Ray Peat Is Fine With Up To 30% Of Calories From Saturated Fat

[Sulcuscentralis]

Many on this forum don't realize that the fatty acid metabolism that Peat references is only in the context of not eating enough and not eating frequently which encourages the catabolic metabolic (that uses your own fatty acids and sometimes your own amino acids) adaptation which causes much illness. Carbs protect against the ills caused by fasting (starving) state ((to some extent)) and not eating enough , but consuming fats does not contribute to these degenerative diseases. Almost every centenarian eats a high fat diet. Even just a hundred years ago in my family's home town where people frequently lived to 100-110 WHILE taking care of themselves, they ate high fat high carb moderate-low protein (mostly from raw eggs, and some meat and some blood). Starvation is the real killer, and every disease stems from it.

Yes - okinavans eat fatty pork pretty much everyday, contrary to the popular belief that their diet is mostly sweet potatoes. They eat liver too if I'm not mistaken,

 

[damngoodcoffee]

Check out what Ray says about digesting fat in this clip:


PS: Such a classic RPF topic of debate, warms my heart.

 

[Maljam]

Check out what Ray says about digesting fat in this clip:


PS: Such a classic RPF topic of debate, warms my heart.

Digesting fat and protein causes anxiety and stress? I don't understand where he is going with this, he has regularly recommended nutritious fatty foods such as egg yolks for stress and has mentioned a protein deficiency as a cause of anxiety and regularly talks about the important of protein in health. He mentions protein drops blood sugar so is he talking about each of their effects in isolation, rather than as part of a mixed meal?

 

[Tristan Loscha]

Check out what Ray says about digesting fat in this clip:


PS: Such a classic RPF topic of debate, warms my heart.

I have to say that i consume a ketogenic diet since 2 -3 months and it is very anxiolytic and anticatabolic, very anti stress. My muscle hardness increased, despite presumably lowered glycogen.

 

[rei]

Indeed you need enough good fats, from good sources. Indeed people here seem to focus too much on the sugar. I would aim at 30%, not think of it as upper limit. The more you exercise, the more you need carbs in proportion.

I think RP might be slightly cautious with the fat % because it is so difficult to ensure you consume a good source. Adding tablespoons of coconut oil to every food is not very healthy, but do the same with tallow and you will be on fire. We seriously underestimate the power of long chained saturated fat when combined with the vitamins and other nutrients they come with in natural form.

 

[Jessie]

I have to say that i consume a ketogenic diet since 2 -3 months and it is very anxiolytic and anticatabolic, very anti stress. My muscle hardness increased, despite presumably lowered glycogen.

stress hormones. It can take up to a year before you start feeling bad on ketosis. Maybe longer, depending on how sensitive you are to the catecholamines. It took me about 18-20 months, a little shy of 2 years, to start feeling really bad. I felt a little "off" much earlier, but it got worse later

 

[Jessie]

If someone is going to do ketosis, it shouldn't last longer then 4-6 months tops. That would mimic the natural starvation cycle our bodies are evolutionarily adapted to. After the frost melts and trees started budding, we typically always came out of ketosis. Even the Inuit ate enough protein to fuel glucose metabolism. Staying in ketosis longer then a few months is unphysiological.

 

[Tristan Loscha]

stress hormones. It can take up to a year before you start feeling bad on ketosis. Maybe longer, depending on how sensitive you are to the catecholamines. It took me about 18-20 months, a little shy of 2 years, to start feeling really bad. I felt a little "off" much earlier, but it got worse later

very interesting. If you find the time, can you elaborate on your diet at the time, Fooditems, CHO and Fat amounts, supplements? What were your symptoms and signs, why did you started keto.

 

[Maljam]

If someone is going to do ketosis, it shouldn't last longer then 4-6 months tops. That would mimic the natural starvation cycle our bodies are evolutionarily adapted to. After the frost melts and trees started budding, we typically always came out of ketosis. Even the Inuit ate enough protein to fuel glucose metabolism. Staying in ketosis longer then a few months is unphysiological.

