Being Alive

[Alive]

I am grateful to be feeling a lot more alive now

Lots of changes have been happening which are making life more and more interesting. Having my oldest child become legal age to babysit means that there is more flexibility in my life to pursue old and new interests. Eating only as hungry  is such a relief, I am now enjoying more of a minimum essential dose diet, mainly of 2 or 3 small servings of GF beef mince (lower quality as it has the higher fat content) and rib eye steak, with cucumber, lamb liver & heart, fish and greens.

PaleoPhil's introduction to resistant starch has been very interesting, especially reports of improved sleep, so I have just started eating a tablespoon of potato starch morning and night.

Goals: Continued lifestyle improvements, better sleep, more socialising, more loving 

[Alive]

Thanks to the discussion on this site I am really enjoying eating more raw low sugar plant matter. In my neglected garden the celery stalks and 'wild' pumpkin soft insides around chewable seeds are very yummy. The fresh potatoes were so so, and tasted better with salt and a slice of butter. Maybe I can crush them and dry in the sun or ferment to improve them. A small sampling of the weeds and hardy green garden survivors was enough.
Dinner was round 250g of meats - lamb liver, kidney, heart, fish and lean beef - 100g fat - lamb trimmings, coconut oil, butter   , 2 eggs, diced cabbage - yum I love cabbage - broccoli,  grated parsnip, salt and seaweed. Drank water over night and felt comfortably warm.

This morning the chic weed buds were tasty and lemonade tree flowers interesting. Then a glass of water with tablespoon of potato starch with a pinch each of salt, seaweed and psyllium husks. Later a big munch on yummy cabbage, a hand full of cranberries, mushrooms, and a little butter. 

Writing this is making me look forward to more more offal fat egg mix 

[Alive]

I have learnt so much reading the Jaminets' The Perfect Health Diet that I now intend to follow a most raw version = The Raw Perfect Health Diet.

My experiments with raw safe starches have so far included:
Grated parsnip & beetroot - taste good and the large dense pieces will internally be largely undigested to give a resistant starch effect.

Raw potato - not very tasty, maybe grating, soaking & semi-fermenting will help.

Sago soaked overnight - tasted good, no ill effects, I now read that it contains toxins so use needs to be limited, plus I wonder how hot the processing gets.

White rice soaked for 5 days - became mildly fermented and was nice and easy to grind with teeth to provide a dense resistant starch granule size. My neck lymph nodes did swell slightly in response to the new microbes. Next time I will try soaking, chewing, and then semi-fermenting the rice so that the particles are smaller and there are more microbes.

Went for a 3 hour long walk in the hills yesterday, exposing skin to the late autumn sun and cool shade, drank from puddles capped with ice. Did not feel hungry all day and eventually had breakfast at our friends dinner party. I had home grown roasted walnuts; two helpings of raw oasters; thick sweet potato soup; two helpings of raw fish with lemon juice, onions, and coriander; cooked main course of broccoli, beetroot, and meat (I ate half of the meat, oops it was pork, and didn't eat the masked potato, didn't touch the sweat dessert).

Coffee with cream this morning, then cabbage for breakfast at midday.

As I do the shopping and main cooking for my family the The Perfect Health Diet has also been essential reading on how to optimise their health.

[Alive]

I have just shelved several batches of raw starches in jars and crock pots for fermenting, with water, 2 ~ 3 tablespoons of salt and a touch of dirt as a microbe starter.
Since all types of vegetation end up rotting in the organic garden the dirt will contain a large variety of microbes, which will be able to make their homes on the surface of the fermenting foods - may the best microbes win the battle to colonize my guts 

Grated fresh potatoes (dug from under the surface with any green ones discarded)
Grated fresh pumpkin
Grated green bananas
Chopped cabbage
Sago

I am looking forward to trying them, starting in a few days...

[jessica]

Sounds like moonshine to me

[Alive]

I hate alcohol so I hope not! I feel slightly poisoned all the time and don't need disgusting yeast wastes.

That must be what the salt is for is the process, to control the fermentation to be compatible with digestion.

[Projectile Vomit]

Not sure if you'll quite end up with moonshine, but given the high carb content of what you're trying to ferment I suspect the alcohol produced will be substantial. Let us know how it turns out.

