Ioanna's Journal

[Ioanna]

I think I'll start a journal today

Seems fitting as I just recently moved to a new city for a new job... it's a whole new beginning for me!

For now I can say it has been interesting how my new perspective has affected my emotions and, in turn, my perception of hunger.  I absolutely hated my old job, and now I completely LOVE my new one!... a satisfaction that outweighs the fears/anxiety of having moved half-way across the country and far from family and friends.

I keep changing when and how many times a day I eat, though quantity has been pretty constant.  So I was eating once a day (around 5pmish) for about a week because I was afraid that if I ate earlier I might get terrible stomach pains, and I don't want to work like that.  But after about a week I started to get acid feeling in my throat in the late afternoon, so since yesterday I've been eating at 2pm and 6pm.  I also (out of desperation) started yesterday both digestive enzymes and the fermented cod liver oil that Tyler and some others posted about (ahhhhh, it's so disgusting!!!), but I'm soooooo happy to find that I'm doing well again with no stomach/abdominal pain!!!  I'm hoping it's the digesting enzymes because I don't want to take the CLO anymore, lol, but to be without pain is so wonderful, we'll see where I go next.

As I'm eating later in the day, I notice that I get a nautious feeling in the morning, maybe around 10am or so that last only a couple minutes... anyone get this or know what it means?

[Ioanna]

I can't believe it!!!  I just had the most normal bowel movement that I've had in YEARS!!!!  I have no idea why or what I've done, but a ton of noticeable healing took place in the past 5 days that has brought me to today.  Strange is that before this I seemed to be going downhill too.  Out of desperation not to resort to medication I tried CLO (Tyler's reported brand), digestive enzymes (a broad range one), and one small meal around 5pm or so. After two days I stopped CLO because I hate the taste.  So what has got me to where I am now??

A little more about where I am coming from...

As of end of May (Memorial Day weekend) I committed to no carbs.  At about this time I also stopped taking any IBS medications (works, but causes me pretty bad joint pain that I couldn't handle anymore).  I resorted to actually taking the medication in the first place because I was becoming so anemic and going to the bathroom a million times a day that I could not get my work done.  Not having the 'security' of a medication I was very motivated not to 'cheat'. I felt the onset of some symptoms (some very soon, some gradually), nothing intolerable or keeping me from functioning in the world, but enough to keep a fear in my mind... and this is how I've been living the past 3 months... with varying degrees of tolerable reminders.

Last week, a huge life change! I've moved very from all friends and family to a place that I know noone.  It's me and my dog!  I like the adventure of it, but to say I was not conflicted with so many mixed emotions would be false too.  I started a new job that I absolutely LOVE!  I am so grateful and happy for that!!!  My fears about IBS problems are peaked as I don't want to have any problems, especially now that I am alone and trying to make a new start.  I notice that I am going downhill too, and I'm really scared.  I'm not sure I want to post what was happening, but if you really want to know just pm me.  And I didn't want to take any medication, the joint pain is too intolerable that my knees hurt even when laying down. It honestly seemed like the start of a downward spiral and I didn't know what to do!... hence the CLO, digestive enzymes, and one small meal (now two bc acid feeling, but same amount total food).  At day one I knew I was doing better, but not good enough to report, same with day two, etc.  And now today... I'm a normal metabolically functioning human today!... and I'm not sure why?  I made dietary and emotional changes, or some coincidence of the passage of time?

In anycase, today is a most happy day!!!  Only day 1, but I hope all of my issues are a thing of the past. 

[carnivore]

Awesome Ioanna!
That's great to see your progress...
Eating 2 small meals in the afternoon seems to work great for you. I seem to function also very well with 2 medium meals between 2PM and 6PM. Before 2PM, I am tired by the digestion. Too late in the afternoon and my sleep is disturbed. Maybe it is the best period for our digestion to do its work ?

Keep us updated on your progress!

[Raw Kyle]

Where'd you move to and what job did you take? I also skip breakfast and tend to eat two meals, one in the afternoon and one evening.

[Ioanna]

thanks carnivore!!

kyle - when do you work out?  i am actually hungry for breakfast, i'm just afraid if i get abdominal pain from eating and then have to work all day so i don't think about it and just eat later. i'm plenty distracted so it's easy.  do you ever get a brief moment of nausea in the late morning?  i've been making it a point not to eat anything until i have experienced this, like maybe it's some liver-associated thing? 

i moved to [edit].  such a bittersweet move with the conflicting emotions and all, but i'm liking it here.  people have been incredibly kind, that always helps. there are at least 5 grass-fed farms within 30-40 miles of me, so i'm excited to check them out. 

