Over and over I have seen people come to the forum attempt to implement Ray Peat's principles in the formation of a diet and eventually develop many issues, especially weight gain. With this in mind I'm posting a template for beginners to start with in implementing Ray Peat's principles.
Before I get to the template, something must be kept in mind. The basis of Ray's work centers around William Blake's idea:
"The true method of knowledge is experiment"
and also Ray's iconic phrase:
"Percieve. Think. Act."
With these concepts the basic idea is to first be aware of yourself and continue to do so as the basis of your experiences going forward. From there the point is to find/ come across/ think about/ principles and knowledge, assess them from a rational/ logical/ esperiential point of view, and then test them out through experimentation. Once you experiment, the goal is to continually be aware of yourself as you experiment, so that you can gain experience/ knowledge/ wisdom from the experiment from which to build upon and move forward. The process is continual and circular, never ending, but the basis remains the same, awareness of yourself and your experiences as the basis. This awareness is not neccesarily what you think but what you experience, the sensations, mental states, energy level, bowel movements, libido, emotional reactivity etc. that you experience. Be aware of all of it, don't discount any possible experience with logic, give it time to play out and just observe. Formulate logical/ rational hypothesis later, but keep in mind they are just hypothesis and theories, not neccesarily reality yet. Rationality/ logic can often be abstractions of the experience, so pure observation is a neccesary first and continual step.
With the above said it is necessary to have a baseline with which to begin your experimentation, the goal of this post is to provide you with that baseline. This guidelines here are rough guidelines based on my experience and research to give new followers of peat's principles a place to anchor themselves from which to experiment with future nuanced aspects. The goal is for the baseline dietary template to be as safe as possible from an allergen, irritant, anti-nutrient and additive perspective, while providing solid nutrition. The guide will show you how to set up a diet including calories, macros, micros, food choices, and meal structure. Again this is purely a baseline, modifications are expected to come as you experiment in a relatively controlled fashion. Too many people don't understand how to properly experiment and they wind up hurting themselves, especially on this forum. Then they wind up rationalizing the things they have done to themselves, rather than learning the lesson. The goal is to avoid this.
So, this is a baseline dietary structure, from here a singular new component of the diet can be played depending on what you fancy, but it should be a SINGULAR component. Also, the experiment should go for a reasonable period of time, such as a week or two AT MOST. Many people across numerous dietary forums try implementing something, get a negative effect and rationalize the issue away, only to then claim "healing effects" and increase what they are doing even more. With kept this starts as going low carb, and progresses to zero carb once issues ensue. With vegetarians it starts as avoidance of all animal foods except eggs and milk, maybe seafood and then becomes veganism. With peat diets it starts as increasing dairy and sugar considerably to going to an all milk, sugar and OJ diet. The results, time and time again with these experiments is the person ******* themselves up, rationalizing for a while and then turning around and switching to a new paradigm to repeat the process over, like going from vegan to carnivore, or low carb to peat. Or the person hurts themself, recognizes it, accepts it and now has to undue the damage. We can avoid both these situations, and still find out what works for us with a consistent, slow, conscious, aware, observant, rational, approach.
*Before beginning, downloading the app cronometer is recommended to track calories, macros and micros. It is recommended to make either a 3 day or one week template of what you plan to eat in the app using the guidelines below. The template created in cronometer is a rough guideline, it can be edited as you go and adjust, no need to create new days, just go back to the days you already made and update them. The template is helpful to give a ballpark of whats needed to meet your calories, macronutrients, micronutrients, portion sizes and how much food to buy when you go to the store. The goal is not to micromanage in cronometer, the goal is to use the app to aid in making your life easier. If you find yourself micromanaging your PUFA intake or making sure your phosphorous is in perfect ratio with your calcium, your doing it wrong. The app is for convenience, not migraine induction, not anal retentiveness and definitely not perfectionism.
With that said here is the guidelines and principles:
1) Calories: To determine your caloric requirements use the Katch-Mccardle metabolic calculator with the activity multipliers:
*formula:
basal metabolic rate= 370 + (21.6 x (lean body mass in Kg))
lean body mass= (bodyweight in kilograms) - ((body fat %) x bodyweight in kilograms)
*activity multipliers:
1.2x BMR= inactive (little to no movement or exercise)
1.4x BMR= low activity (exercise 1-3x per week, light daily activity)
1.6x BMR= moderate activity (exercise 3-5x per week, moderate daily activity)
1.8x BMR= high activity (exercise more than 5x per week, heavy labor job)
2.0x BMR= intense activity (daily exercise and a heavy labor job)
2) Macros:
*Protein: (about 15-20% calories) .6-.8g/lb. Protein should be on the higher end if you are active, or you are older. Protein sources should be from ruminant meat (beef, bison, lamb, goat), specific seafood (shrimp, scallops, cod, sole, oysters, mussels, clams), pasture raised eggs, very lean 99% chicken/ turkey/ fowl (These are very lean because they are high in polyunsaturated fats if not).
