Andvanwyk's journal

[andvanwyk]

Just getting a link for now

[andvanwyk]

Here is a link to my introduction page for those who missed it .... http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/welcoming-commitee/my-health-journey-thus-far/

I went to bed quite late last night at 2am. Woke up at 10am. I made some lamb steak tartare last night which seemed to digest pretty well although my stomach was churning a little bit this morning. I usually wake up with what feels like a knot in my stomach and an anxiety type of feeling, which was no different this morning. I'll be measuring my basic vitals every morning to see how things change. They aren't bad at the moment but it will be interesting to see what happens as my body adapts to eating raw food. My heart rate was 71bpm, body temperature 36.5 degrees celsius and fasting blood glucose was 95mg%.

I felt pretty positive and good for most of the day. I went for a leisurely walk with my girlfriend and one of my friends in the afternoon and got pretty tired rather quickly. I've been having my main meal at night mostly for the last 2 weeks or so and was incredibly hungry when we went walking but hadn't had time to grind any meat to eat yet. Overall not much anxiety, just a couple of moments here and there.

During the day I ate some berries, honey, papaya, almonds and tangerine. During the evening I made some steak tartare containing 750g of ribeye steak, 2 egg yolks, a little bit of olive oil, some capers, tabasco sauce and worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. I'm not crazy about all the spices and things but I'm just looking for any way to make the raw meat taste better in the mean time while I source more variety and get used to the diet.

My total calorie breakdown was as follows: 1911 calories 48% fat, 17% carbohydrate and 35% protein. This includes a total of 89grams of carbohydrate, which is less than the 100 each day that I'm aiming for, for now.

[goodsamaritan]

Wow, what an appetite.
750 gm of steak ++ in one meal.
You must be a big man and I'm small.

[andvanwyk]

Haha. I'm not so big. I ate it over a period of 2 or 3 hours. I seem to have a very fast metabolism and struggle to put on weight. I think I weight about 67kg or so at the moment.

Last night I went to bed late again at about 1am. For some reason I was feeling anxious and panicky while trying to fall asleep and only fell asleep at 2:20am or so, lying half away and half asleep before that with a "weird" mood. I did sleep pretty well though and woke up at 10am. My resting heart rate was 80bpm this morning (it seems to change almost daily without rhyme or reason even if I take it at the same time of day). My temperature was 36.63 degrees celsius and my fasting blood glucose was 82mg%. I had some of last nights left over steak tartare for breakfast as well as some mixed berries and honey.

I had a few errands to do today and was rather physically exhausted while walking around outside! I needed an afternoon nap of about 20 minutes and my energy levels seemed a bit better after that, but still quite fatigued overall.

I exercised rather late at about 9pm. I did some kettlebell swings. For those of you who don't know what that is here is a youtube video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u_nqSnM2S8. I just did 1 arm swings with a 12kg kettlebell. I did 50 in a row and then rested for 1 minute by lightly jogging on the spot. I did this for 11:08 minutes. My max heart was 179bpm and my average heart rate was 153bpm.

I found some very fatty free range organic lamb chops that I bought, deboned and grinded to make my steak tartare. It tasted pretty good! Overall I ate some berries, honey, tangerines, leftover steak tartare from yesterday and fresh steak tartare made from fatty lamb, 2 egg yolks, some onions, capers, olive oil, salt and pepper, tabasco and worcestershire sauce. Today's nutritional composition is as follows: 1991 total calories 56% fat, 14% carbs and 31% protein. That is a total of 75grams of carbohydrates.

I bought some Calcium Montmorillonite clay today to help with my detox. The guy said I should take about 1 teaspoon a day mixed with water. He says the source that it comes from is very pure and there is no mercury or heavy metals in it. Does anyone have any experience with clay like this and if this is a good kind and how beneficial it is?

[andvanwyk]

Just a quick post today. Woke at 10am. Heart rate 79bpm. Blood sugar 86mg. I slept well last night. I was feeling quite lazy this morning and had a bit of fatigue throughout the day although not nearly as bad as yesterday. I had some depressed feelings just after having the first few bites of my evening meal (I just ate fruit during the day). It felt like feelings of loss of not eating cooked food anymore and all the years of social conditioning, giving all that up and what it might mean in my life and the big change I'll be undergoing, as well as not wanting to be disappointed by my high feelings of expectation. After I ate my meal though I felt a lot better mentally. Food is primarily just fuel anyway. I notice my taste becoming a bit more sensitive. Some of the tangerines I've been eating taste much nicer and sweeter than usual (I'm pretty sure it's my taste and not the fruit itself). The meat I ate was tasty nevertheless (steak tartare) but I need to get more variety in my diet to keep things mixed up, and it wouldn't be as nice without the spices and salt etc. Does one ever get to a point where one really looks forward to the taste of plain raw meat?

Exercise: I did 7 minutes of 12kg kettlebell getups today, alternating arms after each rep. One thing I'm really hoping to achieve on this diet is physical stamina and having a lot of energy to be active. I really love exercise and would love to have more energy to reach all my physical goals.

My total caloric intake was 2084 calories. The breakdown was 58% fat, 12% carbs and 30% protein. That's 69grams of carbohydrates, which is below my goal of 100grams. I have the feeling like I'm not eating enough because my weight is dropping rather rapidly. I'll keep my diet at this level for another week or so and then maybe add 200 calories or so per day and see how that effects things.

Hope you're all doing well

[djr_81]

Food is primarily just fuel anyway.

Exactly. Once you can get this into your head it becomes much easier to move past the conditioning from the past and our sensory connections to food.

Does one ever get to a point where one really looks forward to the taste of plain raw meat?

Definitely. Part is obviously hunger based but most of us here will attest that at a certain point you start craving it and really enjoy the meal when you have it.