[Alive]

Really enjoyed adding kumara (sweet potato) and pumpkin to my diet today, they are nice & crunchy with a pleasant taste, and are very easy to chew. Also enjoyed celery, broccoli, diced beef, & lambs kidneys, followed by more celery. Avocados are in season and have been very yummy, and spinach is tasty.

This low sugar, raw omnivorous, seasonal instinctive diet is so pleasurable with the variety of foods available. I've noticed that going to the toilet is easy, with a much improved smell.

I am getting quite slim, and my jeans can come off now without undoing the buttons (my daughter keeps saying I am 'low riding').

Its been fun to walk around my daughters school munching on lumps of raw veggies, sharing celery with some of the kids. On my way out there were some bored kids by the fence, so I explained how no other animals cook their food, suggested we are all monkeys, and showed them how to suck out eggs and eat kidneys. 

[Alive]

After nine days I got around to checking out the fermented veges - the only one which was appealing was the cabbage / sauerkraut, so I ate it all last evening with some salt, olive oil, and lemon juice. It cause my neck lymph nodes to swell and I had a very sleepless night - googling showed sauerkraut to cause sleeplessness and a friend said it was meant as a condiment... so if there is a next time I will only have a small amount and only in the morning!

Searching the net for "raw meat and sleep" showed up the Wai Diet advice of "Great 'happy-‘ and 'sleepy-foods’ are fruits like dried dates, -figs, papaya, banana, strawberries, sweet cherries, orange, mango, pineapple, grapefruit and hazelnuts, combined with fresh raw egg yolk (because of the cholesterol), alternated with fresh raw salmon (because of the vitamin B3)." So I will try that tonight and see what happens.

Inspired by what WaiSays this morning I had a nashi for breakfast, 2 hours later teaspoon salt and 2 glasses water, 1 hour later a persimmon, 2 hours later a lambs heart + tablespoon coconut oil + salt, 3 hours later 600g mince (too much - probably only needed 200g), swam 500m and had 30 minutes of sauna, 4 hours later a lime in a glass of water, and next I will try a couple of egg yolks with a sweet fruit to see if it helps with sleep.

This seems like a nice way to eat, with a little sweet fruit, but I am worried it will be bad for my candida. So I will try it for a few more days, and if it doesn't seem good then might have to go back to the VLC fat based diet again, as it was when I had my best sleep (last year) and was clear headed headache free (what a feeling).

For the first half of this year I had drifted into including cooked paleo, so convenient to have a rare steak when going out for dinner or to a friends BBQ, plus high fat dairy (pasteurized cream and yogurt), but it was not good enough to help my distressed liver etc so it is time to do something that really works. I have only been 100% raw for 1 week so I guess I need patience to see how things evolve and what works best.

At least my emotional eating and food cravings are gone so forward progress is being made. I need to remember to get truly hungry every day, as my appetite is quite low (probably for autophagy) and starving the candida seems to help. So eating all that mince was not because now my plan is to eat the eggs and fruit to help sleep. Well maybe if I get up really early tomorrow I can have some exercise and cold water therapy for reinvigoration.

[van]

You might care to know or remember that the main moderator of Wai (at least several years ago) had to add white sugar to his orange juice and olive oil to keep energy levels up, and my guess weight on.   I'm curious as to how he's doing these days?

[Alive]

Well I still had a bad nights sleep, but at least I was warm all night and didn't have a night sweat. I have noticed that if I eat a lot of sweet foods or cooked carbs then I get a really bad night sweat, and its disgusting to be lying in soaking wet sheets. I assume this is my body trying to get rid of the toxins candida created from the sugars. I have also noticed that if I have no sugars or carbs at all then I can also have a night sweat, which an online search suggests is due to my liver not having enough glucose to complete its detox mission, so it triggers an adrenalin alarm, and this causes the sweat.

When I was eating carnivorously I did not have night sweats, which suggests once my body is cleaned up then there will be less need for glucose to complete this detox task, and so no sugar/carb foods would be needed.

So I wonder does fruit help my immune / detox system more or the candida more? Some people think that I should include fruit and this will create a healthy gut flora which will keep the candida in its place. This certainly was my experience when eating lots of fruit on a raw vegan diet, where I needed little sleep and was very clear headed and energised. But I do recall being anxious at times, like waking up to a small noise with a pounding heart. 