As you can see Dairy is not on the list above. The reason why is because it is often an issue for many people due to allergy, the opiate effect, and the hormones. Certain people just never do well with dairy. Thus, I don't think people should avoid it, only avoid it to start. Like the starch below, I would start with the basic template and then experiment with adding these things in.
*Carbs: (about 40-60% calories) carbs should be at least 2x the amount of protein. Carbs can be more, these depend on you. The safest and best sources of carbs are fruits and 100% fruit juice. These fruits and juices should be low in fodmaps to start and have close to a 1:1 ratio of glucose to fructose as many people don't process fodmaps well and don't handle fructose well in excess of glucose, both from a digestive standpoint. The safe juices include orange, pineapple, pomegranate, grape, tangerine, coconut water, cacao juice, cranberry juice, blueberry juice. Good fruits are cherimoya, soursop, grapes, oranges, lemons, blueberries, raspberries, raisins, papayas, jackfruit, acerola, dragon fruit, pineapples, passion fruit, guava, strawberries, kiwis, peaches, nectarines, plums, pomegranates.
Possibly irritating fruits include: well cooked ripe bananas, well cooked ripe apples/ pears, watermelon, mangos, cherries, sapotes.
As you can see starches aren't present in the above to start. Starches can be eaten but I would recommend leaving them out to start especially if you know you have a gut issue. That being said the safest starches are tubers such as potatoes, yams, and sweet potatoes, and white rice. Boiling starches is a necessity as baked starches can persorb across the intestinal epithelial and cause issues down the line. The skins of tubers should also be removed. I would recommend placing starches as one of the first things that are experimented with. After starches I would then move to dairy.
*Fats: (about 25%-40% calories) Fats are harder to pin down for how much to eat. Many things effect need for fats in the diet and how much someone tolerates. I personally find 20-25g of fat in a meal to be ideal for me. Too little and I'm hungry fast, i get brain fog overtime from being to low fat consistently and my libido, muscle tone and other hormonal factors take a negative hit. Too much and I'm full for way to long, my appetite goes away and I get indigestion. Sources for fats are ruminant meats and tallows, chocolate, cocoa butter, butter, and coconut oil. A word on coconut oil and butter. Butter can be very high in hormones and can lead to hairloss, acne, dandruff and other issues if large quantities are eaten over an extended period of time in susceptible people. Coconut oil can irritate the intestine in susceptible people and cause diarrhea and other issues. Tolerance to different fats is something to experiment with. The goal is to stick with mostly saturated and monounsaturated fat sources while avoiding PUFA. A good guideline to shoot for with fats is to keep polyunsaturated fats (PUFA) to about 4g/2000kcal and in as close to a 10:1 ratio of saturated: Polyunsaturated fats as you can (This can be easily seen in cronometer).
*Fiber: At least 15g a day. Fiber is important for the bowel and helpful for keeping regular. However, the correct fiber is necessary. The wrong fibers cause bacterial issues, the correct types help keep the bowel in good shape. Good fiber sources are of course carrots, whole fruits, well cooked mushrooms, and boiled bamboo shoots. I personally stick with raw carrots, whole fruits and sometimes well cooked mushrooms. I often exceed 20-25g per day due to the fruit. I have never tried boiled bamboo shoots.
3) Meal timing:
Many people come to peat and thing snacking all day is ideal, only later to develop GI issues, and weight gain. I think sticking to 3-4 meals a day is best from a logistics standpoint, and a digestive standpoint. There is a complex in the GI tract called the migrating motor complex (MMC) which is a series of rhythmic muscular contractions that push the contents of the intestine along down to the colon and out of the body. Every time you eat the cycle is interrupted and begins a new. The cycle runs for about 3 hours, so I think its best to leave around 3 hours between meals. That being said if you are hungry I would go ahead and eat. Again this is just a starting guideline. Also, keep in mind too much fat or too little fat can effect the length of digestion. So using that to your advantage can help out, like increasing fat content of a meal before bed to stretch out that meal over night.
