My Story

[Tsurugi_Oni]

  Hey everyone!! I joined here a long time ago but never really posted cuz I wasn't sure if this lifestyle was aligned with what I needed to heal.  I write extensively at GITMR if anyone is familiar with that forum.
 
 Basically my story is around 3 years ago I had a sudden drastic worsening of my health.  In retrospect I can tell that it was very subtle chronic health problems that snowballed out of control.

  For example I've always had chronic joint pains as a child.  Everyone told me it was "growing pains".  Nope.... it's nightshade intolerance.
 
  Anyways my symptoms are a laundry list......... EXTREME anxiety / panic attacks (used to always be a super chill guy), debilitating sinus pressure, fatigue, body aches (clothes touching skin actually hurts), teeth aches, seizures (probably electrolyte imbalance), terrible reactive hypoglycemia, acne, fatigue, and more. 

  Part of my healing diet included fruits and veggies.  After all weren't those the healthiest foods?? 

  I've tried everything from fruitarian 80/10/10 to zero carb to experiment.  And for the record I did 80/10/10 100%.  I've done no soy/corn/wheat/grains, all glucose, all sucrose/fructose, and everything in between.

  Adequate hydration, little stress, unlimited sugary fresh fruits, sleep, little - no fat,  got all my minerals, 3000 calories sedentary.  So yah. 

  My symptoms worsened.  Increased sinus pressure, anxiety, bad adrenal fatigue, high blood pressure, restlessness, reactive hypoglycemia, insomnia.  One of the worst symptoms is greatly increased urination (wake up 4x a night, have to go every hour.  Happens worst with apples and oatmeal) and bladder pressure to the point of discomfort.

  I have lots of allergies.  Celery, tomatoes, nightshades, carrots (stop my breathing), peanuts, shellfish (recently found out... I love shellfish), and a couple more I'm not thinking about. 

  I've done parasite cleanses and candida elimination diets.  None really helped. 

  Recently I carried out a little experiment on carbs.  One of the major symptoms of when I eat carbs is inner ear itching and increased sinus pressure.  I'm allergic to grass amongst other things (as a kid I thought everyone itched when they touched the grass), so just think of all the grass-like foods that we eat.  Cane sugar, rice, wheat...... oh boy.

  So what I did was get something like 10 sources of sugar.  Raw cane, refined cane, beet sugar, brown rice syrup, 3x raw honey kinds, cooked honeys, brown rice syrup, cooked agave, raw agave, etc.  That way I could identify the problem by categorizing them by family and raw/cooked (cooked foods tend to be less allergenic). 

  Turns out that maple syrup treated me the best, yet they all gave me some sort of immediate reaction.  Honey seemed to be the worst from memory (severe reactive hypoglycemia n itching). 

  I was getting really in tune with my body's reaction to food and one thing that I noticed was that meat gave me 0 reaction.  In fact nearly every fruit gave my digestive pains and enervation (most likely allergic reaction in digestive track) while meat sat perfectly.  Immediately upon eating meat I felt calm and relaxed. 

  So I said fuck it.  It doesn't make sense to do what I know isn't working.  It's time to trust in my body's wisdom and go with the flow.

  Back to nigh zero carb.

  First day I had a MASSIVE headache.  Flu like.  I was disabled in bed for the whole day.

  Day 2 felt like I've healed after a bad hangover.  Strangely my symptoms seemed better.

  Day 3 my symptoms were clearly much better.  Skin was clearing up, my lips were smooth (for years they used to go through a 2 day cycle of smooth / very chapped), hangnails are gone (have had those since early high school), sinus pressure is reduced, bowel elimination improved, and absolutely 0 anxiety.  In fact the change was so apparent that people could tell.  People could yell at me in an emotional storm and I could remain perfectly calm and centered.  Catch me on high fruit and I'm extremely irritable and emotional.  It's a beautiful feeling.

 Oh yah, I recently went to the doctor's office and for the first time in over 10+ checkups my blood pressure is normal.  It has always been very high every time, but ever since changing my diet its back to normal.  It's funny that when I was eating a "healthy" fruitarian diet of unlimited fresh juicey fruits that my blood pressure was high.  Now that I'm eating those artery-clogging fats its back to normal.  Maybe it's just a coincidence tho =p

  Even if I can't have intellectual security in what I'm doing, my body chooses what it wants.  The only way to move forward is to do what I feel is right out of faith rather than coward in fear.

