Recently I joked around about starting a “180 Hot Chicks Club” designated for the first 180 women who managed to hit a basal axillary’temperature (without fever) of 99 degrees F or higher on a Vicks digital’thermometer. First 180?members will receive a free t-shirt (once there are 180 members)!
Okay, that t-shirt may be an empty promise. However, if there really were 180?girls hitting that temperature following my general ‘rest and overfeed’ recommendation?for achieving metabolic healing (via HED/RRARF or the?milk diet and “chillaxin'”), I probably would take the time and effort to?create a t-shirt for that. That would be pretty outrageous.
It is official by the way. There are now 3 prominent members of the 180 Hot Chicks Club…
1) Recent inductee?Kathy C. has gone from the low-97’s to 99 in 3 weeks (while gaining 15 pounds, but “feeling like superwoman at the gym”)! She’s old enough to have a daughter?graduating from college by’the way – if some of you “I’m too old to be a 180 Hot Chick” gals are demoralized by some of these hotties.
2) Milk Maiden Elizabeth Walling of http://www.livingthenourishedlife.com/
And, to my delight…
3) Sarah Braun who did a guest post only?7 weeks?ago on her adrenal fatigue after years of fighting the diet war. See how far she’s come since then…. CLICK HERE
In other news, please go check out the short guest post I did at Chris’s excellent blog:? Zen to Fitness. Chris is all about a relaxed, enjoyable, level-headed,?and sustainable approach to good health – and we are thus big fans of one another. CLICK HERE
Last, and certainly not least – Stephan Guyenet has done an excellent?podcast that is?more or less an oral narrative of everything covered in 180 Degree Metabolism. He was mad-dogged for it too, as this podcast appeared on a?blog by a typical eat less and exercise more diet author. It was painful to look at the comments and?listen to the follow-up podcast that the blog authors did to debunk Stephan (who is, in no uncertain terms, the f’ing?MAN). Seems that all those people losing weight really wanted to believe that it was off for good, and was?in no way compromising their metabolism or appetite. One guy likened hunger to “tired muscles” from working out. Oh boy.
Anyway, enough about that. I highly recommend listening to it. It’s all about leptin, the set point, what happens when you go below the setpoint (uh-oh), how the cause and cure of obesity remains unknown – but speculation points to omega 6, refined fructose, white flour, and a diet with low nutrient density, and how?any and all efforts to help overcome obesity must focus on lowering the set point, not just lowering body weight via calorie restriction. Those who have read?my new eBook will find virtually every word that he utters to be strikingly familiar. CLICK HERE
Matt, you will be happy to know that my temps went up from 97.3 to 98.4 roughly in 6 weeks.
I just bought the whole 180 collection and now looking forward to losing the excess far for ever
I meant excess fat :-)
Just be patient and smart with your approach. Losing body fat without triggering the famine response is not easy or well-understood. We're all on this journey together, and losing fat without compromising the body temperature will be front and center in the years to come. Much left to be explored no doubt.
Ok, let me get the Vicks thermometer and start diligently tracking my temps! Maybe have a logo contest for the tshirt design??
What's stopping me from checking my temps upon waking? I'm awakened by heat. I've been waking up about an hour or so before my alarm clock goes off by my own body heat. I get so uncomfortable I have to throw off the covers and cool off. This new morning heat started shortly after I introduced carbs (at regular intervals throughout the day rather than a failed low carb end of day binge) back into my life and started taking the Iodoral.
Once I start tossing turning and throwing the covers off as I start to come to consciousness I also begin to perspire. It made me wonder if I'd get an accurate reading that way.
If only I had a thermometer that read itself on a timer or something while I'm still asleep.
Still, I'd love to be a 180 Hottie as soon as I qualify!
Hmm, this brings up a question. I noticed that when the alarm clock is waking me up my body temps are usually lower than at days where I wake up without the alarm clock, where the transition between sleep and being awake is much less harsh. Also the later I wake up the higher the body temperatures.
So what should be considered the basal temperature. Eralry alarm clock temps (which would basically reflect my temperature when sleeping) or late alarm clock free temps (which probably more like "resting temps")?
Way to make things more complicated than they probably are.
Sometimes I think metabolic speed regulates body fat in an analogous way to lactic acid training/exercise: There is some scientific explanation, but the majority of the good results is not well-understood [in relation to the energy in/out idea]…
Love it!!!
I listened to that interview and then saw some of the responses. What just makes me scratch my head is they think of loosing fat as total different paradigm as say gaining muscle. Perhaps a poor analogy, but I think of it as the body trying to "protect" it muscular "set point". It is ridiculously difficult to put on LASTING muscle with a body that wants to remain "efficient" in its calorie use. Sure you can gain muscle by hitting the weights hard but as soon as you stop (fatigued) what is going to happen? Most will revert right back to where they started. What has to happen is you have to pound the food, tell the body to relax, plenty of nutrition coming and not over exert yourself keeping that rest/stress anabolic/catabolic thing in balance.
Thanks Matt,
I do have a question about the role of green tea, adaptogens (holy basil,rhodiola rosea) and even progesterone supplementation.
Will these hurt or help?
I have symptoms of pcos and high estrogen- fibrocystic breasts, bloating etc. I supplemented with progesterone before and did seem to help. But excessive cardio and starvation took a toll and I gained back every pound of the 20 pounds I had lost.For months I could barely wake up in the morning and had barely any energy to work. I tried multivitamins and Vit D. I also got colds frequently. I had gravitated towards eating like my grandparents and then I found your site 2 months ago and stopped starving myself.
So,thank you for all the useful information.I am hoping to become a picture of health soon :-)
Medicinal things can clearly have some role in the big picture, as can hormone supplementation like progesterone.
But in my experience, raising leptin and leptin sensitivity has an ability to restore sex hormones, adrenal function, and more. It is, quite simply, more powerful.
Would you say your body had "an equal and opposite reaction" to cardio and calorie restriction? Try doing the opposite, and hopefully get 1 step back and 2 steps forward as opposed to 1 step forward and 2 steps back.
I've been gaining weight on the HED and can barely stand looking in the mirror. Is there not a better way to achieve this?
Also, I can't find a Vicks thermometer where I live. Can I use a standard thermometer?
There should be a moo-sketeers t-shirt! Later tho, when several of us are on the milk diet.
MadMUUUHHH–
I learned the sympto-thermal method of determining the time of ovulation, which includes taking basal temperature every morning. You have to take it at the same time; for every half hour before or after your usual waking up time, the temperature will be different by .1 degree (or was it .2?) Anyway, waking up at different times will affect your basal temp reading. They also said that drinking alcohol the night before can affect it (make it higher, I think?). Obviously, the accuracy isn't as critical when you're just tracking your health, so it might work to just add or subtract .1 degree for each half hour different from your usual time you wake up.
If anyone wants a reference for that, it's from the book Natural Family Planning.
Drinking alcohol actually causes hypothermia, not a warmer temperature. You FEEL really hot though.
Kassandra-
Some people gain more than others. Some don't gain at all. Some even bring temps up while losing weight.
If there's a better way to do it, I'd sure like to know about it. I do think the milk diet, like what Elizabeth Walling did to become a hot chick in a matter of days while losing 3 pounds (over the course of 23 days) probably IS that better way.
I'm also curious about whether or not one can kind of "pulse" the overfeeding thing by doing it rigorously for a day or two at a time instead of continously. I welcome your experimentation.
Moosketeers t-shirt eh? Not a bad idea. Should that be a dudes-only thing, or will Elizabeth have to get 2 t-shirts?
"What's stopping me from checking my temps upon waking? I'm awakened by heat. I've been waking up about an hour or so before my alarm clock goes off by my own body heat."
It's spring, it might be time to switch to lighter coverings. I often find the warmer weather sneaks up on me. I woke up too hot the other night too. I don't think it was the carbs, I think it was that the low for the night was only 50 degrees.
Just listened to that podcast as well, read the comments, good grief. A paradigm shift is just too much for some people I suppose.
Nathan,
You are dead on about a "muscular" set point. It has to be considered along with that general weight set point. The body fights like hell to put on muscle tissue. Kelly Blagget, a bodybuilding/strength athlete author/trainer type spells it out quite nicely in a book of his I own. You must really shovel down the calories as one gets bigger, the metabolism rises (as we all know from being here)for a strength trainee as it does for someone just trying to nurse themselves back to good health. You can easily reach a point where even 6000 calories a day will not budge the scale one bit. He has seen it in his trainees.
Matt,
I shall expect a Hot Chicks calendar by year end…:). Oh, and this blog is getting better each and every day. Keep up the awesome work and the open dialogue. You are oh so civil in an arena full of, well, fill in the blank!
Ok Matt, I'll tell you what I'll do but first…
I live in the Mediterranean and we don't eat a lot of root vegetables like potatoes or squash here. So those are out. What we do eat (and have done so for thousands of years) are barley rusks, which are these thick dried crackers that literally have the barley poking out of them. They need to be soaked a bit, otherwise you'd break your teeth trying to eat them. I'm going to continue on those.
No fruit as you advised, despite the fact that it literally grows everywhere here! Maybe a tomato now and then. I'll let you know how it goes, and continue overfeeding everyday. I've cut out my plyometrics but will still exercise, mostly dance, pilates & yoga. Hope this still allows me to make the cut for the club!
Was just doing some calcs and this seems to be the approx numbers for the 6 quarts of milk per day for the Milk RRARF, don't like using Diet, so its MRRARF time!
Cals: 4080
Fat: 240g
Carb: 336g
Protein: 192g
Crap if this isn't metabolically stimulating, I don't know what is. Being that it will be low PUFA and Low Fructose, to add to all the discussion today.
Another note, got the last of my mercury fillings out this morning, so starting the MRRARF on the weekend, its probably good for its detox capabilities…
On my third day of Milk Diet. Really and truly my main goal is to kick these allergies that seem to get worse each year – first it was cats, then cats and dogs, then just about every hairy animal, then animals and pollen, then animals and pollen and pasteurized milk products. So far the allergies don't seem necessarily better or worse, which I'm calling a victory since this much (pasteurized) milk would have killed me by now 2 weeks ago.
As far as basal body temperature, I had brought it up about .5 degrees on RRARRF over the last 2 months from 97.5 to 98.0. But this morning, it was suddenly 98.6. I know this isn't cycle related because I've taken my temps in the past for natural family planning and it was NEVER over 98.0, no matter what part of my cycle. I'm well on my way to the 180 Hot Chicks club!