Completely agree, long term ketosis seems to be more harmful than beneficial.

 

[Tristan Loscha]

Completely agree, long term ketosis seems to be more harmful than beneficial.

What are the mechanisms behind it, it seems to be atleast above SAD or western pattern dieting, which is high Carb and high sedentation.

 

[Maljam]

What are the mechanisms behind it, it seems to be atleast above SAD or western pattern dieting, which is high Carb and high sedentation.

I was mainly talking about my personal experiences, like Jessie was. However the Perfect Health Diet guys did a few articles on the downsides of low carb diets that are worth a read. I agree high carb low activity is bad too, but I am not sure we should be deciding between which of the two is worse between a ketosis diet and SAD when sensible use of carbs in relation to activity avoids the pitfalls of both.

Dangers of Zero-Carb Diets, II: Mucus Deficiency and Gastrointestinal Cancers - Perfect Health Diet | Perfect Health Diet

 

[Jessie]

very interesting. If you find the time, can you elaborate on your diet at the time, Fooditems, CHO and Fat amounts, supplements? What were your symptoms and signs, why did you started keto.

I started keto because I thought I had a candida overgrowth. I thought stopping the sugar would result in it going away, turns out I probably just had bacterial overgrowth. Not that I knew it at the time, but the whole "candida" thing is majorly pushed in low carb circles for justifying the abstinence of sugar. Not saying it's impossible to get it, but I feel it's used as a scapegoat for other far more complexed problems.

My foods were beef, bacon, butter, ghee, duck fat, roasted chickens, coconut oil, eggs, liver, broccoli, brussle sprouts, onions, asparagus, artichokes, turnips, almond butter, and pumpkin seeds. Probably a few more things I haven't thought of, but this was the gist of it. From a nutritional standpoint, my diet was very dense in nutrition. I experimented with different supplements, only thing consistent was vitamin D. I used reshi mushroom for a bit too, but discontinued it after the effects began to diminish (it was helping me sleep). I actually tried tryptophan for a few weeks too, lol.

I can't remember the exact amounts of fat I was eating, but it was really high. I was eating at least 65-70% of my calories from fat. I felt fine for the first 3-4 months, but I noticed I had infrequent bouts of sleeping problems (insomnia). And this never went away no matter what I did, and eventually they started to become more and more frequent. Which is why I started experimenting with herbal adpatagens like reshi, and then later the tryptophan. After the insomnia progressed, it got to a point where I was becoming irritable.

I eventually broke down and decided to go to the doctor, which I hated doing. But I told them about my sleeping problem and she prescribed me Paxil (a f**king SSRI drug!). But I was borderline desperate at this point, because I just wanted better sleep. Nothing changed much for the first few days, but after about a week or so on the dosing cycle, I took a major turn for the worse. I started hyperventilating, having continuous panic attacks one right after the other, crazy heart palpitations and didn't sleep at all. I immediately discontinued the Paxil because I was sure it cause me these problems. But even after discontinuing, the hyperventalation didn't go away.

And that s**t was rough, having to deal with the struggles of everyday life added to the fact I'm literally focusing on my breathing every second of everyday. I had some follow up appointments to address my doctor about this issue, but they never did find anything wrong with me. I had high BP at the time, so they ran a EKG just to make sure I didn't have a heart problem (breathing difficulties is frequently reported in heart issues). But everything checked out good. And you have no idea how frustrating that is to get a "clean bill of health" yet feel so terrible at the same time.

To make matters worse, at literally no point, did I ever consider it was my damn diet. I was forced to endure this hypervent problem for several months later. Things eventually took a sudden and abrupt change for me when I had a slightly higher amount of carbs one day. I ended up having a baked potato with a steak one night, and noticed my breathing improved drastically. I was completely dumbfounded as to why, but I knew it was very clear the only thing different was I had carbohydrate. That kind of opened the door into me eventually ditching low carb. I didn't know where to start, so I just started looking up all the "anti-low carb stuff," lol. I eventually found Peat's work the following months.