4) Macro nutrient division across the day:
Some people like to eat different macros nutrients at different times, like carbs in the morning and meat/ fat at night. I think to start, dividing the total amount of protein you are going to eat between the number of meals you have is ideal and doing the same for fats and carbs. This is just to establish a baseline. It can obviously be experimented with from there, for example increasing carbs after a workout to take advantage of the training effect, while lowering fat before a workout to allow the meal to digest quicker so you don't wind up burping endlessly while you workout. Also, as perviously mentioned increasing fat at night can stretch a meal throughout the night, keeping blood sugar stable for longer.
5) Macro division in a meal:
This is my personal experience but I find eating fruit/ juice/ starches first, then waiting 15 minutes and then eating the meat and fat last optimizes digestion as the fruit/ juice and starches often digest rapidly and the meat and fat often slow down digestion. By eating the fruit/ juice/ and starches first they can be digested quickly and not bogged down by the meat and fat.
6) Example:
*4 meals a day template:
**meal 1: 8AM
-3 eggs
-10g tallow
-16oz orange juice
-4oz of jackfruit
-1 large raw carrot
**meal 2: 12PM
-4 oz beef
-20g tallow
-16oz pineapple juice
-4oz of cherimoya pulp
-1 large raw yellow carrot
**meal 3: 4PM
-4 oz beef
-20g tallow
-16oz pineapple juice
-8oz of grapes
**meal 4: 8PM
-4 oz shrimp
-25g tallow
-16oz grape juice
-4oz of dragon fruit
-40z cherries
In this example the only food that needs to be cooked is the protein. I usually cook 4 meals worth of shrimp, and 4 meals worth of beef at one time and keep it in the fridge ready to go. I warm them up with the desired amount of fat when I'm ready to eat. Thus, the prep time is minimal overall. Adding starches will increase prep time but not too much because they can be cooked in bulk using a rice cooker or a pressure cooker.
@Blossom
@charlie
@Giraffe
I was thinking of making this a sticky at the top of the forum or a something that we could give to all beginners to start to try to avoid some of the issues. The post is a draft, I have to add more to it especially with some input from others, but I think we need something like this so we don't have people coming to the forum and hurting themselves. Let me know what you guys think. I want to add some references and pictures from cronometer for people as well.
Before I get to the template, something must be kept in mind. The basis of Ray's work centers around William Blake's idea:
"The true method of knowledge is experiment"
and also Ray's iconic phrase:
"Percieve. Think. Act."
With these concepts the basic idea is to first be aware of yourself and continue to do so as the basis of your experiences going forward. From there the point is to find/ come across/ think about/ principles and knowledge, assess them from a rational/ logical/ esperiential point of view, and then test them out through experimentation. Once you experiment, the goal is to continually be aware of yourself as you experiment, so that you can gain experience/ knowledge/ wisdom from the experiment from which to build upon and move forward. The process is continual and circular, never ending, but the basis remains the same, awareness of yourself and your experiences as the basis. This awareness is not neccesarily what you think but what you experience, the sensations, mental states, energy level, bowel movements, libido, emotional reactivity etc. that you experience. Be aware of all of it, don't discount any possible experience with logic, give it time to play out and just observe. Formulate logical/ rational hypothesis later, but keep in mind they are just hypothesis and theories, not neccesarily reality yet. Rationality/ logic can often be abstractions of the experience, so pure observation is a neccesary first and continual step.
With the above said it is necessary to have a baseline with which to begin your experimentation, the goal of this post is to provide you with that baseline. This guidelines here are rough guidelines based on my experience and research to give new followers of peat's principles a place to anchor themselves from which to experiment with future nuanced aspects. The goal is for the baseline dietary template to be as safe as possible from an allergen, irritant, anti-nutrient and additive perspective, while providing solid nutrition. The guide will show you how to set up a diet including calories, macros, micros, food choices, and meal structure. Again this is purely a baseline, modifications are expected to come as you experiment in a relatively controlled fashion. Too many people don't understand how to properly experiment and they wind up hurting themselves, especially on this forum. Then they wind up rationalizing the things they have done to themselves, rather than learning the lesson. The goal is to avoid this.