  So at the moment I'm near zero carb high fat meaty diet.  Funny enough that I'm lactose intolerant, yet raw aged cheeses give me absolutely no symptoms.  In fact they treat me very well!  At the moment I'm going to set them aside for when I feel like I achieve a reasonable meaty baseline. 

  I'm just looking for a little support while venturing into the unknown.  Seems like this is the place to be.

  So here I am ^^!

[achillezzz]

you made it !!
Welcome!! 

[zbr5]

I am new here too Tsurugi_oni but I can already say it is a good place to be. So welcome and thanks for sharing your story.
It is interesting that this massive cleansing detoxifing processes take place so fast and they are so intense. I do not try to say that your body is already 100% detoxified but I want to compare it to raw vegan myth of detox taking place few months. When I was raw vegan I never had this intense flu like detox experience. I was just losing weight and getting more and more skinny. And books on raw veganism assured me it is normal and it takes a lot of time. But mI lost patience after 2 months and started to cheat on meats (luckily!). Now I see my photos and cant believe how unhealthy I looked and still assured everyone it is "normal part of detox process". Now I think that real detox happens more like in your story - it is one main experience very soon and then steady and subtle repleacement of less healthy tissues.
Good luck and congratulations.

[goodsamaritan]

I myself have no dogma towards raw paleo diet.  It's just that this works.  And somehow the "this works" for curing incurable diseases usually leads to a form of raw paleo diet.  All roads lead to raw paleo diet eventually.

Read up on instincto and optimize on what you may need, the book is free courtesy of the author GC Burger.  Maybe smelling your food will lead you to more optimal food that will make you even stronger.

Near zero carb is good for you now.  Listen to your body, listen to the adjustments you need.  It's a great ride.  I thank you for sharing your story.  It's inspiring!

[eveheart]

There are so many parallels between your story and mine. For my whole life, I had clues that there were foods that were making me sick, but I could never seem to zoom in on the foods that would make me well. If I followed vegan/fruitarian/vegetarian guidelines, I would end up with strong cravings.

From the first week following a RPD, I felt symptoms lifting. I could feel the detox, too, but the joint inflammations that I always felt were less, and people said that I looked better.

At first, I said I'd do RPD for two weeks, then for another month. Now, I've decided to keep on this path indefinitely. I'm still experimenting with exactly what to eat. I'm following my body's wisdom for once, not looking for someone else to tell me what to eat. For instance, I've been avoiding beef in favor of lamb, goat, and chicken - this came about when I found a butcher with great lamb and goat, and I noticed that I was feeling better with these meats. It may be that I'm sensitive to beef, or maybe it was something I need in lamb and goat. As long as I'm feeling well, all these details that I used to be obsessed with are no longer worrying me.

I hope to see you here often.

[Amris]

It's awesome that you're feeling better!

Interestingly enough, I also went the raw vegan route. It made me feel utterly horrific for a very long time. I listened to all of the "you're not doing it right" advice... until I gave up and just said, "screw it all" and ate everything in sight. Especially cheeseburgers. :p

I had lost so much weight I looked emaciated... at first I was happy to be losing weight, but after a while, panic set in. I was dizzy and faint all the time. Opposite of you, my blood pressure was so low I couldn't stand up without nearly blacking out.

Thank you for sharing your story, because sometimes I feel pangs when I read the militant "anti-meat" posts on some forums. Like we're demons and murderous monsters for daring to eat meat. Yet I have tried their way, and given it a far more than fair shake. And I nearly died and was the sickest and most miserable I've ever been.

It's good to know that I'm not the only one who truly, genuinely, seriously cannot thrive physically without meat. Contrary to the vegan claims, sometimes I think that some of us are so close to spiritual awareness that we need meat to ground us back into reality. That this is the gift of the animals to us--to help us remain here to help and support our fellow humans by grounding us.

I love the American Indian belief about animals. That they gift us with life, and that for this, we owe them deepest gratitude, appreciation, and honor.

Again, thanks for sharing, and you're not alone. I also could not thrive physically with a vegan diet--raw or otherwise.

Perhaps our allergies are gifts to us. I am nut, soy, and olive flesh (not oil) allergic. This made a vegan diet almost impossible to me. If it hadn't been so hard, I might have stuck with it long enough to do very real and lasting damage to my body.