Other people have had better success with the carnivore approach, and certainly my experience was that it was the best I have felt ever. As long as I waited until I was really hungry before eating it gave me a clear head, lots of energy, warm at night, good heat & cold tolerance (one of the candida symptoms is lack of temperature tolerance). The only problems seem to be that the food is not very appetising, its not very socially acceptable (though as long as the meat is not going rotten my wife seems happy), and there is the concern that long term it may not be ideal.

So on reflection it seems that to be well I need to eat the carnivorous/VLC diet combined with a lot of intermittent fasting and exercise.

Now I understand that using fat makes glucose, and glucose is essential to some important functions, it makes sense that fat will be my most important food.
So I have learnt here that to succeed I will need to eat fat - but why doesn't fat taste nice?
Is it just because I am not hungry enough?
Well at least it is free from the butchers rubbish bin!

So I am excited about becoming well and today will be eating lamb fat trimmings, lamb liver, fish.

[Celeste]

I remember in my mid 30s I was eating cooked carbs and was getting terrible night sweats, hormones up and down and irregular cycles. When I started raw primal my cycle became like clockwork and no more night sweats. During the time my cycle was ending the only time I started to get hot flashes was when I was eating honey, more juices and less fat. When I changed things it went away the symptoms. Eventually my cycle just stopped with no symptoms.

[Alive]

I was feeling unwell this morning and spent the morning in bed having a coffee with butter for breakfast. So I was very pleased to learn about the health benefits of raw potato juice, especially since we have fresh potatoes being dug up in our garden by Pukekos (swamp fowl). http://www.livenedup.com/25-raw-potato-juice-benefits-skin-hair-health/

I peeled potatoes, chopped them, blended them with nettles and water, and washed the juice and some of the resistance starch granules through a sieve using a spatula to stir and squeeze. I really enjoyed drinking this living potato and nettle juice.

After drinking around 2 litres over a couple of hours I went for a hike up a hill - fast marching all the way up in shorts and no shirt I got cold therapy on my front and sun therapy on my back. After a rest in the chilly sun at the top I bounded back down the hill again feeling energized the whole way (7 km return and 250 m climb).

So I give the thumbs up for potato juice as a health drink 

After the run I ate clotted cream
Later I had beef mince followed by zucchini and yams

On returning home I found that the bowl under the sieve had a thick layer of resistant starch granules on the bottom, so I ate them and they were much more alive tasting than dried potato starch powder.

Next I put the pulp in a jar of water to separate more resistant starch by having it sink and the fibre float, but almost all of the pulp sank so I just ate it. It tasted fine, very neutral flavour, and a crisp crunchy bite. This could make a good replacement for rice and noodles.

Now having cabbage heart for dessert - very sweet And beetroot - delicious, sweet and crunchy

My wife says she doesn't want raw Solanum species and thinks yams would be better, so I made her a juice from yams, cabbage, parsnip, beetroot, zucchini, and deep orange pumpkin. I made it double strength by making a second batch from the washings of the first. We are both enjoying it and I can see a thick layer of raw resistant starch collecting on the bottom. I am eating the pulp, which contains a large proportion of granulated resistant starch. 

[Alive]

I'm loving this raw paleo diet, most days now I eat 100% raw and my body looks amazing :-)

My staple food is GF beef mince, it's so convenient and tasty, with a good balance of meat, fat and some gristle. For a daytime feed I can get a bag of mince from the butcher, rip the corner off and squeeze the mince straight into my mouth 

Other raw foods I'm enjoying are carrots, fish, celery, apples, pears, currents, defrosted frozen beans and prawns, eggs, watermelon, almonds, sun flower seeds, tomato, cucumber, plums, heart pickled in ACV, and wild black berries.
I've found a good way to get to sleep is listening to hypnosis / guided meditation on something like 'finding inner peace' or 'increasing your mind power' etc.
I have made a big improvement to my ability to focus and think useful thoughts, which is giving excellent results at work and in my marriage.
Meetup.com has been excellent to find a group of people who like going on day walks and I've really enjoyed getting out into nature for a long walk, some conversation, and some peace & quiet in nature.
I'm looking forward to further tweaking my thinking, eating and exercise habits to become even healthier and happier :-)

[Alive]

I have been trying a reduced food intake and so far am very happy with progress.