So, this is a baseline dietary structure, from here a singular new component of the diet can be played depending on what you fancy, but it should be a SINGULAR component. Also, the experiment should go for a reasonable period of time, such as a week or two AT MOST. Many people across numerous dietary forums try implementing something, get a negative effect and rationalize the issue away, only to then claim "healing effects" and increase what they are doing even more. With kept this starts as going low carb, and progresses to zero carb once issues ensue. With vegetarians it starts as avoidance of all animal foods except eggs and milk, maybe seafood and then becomes veganism. With peat diets it starts as increasing dairy and sugar considerably to going to an all milk, sugar and OJ diet. The results, time and time again with these experiments is the person ******* themselves up, rationalizing for a while and then turning around and switching to a new paradigm to repeat the process over, like going from vegan to carnivore, or low carb to peat. Or the person hurts themself, recognizes it, accepts it and now has to undue the damage. We can avoid both these situations, and still find out what works for us with a consistent, slow, conscious, aware, observant, rational, approach.
*Before beginning, downloading the app cronometer is recommended to track calories, macros and micros. It is recommended to make either a 3 day or one week template of what you plan to eat in the app using the guidelines below. The template created in cronometer is a rough guideline, it can be edited as you go and adjust, no need to create new days, just go back to the days you already made and update them. The template is helpful to give a ballpark of whats needed to meet your calories, macronutrients, micronutrients, portion sizes and how much food to buy when you go to the store. The goal is not to micromanage in cronometer, the goal is to use the app to aid in making your life easier. If you find yourself micromanaging your PUFA intake or making sure your phosphorous is in perfect ratio with your calcium, your doing it wrong. The app is for convenience, not migraine induction, not anal retentiveness and definitely not perfectionism.
With that said here is the guidelines and principles:
1) Calories: To determine your caloric requirements use the Katch-Mccardle metabolic calculator with the activity multipliers:
*formula:
basal metabolic rate= 370 + (21.6 x (lean body mass in Kg))
lean body mass= (bodyweight in kilograms) - ((body fat %) x bodyweight in kilograms)
*activity multipliers:
1.2x BMR= inactive (little to no movement or exercise)
1.4x BMR= low activity (exercise 1-3x per week, light daily activity)
1.6x BMR= moderate activity (exercise 3-5x per week, moderate daily activity)
1.8x BMR= high activity (exercise more than 5x per week, heavy labor job)
2.0x BMR= intense activity (daily exercise and a heavy labor job)
2) Macros:
*Protein: (about 15-20% calories) .6-.8g/lb. Protein should be on the higher end if you are active, or you are older. Protein sources should be from ruminant meat (beef, bison, lamb, goat), specific seafood (shrimp, scallops, cod, sole, oysters, mussels, clams), pasture raised eggs, very lean 99% chicken/ turkey/ fowl (These are very lean because they are high in polyunsaturated fats if not).
As you can see Dairy is not on the list above. The reason why is because it is often an issue for many people due to allergy, the opiate effect, and the hormones. Certain people just never do well with dairy. Thus, I don't think people should avoid it, only avoid it to start. Like the starch below, I would start with the basic template and then experiment with adding these things in.
*Carbs: (about 40-60% calories) carbs should be at least 2x the amount of protein. Carbs can be more, these depend on you. The safest and best sources of carbs are fruits and 100% fruit juice. These fruits and juices should be low in fodmaps to start and have close to a 1:1 ratio of glucose to fructose as many people don't process fodmaps well and don't handle fructose well in excess of glucose, both from a digestive standpoint. The safe juices include orange, pineapple, pomegranate, grape, tangerine, coconut water, cacao juice, cranberry juice, blueberry juice. Good fruits are cherimoya, soursop, grapes, oranges, lemons, blueberries, raspberries, raisins, papayas, jackfruit, acerola, dragon fruit, pineapples, passion fruit, guava, strawberries, kiwis, peaches, nectarines, plums, pomegranates.
Possibly irritating fruits include: well cooked ripe bananas, well cooked ripe apples/ pears, watermelon, mangos, cherries, sapotes.
As you can see starches aren't present in the above to start. Starches can be eaten but I would recommend leaving them out to start especially if you know you have a gut issue. That being said the safest starches are tubers such as potatoes, yams, and sweet potatoes, and white rice. Boiling starches is a necessity as baked starches can persorb across the intestinal epithelial and cause issues down the line. The skins of tubers should also be removed. I would recommend placing starches as one of the first things that are experimented with. After starches I would then move to dairy.
