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It’s now time for the greatly-anticipated results of Elizabeth Walling’s milk mania.  How did it go?  As expected.  She had the full-on milk diet experience as described by the old-schoolers like J.E. Crewe, Bernarr MacFadden, and Charles Sanford Porter.  How’s this for a kickoff to Milk-Man Michael Miles’s upcoming milk diet website?  I guess this is as good a time as any to also reveal some news.  I’ll be doing the milk diet for most of the month of May while in California.  I can’t wait.  I’ll be blogging like a madman.  Anyway, without further ado, here’s Elizabeth Walling, a woman who clings to the word “Nourish” and who has taken the concept to new heights.  Thank you so much Elizabeth.  May this inspire many out there in desperate need of a health “miracle.”  Make sure to check out Liz’s sweet blog too.

In the past my diet ?experiments? have all turned out less than impressive and mostly disappointing (even depressing–and I mean literally; I’ve learned the hard way both butter and carbs are friends when it comes to my mental health). My milk diet adventure, however, has been the exception. As crazy as it sounds to conventional ears, a full 23 days on pure raw milk offered nothing but improvements for me. Raw milk fans may not be so surprised–after all, they know this traditional food packs a powerful nutritional punch like no other.

I’ve thought the idea of subsisting on raw milk alone was an intriguing concept ever since my early days exploring Realmilk.com, but in recent months it began to strike me that the milk diet may be one of the only extreme diets out there that doesn’t damage the metabolism–in fact, it may actually heal it.

Since I’ve personally never encountered a ?diet? that did anything but hurt me in the long run, the milk diet started to sound tempting as an experiment I could try without further damaging the metabolism I’ve worked so hard to heal during the last two years. While I love to self-experiment, I’m pretty much through beating the heck out of my poor metabolism. It’s been through the ringer and I’d prefer to give it a break. To me, the milk diet sounded like the best of both worlds: do something adventurous with food that has loads of healing potential. After a few encouraging words from Matt, I was headed down to my local farm for ten gallons of fresh milk so I could officially get started.

I spent 23 entire days on raw milk alone. For me, this was a terrific feat, because I have never, ever been able to stick to a strict-strict diet for more than a few days at a time, and I’m not kidding. I guess I just figured I was some sort of defective human with unusually weak willpower (though I’m able to stick to my guns in plenty of other situations that don’t involve food). But when I learned about real food, I discovered what I had considered willpower was actually my body crying out for nourishment.

These days I find my eating habits far easier to stay on top of, but still I wasn’t too sure I would have the motivation to stick to only milk for longer than a few days. But to be honest it was surprisingly easy, and in some ways I seriously thought I could live on raw milk forever and be quite content. And when that happened, I realized that under the right conditions, this thing called willpower came natural to me after all.

Basal Temperature Results

Now, I know a lot of you 180 fans are going to be interested in hearing about how the milk diet affects basal temperature. As long as I can remember my temperature has been low. My mother’s was the same way and I assumed it was genetic. I didn’t realize until the past couple years that it was probably metabolic more than anything. And though I’ve been working on healing my metabolism through diet and lifestyle changes during that time, it wasn’t until I went on the milk diet that I saw the most drastic change in my basal temperature.

I recorded my axillary basal temp in bed almost every morning during the milk diet. For those who don’t know, menstruating women generally have a lower basal temperature during the first half of their cycle, and higher during the last half. This is part of the reason I went on such a long sprint with the milk diet, because I wanted at least three solid weeks to gauge the results and get a real idea of what was happening. And here’s how it turned out:

During the first half of my cycle I averaged 98.3 degrees F.


During the second half of my cycle I averaged 99.1 degrees F.


What’s more: so far I’m still holding these averages today, three weeks after eating normally. This is coming from someone who rarely broke higher than 97.8 degrees in recent months, and still saw as low as 96.4 sometimes. After the first three days my temperature read above 98.0 every single morning on the milk diet–so for me, this was nothing short of a miracle.

