Twohandsondeck
Member
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2019
- Messages
- 809
Hey guys,
In my head this is a 1+1=2 anecdote, but it requires a few sentences of context.
Summarized conclusion: about 450 calories of 100% dark chocolate reversed symptoms of fatigue and lack of motivation.
___________
For the last few weeks, something like 80% of my calories have come from store-bought, pasteurized whole milk. The rest is amounted to lean meats, fruit or fruit juice, a few combined servings of liver or oysters, bone broth, and a handful of meals with a rice or bread added (didn't keep either of these for more than a few days because of obvious digestive upset).
Also I have been drinking quite a bit (compared to average citizens but maybe not the RPF member lol) of coffee almost every day. 60 ounces some days, 20 ounces others. Averaging about 40 ounces/day.
Digestion, mental clarity, workout potential have been great when relying on milk most of the day with occasional fruit juice and 1/2-3/4lb lean meat at one serving.
HOWEVER, in the last 5 days, I started to run into a fatigue wall. Waking up feeling like I hadn't slept, motivation in the dumpster, etc. A few hours after a meat meal I'd get some energy back and quickly spend it on the gym/intellectual work... But despite staying full and definitely getting enough calories, I lost a lot of momentum.
At first I thought it was overtraining... But rest and calorie surpluses just progressively got to a point where it wasn't cutting it.
THEN I started to (I'd say 50% of the time, not every single time but...) get cold hands & feet 20 minutes after drinking an appreciable amount of milk by itself or even with fruit or fruit juice at the same time. Occasionally it would even give me symptoms of insulin spiking with a suddenly huge urge to take a nap.
Essentially I chalked my feelings and perceived responses to anemia. No blood tests or anything, it just lined up perfectly in accordance with how things have been. I figure the severe lack of motivation indicated a lack of dopamine as well.
It's like... Milk and coffee prevent iron absorption and that's most of my diet... I'm having red meat once every four days or so (I wouldn't mind eating it every day it's just that every time I've tried to make a daily portion it flares my psoriasis) and I'm also not having large amounts of vitamin C every day either.
I'm fully aware of the bound/unbound iron issue, that most people have way too much as it is, and that iron itself is a likely driver of inflamm-aging, but based on the few basic points I just mentioned in combination with other points I won't belabor here - spleen pain, skin diseases as blood/circulation problems, an intense metal detox protocol experience using binders + sauna use, much intestinal shedding from dysbiosis rehabilitation, and a "qi deficient" tongue diagnosis - I was pretty confident that an iron source besides red meat would have a marked effect.
The apparent dopamine problem made me believe that the chocolate would also help in that regard and...
Yeah. After feeling really lethargic for the past week, a bar of unsweetened baking chocolate brought me back to life in 5 minutes. Feeling 5 times better than I have in the last 7 days.
I've had separate, similar experiences of revitalization in the past with water, salt, fruit, carrot or celery juice, shilajit, and whole-food vitamin C.
This time I think it was iron and magnesium that had been run down, but it's all speculation.
For the record, when I had severe gut dysbiosis, chocolate caused inflammatory symptoms. Now it's fine, but I'm not going to abuse it.
In my head this is a 1+1=2 anecdote, but it requires a few sentences of context.
Summarized conclusion: about 450 calories of 100% dark chocolate reversed symptoms of fatigue and lack of motivation.
___________
For the last few weeks, something like 80% of my calories have come from store-bought, pasteurized whole milk. The rest is amounted to lean meats, fruit or fruit juice, a few combined servings of liver or oysters, bone broth, and a handful of meals with a rice or bread added (didn't keep either of these for more than a few days because of obvious digestive upset).
Also I have been drinking quite a bit (compared to average citizens but maybe not the RPF member lol) of coffee almost every day. 60 ounces some days, 20 ounces others. Averaging about 40 ounces/day.
Digestion, mental clarity, workout potential have been great when relying on milk most of the day with occasional fruit juice and 1/2-3/4lb lean meat at one serving.
HOWEVER, in the last 5 days, I started to run into a fatigue wall. Waking up feeling like I hadn't slept, motivation in the dumpster, etc. A few hours after a meat meal I'd get some energy back and quickly spend it on the gym/intellectual work... But despite staying full and definitely getting enough calories, I lost a lot of momentum.
At first I thought it was overtraining... But rest and calorie surpluses just progressively got to a point where it wasn't cutting it.
THEN I started to (I'd say 50% of the time, not every single time but...) get cold hands & feet 20 minutes after drinking an appreciable amount of milk by itself or even with fruit or fruit juice at the same time. Occasionally it would even give me symptoms of insulin spiking with a suddenly huge urge to take a nap.
Essentially I chalked my feelings and perceived responses to anemia. No blood tests or anything, it just lined up perfectly in accordance with how things have been. I figure the severe lack of motivation indicated a lack of dopamine as well.
It's like... Milk and coffee prevent iron absorption and that's most of my diet... I'm having red meat once every four days or so (I wouldn't mind eating it every day it's just that every time I've tried to make a daily portion it flares my psoriasis) and I'm also not having large amounts of vitamin C every day either.
I'm fully aware of the bound/unbound iron issue, that most people have way too much as it is, and that iron itself is a likely driver of inflamm-aging, but based on the few basic points I just mentioned in combination with other points I won't belabor here - spleen pain, skin diseases as blood/circulation problems, an intense metal detox protocol experience using binders + sauna use, much intestinal shedding from dysbiosis rehabilitation, and a "qi deficient" tongue diagnosis - I was pretty confident that an iron source besides red meat would have a marked effect.
The apparent dopamine problem made me believe that the chocolate would also help in that regard and...
Yeah. After feeling really lethargic for the past week, a bar of unsweetened baking chocolate brought me back to life in 5 minutes. Feeling 5 times better than I have in the last 7 days.
I've had separate, similar experiences of revitalization in the past with water, salt, fruit, carrot or celery juice, shilajit, and whole-food vitamin C.
This time I think it was iron and magnesium that had been run down, but it's all speculation.
For the record, when I had severe gut dysbiosis, chocolate caused inflammatory symptoms. Now it's fine, but I'm not going to abuse it.