Knowing what I know now, I'm pretty sure my problems were low CO2, chronic high lactate, chronic high serotonin, and bacterial overgrowth. And there was no chance in hell any doctor was going to help me with those problems, haha.

 

[Tristan Loscha]

@Jessie good that you recovered majorily! Interesting, i am still curious what ketogenic dieting will do to me lol!

 

[Tristan Loscha]

I was mainly talking about my personal experiences, like Jessie was. However the Perfect Health Diet guys did a few articles on the downsides of low carb diets that are worth a read. I agree high carb low activity is bad too, but I am not sure we should be deciding between which of the two is worse between a ketosis diet and SAD when sensible use of carbs in relation to activity avoids the pitfalls of both.

Dangers of Zero-Carb Diets, II: Mucus Deficiency and Gastrointestinal Cancers - Perfect Health Diet | Perfect Health Diet

Thank you for the high quality link Maljam! Paul Jaminet is a voice of reason in the health scene, and his input is valued.

 

[Jessie]

@Tristan Loscha All I can say is be mindful of how you feel. Take notes of the little things, even something as little as the occasional bad night of sleep. Especially if it becomes more frequent, because that's how it all started for me.

I did have a few pros while being in ketosis. I noticed my vascularity was much more pronounced, especially after workouts. My veins would be jotted as hell, and I liked that. I've been able to duplicate that by soaking in epsom salt and baking soda.

I also noticed lots of mental clarity in the beginning, but that ended up fading away, and got so bad I eventually couldn't concentrate on any one thing for longer then about 10 minutes without losing focus. I guess it had something to do with my sensitivity to adrenaline, and then as time went by, I slowly became more and more desensitized to it's effects.

 

[Maljam]

I started keto because I thought I had a candida overgrowth. I thought stopping the sugar would result in it going away, turns out I probably just had bacterial overgrowth. Not that I knew it at the time, but the whole "candida" thing is majorly pushed in low carb circles for justifying the abstinence of sugar. Not saying it's impossible to get it, but I feel it's used as a scapegoat for other far more complexed problems.

My foods were beef, bacon, butter, ghee, duck fat, roasted chickens, coconut oil, eggs, liver, broccoli, brussle sprouts, onions, asparagus, artichokes, turnips, almond butter, and pumpkin seeds. Probably a few more things I haven't thought of, but this was the gist of it. From a nutritional standpoint, my diet was very dense in nutrition. I experimented with different supplements, only thing consistent was vitamin D. I used reshi mushroom for a bit too, but discontinued it after the effects began to diminish (it was helping me sleep). I actually tried tryptophan for a few weeks too, lol.

I can't remember the exact amounts of fat I was eating, but it was really high. I was eating at least 65-70% of my calories from fat. I felt fine for the first 3-4 months, but I noticed I had infrequent bouts of sleeping problems (insomnia). And this never went away no matter what I did, and eventually they started to become more and more frequent. Which is why I started experimenting with herbal adpatagens like reshi, and then later the tryptophan. After the insomnia progressed, it got to a point where I was becoming irritable.

I eventually broke down and decided to go to the doctor, which I hated doing. But I told them about my sleeping problem and she prescribed me Paxil (a f**king SSRI drug!). But I was borderline desperate at this point, because I just wanted better sleep. Nothing changed much for the first few days, but after about a week or so on the dosing cycle, I took a major turn for the worse. I started hyperventilating, having continuous panic attacks one right after the other, crazy heart palpitations and didn't sleep at all. I immediately discontinued the Paxil because I was sure it cause me these problems. But even after discontinuing, the hyperventalation didn't go away.