Weight Gain or Loss on the Milk Diet

What seemed to surprise my readers the most was the fact that during the milk diet, I consumed an averaged 2,520 calories a day from milk (and this wasn’t a low-anything diet?plenty of carbs, fat and protein)… but I didn’t gain any weight. In fact, I lost a couple pounds. Nothing dramatic, but basically, the milk diet did not make me fat, which appears to be something that concerns people, possibly because weight gain was mentioned frequently by old-school milk diet experts (though mostly in emaciated patients).

But of course, you 180 followers know that weight isn’t the whole picture, whether you’re gaining or losing. And the milk diet is famous for putting on the right kind of weight–the kind that makes you look fit, healthy and filled out in the right places (you ladies know what I mean). And the kind that supplies your muscles, bones and organs with what they need to thrive. Lean body mass is totally coddled on the milk diet. So in my mind gaining weight on the milk diet isn’t necessarily a bad thing in the first place, because it might be what you need to give your metabolism that extra edge.

Milk a Makeover

Old-school application for the milk diet included ?beautification? which was basically a kind of milk makeover (or milk-over as dubbed by Matt in one of his comments on my blog). And overall I have to say I noticed a subtle shift in my appearance during the milk diet. A brighter complexion, clearer eyes (I experienced regular redness in my eyes before), just an overall healthy glow and, well, the look of being nourished from head to toe. It’s kind of difficult to describe, but I imagine a lot of women–and probably guys, too–would shell out some major bucks to achieve this kind of natural boost in their appearance (way better than botox).

Cravings-town, Population: 0

I’m not one of those people who looks at a chocolate cake and thinks, ?Boy, look at that sugar-laden, insulin-spiking, liver-devastating hunk of garbage. Well, sometimes I do (because that’s the truth), but I’m still way human and other times I’m caught thinking, ?Damn, look at that delicious, dreamy hunk of sweet awesomeness. Heck, let’s face it, I’m not thinking at that point. I’m just diving in with my fork.

On the milk diet, I sat and watched my entire family eat chocolate cake for my son’s birthday, and I didn’t want any. Not one bite. And, get this, it was during the time of the month when cravings usually hit me so hard you’d catch me red-handed in the candy aisle with a bag full of Reese’s cups (true story). I had mild cravings come and go during the diet, but as I said above, I had no trouble eating nothing but plain milk for 23 straight days. And as someone who’s battled cravings for as long as I can remember, this was completely unexpected. (But, yes, madMUHHH, I did taste the potato soup I made to make sure I wasn’t over-salting… does that count as a cheat?)

Healing Hormones?

Since the metabolism is basically run by our hormones, it stands to reason that if the milk diet improves metabolic health it must do so by promoting endocrine balance. I didn’t have my hormones tested during this sprint on the milk diet (that might have been interesting), so I don’t know for sure what changes may have taken place during this time. What I do know is overall my menstrual cycle (and all it entails) seems to be doing better–for instance, I’ve had a problem with killer PMS and this seems to be moving in a positive direction after going on the milk diet.

My Future with Raw Milk

As far as I’m concerned, if raw milk and I had commitment issues before, the milk diet sealed the deal–I can’t imagine a life without raw milk. Today I’m still aiming for about one quart every day, and am contemplating doing another round of the milk diet soon (probably shorter, more like 1-2 weeks), since my local milk supply should be more consistent in quantity and quality in the coming weeks now that spring has officially made its debut here in Alabama. And after some discussion with Michael Miles from the Nutrition and Physical Regeneration blog, I will be aiming for taking in a larger amount of milk each day, more like 6-7 quarts per day instead of the 4-5 quarts I consumed this time around, in hopes of resolving some digestive issues I experienced during this round and also taking my healing a step further. More is better in many cases when it comes to the milk diet.

To anyone contemplating doing the milk diet, I say find a quality source of raw milk and go for it. I’ve yet to find a diet that has so many potential benefits and clearly doesn’t cause metabolic damage. I don’t think I’m making any friends in the FDA by saying so, but then again maybe that’s a good thing.