DrJ from Cali

DrJ

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Greetings!

I've been visiting the forum anonymously for a while now to gather info, but thought I would finally join and say "hi!"

I've been doing Peat now for a little over a year (since April 2014), and it has been very good to me. I'm in my early 30s. When I started my temp was pretty low, around 94.5F. I think I wrecked my metabolism with a go at the "intermittent fasting" routine. Now, I keep a 97-97.4F. I'd like to get above 98F, but I have to say, I no longer feel cold, my hands and feet don't feel cold, and I now go without a jacket on my morning dog walks where I always used to need one. Feeling cold has been a chronic problem for me since high school.

I was always terrified of taking aspirin because of stories I'd been told. I first started taking just an 81mg aspirin, and then would watch my temp rise by about 1F within 30 minutes, and that's how I realized Peat was on to something. So I experimented, changed my diet, tried more aspirin, and was able to get my temp to rise further. I really admired how I had at least some sort of way to get feedback and measure the results aside from more subjective feelings. But indeed now I don't regularly take aspirin since I seem to have stabilized a higher temp.

I've had two major benefits besides the not being cold thing perhaps worth mentioning if it would help others.

First, I've always had a pretty troublesome digestive system. I wouldn't call it debilitating, but it would definitely affect my mood and lifestyle. For example, when I would have an upcoming international flight, I would plan days in advance and start eating only fruits and fluids, and pretty much fast the day of flight, otherwise I could expect a miserable time in transit. Also, when my gut wasn't right, which was often, I would just want to stay in and avoid the world and social interaction in general.

Needless to say, gut problems had led me to try many different diets. Vegetarianism, veganism, raw veganism, paleo, and intermittent fasting. Nothing really worked, although I will say that for the first 3-4 months intermittent fasting, I felt mostly great. I think I now realize that this was mostly adrenaline since my glycogen stores were tapped out, and when I finally broke my adrenals after months of doing that, I didn't feel so awesome. After a year plus of doing Peat, and still feeling great, I think it's safe to say it's working pretty well.

I came to realize that fiber was probably the main problem (to say nothing of PUFA), and once I realized the effect wasn't immediate, I was able to figure out that -at least for me - the problems (grumpiness, lethargy, brain fog, social anxiety) would come 24-36 hours after a medium- to high-fiber meal. Of course, now I realize that is likely related to serotonin production, and that seems to explain the poor mood and mild to moderate social anxiety.

Now, I eat as low fiber as possible, which I realize is inherent in Peat-y foods except carrot. But I think also eating has a significant social component, so in social situations, I just aim for the "least evil." I feel I'm actually pretty good at "secret Peating" - grabbing a milkshake at a burger joint (hold the 'whipped topping" air PUFAs), cheese plate at fancy place, etc. I find I can deal with a pint of cider (probably the high sugar helps mitigate the alcohol component and I slip an aspirin to turn the sugar burning up), and the white no-fiber breads if needed. I do have a hard time totally avoiding carageenan, but I can't detect major problems from it at the levels I get it.

The second big thing for me was that I always had a problem with smoking. When I was a young punk, I thought it was real cool to smoke. I would pay good money to go back and slap young me. I managed to mostly quit after college, 1-6 months at a time depending on the situation, but stress would trigger a smoking relapse.

It was particularly problematic in grad school. It's hard to explain a nicotine addiction, except that it's like this nagging but "un-pinpointable" urge that's hard to fight because it has no 'face' to confront if that makes any sense, and I hope you never have to make sense of it. Taking pregnenolone absolutely and utterly shut that urge down to my complete surprise. Like absolute zero urge, and a feeling that smoking is "gross" which is a remarkable thing if you've experienced a smoking addiction, when it seems more like haute cuisine.

I later came here to the forum where someone had posted that nicotine stimulates thyroid, so smoking addiction cold be a sign of low thyroid, and pregnenolone supports/mildly mimics thyroid (sorry don't have link). I still take about 300mg pregnenolone/week which may seem high, but I have a high-stress job, so I think it takes more to overcome the cortisol. And I feel no stress, just this sort of calm euphoria, and I can tell it drives my co-workers nuts, hehe. I also credit this with maintaining a higher temp.

I've made a few mistakes worth mentioning. I initially hit the ice cream too hard b/c I thought it was so awesome I could eat it and gained a few pounds. I cut back a bit on that to more low-fat dairy products and am back to a "lean" weight. Also, once I realized I could take aspirin and measure the temp rise, I started taking a lot, sort of as a game. This caused my gums to bleed, and it seems that aspirin wastes vitamin C (scurvy-ish), so I started taking a Vit. C supp and cut back the aspirin, and gum bleeding stopped.

OH, and one other weird thing. I can now look at the sun without pain. I'm not recommending you try this, even if you've been Peat-ing a while, since I have no idea what sunlight is like in your part of the globe, but here in the sunny East Bay I opened my eyes while laying out for vitamin D about a month ago and realized I could look at it, and it didn't hurt. Probably a low PUFA thing since I've been low-PUFA for a good year. And probably won't impress anyone :)

That's about it! Thanks for reading!
 

jyb

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Nov 9, 2012
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DrJ said:
I've made a few mistakes worth mentioning. I initially hit the ice cream too hard b/c I thought it was so awesome I could eat it and gained a few pounds. I cut back a bit on that to more low-fat dairy products and am back to a "lean" weight. Also, once I realized I could take aspirin and measure the temp rise, I started taking a lot, sort of as a game. This caused my gums to bleed, and it seems that aspirin wastes vitamin C (scurvy-ish), so I started taking a Vit. C supp and cut back the aspirin, and gum bleeding stopped.

Aspirin depletes K2 directly and a standard side effect is bleeding from gums or nose, so supplementing it becomes important if you're a regular aspirin user.
 

schultz

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Jul 29, 2014
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2,653
DrJ said:
I've made a few mistakes worth mentioning. I initially hit the ice cream too hard b/c I thought it was so awesome I could eat it and gained a few pounds. I cut back a bit on that to more low-fat dairy products and am back to a "lean" weight. Also, once I realized I could take aspirin and measure the temp rise, I started taking a lot, sort of as a game. This caused my gums to bleed, and it seems that aspirin wastes vitamin C (scurvy-ish), so I started taking a Vit. C supp and cut back the aspirin, and gum bleeding stopped.

I've never had my gums bleed from aspirin so I am curious about it. Do you drink orange juice? Vitamin C seems like such an easy vitamin to get, so it's pretty surprising that you would develop a deficiency, even with the aspirin. I'm guessing you've researched the vitamin C thing, so does aspirin just impede absorption of vitamin c?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6811490
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1287025


DrJ said:
OH, and one other weird thing. I can now look at the sun without pain. I'm not recommending you try this, even if you've been Peat-ing a while, since I have no idea what sunlight is like in your part of the globe, but here in the sunny East Bay I opened my eyes while laying out for vitamin D about a month ago and realized I could look at it, and it didn't hurt. Probably a low PUFA thing since I've been low-PUFA for a good year. And probably won't impress anyone :)

Cool!
 

tara

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Joined
Mar 29, 2014
Messages
10,368
:welcome DrJ
 

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