[Raw Kyle]

I usually work out at night because that's when the bjj classes I take are held, the day ones I usually can't make because of work. I sometimes feel a bit of nausea sometimes in the morning, my stomach sometimes seems to be grinding up against nothing and if I ate too many carbs the day before I think I get a bg drop that makes me feel a little weird. It's not too bad though.

[Ioanna]

not sure if this makes any sense, but here's how it is at the moment...

everything is just fine as long as i am eating raw bison and fat.

-with raw beef i have very loose stools

-dehydrated bison at 85F more than 30-60  minutes begins to cause ibs symptoms, severity increasing with increasing dehydration time

-i tried a plain piece of cooked chicken to see if that could be my 'social' food, but my ibs came immediately and took me about 3 weeks of just fresh bison/fat to recover

-i tried a freshly picked apple a few weeks ago, ibs back immediately and about 1.5 weeks to recover

at times i crave extra fat, and when i give in to the craving, my digestion is so smooth. if i eat fat just to eat fat (like trying to eat a specific percentage or something), my digestion is horrible.  i try to listen to my body in this regard as too much or too little affects me negatively, and that is something hard for me as i still sort of have this 'fat phobic' voice in my head.


so, at the moment i'm just eating fresh bison/fat.  i don't know if this is good or not?  but i have my health this way, and lose it when i deviate it seems.  i am in awe when i walk into the break room at lunch hour to see what my coworkers can consume without suffering inflammation, and in awe of how sensitive i am to even cooked chicken or a freshly picked apple.

on another note, i've been thinking about trying tkd... will be my first martial art experience!  i'm going to visit one tomorrow to watch and see what i think.

[djr_81]

I don't see it odd at all Ionna. 
I have much the same with raw beef. Each time I've tried the lamb fat I purchased a long time ago and froze I get horrible gas, cramps, and eventually diarrhea. I also go through a malaise for a couple days. Raw chicken gave me a sore throat after 15 minutes as well. I'm going to try some pork this week but I'm not holding my breath on that one either. I figure my body knows what it needs and I'll just feed it that until it heals more.

[TylerDurden]

People with unusual health-problems will often have highly unusual  food-intolerances to go with them. For example, in my own case, while many RPDers seem fine with raw eggs, I don't tolerate them well in quantity(but they're fine in small amounts). Just follow your body's instincts, as long as the raw bison is  grassfed, it's not a problem. Do, however, try other varieties of raw meats such as raw lamb or raw wild hare or raw swordfish or whatever you have available in your local area. I've found, at times, that if I eat too much of a specific raw food too often over a long period of time, that my body stops digesting it properly and it just goes unabsorbed through my gut, so it's a good idea, IMo, to vary your diet if you can.

[Nicola]

I've found, at times, that if I eat too much of a specific raw food too often over a long period of time, that my body stops digesting it properly and it just goes unabsorbed through my gut, so it's a good idea, IMo, to vary your diet if you can.

Does this mean that Lex and all the others eating the same muscle meat and fat do not digest the specific raw food? What about all those eating pemmican or cooked muscle meat and fat for years on end?

We all just can not be shore what is going on - I know a man who is over 80 years and I ask him how's life..."Oh, I am very well, never have any problems with my health..." As he speaks I can see all his false teeth and his belly sticks out - so, yes he is healthy cause he believes it!!!

Nicola

[RawZi]

Does this mean that Lex and all the others eating the same muscle meat and fat do not digest the specific raw food? What about all those eating pemmican or cooked muscle meat and fat for years on end?

    I believe that some people do need to eat the same food every day.  I believe that other people need to vary their diet somewhat.  I think I am of the latter group.  I've never lived any length of time on just (raw) meat or had more than half a bite of pemmican at a time, so I can't be sure though.

    I know we are not cats, but one of my cats will only eat (raw lean) bison muscle meat and nothing else, but in a real pinch may eat  (raw) pork), (raw) chicken, interstitial fluid, blood, sardine juice or freerange canned catfood nothing else!  She will only eat other than (raw) buffalo (muscle) if she hasn't had other food around that she will eat in a couple of days.  You probably know cats' livers degrade if they haven't eaten in twenty-four hours.  She obviously has a very real aversion to other than the bison.  She will not touch (raw) beef no matter how long she hasn't eaten.  My other cat will eat all the above, yogurt, honey, eggs, butter, cream, kefir and cheese "no questions asked".

    I've seen it in people though too, even if in the same families.  I've always been the one that needed variety.  My only exception was doing Living Food LifestyleTM.  I could eat the same concoction of energy soup meal after meal, month on end, no desire for other food.  Problem was it made me have "pins and needles" constantly all over and look like I was from The Planet Bloodorange with black painful veins.  Also, if I couldn't have my food, I had a paining and strange looking reaction right away.

    In some poor regions people only eat rice and water.

    Eat what makes you feel best.  If any raw food makes you feel best, I can't see how it could be wrong, as long as it isn't dry beans or something like that.  Is there an animal that lives on that?

[RawZi]

http://www.youtube.com/v/I7QoP4Y37RM
Monodiets work, he says he studied paleo, and it works, he talks about 80% raw diet of Inuit.

[TylerDurden]

I've never heard of an exact figure given for the raw element in the Inuit diet. Is there any other corroboration of this 80% figure?

[PaleoPhil]

Nicola, Lex doesn't advise people to eat like him (which is one reason I like his journal), nor do I, because I have no idea how you will react to what I eat. I just share my experience, along with some principles that help guide me in this direction, and speculations about what it all might mean. None of it is meant to be gospel. So, like others have said, I would say do what works for you and get periodic medical checkups to make sure you're making progress in unseen ways as well as more obvious ways.

I do take into consideration other people's difficulties, but I also  try not to worry about them too much. It's a balancing act, I suppose.

I've never heard of an exact figure given for the raw element in the Inuit diet. Is there any other corroboration of this 80% figure?

I would be interested in the answer too, as I only recall reading post-European-contact ratios. Dr. Bass mentions Stefansson, but I thought that Stefansson claimed the Inuit diet had a higher ratio of cooked foods than what other explorers claimed?

[TylerDurden]

Correct. Stefansson was the only explorer who claimed that Inuit ate mostly cooked and only a little raw. The others all claim high amounts of raw-flesh consumption but aren't specific re the percentage.

[van]

Tyler,  are there 'easy' references you could point to for reading how the Inuit ate a lot more raw than Steffanson points out.   He does write though about eating frozen fish throughout the winter.

[William]

Stefansson's experience was of post-contact (or corrupt) Inuit.
In his first year with them, they may have had a bad year for hunting, as I have the impression that normally they would not be eating fish as a staple.

[TylerDurden]

Tyler,  are there 'easy' references you could point to for reading how the Inuit ate a lot more raw than Steffanson points out.   He does write though about eating frozen fish throughout the winter.

Just read Weston Price's Nutrition and Physical Degeneration book which contains the details. Also, there are numerous other online references re the multiple different types of raw animal foods that the Inuit ate(muktuk etc.) so that it is extremely difficult to accept Stefansson's claims. Incidentally, didn't I read somewhere that "Eskimo" means "eater of raw meat"?

And, yes, Stefansson did reluctantly accept that the Eskimos ate some high-fish. He was simply totally dishonest though in claiming that , taking overall diet into account, that the Eskimoes supposedly ate a higher proportion of cooked foods in their diet by comparison to eaters of modern cooked diets.

[William]

IIRC W.A. Price's Inuit were not the same people at Stefansson's, being as they lived far to the west, and possibly in a warmer climate, so some differences in diet were possible.

Yes, "Eskimo" is a word from the language of Cree Indians, southern neighbours of the Inuit, and traditionally deadly enemies; means something like "they eat it raw".

[Ioanna]

we had this health risk assessment at work today. it's voluntary, but the incentive to do it is monetary, so I got one done... i have nothing to compare these numbers to, and i wish i did....

cholesterol: 191
HDL: 78
cholesterol:HDL ratio: 2.5

that's really all they did, plus blood pressure.... i don't remember... it was a quick 10min thing

not sure what any of this really means with nothing to compare, but i'm certain my cholesterol went up a bit, thought it could be HDL?.. anyway, i don't care... this is almost 8 months of RAF.

edit: I forgot one... glucose... was a fasting level for me... the test was done around 830am and I had last eaten around 7/730pm the night before... 91.

[PaleoPhil]

Those are very good numbers, as you may have guessed.

[Ioanna]

I just wish I had something to compare to... I know I have had blood work done in the past, so I'll look but I doubt I'll find any records since I tend to throw everything away...

I don't remember my HDL being so high though, also my cholesterol is higher but it'd have to be. Would have been interesting to have the comparison to know for sure.

[Hannibal]

What about triglicerides? 50-70 mg/dL?
Re cholesterol level - it's really unimportant.
Homocysteine level is better marker.

[PaleoPhil]

Yes, just about anything is a better marker than total cholesterol, which is pretty useless. C reactive protein is another superior marker. Did you receive any other numbers, Ionna?

[Ioanna]

What about triglicerides? 50-70 mg/dL?
Re cholesterol level - it's really unimportant.
Homocysteine level is better marker.

Yes, just about anything is a better marker than total cholesterol, which is pretty useless. C reactive protein is another superior marker. Did you receive any other numbers, Ionna?

Unfortunately those are the only numbers I have... it was just a quick/free thing and to cram in a bunch of people so the tests were limited. Oh well, I feel so great, I have no interest to get any test done... wish I had something from preRAF though.  I'll keep looking.