And that s**t was rough, having to deal with the struggles of everyday life added to the fact I'm literally focusing on my breathing every second of everyday. I had some follow up appointments to address my doctor about this issue, but they never did find anything wrong with me. I had high BP at the time, so they ran a EKG just to make sure I didn't have a heart problem (breathing difficulties is frequently reported in heart issues). But everything checked out good. And you have no idea how frustrating that is to get a "clean bill of health" yet feel so terrible at the same time.

To make matters worse, at literally no point, did I ever consider it was my damn diet. I was forced to endure this hypervent problem for several months later. Things eventually took a sudden and abrupt change for me when I had a slightly higher amount of carbs one day. I ended up having a baked potato with a steak one night, and noticed my breathing improved drastically. I was completely dumbfounded as to why, but I knew it was very clear the only thing different was I had carbohydrate. That kind of opened the door into me eventually ditching low carb. I didn't know where to start, so I just started looking up all the "anti-low carb stuff," lol. I eventually found Peat's work the following months.

Knowing what I know now, I'm pretty sure my problems were low CO2, chronic high lactate, chronic high serotonin, and bacterial overgrowth. And there was no chance in hell any doctor was going to help me with those problems, haha.

Sorry to hear all that. It is also typical of doctors to prescribe SSRI. Especially in the modern world with so many different diets on the internet I think doctors should be asking about diet (although they wouldn't make as much money) How long did it take for you to feel normal again after reintroducing carbs?

Thank you for the high quality link Maljam! Paul Jaminet is a voice of reason in the health scene, and his input is valued.

Yeah I quite like Jaminet, I'm always interested in what he has to say about things.

 

[gaze]

@Jessie thats a pretty crazy story. Glad you got through it. What type of carbs do you eat now and how long did it take you to adapt?

 

[Jessie]

Sorry to hear all that. It is also typical of doctors to prescribe SSRI. Especially in the modern world with so many different diets on the internet I think doctors should be asking about diet (although they wouldn't make as much money) How long did it take for you to feel normal again after reintroducing carbs?

Several months actually. I noticed improvements in breathing almost immediately, but it was only like 20-30% better. I noticed the benefits were short lived. Like if I ate a sugary/carby meal, things would marginally improve for a couple hours then I would be right back where I was, hyperventilating.

Again, I only have my theories, because no doctor helped me through any of this (in fact the doctors only made it worse by telling me there's nothing wrong). However I probably wasn't in the greatest of health before starting keto. I ate a standard crap diet, and have a family history of diabetes, in fact all my immediate family from both sides have it besides me. I suspect I killed my ability to hold practically any liver glycogen after going into ketosis for so long.

Diabetics—and people prone to diabetes—have a tendency to lean towards excessive FAO anyways, and when I induced ketosis, I'm thinking it really screwed me up. So whenever I would eat sugar, I was likely only getting the immediate benefits of whatever was oxidized upon ingestion. But I wasn't getting the prolonged benefits because my liver's ability to hold glycogen was essentially gone. Just a theory, but it makes sense given the situation I was in, plus my family history of disease.

It also seems to run parallel with the fact anti-serotonin drugs seem to have a huge benefit for me. I've tried just about all of them. Cyproheptadine, famotidine, benadryl, theanine, and gelatin. Lactate and/or carbonic anhydrase inhibitors seem to have an almost equally profound positive benefit on me. In fact, combining them with a high sugar diet basically ameliorated my problems entirely. So that got me to thinking about fasting, and sterilizing the gut.

Cleaning my gut out seems to have had the biggest lasting effect on me. I no longer have to use the drugs daily anymore, just infrequently as needed. If I'm extra stressed or something, I won't hesitate to take something, but for the most part I don't need them. I just use activated charcoal (10-15 grams each dose) biweekly and eat insoluble fibers like carrot salads, mushrooms, wheat bran, cocoa, berries, etc. Keeping my gut clean seems to allow my liver to hold glycogen better, which makes sense if it was being poisoned by endotoxin.

@Jessie thats a pretty crazy story. Glad you got through it. What type of carbs do you eat now and how long did it take you to adapt?