I'm drinking about 1.25 quarts of fresh, pastured Jersey milk every day. It's an hour and a half trip to get to the source, so I'm buying 8 gallons at a time. I know Elizabeth said 6 quarts is better than 5, but man, it's hard to choke down that much milk.
Also I'm kind of "in the closet" on this adventure. My husband and kids know of course, but I haven't been able to bring myself to tell anyone else. The last 1.5 years of low carb has put a dent in my credibility. So I'll just wait and let the results speak for themselves.
I meant 1.25 gallons – 5 quarts.
"The last 1.5 years of low carb has put a dent in my credibility".
LOL!!!
I'm with you on that one Danyelle. I have felt those eyes before.
Yeah Danyelle-
The milk diet seemed to be very capable of helping people achieve what you seek. I too found that low-carb has a way of leading to increasing allergies over time.
My allergy adventure was the same in my teens. First I started wheezing a little while running. Then I got mad seasonal allergies. Then all of the sudden I got really asthmatic around cats. Then dogs. Then my exercise-induced asthma was so bad I had trouble walking a few blocks to the nearest bus stop in winter.
But since I began my health escapades, starting with a no-sugar diet (Body Ecology) followed by lots of juice-fasting, raw foods, and on and on until now…
The asthma got better
The seasonal allergies completely vanished.
The only thing that remains is allergy to cats and dogs, which I fully believe the milk diet can help me overcome with the adrenal support. We shall see. Good luck hot stuff. I've got a t-shirt waiting for you.
Matt: I will so take two t-shirts. Cause I would be a Moosketeer even if I wasn't a Hot Chick. ;)
Danyelle: So glad to hear you're doing the milk diet! You'll definitely be a Hot Chick soon. :) It is hard to get more than 4-5 quarts in. At that point it takes a lot more effort for me. By the way, I feel the same way about sharing diet advice. I've been wrong so many times I don't feel comfortable pushing advice any more. I'll be tackling the "carbs are evil" mindset soon on my blog, though, because so many people who learn about real food end up shunning carbs. But I'm not about to tell people how many carbs to eat. :)
@Danyelle
On my third day of Milk Diet. Really and truly my main goal is to kick these allergies that seem to get worse each year – first it was cats, then cats and dogs, then just about every hairy animal, then animals and pollen, then animals and pollen and pasteurized milk products. So far the allergies don't seem necessarily better or worse, which I'm calling a victory since this much (pasteurized) milk would have killed me by now 2 weeks ago.
This is an area where I think Immune Milk Therapy would be superior to the Milk Diet, especially if you don't have access to raw milk.
But oh well, don't expect to see that around any time soon, at least not publicly.
Michael,
I think Immune Milk is fascinating. Is it not legal in the U.S. or something?
Kassandra,
"I've been gaining weight on the HED and can barely stand looking in the mirror. Is there not a better way to achieve this?"
I'm right there with you. I thought I had topped out on the scales, but that was wrong. I've made a couple of trips to the Goodwill second-hand store for fat pants – getting dressed is very frustrating. Plus, all the people that were impressed with my weight loss on low carb are probably laughing behind my back.
I hate being fat. But I'm 97% convinced RRARRF is the only way to escape the fat – permanently – for the rest of my life. Chin up. And throw away the scale – mine has a new home on our back porch because it was totally freaking me out.
I think another idea for the Milk Diet t-shirt should be "Milkaholic" like those E-trade commercials… Although if we're not careful Lindsay Lohan might sue us.
@Danyelle
Michael,
I think Immune Milk is fascinating. Is it not legal in the U.S. or something?
Ha! You think governments get in a tizzy over raw milk? They practically have epileptic seizures over Raw Immune Milk. No matter what a farmer does to try and protect himself the powers that be consider it practicing medicine without a license.
Now if you have your own milk animal or know someone who does then you are in business, as long as you keep it to yourself.
To the woman using progesterone cream: check out raypeat.com on estrogen dominance. There's a wealth of information there.
Thanks, Matt, for the link to the Guyenet podcast. I never would have seen it otherwise.
Matt, good post on Zen to Fitness…I've always been a fan of Zen Habits.
To all of those who are currently overfeeding, did you begin eating completely clean, or did you allow your cravings at first and then they eventually disappeared? I've been eating lots of sugar and breads lately, and even though I've been eating more food than I used to, the cravings are not going away. I'm not sure if I'm eating a huge amount, I'm kind of hesitant to eat much past fullness while eating unhealthy foods at the same time. I'm not really looking to fight off the the cravings, but rather I'm interested if this is something that will actually make them not an issue.
Dr Poppy here, Lisa I would guess that you either have perimenopause or hormone imbalance, maybe estrogen dominance/progesterone deficiency. Despite Matt's confidence in completely restoring hormone balance with diet alone, it is often more complex than that especially in the over 35 year old female club.
Brian H,
Personally, I eat "clean" I suppose. I eat a lot of sweet potatoes with butter or coconut oil. Some days I'll eat 10 lbs of sweet potatoes (39c/lb near me) with 2 sticks of butter. I make many Thai and Indian dishes like curry or vindaloo with rice and beef or shrimp. I eat watermelon on a regular basis.
The only cravings I get are for those things mentioned. I use to crave salty cheese or ice cream, and I ate tons. I guess it just faded away…
This blog grows day by day in input from Matt but also cool input from the followers. I love Matt's openness to others' input.
Well done on all the girls that are seeing such high temperatures :)
So my temps raised only about 0.1?C on HED. I take them orally and they average 97.7F in first half of cycle and 98.3F in the second. I have been on HED 6 months now and the temperatures haven't really changed in 4 months. My weight seems fairly stable after the 14lb gain from Nov to Feb, I have put the scale away a week ago and want to try not to weigh. Right now I am trying not to think about food so some meals are high carb and others high fat depending on how I am feeling. No sign or weight loss. Am interested in the milk diet but don't have access to raw milk and have no 4 week period without eg weekend hiking trips etc where I wouldn't be able to drink the milk, so not sure if it would be valuable to do say for just 2 weeks?
Kassandra, where do you live on the Med. I am in Nice… here we do eat eg corn based dishes like polenta and rice and a few potatoes and pumpkin. We also eat a lot of pasta and bread but I mostly avoid this. I also can buy sweet potatoes.
Has anyone done the milk diet who is battling diabetes, bad lipid profile & high blood pressure? Just wondering if the results would be good? The farmer that we currently get raw milk/cream from is doing some type of experimental work for organic valley. I think they are planning on introducing a high immunoglobulin milk, is this the same thing as the high immune milk others have talked about here? It would be interesting to do a colostrum fast/cleanse since it is one of the most nutrient rich substances in the world. I'm sure the amounts would have to be far less than milk though. When we raised dairy animals, people would come as far as 3 hours away to purchase raw colostrum. I never really 'got it' at that time, I had no idea how nutrient dense colostrum is. I just knew I did not like the flavor; my palette could pick up the strong sulphur/cabbage undertones in the colostrum. How about cultured milk products like kefir, buttermilk, yogurt….are they allowable on the milk diet? Maybe the available carbohydrate consumed by the strains of bacteria lowers the carb content too much?
On HED weight gain: I was kinda freaked out about the 10# weight gain at first. But I looked back at my fitday entries from last year and exactly one year ago I gained 17 #s in one month! It was a really stressful month, buying a new house, moving etc and I lived without a stove for a couple of weeks so we were not eating well. Since initial HED gain, my weight has been steady and temps are improving, hunger has decreased so I'm thinking I'm getting there.
since easter weekend where i drank a bottle of wine two days in a row, i've been feeling like crap. we had company (stressful) and then the kids and i all got a mild flu bug which included digestive distress.
this week i'm noticing worsened IBS symptoms, lower energy, and lower temps, body aches. craving coffee. the illness last week definitely threw me off of regular nourishing eating, and i've been disorganized since.
i'm excited though, the husband is really mulling over the basal temp and it's relationship to metabolism and weight loss. he wants to know: are there studies showing that the basal temp is really in rapid decline? there's the one mentioned in the NY times article that you recently blogged about…any more?
good thing is that the husband is more organized than i am normally. he's been waking me up every morning this week by sticking his thermometer in my armpit. 8)
so i've had an obvious turn for the worse but my plan is to not drink at all for while and keep concentrating on the carbs. possibly related, i megadosed omega-3's for 6 days, but that will now stop. it didn't feel comfortable and may be what especially made my digestion get worse. i still would like to try that again someday to try to move all this fat off my body, but i need to get back up to speed first.
someday i will be in the hot chick club. i've still got symptoms and 100 pounds to go. now i'm getting help from my dear husband and for that matt, i can't thank you enough. :)
Brian H –
I've had carb cravings for years, both before and especially during low-carb dieting. I switched over to HED in early February, and I've been eating a lot of rice and corn. I believe the rice has been especially helpful in reducing carb cravings. I eat Lundberg organic white basmati rice. It's sooo good! And you may want to increase your good fats too. Green Pastures coconut ghee is fabulous in just about anything, especially when cooked with the rice I mentioned above.
Guess I should have mentioned – I get the Lundberg rice at my grocery store, in the health food section. I get the coconut ghee from Green Pastures website. If you google "coconut ghee" it will be the first search result.
Crazy Mama-
Few people are clued into the body temperature thing. It started as sort of a Broda Barnes cult. Modern-day Barnes-style practitioners report seeing low body temperatures in over half of their patients. Here, it seems that a vast majority of people have low body temps starting out, but then again, many that gravitate here are the ones that took their body temperature, saw that it was low, and started following along to see what they could do about it.
Sorry about the weight gain everybody. I'd love to further refine it somehow to minimize weight gain. Milk may prove to be the #1 asset, and may not need to be consumed in such rigorous and difficult fashion. Perhaps even 1 day per week of only milk could give us all a huge boost without any weight gain at all. Who knows? A lot remains to be explored, but I welcome anyone and everyone's experimentation with "intermittent overfeeding." There are many surprises left waiting to be discovered.
Brian-
I would think that a strong craving shouldn't be ignored, but habitually pounding bread and sugar probably isn't the most efficient route. Eating clean probably prevents a great deal of the weight gain as well.
yeh i am thinking of some sort of cycling, so I guess I could make my HIGH DAYS milk days??
I think eating "clean" is key. I just think of that video Matt shared with us a few weeks back re: the 8 volunteers in London who did HED for a month. Recall many of them appeared to be eating anything and everything, including lots of sugar. I am thinking that is why some of Sims prisoner subjects may have gained more than others. No doubt sugary desserts were plentiful and some of these guys may have enjoyed the sweet stuff to a greater degree. Who knows.