Basically it means eating less than normal, waiting until truly hungry, and increasing the length of the nightly fast. By eating a small amount of very high quality food I intend to detox and rebuild myself. My main foods lately have been mince, celery, carrots, fish, apples, ginger, sunflower seeds, sprouted garlic, pickled black walnuts, and wormwood.
Having a longer daily fast is good, so first food of the day around eleven or twelve, and have the final meal at least four hours before bed. 
Today I began eating at midday with a fillet of fish with lemon juice, then in the evening a quarter kilo of mince followed by three granny Smith apples. My intention is to minimise fruit consumption, so just having a thin slice of apple would be better in future.
My wife says my body looks the best she has seen it so it's good for melting of body fat while preserving muscle.

[Alive]

I've been continuing a semi starvation diet, by eating less than my long term calorie requirements, so that I have to burn body fat and stored wastes. I'm pleased so far as I've had a tendency to over eat in the past and it feels good to give my systems a break, while still eating enough to maintain energy levels.

I'm focusing on high quality food like meat with fat, fish, vegetables (to maintain essential bowel microbes).

Occasionally I've had fruits, sometimes several, and was pleased that I coped well with them. But l'm moving away from them as I have no need to build fat for winter like a paleo dude and my sugar metabolism is shagged. I was also pleased when I stayed into eating more modern food that because my body was in scavenging mode wanting good and I didn't eat too much I didn't feel the I'll effects I used to.

After watching"first do no harm" movie about a young boy being cured of epilepsy by a three year ketogenic diet, where many of the actors had had this same cure, I like the idea of keeping a low sugar diet for a few years too. Also in a true shipwreck story the captain, who had has always had digestion problems, was cured after starving for a few weeks.

It's made my teeth go whiter,I guess there's less wastes to feed parasites wherever including teeth. I like feeling slim and strong.

The next big improvement I want is decent exercise, something with muscle building and stamina would be perfect. Think I'll try some gym pump classes, that would do the trick.

[Alive]

My ideal life =
Drinking only water and green smoothies
Eating only raw greens and raw animal foods
🌞

[Celeste]

Sounds like your diet has changed a fair amount from when you began. I imagine you've learned quite a bit in experimenting. So what is in your green smoothie?

[Alive]

Hi Celeste,
Yes, I've learned to chill out and do things that are simple and easy. The more my food is paleo-like, raw, and ketogenic the better I feel. Of course keto also means moderating protein intake, and that is why eating greens and green smoothies is so brilliant, because they are bulky and filling, and digest away to very little being mostly water.
By greens I really mean low glycemic index raw plants, so I include cabbage (I love eating huge slices of cabbage), carrots and cucumbers in this group.

Today I was pleased to have a two hour hill run as I really do better with a decent amount of weekly aerobic exercise. For breakfast as a treat I had frozen scallops defrosted in warm tap water. Another frozen food I love is whole frozen green beans, because they taste great and the pods are very good for gut microbes. Lunch was raw bacon, and just now I've been eating some frozen blueberries... You've reminded me to put those back in the freezer for my kids and go make another yummy green smoothie!
 
My latest green smoothies are just a cup or two of water and a large bowl of fresh garden greens - stinging nettle, cleavers, mint flowers, puha, kale, spinach, silver beet seed heads, and parsley. Sometimes I also add sprouted fenugreek and soaked fennel seeds.


 

[Inger]

Nice

[Alive]

Most nights now my girlfriend is making me dinner consisting of a salad with a side dish of raw fatty steak, raw fish, or raw bacon with ground sesame seeds and sesame oil, often I add a raw egg yolk or two as salad dressing and sometimes increase the fat content by adding raw suet. She makes a cooked meat/fish version for herself.
In the morning she makes me a packed lunch of left over salad with some meat/fish/fat and woke eggs for me to crack later and separate the yolks as a dressing.
I have a few pieces of fruit a day, though I'm interesting in reducing this, and I'm really enjoying foraged freshly cracked hazel nuts.
Next improvement I want to make is undertake regular high intensity and strength exercise.
Right now I'm cleaning the gas cooker grill for my family and thinking what a time waster cooking is for so many reasons, raw paleo is the way to go!