Taking a leap of faith, Curing Eczema is my only goal(attention: GoodSamaritan)

[badboy9311]

Good news, I have a fully functioning freezer now
Will soon start bulk ordering meat at $3/lbs for most (liver, marrow bones and ground beef etc.)

Ending this problem finally

[badboy9311]

I've been keeping a food journal of my own
Started slacking over the break again so I decided to just keep a food journal on my netbook
It's been working so far, and I'm eating 90% raw paleo, but quite hard to deal with temptation with my huge carb-craving and low energy

My energy is so low it's driving me crazy
I'm getting so fatigued I could be sleeping till I naturally wake, and still feel tired
This fatigue is killing my motivation to do anything.

I have no clue how to get my energy back up. It's like I NEED coffee. I almost can't live without it

This is what my day usually looks like

Morning: Coffee (sometimes with sugar + cream mixer), i know it's bad but i almost can't live without caffeine now
Afternoon: Raw Roast Beef/ Liver
Marrow bones gross me out but i force them down sometimes (not use to the fat eating part yet)

Sometimes I eat this thing called Poutine (quite a lot) to get rid of my hunger from lack of fat. Which i'll solve by eating more fat and also buy some carbs (but fruits and veges seem to not fill my carb cravings)

Im so tired, I don't even wanna move
Cold hands and feet not helping either.

Good news is my eczema is looking way better, from lack of stress over the break, and also recent new adaption to raw food

[PaleoPhil]

Im so tired, I don't even wanna move
Cold hands and feet not helping either.

Searching on the terms

fatigue cold hands feet low carb

reveals that these are symptoms commonly reported by VLC dieters, especially those who are not eating much resistant starch. I have so far found resistant starch to be the most warming of all "carbs" for me (it's not really so much a carb as something that feeds the gut bacteria, which in turn generate SCFAs, which the body can then use as fuel to generate heat).

[echeenn]

Hey,

Kind of in the same boat. Best thing that kicked off my healing was a 45 juice fast with coffee enemas/liver flushes. Detoxing and cleansing is a main part, and then feeding yourself with good nutrition. My skin has vastly improved with the cleanses and flushes.

Trying raw paleo with fruits, semi-seared meats and raw fish. Also 2 egg yolks/day. I also eat baked/mashed sweet potatoes/white potatoes with loads of rcoconut milk/ raw coconut butter.

Keep cleansing.

[badboy9311]

Currently in a new trial of 30 days of Raw paleo diet
Easier said than done, I've developed a bad habit of cheating reviewing previous dieting days
I've decided to put raw paleo diet as the predominant habit to establish first.

Today's menu
Pistachios (salted)  + Raw almonds
Ground beef (about palmful, didn't have time to finish)
Chocolate peanut whatever bar (guilty)
Cappacino
Beef Liver (till full, about 3 large slices)

Supplements:
Gaba (something to relax my mind with..been stressing out lately)
High Vitamin Butter oil

Cutting out coffee for sure, i'm suffering a bad feedback loop of feeling cold, need for coffee, then rewarded with warmth from coffee
Change routine: Hot cup of water

I'm suspecting a damaged adrenal, thyroid, and overall endocrine system i'm having right now, leading to my lack of size even after 3 years of training

One step at a time. 

[badboy9311]

Reviewing past journal right now, I can see a pattern of habits:
My framework is going to be established from the book "The power of habits" by Charles Duhigg
Basically the book has a simple concept: habits form by the following sequence:

Cue-->Routine-->Reward

for me, my current habits look like this:
Cold hands and feet-->coffee-->Warmth+Increased energy (temporarily)
changing it to
Cold hands and feet-->Hot Water-->Warmth

That would stop my coffee addiction to larger extent for my winters

2.
Low energy-->Coffee-->Sudden upsurge of jittery energy
changing it to
Low energy-->  ?     -->Sustained level of energy

Can someone help me fill up the "?"

And if anyone has experience regarding thyroid/adrenal recovery please let me know

So far i know the solution is supplementation, but I'm still learning, and also doing some search function on this forum. Thank you

[cherimoya_kid]

What does your daily diet look like?  Amounts and types of food.

[eveheart]

Low energy-->Coffee-->Sudden upsurge of jittery energy
changing it to
Low energy-->  ?     -->Sustained level of energy

Can someone help me fill up the "?"

Eating well a la RPD will probably help you with overall elevation of your energy level. For right now, try adding mindfulness to your dialogue. Do this when you do feel low energy:

Cue: Low energy

Old Routine of Perfectionist distortion: I should be taking great care of myself so that I look and feel great.

New Routine of Undistorted thinking: Right now I am feeling low energy. I don't like this feeling. I should have stuck to RPD from the start, but I didn't, and so I feel regretful, too.... All I can do is my best right now. I'll choose to (pick something rational: quick nap, brisk walk, or your best low-energy activity).

Reward: You feel better because you are not tearing yourself down. The low energy may stay or go, but you are at peace.

[PaleoPhil]

An interesting read:

I searched around and was able to find a probiotic supplement that was solely composed of isolated L. plantarum (it’s marketed as a digestive aid, but I ignored that). I then waited for my eczema to flare up again. As soon as it did, I began taking the L. plantarum. Within three days, the eczema had completely disappeared. This would usually be when the eczema actually gets worse. It usually has about a 2 week cycle before the active inflammation completely subsides. I’ve never seen it disappear like this. Usually at this point, hand washing would be painful and exacerbate it. Now I could hand wash with abandon. Even more amazing: I was able to walk around outside during a particularly cold spell without gloves, and did not have any exacerbation or return of the symptoms whatsoever. Being able to do these things three days into a flare up is unheard of. My hands now feel completely impervious to the triggers. Something has clearly interrupted the inflammatory response.

Read more at L. Plantarum Cured My Eczema, http://mrheisenbug.wordpress.com/2014/01/27/l-plantarum-cured-my-eczema

[cherimoya_kid]

Very interesting, Phil. have you tried the L. plantarum?

[PaleoPhil]

No, but my next bottle of probiotics that I'll be starting soon contains it.

[jessica]

Low Energy=REST!

this should be a no brainer (literally) in our society, don't over stimulate yourself out of guilt for feeling tired, tune INTO your body and out of your mind that is conditioned to our hyperactive, overstimulate culture that is hell bent on "progress". 

lay down and breathe deep! your body has all kinds of sensory mechanisms that detect balance and are activated by laying down (your inner ear, your adrenals) when you go into a supine or prone position your body will automatically assume you are doing so because you feel safe enough to do so, utilize this to your advantage, when you feel anxiety about feeling tired, like you need to boost your energy level, LAY DOWN, breath deep, get fully oxygenated.  You might be amazed to find that sometimes when you are feeling tired but the need to move your body is just needing more oxygen, and because we often don't practice full belly breathing when we are anxious(if at all) we are constantly a little oxygen depleted and since our body/mind knows that when we move we tend to breath heavier it might think this is a good solution, but just focusing on relaxing and breathing is better, because we needn't overstimulate already burnt out bodies. 

you may have to rest for a long time,  you may have low energy for a while, but realize that it might not be because you have no energy, but that the energy, if you give it a chance to, will be used to HEAL!  healing takes an enormous amount of energy, think how depleted people are from the common flu? now imagine how much energy it takes to heal a body that is constantly being depleted? or has been abused overtime?  it takes a LOT of energy, and it would be incredibly wise to honor that. 

I had to  rest for almost a  year and a half, it was extremely hard for me but I was at rock bottom, there was no other option.  It was incredibly hard as I had lead an active lifestyle and the one I am pursuing does take quite a bit of physicality, but I knew that I would never be able to accomplish anything if I didn't rest and heal first, that if I tried to get back to "normal" before I was ready that I would just burn out that much faster.


But the energy came back, and I was wise to go slowly and to set limits, so that I could build up a good resiliency physically and mentally, and I still have quit a bit different capacity for physical activities, but I have to remember that even though I thought I had this huge capacity for stress and physical, mental and emotional stress, I really didn't, or I wouldn't have been ill or needed to rest in the first place.  And to be honest, now that I am a much more balanced person, I get more done with my life anyway, because I am not only physically strong, I am mentally and emotionally capable and stable thanks to that truly good physical health


I hope any of that helps to put your energy level into perspective.

[badboy9311]

I have sort of curbed my bad coffee habit now
Instead of drinking coffee every morning, now I only drink it when I needed a "lift"

It's almost like an "all or nothing" i realize when I try get back into raw paleo diet
It's hard too, because it requires quite a bit of discipline.

Re cherimoya_kid
usually my diet consists of beef liver, ground beef with some marrow bone fat in there
And i get my carbs either from cooked sweet potato / bananas
I've experimented a bit with cooked mussells and they sort of up my energy and libido for a bit but quickly went away

Re PaleoPhil
I'll have to read up on that. A lot of people seems to be popping up left and right able to curb their asthma and eczema, which makes me really happy honestly

Re Eveheart

I enjoy the idea of mindfulness towards habit changing and dieting.
I had to shake out of my own unconscious perfectionist attitude to understand what you mean. (i had to read it twice)
Thanks, i'll take that into my mentality. It's quite easy to overthink and become perfectionist. One of my worst habits

Re Jessica

I feel like this is quite hard to understand. I had to read it twice as well.
Resting was never part of my thinking. I almost always want to "go go go "
Hustling is my mentality and I always hate myself for not hustling enough.
Like my friend told me once: You know too much but do too little.