I have gained only 4 pounds in 6 weeks and have been avoiding the refined sugar as much as I can.
Thanks for the feedback. I think I will first worry about cleaning up the foods, gradually replacing the bread/sugar with more wholesome things. I don't feel comfortable doing it all at once because I've done so before and it just caused me to crash in the end. For mental health I think it's important that it doesn't feel like a big sacrifice. At least breakfast is going pretty good at the moment, usually some eggs and potatoes.
Once things are cleaned up a bit, then I think increasing quantity will be much more beneficial.
I think it is much better to eat clean but so much depends on the body. I have been eating clean eg no sugar for years and added low PUFA on HED but this didn't prevent me gaining a lot. Mental health is very important too, Brian, as you say.
Brian: When I first started to eat real food back in Oct. 2008 I couldn't easily give up my almost nightly sugar indulgences for about 3-4 weeks. I gained about 12 lb in that time, and I'm pretty sure the sugar had a lot to do with it. Now I'm much more balanced on the sugar most of the time, though I crave it bad at some points. I feel like it's something that's getting better over time, though it's taken a lot longer than I've wanted. I do note that bread makes me crave more bread than sugar makes me crave more sugar.
Jedi: I'm experimenting with some cycling myself at this point. I'm monitoring my body's response (moods, cravings, basal temperature) to try and make sure I don't hurt my metabolism again, but I would definitely like to lose some of these extra inches. :)
Matt,
The previous post with all of the comments regarding sugars and Ray Peat was probably the most interesting stream of comments you have had on your blog so far. I am surprised you added a new post so quickly.
I think you really misunderstand Peat's stance on fructose and sugar, and Peat never said you should eat ice cream instead of potatoes. I have been doing personal experiments using pure glucose and then sucrose, and have found that Peat is correct. The sucrose will give more energy for longer, more stable blood sugar, and have greater appetite suppression than the glucose.
The fructose alarmism is looking less and less viable to me. Everyone should check out Alan Aragon's blog on it. Matt follows that blog as well and has commented.
I have personally found that fruit is available year round in tropical location. Certain fruits will go in and out of season in those locations, but the fruit is always there.
I hope the comments on sugar and fructose will continue. There was a lot of great dialogue going on.
Elizabeth,
Great we are in the same boat then. Above all I will continue to take daily temperatures to keep things in check; I am also trying to do it intuitively so it doesn't feel like dieting ;) :) we shall see if it works..
Thanks JT. I agree. I"m about to go on vacation and wanted to get up several new blog posts. Just posted a new one at 180 kitchen as well.
As you know, I don't like equating refined and unrefined sugar – of any kind. That seems to be the theme repeated throughout history, not a magic glucose to fructose ratio.
But my response was strictly to Peat's passage about fructose and insulin. On those grounds, fructose cannot be championed. The mainstream glycemic index folk have made the same error.
Elizabeth-
I would think that you are in a great position to start pursuing a little fat loss. If I didn't have a milk diet thing coming up I would probably pursue fat loss myself by following the general recommendations in my new ebook (pairing near-equal amounts of starch and protein) in 3 small meals per day while monitoring body temperature. If I saw it drop, or got hungry, or stalled out with weight loss, I would do a big refeed – potentially with nothing but raw milk for 24 hours in large quantity, and then resume.
Jedi,
I live in Athens. I guess I should have made it more clear…everything's available here but I prefer to eat foods that traditionally have been grown here and avoid imports like corn or potatoes or canned/bottled foods.
Danyelle…
I don't know what to say. I've quit smoking and caffeine as well recently so all this combined with the HED have resulted in a ten pound weight gain. I've taken time off from teaching fitness classes but I have seminars coming up and I'm already starting to get some looks from family and friends.
I measured by body temp: 97.5 – but that was at 7pm. Lets see what happens tomorrow in the morning. I do wish you the best of luck.
Matt: Thanks for the encouragement. The weight I'm at right now is the the weight I've reached three times in the last ten years, and it consitently the highest I ever go (not counting during my two pregnancies), so I think this is some sort of set point for me. I also wonder if it was inevitable that I reach this weight again before being able to start losing.
I like the idea of refeeding the metabolism with an all milk day if things start to appear sluggish again. It seems like a good way to start moving things in the right direction again.
kassandra, maybe you could look into some other barley recipes? also what about chickpeas?
What is immune milk? Is that colostrum?
All this talk about colostrum. Good grief.
Matt I can see a 180 t-shirt now. "Got Colostrum"?
Matt, what error has Peat made concerning insulin and fructose?
so how come fat people are supposed to lose weight immediatly on the milk diet, but we're supposed to gain weight on HED?
Anonymous, the milk diet will not cause people to automatically lose weight, it depends on how much you consume just like anything else. I used it to gain weight intentionally.
I think Elizabeth was kind of surprised to drop a couple of pounds on around 2500 cals of milk per day :)
JT,
Regarding the sucrose, could the reason for the stable blood sugar simply be the lack of insulin secretion because of the fructose?
The concern is what else is happening with fructose consumption–leptin and/or insulin resistance?
Back to sucrose–what about other issues such as tooth decay? Matt brought up that a diet of [almost] all white rice did not create decay, yet the sucrose did (I think that was it…don't wanna go through all the comments to look for it)
OK Matt, I just got the whole kit and kaboodle…I'm a 180 lifer now, LOL! Look forward to reading ALL that info! ;-)
Matt,could it be that carb cycling will allow for the metabolism boost HED causes with muscle gain/fatloss occuring simultaneously?
Today is my third day and I low carbed all day.40gms all day and around 2000(higher than my usual 1500).I am doing this to test out a theory.
While on HED(close to 4000cal per day)fat gain seemed to be fast but at same time I found that my muscles have literally pumped up like at steroid speeds.So I wonder now if HED one day to boost the metabolism while at same time building muscle(and some fat) and then on the next rest day to low carb(helps with hunger)with lower calorie to burn what fat you may have gained and then some.
I am doing Kwasnieski like low carb diet today.Tomorrow I will eat food to reach 4000cal.Thats twice the food every other day.I have no idea what I should do on weekends though??Thinking maybe to just keep alternating the calories.
Whats your thoughts Matt?
Just wanna add that I ate a pint of Hagen Daz and got severe hypo off it while feeling great all day yesterday….that is until I ate the ice cream.
John,
Yes, the stable blood sugar is probably due to the lessened insulin response from fructose.
I don't believe fructose causes leptin or insulin resistance. I have never seen any proof of this, and I haven't seen many diabetic or obese fruitarians.
Concerning tooth decay, I had never had any cavities until I went on a low carb zero sugar diet. After years of following this diet I ended up with 6 cavities!
Wolf very cool. Please keep us posted on this. Do you think that day on day off elicits enough of a stimulus either way? Meaning, is the peaks and troughs long enough? I am very curious.
I do feel there is a lot of potential with variation. Not just in caloric load but with everything in the natural/organic world.
Wolf, Like I said before, your feedback suggests you are not a carb type. Or, you have burned out your adrenal glands and you will have to heal them before taking in too much sugar.
I would imagine that if you take the temperatures it could easily be witnessed if doing alternate day HED will bring up the heat.Is full on HED till temps are reached the way to goI dunno truthfully.
Then there is also how the human body over compensates its carb storage potential whenever your muscles get depleted.Its why bodybuilders drop carbs to almost zero for 3 days last week before contest and then the last 3 to 4 days they carb up.The muscles swell and hold more than normal by doing this.
Is one day enough though.I am still looking full after a full days work but I feel like my liver glycogen is dropping since I feel kinda shitty.If I low carb again tomorrow my muscles will look droopy by nighttime guaranteed.
All I know is I look way better today then I have in a looooong time.Its not even a full week yet.This one female I work with who treats me harshly was acting very differenttoday if u catch my drift ;) LOL
JT,I am thinking that my muscles are highly carb sensitive(the big pumps I get from carbs) BUT the liver is not functioning right.I have taken your advice about adrenal recuperation and have dropped close to probably 400gms caffeine per day.Now I take one coke on workout days only so that also my sugar amount I eat now.
Wolf: I am also experimenting with carb cycling on an every other day basis. I just started, so hard to tell the results at this point. I chose carb cycling over calorie cycling because lowering calories doesn't seem to have an effect on my fat weight even at this point. I went with the every other day idea because more than 24 hours on low-carb start making me feel hungry and woozy (maybe from running out of glycogen?). We'll see how this goes and I'll adjust from here.
Carb cycling is not for everyone, some people cannot switch back and forth like that without problems. Your body will adapt to one thing and then you switch all of a sudden and throw something else at it. I think most people are better off finding out what macronutrient ratio works best for them, and then once you find the sweet spot stick with it. Once you have this figured out adjust your calorie and energy expenditure to get the fat loss. Carb cycling in itself wont give you much for fat loss unless it causes a calorie deficit.
Wolf, that is probably smart to take the coke only during workouts. Let us know how this affects you. You should get your adrenals checked and find out if that is the cause of your hypoglycemia. No point in guessing when you don't have to.
What about carb cycling on alternate days though.Seems that people carb cycle with 2 or 3 days low carb then a carb up.This puts you in lala low blood sugar land.If they enter ketosis its even worse since now the body tries to change to a new fuel type and then you try to change it again a day later.
But if you eat alot of carbs one day then you will feel ok the next.Then you eat carbs the next day to avoid the second day exhaustion effect of carb cycling.
The real coke at 5am/20 mins before a workout works amazingly well.I get energetic and get pumped from it.I also chew two tootsie pops to keep my BS stable since if I do not I get hypo before workout is done.
Elizabeth,its experimentation for me also.The positive thing I can say is every time I have started LC I look and feel amazing the first day.The carbs keep the muscles full and then when you drop the carbs you do not get bloated during the day…at least I don't and so I look good all day.Day2 of LC and I do not look as good.Happens every single time.The day I eat carbs I am bloated by end of day yet pumped up like Arnold.
Right now I wear clothes and people do not understand why I wanna lose weight.Its just the stomach I want to lose and have been trying to for years.Its Matt's ideas that have gotten me to wake up and realize that 1500cal for a very long time will in fact shut the body down.The dry flaking forehead,the terrible hypoglycemia,the bowel movements every other day etc seem improved just by eating more….hard concept to believe in but I am a disciple now! :)
Peat claims that fructose, because it does not raise insulin, leads to less hunger. Even you have admitted needing starch to keep from being hungry. He also claims that it keeps blood sugar from falling because your insulin doesn't rise so high. Huh?