*Fats: (about 25%-40% calories) Fats are harder to pin down for how much to eat. Many things effect need for fats in the diet and how much someone tolerates. I personally find 20-25g of fat in a meal to be ideal for me. Too little and I'm hungry fast, i get brain fog overtime from being to low fat consistently and my libido, muscle tone and other hormonal factors take a negative hit. Too much and I'm full for way to long, my appetite goes away and I get indigestion. Sources for fats are ruminant meats and tallows, chocolate, cocoa butter, butter, and coconut oil. A word on coconut oil and butter. Butter can be very high in hormones and can lead to hairloss, acne, dandruff and other issues if large quantities are eaten over an extended period of time in susceptible people. Coconut oil can irritate the intestine in susceptible people and cause diarrhea and other issues. Tolerance to different fats is something to experiment with. The goal is to stick with mostly saturated and monounsaturated fat sources while avoiding PUFA. A good guideline to shoot for with fats is to keep polyunsaturated fats (PUFA) to about 4g/2000kcal and in as close to a 10:1 ratio of saturated: Polyunsaturated fats as you can (This can be easily seen in cronometer).
*Fiber: At least 15g a day. Fiber is important for the bowel and helpful for keeping regular. However, the correct fiber is necessary. The wrong fibers cause bacterial issues, the correct types help keep the bowel in good shape. Good fiber sources are of course carrots, whole fruits, well cooked mushrooms, and boiled bamboo shoots. I personally stick with raw carrots, whole fruits and sometimes well cooked mushrooms. I often exceed 20-25g per day due to the fruit. I have never tried boiled bamboo shoots.
3) Meal timing:
Many people come to peat and thing snacking all day is ideal, only later to develop GI issues, and weight gain. I think sticking to 3-4 meals a day is best from a logistics standpoint, and a digestive standpoint. There is a complex in the GI tract called the migrating motor complex (MMC) which is a series of rhythmic muscular contractions that push the contents of the intestine along down to the colon and out of the body. Every time you eat the cycle is interrupted and begins a new. The cycle runs for about 3 hours, so I think its best to leave around 3 hours between meals. That being said if you are hungry I would go ahead and eat. Again this is just a starting guideline. Also, keep in mind too much fat or too little fat can effect the length of digestion. So using that to your advantage can help out, like increasing fat content of a meal before bed to stretch out that meal over night.
4) Macro nutrient division across the day:
Some people like to eat different macros nutrients at different times, like carbs in the morning and meat/ fat at night. I think to start, dividing the total amount of protein you are going to eat between the number of meals you have is ideal and doing the same for fats and carbs. This is just to establish a baseline. It can obviously be experimented with from there, for example increasing carbs after a workout to take advantage of the training effect, while lowering fat before a workout to allow the meal to digest quicker so you don't wind up burping endlessly while you workout. Also, as perviously mentioned increasing fat at night can stretch a meal throughout the night, keeping blood sugar stable for longer.
5) Macro division in a meal:
This is my personal experience but I find eating fruit/ juice/ starches first, then waiting 15 minutes and then eating the meat and fat last optimizes digestion as the fruit/ juice and starches often digest rapidly and the meat and fat often slow down digestion. By eating the fruit/ juice/ and starches first they can be digested quickly and not bogged down by the meat and fat.
6) Example:
*4 meals a day template:
**meal 1: 8AM
-3 eggs
-10g tallow
-16oz orange juice
-4oz of jackfruit
-1 large raw carrot
**meal 2: 12PM
-4 oz beef
-20g tallow
-16oz pineapple juice
-4oz of cherimoya pulp
-1 large raw yellow carrot
**meal 3: 4PM
-4 oz beef
-20g tallow
-16oz pineapple juice
-8oz of grapes
**meal 4: 8PM
-4 oz shrimp
-25g tallow
-16oz grape juice
-4oz of dragon fruit
-40z cherries
In this example the only food that needs to be cooked is the protein. I usually cook 4 meals worth of shrimp, and 4 meals worth of beef at one time and keep it in the fridge ready to go. I warm them up with the desired amount of fat when I'm ready to eat. Thus, the prep time is minimal overall. Adding starches will increase prep time but not too much because they can be cooked in bulk using a rice cooker or a pressure cooker.
@Blossom
@charlie
@Giraffe
I was thinking of making this a sticky at the top of the forum or a something that we could give to all beginners to start to try to avoid some of the issues. The post is a draft, I have to add more to it especially with some input from others, but I think we need something like this so we don't have people coming to the forum and hurting themselves. Let me know what you guys think. I want to add some references and pictures from cronometer for people as well.
Last edited: