides: constipation which I NEVER have had in my life, on the contrary I am usually one of those persons running to the BR. So I'm assuming I will have to have some more fiber soon. The second downside, and the most concerning for me is my once normal blood pressure is moving dangerously high. I have written Peat about this but have not heard back. When tested a while back I was normal high in sodium, normal high in potassium and normal low in mag. I bathe in epsom salt baths occasionally to try to raise the mag. My feeling is all the potassium in the potatoes and orange juice, messing something up? Has anyone else had this? What should I do? I fear going to md, I will only leave with a script. I have been borderline in the past, but it had cleared itself out years ago with the no sugar diet and it was always around 120.80. Last few days it's been 155/95.
I take temps and bp almost maniacally. It's an obsession. My temps can be all over the place as well as my BP. Yes, I've checked my monitors and thermometer...they work. Sometimes after carrots, I will go to 99 and an hr later will be 97.8. Sometimes temp is good, but pulse is low. Sometimes pulse comes up to 85 and temp is in 97's. It is all very frustrating!!!
If I may I would like to list (albeit long) what I have been consuming to see if some bright person here can see if I am doing something completely wrong and that is affecting my BP.
A typical day:
wake up: instant nescafe coffee/cane sugar/lowfat half and half
breakfast: orange juice (store bought, not our season for sweet oranges yet) with a shot of whole milk, fat free cottage cheese, papaya
mid morn: grapes (or other fruit) and cheese
lunch: a protein (lobster, or shrimp, or octopus, or organic ground beef or lean fish)*i live by the ocean.
fruit
maybe some buttered potatoes or buttered white rice or arroz con coco (white rice with coconut)
mid aft: glass of organic low fat vanilla milk with shot of oj, or an orange julius drink
1 large grated carrot with coconut oil, white vinegar and sea salt. MY TEMPS SHOOT TO 99 MOST DAYS
dinner: home made beef consume (am confused as hell as to difference between consome, stock broth etc. We have a meat here called "jarrete" which is the back of the hind leg...similar to ossobucco and we just boil that for 3 hrs. and skim off the fat and drink the liquid. Hope this is enough.
orange juice with low fat milk
right before bed: milk, or HD ice cream
Some notes of interest in why I eat certain things:
1. The local milk disgusts me..I've been to the plant. So I buy organic valley whole milk in tetrapak. They sell very small organic low fat milks by the same brand, but they are flavored with strawberry, vanilla or chocolate. I drink them to LOWER the high fat consumption I was on the first few days when I was drinking solely whole fat milk.
2. Cottage cheese is imported. It is low fat, but the ingredients list is alarming. It the Breakstone brand. Other cheeses here are very high fat, so for now, I am ignoring the health implications of eating such a processed food. I like it very much with papaya.
3. We have very sweet oranges during dry season so alas now I can not get good fresh oranges for squeezing. I buy Tropicana no pulp, not from concentrate. I never drink it alone...always with cheese or milk.
4. I buy unrefined coconut oil....I cannot find anywhere why refined is better. Does anyone know?
5. The HD ice cream is either vanilla or chocolate as they only have four ingredients. I wish they were more dangerous and I LOVE them, and it is quite the effort not to overdo!
6. Butter is organic valley salted butter
7. Salt is himalaya or celtic sea salt.
8. Exercise/stress: Thankfully I am not into it. I have a lower back problem and the most I can do is take walks, or flail my arms in the pool. Being 61 I have already had the luxury of removing negative people from my life and not care what anyone has to say about it. So I feel I've overcome the "adrenal" thing that may have been happening years ago, when I lived to please.
9. Supplements: I dropped all my supplements when I started eating Peat to not muddle the waters. On day 2 I added aspirin in the a.m. and one before bed. On day 4 I thought I was having a HEART ATTACK in the middle of the night....the pain in my esophagus was excruciating.(I was sure to take it with full stomach) I have since dumped the aspirin. Is it completely necessary? At the beginning I thought the improved sleep was due to the aspirin, and not the sugar, but since dumping the aspirin, I am still sleeping fairly well so.....
I do not have more coffee than the early a.m. since caffeine WILL keep me awake at night. Is decaf ok? what does the coffee do?. I am not clear on that.
I am sure I will think of more the minute I push send, but I guess this is ok for a start.
Thank you for listening to me! I am happy to be here! My goal is to be healthy, sleep well, and of course, be slim and gorgeous!
I have been lurking here for about 2 weeks, desperately reading each and every section trying to get a handle on this new way of eating. I have communicated with Ray Peat several times in the past but I had no idea he had a "following" or a "diet". My issues were always hormonal and I found his articles online and went straight to the horses mouth with my questions. I am so glad I have found this forum, as I was getting shy to bother him more, plus I have so many specific questions now, he could never answer them all.
A little background: I am a 61 yr old female. I live abroad so many of the things you all eat, are not available to me. By the same token, I am surrounded by tropical fruit so whiIe I may have some disadvantages, it is not all bad.
Growing up in the states, I was a very healthy, skinny, energetic child. Being from the south, butter, milk, fat were staples, as well as some limited fruits. We were not allowed coca cola or junk foods, so I feel I may have gotten a little bit of a head start regarding health.
When I married and moved was also the time that I began having my children and that is when the problems started. None were severe, just noticeable. Horrific periods, bloating, acne.....I put them all down to hormonal imbalance. I was eating a high pufa diet that included many fried foods and a LOT of junk food, to ease the stress of raising babies. It was my comfort food along with coca cola. There is a manuf.plant here and I know that they are made with HFCS and not cane sugar.
I had a premature menopause at 42 and opted out of hormonal therapy. The only lingering symptoms of menopause are insomnia/anxiety/dryness. I followed many diet regimens over the years, slimfast, atkins, south beach, low carb etc. Three years ago I dumped sugar from my diet and managed to lose 30 lbs and ended up looking the best I had looked in a long time. But anxiety and insomnia still there. Plus, I was losing my zest for life. Zero energy and just a blasé attitude, with zero motivation or inspiration. I also self diagnosed myself as hypothyroid and adrenal fatigued by reading online and figuring that was what was wrong with me. I did at one point find a generous/patient doctor here to oversee what I was doing to myself. I self medicated with Cytomel and Hydrocortison for 3-4 yrs. Never felt I was accomplishing anything except weight gain, so I dumped the HC and stuck with the Cytomel for fear of my thyroid not coming back to life. Three weeks ago I found out that Erfa is now sold here without a prescription so I jumped and bought some and started with 1 grain a day for two weeks, and this week upped to 2 grains a day. I 'nibble' a bit of cytomel occasionally ala ray peat trying to keep temps up.
About 10 days ago I jumped on this train. My family feels I'm zonkers after preaching the perils of sugar, but I went out and bought everything that was recommended here. The first few days I went bananas on the hagaan daz, but have now learned that it cannot be daily. I also went over normal fat allowance by using whole milk. I was too full to consume more protein, so all in all I gained 5 lbs and did not get higher temps. Now that I'm learning to tweak it to my needs, my temps have started coming up, I am sleeping somewhat better and mood is great. There are only two downsides: constipation which I NEVER have had in my life, on the contrary I am usually one of those persons running to the BR. So I'm assuming I will have to have some more fiber soon. The second downside, and the most concerning for me is my once normal blood pressure is moving dangerously high. I have written Peat about this but have not heard back. When tested a while back I was normal high in sodium, normal high in potassium and normal low in mag. I bathe in epsom salt baths occasionally to try to raise the mag. My feeling is all the potassium in the potatoes and orange juice, messing something up? Has anyone else had this? What should I do? I fear going to md, I will only leave with a script. I have been borderline in the past, but it had cleared itself out years ago with the no sugar diet and it was always around 120.80. Last few days it's been 155/95.
I take temps and bp almost maniacally. It's an obsession. My temps can be all over the place as well as my BP. Yes, I've checked my monitors and thermometer...they work. Sometimes after carrots, I will go to 99 and an hr later will be 97.8. Sometimes temp is good, but pulse is low. Sometimes pulse comes up to 85 and temp is in 97's. It is all very frustrating!!!
If I may I would like to list (albeit long) what I have been consuming to see if some bright person here can see if I am doing something completely wrong and that is affecting my BP.
A typical day:
wake up: instant nescafe coffee/cane sugar/lowfat half and half
breakfast: orange juice (store bought, not our season for sweet oranges yet) with a shot of whole milk, fat free cottage cheese, papaya
mid morn: grapes (or other fruit) and cheese
lunch: a protein (lobster, or shrimp, or octopus, or organic ground beef or lean fish)*i live by the ocean.
fruit
maybe some buttered potatoes or buttered white rice or arroz con coco (white rice with coconut)
mid aft: glass of organic low fat vanilla milk with shot of oj, or an orange julius drink
1 large grated carrot with coconut oil, white vinegar and sea salt. MY TEMPS SHOOT TO 99 MOST DAYS
dinner: home made beef consume (am confused as hell as to difference between consome, stock broth etc. We have a meat here called "jarrete" which is the back of the hind leg...similar to ossobucco and we just boil that for 3 hrs. and skim off the fat and drink the liquid. Hope this is enough.
orange juice with low fat milk
right before bed: milk, or HD ice cream
Some notes of interest in why I eat certain things:
1. The local milk disgusts me..I've been to the plant. So I buy organic valley whole milk in tetrapak. They sell very small organic low fat milks by the same brand, but they are flavored with strawberry, vanilla or chocolate. I drink them to LOWER the high fat consumption I was on the first few days when I was drinking solely whole fat milk.
2. Cottage cheese is imported. It is low fat, but the ingredients list is alarming. It the Breakstone brand. Other cheeses here are very high fat, so for now, I am ignoring the health implications of eating such a processed food. I like it very much with papaya.
3. We have very sweet oranges during dry season so alas now I can not get good fresh oranges for squeezing. I buy Tropicana no pulp, not from concentrate. I never drink it alone...always with cheese or milk.
4. I buy unrefined coconut oil....I cannot find anywhere why refined is better. Does anyone know?
5. The HD ice cream is either vanilla or chocolate as they only have four ingredients. I wish they were more dangerous and I LOVE them, and it is quite the effort not to overdo!
6. Butter is organic valley salted butter
7. Salt is himalaya or celtic sea salt.
8. Exercise/stress: Thankfully I am not into it. I have a lower back problem and the most I can do is take walks, or flail my arms in the pool. Being 61 I have already had the luxury of removing negative people from my life and not care what anyone has to say about it. So I feel I've overcome the "adrenal" thing that may have been happening years ago, when I lived to please.
9. Supplements: I dropped all my supplements when I started eating Peat to not muddle the waters. On day 2 I added aspirin in the a.m. and one before bed. On day 4 I thought I was having a HEART ATTACK in the middle of the night....the pain in my esophagus was excruciating.(I was sure to take it with full stomach) I have since dumped the aspirin. Is it completely necessary? At the beginning I thought the improved sleep was due to the aspirin, and not the sugar, but since dumping the aspirin, I am still sleeping fairly well so.....
I do not have more coffee than the early a.m. since caffeine WILL keep me awake at night. Is decaf ok? what does the coffee do?. I am not clear on that.
I am sure I will think of more the minute I push send, but I guess this is ok for a start.
Thank you for listening to me! I am happy to be here! My goal is to be healthy, sleep well, and of course, be slim and gorgeous!