I mostly eat sugary carbs like OJ concentrate, cooked fruits, canned fruits, honey, agave, coke/pepsi. I also eat rice and potatoes infrequently. Before applying Peat's principles I ate a little more starch. I was big on popcorn, quinoa, pasta, and sourdough before finding Peat's work.

The adaptation phase was a little longer then going into ketosis I think. I transitioned over into ketosis really easily, which kind of makes sense if I was prone to FAO anyways, lol. I think it took me roughly a month to become adapted to a high carb diet. It helps if you're really strict on fat at first. The less dietary fat the better when starting out. I didn't know anything about niacinamide and aspirin at the time, so they may help smooth the transition some, idk.

 

[Maljam]

Several months actually. I noticed improvements in breathing almost immediately, but it was only like 20-30% better. I noticed the benefits were short lived. Like if I ate a sugary/carby meal, things would marginally improve for a couple hours then I would be right back where I was, hyperventilating.

Again, I only have my theories, because no doctor helped me through any of this (in fact the doctors only made it worse by telling me there's nothing wrong). However I probably wasn't in the greatest of health before starting keto. I ate a standard crap diet, and have a family history of diabetes, in fact all my immediate family from both sides have it besides me. I suspect I killed my ability to hold practically any liver glycogen after going into ketosis for so long.

Diabetics—and people prone to diabetes—have a tendency to lean towards excessive FAO anyways, and when I induced ketosis, I'm thinking it really screwed me up. So whenever I would eat sugar, I was likely only getting the immediate benefits of whatever was oxidized upon ingestion. But I wasn't getting the prolonged benefits because my liver's ability to hold glycogen was essentially gone. Just a theory, but it makes sense given the situation I was in, plus my family history of disease.

It also seems to run parallel with the fact anti-serotonin drugs seem to have a huge benefit for me. I've tried just about all of them. Cyproheptadine, famotidine, benadryl, theanine, and gelatin. Lactate and/or carbonic anhydrase inhibitors seem to have an almost equally profound positive benefit on me. In fact, combining them with a high sugar diet basically ameliorated my problems entirely. So that got me to thinking about fasting, and sterilizing the gut.

Cleaning my gut out seems to have had the biggest lasting effect on me. I no longer have to use the drugs daily anymore, just infrequently as needed. If I'm extra stressed or something, I won't hesitate to take something, but for the most part I don't need them. I just use activated charcoal (10-15 grams each dose) biweekly and eat insoluble fibers like carrot salads, mushrooms, wheat bran, cocoa, berries, etc. Keeping my gut clean seems to allow my liver to hold glycogen better, which makes sense if it was being poisoned by endotoxin.



I mostly eat sugary carbs like OJ concentrate, cooked fruits, canned fruits, honey, agave, coke/pepsi. I also eat rice and potatoes infrequently. Before applying Peat's principles I ate a little more starch. I was big on popcorn, quinoa, pasta, and sourdough before finding Peat's work.

The adaptation phase was a little longer then going into ketosis I think. I transitioned over into ketosis really easily, which kind of makes sense if I was prone to FAO anyways, lol. I think it took me roughly a month to become adapted to a high carb diet. It helps if you're really strict on fat at first. The less dietary fat the better when starting out. I didn't know anything about niacinamide and aspirin at the time, so they may help smooth the transition some, idk.

Yeah I have heard of 6-9 month recoveries from ketosis/carnivore diets, like the body has no idea what to do with the carbohydrate after such a long time away.

Interesting thoughts on the gut. You mentioned you were intrigued by fasting, did you ever experiment with it? Fasting is something I've been looking into recently too. Nothing extreme just 24 hour fasts.

 

[Jessie]

Yeah I had very good results with intermittent fasting, I did it for a month. The benefits have been lasting too, but I've also been pretty religious with the daily carrot salad and frequent mushroom consumption. I think the trick is starving off the bacteria with fasting, then using germicidal/insoluble fibers to keep the gut clear, with occasional charcoal usage as well.