If you give a diabetic sucrose before bed, they'll wake up with low blood sugar. Give them corn starch and they sleep through the night with stable blood sugar (Francine Kaufman) – the opposite of Peat's belief.
Fructose, by itself, from fruit, doesn't cause leptin resistance I would imagine. Then again, frutarians are notorious for having to eat every 2 hours and being hungry all the time. I could picture many fruitarians blowing up quickly on a mixed diet as well post-frutarianism, kinda like me after nutritarian. You'll certainly see fruit plus a lot of fat tend to lead to such problems. Dr. Davis just wrote about this a month or so ago.
Richard Johnson's studies on rats, fructose, and leptin resistance for example showed no differences between the rats until leptin was injected. The ones fed fructose were unresponsive to the leptin, while the starch-fed rats were highly responsive. Hence the claim.
Amen on low-carb and tooth problems though. Ouch! No cavities, but I was heading in that direction for sure. Meth addicts also don't need fructose to have their teeth rot out. Tooth decay is caused by hormonal problems mostly linked to the adrenals.
Melvin Page spent his entire career helping people conquer tooth decay and studying their glucose curves in response to certain foods. His conclusion was the white sugar, fruit, and honey caused the greatest hormonal imbalances in that order. I'm sure he would have found a low-carb diet to have the ability to cause demineralization and imbalances between calcium and phosphorous ratios as well in some patients – like us.
Wolf-
All sounds interesting. I suspect that switching around like that excessively could probably cause lots of hormonal chaos and damage the metabolism long-term. HOwever, it's much better than being low carb every day, or low-fat everyday, or whatever. I am certainly intrigued by your experiments with intermittent refeeds.
Over time you'll probably get a better tolerance developed for simple sugars without crashing. The metabolism in general and leptin holds huge sway over the health and action of the adrenals.
Wolf, why not try eating High Everything for 4-5 days and then having a super low calorie day. Kind of like Eat Stop Eat but without the fasting. I have had pretty good results doing this in the past. I think it is better to cycle calories than to cycle macro-nutrients
I tend to feel more confident with that too Riles, especially when protein is spared by continuing to get adequate protein and a near-equal amount of starch to get the protein-sparing effect on the lower-calorie days. That would probably be far preferable for building lean mass.
For losing weight it's probably better to do it the other way around – eating a protein-sparing lower-calorie diet for 4-5 days and then doing a large refeed of 1-3 meals before beginning the next round of fat loss. If I still have a little fat to lose after the milk diet and my metabolism is on fire, I'll give this a shot and see where it takes me.
I think the reason that fructose controls blood sugar is that its sweet taste stimulates insulin secretion.
You can also do the same thing with stevia.
Matt,my hypoglycemia has improved by huge amounts already.I am amazed I can eat a huge starch load and not go into a coma.I hope that high carb/low carb days doesn't set me back and I will keep you guys posted.
Riles,I find that first day of HED is an amazing experience.I get turbo charged.I walk up this huge ramp to enter my station everyday.I usually lug myself up.The first day of HED and I was told I needed to bring freight up from lower level and I literally pushed this loaded handtruck at full speed without stopping to the top.I got a few looks from co-workers for sure…."kids with their abundant energy levels!!!"(I am 40 yrs old). :)But then I lose this magic effect and start to just feel normal.Second day and I trudged up the morning ramp commute.
Same thing happens when I low carb.The first day I feel amazing.Then its all way down hill from there.
And to Chris Rosenfelt.I watched all your videos.You cracked me up a few times and I was bugging with the 181deg temp readings. :) I just wanted to say to you that when you said you definitely feel and look like you lost muscle from fasting,it was most likely water weight.HED keeps your muscles plump and when you burn off the carbs the water goes with it.
Riles, That is a great idea. I didn't think of that, but like you said, it would be a lot better than cycling macro-nutrients. That might be a good way for HEDers to transition to fat loss.
Matt, fructose will raise insulin levels, but not as high as pure glucose. This is why bodybuilders use glucose drinks while training, they want to spike insulin as much as possible because it is so anabolic. It is better than injecting yourself with insulin which they also do for its anabolic effects. Because there is not quite as much of an insulin response it will take longer before the levels drop again, thus providing the stability.
I don't need starch to keep from being hungry, but i need it to get that full in a good way feeling. Actually, when I use my sucrose drinks it has an extreme blunting effect on my appetite for the rest of the day, almost too much.
People are not rats, so I am not giving to much weight to that study. I could feed you grass all day and show that you die from nutrient deficiencies, but that doesn't mean it isn't the perfect food for cows. It would hold more weight or me if the experiment was done on some other type of primate.
Yeah, I agree with you on the whole low carb tooth decay thing. Your analogy to the meth addict is right on. People who think cavities are only caused by sugars are wrong.
Matt and JT: I too am hesitant to cut out macronutrients for weight loss, but I have to say the low calorie thing just isn't working for me at all right now. I haven't tried cycling calories extensively, but I can say that after several days on low calories there is virtually no effect on weight or inches whatsoever for me, even after low calorie eating on and off for a couple weeks. That's why I'm doing the carb cycling thing right now as an experiment to see if results are different. I won't likely do this for more than 2-3 weeks at a time though even if it did work. Because for my body I think that's just asking for trouble.
Elizabeth,
That's pretty much how I am with the sweets. Every night I've been eating one of those big 100g swiss milk or white chocolate bars.
I quit smoking a while back and when I took off the nicotine patch all hell broke loose :)
JT, Your comment, "…when I use my sucrose drinks it has an extreme blunting effect on my appetite for the rest of the day, almost too much," made me think of Seth Roberts and his Shangri-La Diet. He found that when he drank sugar-water his appetite was suppressed and he lost weight. According to his blog, and the Shangri-La forum, a number of people have lost weight by drinking sugar water or just drinking oil. However, I don't know what it does to one's teeth, lipids, liver, etc. :-)
Hey Matt, I don't know if I would go 4-5 days before a re-feed. Lyle McDonald has written that the metabolism will down-regulate after 3 days of reduced calories.
Also for you newbie carb-cyclers, one of the tricks is to keep your fats and carbs separate. Have some meals that are high carb and low fat and other meals that are higher fat (not necessarily HIGH fat) and lower carb.
Elizabeth,
if you gave us a little more info concerning your diet and exercise habits we might be able to help you figure out why its not working. If there is a real calorie deficit the body will lose weight, the only other possibility would be that your metabolism down regulates so fast and so extremely to prevent it. If this is the case you might have some other medical condition that needs to get checked out.
Think115,
That is interesting, thanks for the info. I actually don't do it to blunt my appetite because it makes it difficult for me to get the rest of my protein requirements in for the day.
Will,
Most people seem to do OK with once a week re-feeds as long as it is big enough. You would know if you need a smaller spike in between if your performance and energy drop too much.
thanks for the support wolf
Hi Matt,
Thanks for posting the interview here. By the way, I got to hear Gary Taubes speak today and talk with him for a long time afterward. Tomorrow I'm going to have dinner with him and possibly Mike Eades.
I like Gary– he's a nice guy and humble. He looks good too. Good body comp and nice skin.
That is awesome Stephan. You need to get up a blog post about the conversation…. Would be interested to see how Gary Taubes ideas have developed recently as I know he is the process of publishing a simplified version of Good Calories, Bad Calories….
Regarding meth, soft drink consumption is common to treat the side effect of dry mouth. So not only is there much sugar, but the effect is magnified because of lacking saliva. I don't think anything about meth injection has a direct effect on teeth. But…
Smoking meth should be directly harmful, as [I think] it contains sulfuric acid and other [most likely] harmful compounds.
I have no problem carb cycling or indeed IFing but I have decided to calorie cycle with a refeed every 5-7 days depending on sensed need. I will try and keep protein and carbs fairly equal in meals and will probably try refeeding with milk at least the first couple of times to see how it goes.
Stephan I enjoyed your podcast and would love to see a write-up on your meetings with Gary Taubes :)
Rosenfeltc enjoying the vids :)
"Amen on low-carb and tooth problems though. Ouch! No cavities, but I was heading in that direction for sure. Meth addicts also don't need fructose to have their teeth rot out. Tooth decay is caused by hormonal problems mostly linked to the adrenals. "
Gah, unfortunately I can relate to that. Before low-carb, my teeth were absolutely fine, now they are a total mess. I don't know how many cavities I got as I haven't gone to the dentist for more than half a year (what for? I have yet to stumble upon a coomon dental treatment that actually makes things better (there certainly are some, but most stuff dentists do is crap)). I really can't stand looking at my teeth, rarely ever feel tooth pain, but it sure as hell doesn't look good.
Also this is pretty much the final nail in the coffin that my problems were mostly adrenal related, not that I ever really doubted it, despite never getting diagnosed with that. And while my temps still have some way to go up, they are at least much much more stable now, so I guess the worst part is over adrenal-wise. I just hope my teeth won't get any worse now, it probably will take long enough to get them healed a bit.
So JT, have you seen any improvements with your cavities, if yes how long did it take for that and also did you do anything special about your teeth?
JT: Actually I just had minor surgery a few weeks ago and I'm still not cleared for exercise for about two more weeks. :) However, in my experience exercise has had very little effect on my weight in the past (aside from back in the days when I was a low-calorie cardio queen).
I'm not sure what you'd like to hear about my eating habits so I'll just give a general rundown. Basically I can eat 2,200 calories or 1,400 calories and it doesn't seem to affect my weight much. I certainly feel physically and mentally better on 2,200 calories though.
I eat mostly real food, not too much processed stuff. I also try to avoid having my diet full of gluten, though I'm not really gluten-free. I've read a lot of WAPF info so I do try to have a nutrient-dense diet, though I'm not totally obsessed with it either. I'm not scared of sugar but I also don't eat a ton of it. Oh, and I'm definitely pretty low on PUFAs.
I basically eat carbs, fat and protein to appetite. I'm sure the percentages vary, but let's say about 15% protein, 35% carbs, 50% fat as an estimate.
I'd like to get a hormone panel done at some point but the cost is prohibitive to me right now.
madmuhhh
try to eat as much milk products as you can. you teeth will be very happy for the calcium!
Alright thanks. Already increased milk products quite a bit recently and will continue doing so. Also am drinking a little less kefir and making sure to wash my mouth with water after it, as it is quite acidic and probably hard on the teeth.
Whatever, I don't think that it is so much of a mineral problem and more of a hormonal problem. Which doesn't mean that more milk products wouldn't help.
That's great Stephan. You're lucky to be getting together with someone with so much depth of research. They are few and far between in today's world. Please tell him about leptin and how many carbs the Pima's ate before they became diabetic and obese (estimated 70% of calories).
Will-
Lyle is probably right in that assertion, however, his refeeds are probably pretty puny. I'm talking more of an Abel-sized refeed, which he does once weekly.
If I were Elizabeth however, I'd probably take it easy for a while and let that high body temperature stick for a bit. Put on a little more lean mass by continuing to eat really well. It's not like she has a serious weight problem that warrants impulsive action.
Had the day "off" yesterday looking after sick kid so I got a chance to finish the Gabriel Method E-book.
I quite like his approach to the woo-woo because I think it's a lot more focused and likely to get results. I'm thinking a bunch of his nutrition advice is rubish. I really feel defensively protective of potatoes since he called them a "dead carb," lumping them in with refined sugar and white pasta. He's kind of weirdly obsessed with trivia, I think like wheat grass and eating meat before starches at a meal. Still his advice permeates amazingly quickly. I put some live sprouts on breakfast sandwich this morning just for the vitality. What really sent me around the bend was not his recommendation to supplement omega 3, but his mentioning "whey protein isolate" as an easily assimilatable protein that you should add to everything. WTF? He goes on and on about how heat treating and refining kills our food and then he recommends a heat treated supplement? My body reacts to that shit like an allergen. He also wants you to pop probiotic tabs. Why not just eat some damn yogurt? Gah. If only Matt could get him to do a woo-woo brain gymnastics tape for 180 metbolism.
Yep. I never said that I was a fan of his nutrition beliefs. I am a fan about his general attitude about food, and eating to nourish your body and give it all the things it needs, protein first.
I would imagine just about any protein-first approach complemented by whole foods without major macronutrient restriction is a major step in the right direction for the chronic dieter.
muhh,
Dont think that acid should be a big problem. Price compared tribes that ate foods with a lot of acid nutrients to those with much more basic foods. Both groups had excellent teeth.
I dont know which role hormones play in tooth decay. But people with a nutritious diets normally have balanced hormones.
I see what you're saying. His general philosophy is a very clearly stated and very much in line with what you are teaching. I was amazed with how many points on which he aligned with you. It's like he figured out the basic mechanisms of weight gain and decided rather than explain the science, he invented this holistic system which is easier for pea brains like me to get. Actually, his point about the typical diet rationale being lost on your animal brain was well-taken. That was the main difference between him and Venuto. Venuto is all about visualizing, but he's also all about these complex rationalizations that are really just getting in the way. Funny how they both tout real food and end up pushing pills and powders.
What did you think about his views about getting your teeth cleaned once a month because periodontic bacteria can get in your digestive track and "trigger the fat programs?" That was interesting. I just thought well, I don't have gum problems like I did when I was eating sugar and fructose. Even so, my weight gain sort of lines up with the end of going to the dentist, so just a paranoid thought there….More trivia I suspect…
Periodontal disease can definitely be a huge factor, but I don't think going to the dentist is the way to prevent periodontal disease. I had cavities all the time when I was going to the dentist. It wasn't until I quit eating refined sugar that I no longer had tooth problems. My teeth got even better when I ate very little sugar at all, and went for starches as carbohydrates instead.
Perhaps Gabriel needs to be drinking raw milk as his "protein shake" in the morning.
Venuto's problem is that he recommends intentionally eating below maintence. That's a good way to progressively get hungrier until you fall off the wagon and blow up like a balloon afterwards. If he stressed eating to appetite and working with the body instead of against it with a general attitude of "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" he might really be doing a great service to people with his work.
I've been following my temps for about a month or so. Despite it not being necessary to take our temperature every day, I've been doing it. I've only been doing RRARF for a few weeks though. What I'm interested in knowing is what the variability of readings have been like with other people. I have been at around 97.2 on average but it bounces around by about 0.5 degree on either side of that quite often. Is this a typical variablity or do people see more or less?
Thanks for any guidance anyone is able to give.
Thanks, Matt. That's was my gut reaction, too. Obsessive teeth cleaning didn't do anything to heal my gums. Cutting out refined sugar did.
I meant to compare him with Venuto mainly with the woowoo portion of his program.
I agree Venuto's program is just another low calorie diet when you strip all of it away.
Yeah, somebody send Gabriel some raw milk already, sheesh.
@Jannis: Well, just that my low-carb diet was more nutritious by pretty much any standards didn't change the fact that my teeth only got worse through low-carb. So it's definitely more than nutrition (I'm not saying that you implied anything else).
And about the Price thing: That may very well be. But it is a fact that acids attack the tooth enamel and unfortunately I'm not as healthy as the tribes Price studied. I don't think acids are a problem for most people, but that does not mean that they can't be a problem.
Jenny,,, you can oil pull with coconut oil to clean the teeth and keep bad bacteria down… i do it a few times a week.
Gabriel has some looney recommendations, but he is not OCD.
troy
Hey Tory, what is "oil pull"? Sounds fun.
No, I'm the one, who's OCD. I just don't need any more loony nutrition trivia to make me any more neurotic than I already am (she says as she picks the fresh dandelion greens out of her teeth).
First of all, stop calling Troy "Tory!"
Oil pulling is swishing coconut oil around in your mouth with vigor. Rameil Nagel recommends it – the Cure Tooth Decay guy.
OK, never mind Troy, I can google as well as anyone else. I'll give that a try. I already have a container of coconut oil in the bathroom.
Jenny nothing neurotic about picking dandelion greens and making a salad with them. Not at all.
Now if you said dandelion wine well then maybe.
Note on the oil pulling. If you are using coconut oil then don't spit it down the drain. When it mixes with all the lovely hair and then cools it creates a nice solid plug. You will be cleaning out the trap or paying someone to do it for you.
Good tip Nathan,
i have to un clog my shower drain all the time, because i put coconut oil in my hair that traps everything down there.
Sorry Jenny, i didn't mean you were OCD… I just like his views on having a good relationship with food!!! Food is not the enemy…. the government is…haha…
tory
RE oil pulling, there are many toothpastes that contain coconut oil. Sometimes I use one (which is actually a powder) by ecodent that has baking soda, magnesium carbonate, and sodium lauryl sulfate (from coconut). Other times I'll use [homemade] h2o2 and baking soda–then magensium carbonate (whitening agent, source of magnesium, weightlifting chalk all in one!) afterward. My teeth have drastically improved in appearance since doing this…
Pulling with olive oil for 5 mins every morning has done wonders for whitening my teeth from years of smoking/coffee.
My temp this morning was 95.2oF. Chronic faster/coffee drinker/smoker/overexerciser for years. Always freezing. Could never get any strength gains at the gym. Really pale skin. I suspect the HED protocol is perfect for people like me, who are completely wiped out. I started it and within days quit smoking and coffee and have been in bed every since. I sleep 8 hours each night, and take 2-3 naps throughout the day.
"I started it and within days quit smoking and coffee…" are you shitting me?!! Kassandra that is awesome!!!
John note that this is not a definite, but don't over do I on the baking soda on the teeth. Can be quite abrasive on tooth enamel.
But you guys do have me wanting to give the oil pull a try.
I am against the brush for 2 minutes thing… and quite honestly i don't even use anykind of toothpaste very often… and when i do i use the weleda salt toothpaste… i only brush for maybe 30 seconds to get them smooth… i think people overbrush, and you really don't need toothpaste… just like we really don't need alot of things… but they make you think you do.
troy
Go Kas go!
Troy, I'm a weleda salt toothpaste man myself. I brush for about 1 minute 3-4 times a week. No tooth decay or sensitivity despite having cavities every single time i went to the dentist until i was in my teens.
thanks for all the oil pulling tooth care advice. And I really am pretty OCD, so it's no insult.
"I sleep 8 hours each night, and take 2-3 naps throughout the day."
Wow, that's a lotta naps. Way to go.
I just discovered the genius of the 3:15 p.m. nap. I used to crave coffee and sugar so bad at this time of day. A little birdie called Gabriel suggested a nap. Boy was he right. I'm feeling positively peppy.
@undertow
Another note, got the last of my mercury fillings out this morning, so starting the MRRARF on the weekend, its probably good for its detox capabilities…
Great timing! You have removed an incredible stressor from your body and at the same time going on a nutrient dense holiday. :-)
Please keep us informed!
RRARRF
On a post coming out soon, I will be calling it MREP (metabolic rehabilitation eating protocol).
:-)
@Kathy Coe
Has anyone done the milk diet who is battling diabetes, bad lipid profile & high blood pressure? Just wondering if the results would be good?
That is exactly the kind of patient Dr. Douglass describes as successfully treating with the Milk Diet in his Milk Book.
@JT
I have personally found that fruit is available year round in tropical location. Certain fruits will go in and out of season in those locations, but the fruit is always there.
I talked to my friend in Hawaii last night and she said that a lot of the fruit is seasonal in terms of eating, but that there are some kinds of fruit available year around. No one seems to gorge on fruit year around no matter the season, however, which I think is the primary point.
@Elizabeth
I like the idea of refeeding the metabolism with an all milk day if things start to appear sluggish again. It seems like a good way to start moving things in the right direction again.
I would be interested in seeing how this goes should you attempt it. My gut says that might be to short of a period of time, but there is nothing like N=1 to find out.
I also think it best if one has the opportunity, to stay on the Milk Diet until you are completely and totally well. That is by far the most superior way to do it, though "beautification" has its place, LOL!
@Vida
What is immune milk? Is that colostrum?
Immune Milk is colostrum/milk from a cow that has been inoculated with your own blood in its udder. Immune Milk Therapy, especially in its bootleg form, has been successfully used to treat all forms of disease, including deadly cancers.
@Anonymous
so how come fat people are supposed to lose weight immediatly on the milk diet, but we're supposed to gain weight on HED?
The Milk Diet will lean you out (i.e. cause excess fat loss). Depending on several other factors that may or may not involve overall weight loss, though for many people it usually entails weight loss and they are quite happy about it.
Michael: I think it's worth experimenting, like you said, but I too doubt it will show even close to the same benefits as going on a true milk diet. And I completely agree that if at all possible one should stay on the milk diet as long as it takes to resolve any health issues. Unfortunately in both cases above I can't do much right now; my milk supplier is low on milk, and no milk at all for the next 2-3 weeks. I have two gallons in my fridge and I guess they will mostly go to the kids. I can't deny growing children the benefits of raw milk just so mommy can stoke her metabolism. ;)
Thanks for the encouragement guys. I literally have the theme to Rocky looping in my head as I get ready to nap throughout the day. I'm averaging 8-9 hours sleep at night + 4-5 hours during the day. I'm taking time off from working in case anyone's wondering.