[Tsurugi_Oni]

@Goodsamaritan - Absolutely.  Huge fan of your blog, I check it everyday ^^.  You should post more videos of the raw animal foods you eat lol.

  @Amris - Although I had high blood pressure I still would have headrushes from standing up too fast.  Your adrenals are what raise your blood pressure when you change elevation suddenly.  With chronic allergies / metabolic disturbances they weaken so they can't raise ur BP.  Nasty eh??

  Some people will just never understand.  We're all basic social animals and all too often we can be affected by other's strong emotions, no matter if they're "right or wrong".  I write a lot about ethics and the environment so luckily I don't buy into half of those anti-meat arguments.  All I gotta say is vegans are all about saving the whales....... but blue whales weigh up to 200 tons and eat billions and billions of creatures.  No matter how you swing it, you feel warm and fuzzy about saving the biggest mass murderer on earth.  Not saying they're "right or wrong".  Those trillions of krill are probably saying "fuck you vegans!!!!!".  Perspective =P. 

  Thx everyone for the warm welcome ^^!

[riy freeman]

Hey "sword demon"! Welcome.

I sincerely believe zero carb is detrimental (speaking from experience), but to each his own.

Also, I think the vegan argument by some is that eating a creatures past a certain "intelligence" is what is off-putting. Krill aren't very intelligent. lol.

Ray

[cliff]

Hai! 

[Tsurugi_Oni]

@ Cliff - Lol is this the cliff I'm thinkin of?? 

@Gosu - Demonic Swordsman, but it's one of those things lost in translation =p.  Nobody has even come that close so kudos! 

  Ur right, ethical vegans come in more colors than a crayon box.  For the sake of criticizing incomplete philosophies it's fun to venture into, but otherwise it would be like me actually caring what the Church says about premarital sex.

  Not 1 bit.

[cliff]

@ Cliff - Lol is this the cliff I'm thinkin of?? 

Yes 

[PaleoPhil]

...For example I've always had chronic joint pains as a child.  Everyone told me it was "growing pains".  Nope.... it's nightshade intolerance.

Interesting, the family doctor told my mother that the rib pains of my youth were "growing pains." I googled growing pains and found out there's no such thing. It's a lie that docs tell parents to make them stop asking about them--"It's just growing pains, don't worry about it." In my case it was likely wheat that was doing it, because that's my single worst food.
 

Part of my healing diet included fruits and veggies.  After all weren't those the healthiest foods??

That's what I figured for many years too. No such luck.

[/quote]Immediately upon eating meat I felt calm and relaxed.  [/quote]Yeah, especially raw meat, liver and animal fat for me.

Day 3 my symptoms were clearly much better.  Skin was clearing up, my lips were smooth (for years they used to go through a 2 day cycle of smooth / very chapped), hangnails are gone (have had those since early high school), sinus pressure is reduced, bowel elimination improved, and absolutely 0 anxiety.  In fact the change was so apparent that people could tell.  People could yell at me in an emotional storm and I could remain perfectly calm and centered.  Catch me on high fruit and I'm extremely irritable and emotional.  It's a beautiful feeling.

Same here on all those things.

Oh yah, I recently went to the doctor's office and for the first time in over 10+ checkups my blood pressure is normal.  It has always been very high every time, but ever since changing my diet its back to normal.  It's funny that when I was eating a "healthy" fruitarian diet of unlimited fresh juicey fruits that my blood pressure was high.  Now that I'm eating those artery-clogging fats its back to normal.  Maybe it's just a coincidence tho =p

Same here, my BP had always been low, but then was starting to rise to a bit above "normal" with a so-called healthy veg-and-fruit-and-whole-grain heavy diet and with a meaty diet if dropped back down again.

Even if I can't have intellectual security in what I'm doing, my body chooses what it wants.  The only way to move forward is to do what I feel is right out of faith rather than coward in fear.

If you think deeply about it, the vegan diet actually rejects nature and says that the way nature is is evil. A Paleo-type diet accepts nature as it is and embraces it.

I'm just looking for a little support while venturing into the unknown.  Seems like this is the place to be.

  So here I am ^^!

It's great to have you!

[magnetic]

Are you still doing ZC or RZC? How is it going?