One thing I'm really hoping to achieve on this diet is physical stamina and having a lot of energy to be active. I really love exercise and would love to have more energy to reach all my physical goals.

I eat carnivorously so my experiences may vary some from your final experiences but I have tons of energy and endurance now. You should have no problem here once your body adjusts.

My total caloric intake was 2084 calories. The breakdown was 58% fat, 12% carbs and 30% protein. That's 69grams of carbohydrates, which is below my goal of 100grams. I have the feeling like I'm not eating enough because my weight is dropping rather rapidly. I'll keep my diet at this level for another week or so and then maybe add 200 calories or so per day and see how that effects things.

Don't be too concerned yet. Many here found they went through a period of weight loss when transitioning to RPD along with a tendency for the body to store fat more evenly throughout the body instead of one area like the stomach. I lost 10 pounds in my first few weeks.
Keep an eye on things but don't begin worrying until you feel the weight loss is having a detrimental effect on your body.
FWIW your fat intake percentage seems a bit low. If you still keep losing weight and want to try to slow/stop it add a bit more fat.

[andvanwyk]

I bought a massive pack of lamb chops today with tons of fat on it, which I'll be eating over the next few days, hopefully get my fat intake up a bit more. This morning my blood sugar was 84mg, heart rate 65bpm and my temperature 36.0 degrees. The fluctuating temperatures over different days can be indicative of adrenal problems apparently. According to some saliva cortisol tests I did last year and in Feb this year my body sometimes produces too much cortisol and at other times too little. Defnitely, this contributes to my anxious feelings or my anxious feelings contribute to this. I'm hoping my adrenals will stabilise over time on this diet.

I felt alright for the most part today. I became extremely fatigued once or twice though and felt quite wired and tired throughout the afternoon. I had lots of fun tonight though and laughed A LOT compared to normal, which felt really good, although walking up some stairs made me feel like I had weights in my legs. I think my body still has a lot of adjusting to do without all the artificial vitamins and minerals I've been taking.

Today I ate some berries, tangerines, dried dates and dried mangos, few sunflower seeds, little bit of coconut, and the bulk of my calories came from the rest of the steak tartare I ate yesterday, consisting of a mix of lamb neck and sirloin steak along with the seasonings. My caloric breakdown is 2011 calories total with 55% coming from fat, 20% carbs and 25% protein. I ate 110g of carbs today which is over the 100g I'm aiming for but it's alright since it's the weekly and monthly averages that matter.

Tomorrow I'll be doing kettlebell swings again and I'll be interested to see how my energy levels are. I'm going to try go to sleep slightly earlier tonight than usual since I have the night off.

[andvanwyk]

I am stating my intention to try eat fully raw again from tomorrow! I have learnt a lot since my last post and have a good supplier of grass fed beef now. I can also get hold of duck eggs, bone marrow, duck liver, lamb liver, beef heart, beef tongue, lamb brains and some other stuff!

I also have some high meat that is nearly a month old. I have been eating a largely paleolithic diet for the last while and have been doing pretty well (barring a 1 month long near disaster stint with Matt Stone's high everything diet). I think my metabolism is more suited to eating fat now and I have been eating 50g or less of carbs per day pretty much for the last month or so. I had some extremely tired days and my performance/energy still isn't brilliant but I'm hoping high meat and the raw meat will help that

For me the biggest thing is enjoying the taste of raw food. I really don't enjoy the taste of pretty much any raw meat plain. I can get it down using drinking water to swallow. The swallowing part seems to be hard for me some reason. Haha. I ate some 3 week old "high meat" (not quite high I know) and it wasn't that bad. Anyways, I can handle small amounts of raw meat but have difficulties eating as much as I should.

I know now that I can be ok, eating large amounts of animal foods and fats, whether they are raw or not. This is now my raw experiment ... I'm aiming for 20 days but will be happy if I manage 14 days. I'm looking forward to experiencing high meat.

I also have a friend who is very much into this way of eating now He tried a week long zero carb stint and has been eating 90% raw for the last month or so. We order our meats from the same guy. Having a buddy helps a lot!

Tomorrow I will be having some lamb fat, beef ribs and egg yolks as well as a little bit of fruit before I go to sleep. On friday I'm receiving half a sheep to share with my friend. We'll see how it goes !:)

... On the progress side of things. I've been off the antidepressants and anxiolytics since end May this year ... nearly 6 months, which is a first for me since all troubles began a few years back. My cranial sacral therapist said to me last week that my system feels many times better than when I first met him last year. I also got a massive release in my cranial sacral system last week, where I noticeably felt a release and tingling throughout my whole body for 10 minutes. I have been coughing up a lot of green and yellow mucus since though. Maybe a detox, or maybe just an infection, who knows. I do still get depressed and anxious but overall feel a lot better.

[andvanwyk]

Sheesh, that was not easy. I feel like such a wimp!

250g beef ribs ground up and a bit of lamb fat ground up and I buckle like a weakling before the prospect! I HATE the taste. I ate most of it raw but cooked the last bit rare with some tallow. It tastes alright not ground up, straight off the bone, but then it takes me ages and ages to eat it and my teeth and gums get sore after a while (something I hope this diet will help heal). Nearly everyone one of my teeth has had a cavity in it at some point or another and I'm missing 3 teeth (but have thingies that act as replacements).

Either I should just eat it off the bone for now even if I end up eating a lot less and see what happens with my teeth or I should eat what I can raw. Eat my egg yolks raw and all the organs raw, as well as trying like 100g of raw muscle meat for breakfast to help me getting used to it while cooking the rest. Something to think about...

Tomorrow, if I don't chicken out I'll try some high meat again.