My temp this morning was higher, from 95.2 yesterday to 95.5 today.
I'm trying to eat an entire plate of food three times per day. I'll give you some examples from the past couple days:
Breakfast: 2 eggs, 1 potato, 2 small barley crackers, butter
Lunch: Tabouleh salad (parsley tomato, 1/2 cup couscous), half can tuna
Chocolate bar with almonds. I wanted it, so I had it.
Dinner: 2 small hamburgers (no buns, just meat), 10 french fries, small bowl of steamed dandelion greens. 3 bites of banana cake.
The last one was a friend treating me to dinner out, and the choices were kind of limited. For the first time in my life I'm leaving food behind on my plate. It's a wierd feeling. I feel like I have to eat as much as I can so I can eat like a normal person after so many years of not eating enough and screwing my metabolism. I remember when I was a kid I used to be able to eat three plates of food + chips beforehand + dessert after.
Now, I can barely eat what I've listed and it's hard. I'm getting heartburn all the time and feel really heavy + feel nausea in the AM (which eating seems to get rid of, funny enough).
It's going to be ok. I'm gaining weight but I know 100% that it will fall off when I regain my health, which I've realised is absolutely precious. It was crazy living life smoking a half pack of cigs a day, drinking four espressos, and exercising 2 hours (40 minutes of it plyometrics). It's difficult to admit, and I feel kind of wierd typing it out here to be honest.
Kassandra: Some Swedish bitters or some betaine HCI might aid digestion if you're not used to taking in that much food. Homemade raw sauerkraut is also good for digestion.
I think the fact that you can sleep that much in one day speaks for how much healing your body needs right now. When I first started making sleep a priority, I could take a 2-hr nap during the day and still sleep 8 hours that night. After a few months of this I started noticed longer naps were interfering with my nighttime sleep, so I started shortening my daytime naps to less than 1 hour. Flash forward several more months and now I only take a few 20-30 minute naps every week, more or less depending on how I'm feeling.
Kass-
I'm a little burnt out too. My vacation starts on Tuesday and I'll definitely be on the Kassandra health program :)
It's refreshing to hear somebody really honoring the nourishment of their body on all levels after hitting a wall. I have no doubts that it will pay off, and the next chapters of your life will be far different from the last.
Elizabeth,
You should probably do what Matt said and just focus on eating good healthy food for a while, at least until you can exercise. If you cut calories without resistance exercise you will lose a lot more lean body mass, this is crucial. 2200 calories is high for an average female trying to lose bodyfat, I don't know how much you weigh, but if you are 150 lbs that is almost 15x bodyweight in calories, most females have to do 10-11x bodyweight to get fat loss. As a 6ft 200 lb male i was 1500 calories a day when I went into my fat loss phase. Also, you are eating high carb and high fat. This seems to be a bad combo for people who are eating for aesthetic purposes.
Madmuhh,
I didn't do anything special for my teeth. I had a wholistic dentist who filled in the cavities.
Fat loss is more complicated than that. As long as you are losing enough fat to meet the needs of your lean tissues you will not lose any lean mass whether you exercise or not.
A study done by Evans and Strang in 1931 monitoring nitrogen balance (lean body mass loss) showed no loss of lean body mass in obese subjects with as little as 350 calories per day continued for up to 260 days without exercise.
Matt: I agree about the exercise. I don't have anything against exercise and I look forward to starting back, but there's a lot of information out there showing it doesn't influence fat loss as much as we're led to believe. I think exercise is a good part of an overall whole health program, though, when it comes down to it. But in my personal experience, exercise (whether resistance, HIIT, slow cardio, or whatever), has very little effect on my weight.
Right now when it comes to diet I'm just feeling around for what my body can handle. So far not much. I do kind of feel like my body doesn't burn adipose fat easily. I'm trying not to be impatient. :)
Matt you are somewhat right about the nitrogen retention, but that is primarily for very obese patients. The closer you are to a "normal" weight the more energy you derive from protein breakdown.
http://www.unu.edu/unupress/food2/uid07e/uid07e0r.htm#4. tissue mobilisation in the obese
"The obese have a lower P ratio and appear to mobilise about 5% of their energy from protein breakdown, in contrast to normal weight subjects, who mobilised approximately 20% of their energy from protein breakdown."
Therefore the more cosmetically lean you wish to be, the more effort most be put into the diet.
Matt, That is not true, resistance exercise will play a factor in how much lean muscle is retained. Riles is right, the rules for obese people are completely different. If you want that aesthetic lean muscular look you WILL have to work for it. You need to stop applying research done on obese patients to people who want to get lean.
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/46/4/622
"Total weight loss was not different between exercising and nonexercising subjects but significantly more of the weight loss came from fat and less from fat-free mass in the exercising subjects."
I am planning to do a post on this but I have many references as well as witnessing others and first hand experience that after a certain point you must work for a certain physique through diet manipulation and exercise, as it will not come naturally.
kassandra:
could you be eating too few carbs and too much protein? i have a sluggish liver and gall bladder, due to stones, which causes morning nausea, not feeling good after some meals for me, and so on.
if my diet looked like yours, i would feel bad. how about trying 2 potatoes for breakfast instead, and 1 egg. fill up on carbs, and have protein in much smaller amounts on your plate…..
the liver/gall bladder flex to release bile when you eat protein and fat. if you are sluggish or backed up there (or have a lot of gall stones which a huge percentage of people do) it is much easier to digest carbs than protein.
Thanks Crazy Mother I'll consider that. I'm thinking that you're right about the gall bladder issue – but not because it has a lot of stones or is sluggish. For the first time in 20 years (I guess cause its been so long) I'm eating butter and other animal fats. So I'm pushing through this.
Today's temp: 96.6
Past days: 95.9/95.5/95.1
Hope you all are enjoying this. Anyone else going through the same crap can mail me at kashmoneyrecords@hotmail.com.
I wanted to mention something that I noticed today…
My stomach is starting to feel firm again after feeling like mush from about 10 days of overeating. And it was making all kinds of noises this afternoon. And my weight is not going any higher, despite eating so much. And trust me people, I've been pushing it with my eating. The curious thing to note here is that my weight is at an all-time high, the same level it was at 10 years ago before I started this crazy dieting.
I don't feel so tired either. I napped for only an hour today. Last night I woke up at 2am for no apparent reason (never had a problem with insomnia, ever). I also feel like doing some yoga (kundalini style)…working 'in', not 'out'. I feel pretty good actually!
Good Kass. I'm sure that comes as a relief. I imagine it has been quite a shock to your body to cut out coffee, cigarettes, undereating, meal-skipping, and overexercising as well. I would think over the next several weeks you should start to come back to life, your muscles will fill out, your body temps. will continue to rise, and you'll start to get some of your energy back. Thanks for keeping us posted.
I've talked about this extensively Riles and JT. As long as lean body mass needs are met between the number of calories being liberated from fat tissue and the number being ingested, there are no lean losses. Not 5% from lean, but 0% from lean.
Of course, the leaner you get, the less body fat is liberated, and the more reluctant the body becomes to shedding fat.
Then you must perform a great deal of exercise. However, exercise does not insure that lean body mass is not lost. In fact, exercise mostly preserves skeletal muscle, but you can still lose organ mass, which is far worse from a health standpoint than losing skeletal muscle.
I speak from experience on that. When I was doing my starvation "experiment" I would have fared much better if I had foregone the resistance exercise, but wouldn't have looked like Bruce Lee at the end.
If you have to exercise to maintain skeletal muscle in a calorie deficit, you are doing yourself harm. Yes, that's what it takes to get extremely cosmetically lean, but you can get plenty lean for an average Joe without any lean losses or increase in hunger without doing that.
Matt, why is there so much written about dieters becoming skinny fat when dieting due to losing LBM as well as fat? I am trying to understand, are you saying that as long as the pretty minimal protein needs are met for LBM when cutting calories, we won't lose LBM if eg temperatures remain OK?
If temperatures fall, or hunger rises, you are probably cutting into LBM at that point. Beyond a certain level of leanness, it is almost impossible to keep from losing both fat and LBM when running at a calorie deficit.
Dieters who do lose LBM do become skinny fat. However, it is not an inevitable consequence of losing weight without exercise. That's what I'm trying to stress.
It is possible to lose lean mass on 3,000 calories per day (I did on a nutritarian/vegan diet – very low-fat without animal protein). It is also possible to retain lean mass on a lower-calorie diet, but only if you are losing enough fat to make up for the calorie deficit. Let's look at it like this:
Your lean tissues need 2,000 calories per day for maintenance. If you eat 1,500 calories, but only lose 300 calories of body fat, that is a total of only 1,800 calories to the LBM. You will lose 200 calories of lean body mass until your metabolism slows down to prevent that loss.
If you eat 1,000 calories per day but lose 1,200 calories of body fat, you actually become hypermetabolic without losing any lean body mass.
The idea is to get your body in a metabolic state so that your body preferentially burns body fat instead of holding on to body fat and making a calorie deficit impossible without losing LBM. I think the body temp. is the best gauge at whether the body is willing to release body fat or in conservation mode trying to hold onto body fat and store more of it.
But the key is always making sure, one way or another, that your lean tissues are receiving what they need. Hunger levels are the best gauge. If you're losing weight without increasing hunger (barring appetite suppression from ketosis let's say), then you are most likely not losing any lean body mass and can continue without risk.
thanks, very detailed and helpful reply :) that's great as i have had too much fear about losing muscle, now, if i get the parameters right that we are learning on 180 i can let go of this. ;)
I have nothing against exercise. I think avoiding it temporarily while healing the metabolism can be very effective. Overall, exercise is great, and it can play a role in improving your body composition. I did, however, feel obligated to challenge the belief that losing weight without exercise automatically leads to LBM loss. Not if it is done correctly.
I'm not sure where this idea that you have to use resistance training to become very lean has come from.
Take a look at this picture of a Kitavan or some Aboriginal hunter gatherers at this site and note the lean bodyfat and defined musculature.
You might need resistance training to look like a modern bodybuilder, but you don't need it to be lean and muscular. A properly composed non-industrial diet can and will lower your bodyfat and keep you lean with just a modicum of exercise (like the Kitavans).
Nice one Michael,
actually I was thinking about the Kitavans and bringing that up and even using precisely that foto you linked, but I didn't bother to do it.^^
I am now exercising for pleasure alone (having taken a break during HED), which is very releasing after years of exercising for bodyfat goals ;)
Hunter-gatherer people obviously don't have the structured movement regimens that we call "exercise", they just have good old fashioned "activity". The thing is that the activity in question is consistent and very well rounded and includes (what we design by analogue) anaerobic resistance like carrying and sprinting, low threshold aerobic movement like walking, occasional bouts of moderate threshold aerobic activity like trotting/jogging, plyometrics like jumping etc. They aren't choosing one thing over another, they simply get it as a result of necessary life functions and whole lot of play (they don't have digital entertainment). It would be very hard for a westerner living in the comforts of civilization to simulate that kind of well rounded pattern, so an exercise program that includes all of the above is the next best thing.
Overall that is a great routine and lifestyle. But as Michael knows, and as all milk diet folk reported, and as I experienced with solid food – you don't need to do resistance exercise, or any exercise at all for that matter, to build muscle or lose fat. In fact, you can lay around in bed drinking milk all day and do both simultaneously. I did it eating Schwarzbein-style for a couple of months and not exercising.
I wouldn't argue with the idea that nutrition (without making reference to any particular school of thought on the subject) and nutrition timing can have a significant impact on altering body composition. But I would have to maintain that the conditioned physique will be superior to the unconditioned physique when *all other* factors are equal. A sedentary pet leopard would be an impressive creature regardless, just not as impressive as its active counterpart in the wild, with its full range of development and proprioception intact.
Matt,
I think if you are satisfied with what genetics have dealt you as far as physique goes, than eating a natural diet as you suggest is perfectly appropriate. But, if you wish to surpass that, you must exercise and manipulate your body with exercise and/or diet. That does not automatically make you unhealthy depending on the extent that you take it.
"if you are satisfied with what genetics have dealt you as far as physique goes…if you wish to surpass that, you must exercise and manipulate your body with exercise"
I agree with the point, but I want to clarify that our genes didn't develop over time in a vacuum. There's the expectation of a natural pattern of activity. A baseline physique would be one that meets that expectation, with everything below being sub-par.
Good point, I also agree that there is a minimum amount of activity that needs to be performed. I believe that the lack of any kind of real exercise has a part (albeit not as big as diet) in the failing health America.
I'm in full agreement with those statements. Exercise definitely takes the physique beyond where it can go with various dietary strategies. I just felt obligated to reinforce that diet and various nutritional strategies can play an enormous role in body composition and recomposition – moreso than most people think.
I just checked my morning temp today after months of not checking and it's still low! 97.5 F! WTF! It was only 0.2 lower than that when I started. I've also gained about 30 lbs since starting 180, which is testing me mentally, BIG TIME. There are days when I feel like crying about it, for sure. Like today.
The part that is most discouraging after all this is that I haven't seen significant increases in my body temp. I would be OK with it if I felt I were making real progress.
Unfortunately, raw milk is illegal in Canada, so that's not an option. I've heard of some people sourcing it if they live near a dairy farm or have some sort of inside source, but I have no access to it, personally.
The only thing I can think of is that I'm not balancing my macronutrients very well at every meal, diligently. I don't exactly count anything and I've been known to slack on the protein with some meals and snacks – not all the time, but occasionally. Also, I've been going a bit nuts with the fruit, lately. (About 2 pieces a day.) But nothing insane.
It's discouraging. I don't eat anything fake or processed, really at all. I cook for myself, primarily. And I've pretty much completely gone off alcohol, too, which is a real acheivement. I guess my healing period is just really effing long.
*pity party over*
OMGZ Michael that Kitavan picture is awesome. Dude is 65 if he's a day, totally ripped and smoking a cigarette. I don't even smoke and I love that. I don't know why but it makes me so happy. It's like a giant middle finger to all of western medicine or something.
Hi Annabelle:
I too have been doing 180 for a long time without significant gains in body temps from my start. I started in June last year. I haven't gained as much weight as you, (A little over 10 pounds), but then I was about 15 pounds over weight to begin with, so if I had been at the end of a diet cycle, instead of in the middle of it, who knows, how much my rebound hyperphagia would have kicked in.
A couple of changes I've made recently that have helped:
Concentrating on adding in healthy foods every day. I was getting in a real meat and starch rut for a while. I think I had two salads the entire winter.
I'm not saying eat less meat and starch, just try to eat more, especially raw veggies. Spring is here that should be easy.
Going low on Omega six. I've cut down on pork. I'd like to eliminate it completely. Bacon really helped me get to the place where I was eating enough calories, but now that I'm there I don't think I need my "gateway meat" anymore. It's not as appealing to me lately anyway. Really loving lamb, lately anyway. Had lamb chops last night and OMG, where have you been all my life. They are like slider-sized t-bones. I heart them so hard.
Try to focus on removing stress and don't remember to remind yourself daily the positive changes you've made so far. Any little health improvements you've made should be in your mind as much as possible. When you feel fat or stressed, try to remind yourself than it's better than being sick all the time, or whatever it is that you've improved.
Peace out mah, spoon bread sistah!
OMGZ Michael that Kitavan picture is awesome. Dude is 65 if he's a day, totally ripped and smoking a cigarette. I don't even smoke and I love that. I don't know why but it makes me so happy. It's like a giant middle finger to all of western medicine or something.
LOL! What a great description Jenny. I love it!
If I ever stick a photo of myself without a shirt on the blog, I am seriously considering wearing a loin cloth with a smoke in my mouth (a romeo and julieta in my case), a spear in one hand, and a coconut toddy (an ancient alcoholic drink made from the sap of palms trees that ferments in about 4 hours) in the other.
At the very least I will probably use it as part of my twitter background page. :-)
Thanks, Jenny! Sometimes you just need to hear that someone else is having a similar experience. And yes, I was coming off years of hardcore major ridiculous dieting when I started 180, so it only makes sense.
Generally, I'm very positive and the fact that I'm no longer dieting is a huge huge thing for me – DID I SAY HUGE! – but the temp thing just got me way down this morning.
I completely agree about the healthy fresh foods thing – I bought a juicer recently and got really hooked on celery and other green juices, which is actually what helped get me off alcohol. (I like to have something to sip that isn't water!) I'm also relishing all the fresh produce that's started to show up in the market.
And as dirty-hippie as it sounds, I've got a huge boner for wheatgrass juice, lately. The high from that is better than any caffeine or stimulant high I've ever had. I honestly love the stuff. I actually even enjoy the taste.
In the past 2 weeks I've become hyper aware of omega 6, which I sort of ignored for a long time during my first months on 180. I ate craploads of chicken and pork. Now, less so. But only recently. I'm hoping it makes a difference.
Funny – I have lamb sitting in my fridge right now waiting to be made into a curry for tonight's dinner!
I just need to keep at it…
I'm off to google coconut toddies.
Yeah, I've been considering wheat grass lately, but counted it as just too "out there" to work for, as Sir Lancelot in Holy Grail would say, my idiom.
I got a food processor with a juicer attachment and have juiced a little. Frankly, I'm still finding it more work than just eating raw carrots, though. My kid absolutely adores it though. So I do it sometimes as a treat for him.
Yeah, quitting drinking is HUGE. HUGE. Seriously, I've cut back a lot. It's funny how the interest in it has just waned, but yeah, it helps to have something to sip that ain't water. For me it's freaky deaky kombucha. How I could mock Wheat grass juice and guzzle kombucha, I'll never know.
Lamb curry sounds bomb ass! Rhogan Josh is the meal my husband (then boyfriend) made me that made me consciously realize that I was going to marry him no matter what!
I'm off to google coconut toddies.
I wasn't able to find any real info for weeks until I came across a couple of wild coconut sites posted by Heather Twist.
http://bit.ly/9Og9ND
You can shoot me an email if you like to remind me to post the links if you can't find them.
Michael: Awesome pictures, a true testament to what a traditional food diet has to offer. :)
Annabelle: I think most of us can sympathize with how you're feeling. I've gained about 20 lb total since switching to real food 18 months ago; 13 lb after starting Schwarzbein style in 2008 (after being a low-calorie cardio addict), then another 7 lb in 2010 after coming off a very much regretted low-carb stunt late last year. Sometimes I feel like my body's angry for all I did to it before and that's why it's not letting go of the excess fat. I don't even want to get back to my old weight (I definitely have about 8 lb more lean mass now, hooray for strong bones!), but dang I'd love to drop down about 10 lbs. My body (or maybe just my brain) is at about zero tolerance for reducing calories or carbs–meaning I feel miserable if I try and it doesn't even work anyway. Right now I'm just plugging away, trying to learn to listen to what my body needs and trying to let go of mental stress… maybe I need to pick up Gabriel's book for that one. ;)
I have to admit i am finding Gabriel's nighttime relaxation/visualization CD pretty helpful, I am reducing calories now but don't feel like I am dieting… of course not sure it will work :) :)
Yes, get Gabriel's book – it really is fantastic and he "gets it", being a former fatty. He understands what someone who has really struggled with their weight is feeling, down to the proverbial T.
My body is definitely rebelling. I know it is. I don't even have to wonder why things are going so slowly.
It's just letting go of that (erroneous) belief that it will never get better or that I'll just continue to gain weight forever, until they have to forklift me out of my bed that's the hard part. I was a chub to begin with when I started this eating-to-appetite thing and now I'm just downright fat again. Not at my heaviest, but fat, nonetheless. So yeah, it's really hard not letting that become one of the stresses that I'm trying so hard to avoid.
I guess it's the 'trying' that's the problem. If you have to try really hard at something, then you're going about something the wrong way.
But I agree about the caloric/carb restriction and the counting of everything. I'm so done with that. Even reading Matt's latest book made me shudder when I got to the fat loss part. I'm that phobic of counting and measuring now!
I would do a lot better if I lived in an environment where I could completely ignore my body (and anything to do with weight) until it got better, but wow – we're just so inundated with all that bullshit every single moment of every day, especially as women. It's enough to make one toss one's cookies.
Anabelle, raw milk is not illegal in Ontario, you just need to find a cowshare. There should be many around the TO area (im guessing TO from your blogger profile). I started the milk diet this morning. I have 42 liters of milk in my second fridge, from my cowshare! Crazy! I pick it up once weekly. I will try to do weekly posts on my blog about my progress.
My temps are responding very slowly as well, went from 96.8 to 97.4 in the last 6months on RRARF. I hit 97.5 a few times but its not stable there yet. I only gained 10lbs in those 6 months though, eating more then I have ever eaten in my life, you should hit a plateau soon I would think with the weight gain. I am hoping the milk diet will raise the basal temps for good!
I know it is hard to not see overnight results, I am in the same frame of mind. I wish I knew about all this while I was wasting 1yr of low carbing / zero carbing….
Good luck!
Undertow,
I know the charges were overturned for Michael Schmidt, but I didn't realize that milk was easily accessible yet… Are you in Toronto? I looked online and saw a bit of info. I'll look into it further.
How long does raw milk last in the fridge? I'd think it would go bad before the week was up, no?
Actually raw milk does not really gets bad. It just turns into whey and curd, which is basically cream cheese. But I guess that info is not really helpful. However I think it would certainly last at least a week in the fridge.
oh, and it's "get" and not "gets"
Annabelle, im around the Ottawa area, I found my cowshare through the local WAPF yahoo group. Also the local farmer markets that should be starting up soon, might have more info for you.
I find the raw milk I get taste ok until about one week refrigerated, then it starts to sour somewhat. Keep the fridge cold and the milk should taste good for a week. But like madMUHHH said it doesn't really go bad, just starts to sour and is still edible. At that point you can make sour cream, or cream cheese, etc…
Raw milk won't go rancid like pasteurized store-bought milk will. I have drank raw milk left in fridge for one month – its not fresh just sour tasting and still healthy.
Hey Jedi, I'm doing the night time visualization too. I'm not reducing calories (at least I don't think I am. I am still trying to push my metabolism up. I think you can kind of adapt his technique to include positive visualizations to do with body temp.
Jenny, that's a great idea using GB method for temperatureas too, I have started doing it for other things. I am kind of intuitively eating a little less and loosely folowing Matt's guidelines in his new ebook. I am trying to really avoid 'dieting' eg I was ravenous in the middle of last night so got up and ate something :) will do regular refeeds and am rigorously following basal temps.
Yeah, Jedi, it seems to be working. I walked into to work today in short sleeves, bare legs, and open toed shoes and I felt warm. It was 54 degrees. In years past, I would have worn a light jacket and my legs would have been freezing. I keep telling myself, "it's ok to warm. It's safer to be warm," etc. I also imagine that Bernarr MacFadden is telling me to go take an air bath, which for some reason amuses and keeps me going. I've always been known in my family as overly sensitive to temperature shifts. My husband jokingly says that I have a two degree comfort zone and that I complain if it's either too hot or too cold for that. I'm really hoping to overcome that. I hate being such a hothouse flower.
Here's an update guys. My temp has now increased to 97.5! On April 18, it was 96.6.
On the HED my weight stabilized after a couple of weeks and has since been dropping. I've lost 4 pounds since last week.
I feel calmer, happier, more sane. I've made peace with my body and with foods I thought were 'bad'. :-) x 1000
Annabelle, I wish I could help you. Are you forcing food down when you're not hungry? Do you have heartburn or indigestion? Is this all related to food? How are your relationships? Stress at work? I ask this because I think my healing was so fast because my parents have come to visit me and my mum is cooking and taking care of me these days. Yesterday she made over roasted chicken with potatoes. I don't know how she does it. All she does it put salt, pepper and lemon with the chicken and its SO GOOD, not dry and yet…the potatoes get this crispiness to them at the same time. Anyhow…not to get off on a tangent here, but I think family/friends really help.
Hey Kassandra,
No, I'm not forcing down food. My hunger is variable. Some days I'm fine on about 1600 calories and some days I'm still famished after 2500. I try to listen to my body as much as possible, but that's a relatively new thing for me, considering the number of years I ignored it. I'm still trying to get the hang of that! I still have the urge to 'ignore' hunger, or respond with guilt, rather than just eat more and accept that my body is asking for more food for a reason. Again, I'm trying to let that go, but it's a quite the journey.
I think I know why my temps were lower than I expected. I just came back from vacation in the caribbean and spend the week eating "unknown" foods, probably loaded with veg oil. I tried to stay away from the obvious fried things and stick with rice and lamb curry and potatoes and eggs and meat and veggies, but I'm sure all of it – every last morsel – was cooked in inferior oils.
I really wish people would hang on to their traditional cooking methods! I'm sure coconut and palm oil and ghee were most common cooking oils for centuries in the West Indies, but now they just use big jugs of miscellaneous yellow liquid mystery oil. I could see them dipping their ladles into a vat when they were making omelettes… Barf! I ate the omelettes, anyway, of course. What else could I do? I brought some omega 3 capsules with me to try to offset the damage, but I don't think you get nearly the same effect as avoiding the omega 6 entirely.
So yeah, exposure to some serious ass-loads of omega 6 for the week probably cooled me down significantly. Nevermind the umbrella drinks… Not that I went crazy, but I definitely had some. I also gained 4 lbs. (Which, I might add, is the LEAST amount of weight I've ever gained on vacation! So that tells you something, right there!)
I took my temp the last two mornings and even though I'm approaching ovulation, it's going up. It was 36.51 C (97.7 F) this morning. Huzzah! This confirms that my temp was lowered from my trip and is getting higher as my diet normalizes.
I'm going to be much more diligent about taking temps from now on. So I get the full spectrum, as far as my cycle goes.
I know what you are saying about traditional cooking methods. My daycare provider is from India and she is old school. I just assumed she was cooking with ghee, but then I noticed a big old jug of wesson in her cupboard. It made me want to cry. She suffers from arthritis and I wish I could find a way to delicately say that the oil is probably the worst thing for her. Inflammation city. Go back to ghee!
I know what you are saying about traditional cooking methods. My daycare provider is from India and she is old school. I just assumed she was cooking with ghee, but then I noticed a big old jug of wesson in her cupboard. It made me want to cry. She suffers from arthritis and I wish I could find a way to delicately say that the oil is probably the worst thing for her. Inflammation city. Go back to ghee!
Annabelle, I'm learning about parasites right now and maybe the parasites are sending you signals for more starchy, carby, sugary foods.
After my initial entry into the HED where I was eating everything in sight (mostly because I was starving so many years) I'm now down to 3 meals a day and my weight has stabilized. It will not budge above a certain set point. Once I'm healthy it will let it go, until then I have to patient.
It sucks. I'm thinking of covering up all the mirrors in the house, no kidding. I was walking around downtown yesterday and avoiding looking at my reflection in the store windows.
I know there are some foods that made me gain weight that I don't need to eat: oats, wheat, chocolate, sweets, sugar, any dairy products (except for a bit of butter here and there). Does listening to your body mean listening to ALL your cravings? Like if I crave crisps for example, is it really some inner need my body has? I think not.
Our appetities need to stabilize. Hold out both your hands. That's how big your plate should be. 1/3 should be a protein source, 1/3 some kind of starch and 1/3 veg. No fruit. No sugary crap. 1 cup of coffee per day, no more. All food grown within a couple hundred kilometres from where you live. That means no pineapples from the tropics in January if you live in Wisconsin. THAT's the problem with fructose I think. People are eating foods completely incompatible with their geographical environment and conditions.
In my case I live in Greece. Fruit grows everywhere. How can you tell me not to eat it. I do. For breakfast some days. Oh the horror! Where's the protein??? Where's the veg??? Where are the starchy veg and potatoes? I don't know. But in the same vein I don't know where the bloating, gas, and heartburn went either when I was stuffing myself in the AM. You feeling me on this?
Hey Matt,
I bought your book a few days ago. I'm not sure how overweight I am according to that annoying chart at the doctor's office, but I would need to lose 50lbs to be below 200lbs. I'm 5'9, almost 28, had the 4th baby several months ago and have always returned to this weight whether I've lost or gained a bit for the last 7 years.
I've pursued health all these years and we eat according to Nourishing Traditions mostly. Yet, still carrying way too much fat. So, I'm supposed to feed myself to the point where I go above the weight set point? How do I know when I've gone far enough- till I stop gaining weight? I haven't been weighing myself at all, mainly because I don't have a good scale AND I'm scared to.
I am a classic example of cortisol/fat gain from stress etc. I went on a high fat/protein diet in January, lost nothing and seemed to have gained more weight. I never gain weight, but life is more stressful lately.
Anyways, just wondering. Thanks!
Jessica
Jessica: Stress is a BIG deal when it comes to weight (in my humble opinion and experience at least). I think the food part is mucho important, but our food choices rely so much on the chemical signals our bodies send us, it's next to impossible to address diet without addressing other lifestyle components too, because those components affect our body chemistry as much as diet. Of course, we can't just wave a magic wand and make stress disappear, but we can learn to ditch what we can and then take time to destress to help us deal with the things we can't change.
While I haven't read Jon Gabriel's book yet, I've been eating up his podcasts on iTunes. And he's not one of those authors who keeps repeating, "Well, you really have to read the book." He spills the beans big time, and I've learned so much already. If you can get those podcasts I highly recommend giving them a shot, too. They really get into *why* the body wants to hold onto weight and not just calories-in/calories-out/macronutrient-ratios, etc.
Looks like my vacation had a HUGE impact on my temps. My morning temp has gone up to 36.81 C (98.3 F), for 3 days in a row, now. It should only get higher as I move away from ovulation time.
EFFING YAY!
Hi,
I can't seem to find any Vick's thermometer's that measure 4 digits?
Here's what they sell on their website:
http://www.vicks.com/products/thermometers
Hi Matt
My temperature was up to 99.1 today for about 2 hours. I was excited so I kept taking it! (I have to say that my Vick’s is about .6 degrees above my other thermometer–not sure which one is correct)…I have been undieting for about a year and way upping my carbs for about three weeks (on your advice–thanks! I am loving it!)…I have gained about 7 lbs in the last two weeks, but I have hope it will come off. My question is….how long does it take for a heightened temperature to make a difference in weight loss? I know it is not the most important thing in the world (I feel great and thankful I can eat normally), but I still really want to lose weight. My husband does NOT get it. I don’t dare tell him I am trying to lose weight by eating more….So, anyway, from past experience should I expect any weight loss in the next month, 4 months, 6 months (with higher temps). I started three weeks ago at about 96.8.
Also, my feet are still cold. My hands are warm and by neck and back are really warm, but my feet are still cold…
I would try to keep those temps up for many months before even thinking about weight loss. Hopefully it will come off spontaneously towards the end of summer. It may also come off if you are to get in good physical condition while maintaining a high metabolism, but that’s all down the road. Be patient on focus on temps, not body composition for now.