It's sort of hard, but I'll try to rest whenever possible. It's almost like I want to go all in and forget about my body's tiredness and keep pushing, but it won't let me because it's always burning out.

These couple days has been ups and downs. I feel like mood swings are correlated with my sleeping habits and diet.
When I get my goal align with my daily habits I am happy
If they are out of line I try to get satisfaction from others or other stuff like drinking booze (guilty)

Taking one step at a time.

[eveheart]

I enjoy the idea of mindfulness towards habit changing and dieting.
I had to shake out of my own unconscious perfectionist attitude to understand what you mean. (i had to read it twice)
Thanks, i'll take that into my mentality. It's quite easy to overthink and become perfectionist. One of my worst habits

Now that you have mastered mindfulness (LOL), here's advanced mindfulness:

"Right now I'm overthinking and having perfectionist thoughts." Be with those thoughts. Examine them. Refrain from judging them. They might tend to persist less if you let them come and go when they want to.

Famous saying: "What you resist, persists."

[goodsamaritan]

Not hustling enough... illness of us urban folk... we need some down time once in a while.

[badboy9311]

You are the product of your environment:

Problem = Constant lifestyle switching, leading to body stop healing and go back to old direction of destruction.

New solution: change of identity, obsession on health and healing. Switch of entire perspective towards perfect skin display and energetic youthful feelings.


Reason lately I've been gone was that My eczema took a better turn and started to become not annoying at all. My skin became perfect other than a bit dry and itch when sweat.

But since I've came back to Hong Kong, the same lifestyle of constant eating out is bothering me again.
I think that now solution is in my head, so this time i'm stopping before it gets worse, and will strive for healthy lifestyle instead of a intoxicating lifestyle.

It's hard in an environment of distractions and temptations, but hey, there's a price for everything.

[badboy9311]

Slacking, procrastinating, reversing to bad behaviour..repeated theme in my journal..what's up.. ?

I've been realized that procrastination is my number 1 problem in life currently, and it's having a huge toll on my health as well.
After the rebound I had from partying and stressful work during summer, I've recovered almost 90% again, and now it's sliding a bit back to 70% recovery state..

These numbers are obviously an estimate but also I can see my skin starting to turn worse and more areas getting inflammation.

Basically I've been undergoing a lot of stress academically and other factors in life as well. But I am attempting to reverse all these by focusing on my health so I have more energy to deal with curveballs in my life right now.

I'm quite sure that I have SAD and to a quite significant degree more than other people. People around me have told me that they get a "winter blue" feeling as well but I have fell into depressive cycles and back into negative thoughts since winter has started. It is ultimately the worst feeling for me and my greatest motivation to get out of Canada.

For now though, I'm having various attempts to recover my health.
1. Gut system health
Eliminating toxins first by following a full paleo diet again. Having trouble adhering to a full RPD lately because my body is so cold and I have so little energy. I feel like the only heat I can get is from hot tea/soup/hot meal. I'm going to consume more amount of fat as suggested and see if i do better.
Gut system has been having problem possibly due to stress and irregular sleep cycle. Sleep will be kept in check by going to bed early on weekdays when possible. Stressful days I will take 20 minute naps more often to recover from mental exhaustion.

2. Hair loss + Itchy scalp
My eczema have been way easier to control for me since the knowledge of RPD but my itchy scalp doesn't seem to go away. Possibly the dry skin factor + heating system is bothering me. I have yet to have a good solution for itchy scalp. I may do a VCO detox when I have the time to allocate 3 days off. Limiting carbohydrates at this point seems quite unfruitful for me because my energy and temperature is so low that I need warm carb in form of boiled sweet potato to stay warm.
In one way I want to try low carb and see what effects it would have on my scalp eczema (potential candida..? ) on the other hand, everytime I try to cut down on carb and eat protein and fat I get severely fatigue from my baseline level. I may just not be eating enough fat as well.

Also need to do extensive research into MPB as well, as I've started to have early signs of MPB and I'd like to stop it before it gets bad. Will start another thread on experimentation on that.


3. Lost of libido

GS have mentioned on his site that health symptoms are all stemming from causes, and address the causes, the symptoms goes away. Libido I believe is one of them, but I've yet to be able to combat my libido issue.
Zinc deficiency : I take NOW opti-zinc for  around 2 weeks, no significant improvement.
Cholesterol deficiency - I finish around 1 carton of eggs (12) everyday by making scrambled eggs with no benefit to libido
Vitamin D3 - Same thing, Been taking 3000 IU everyday for a while but still not getting there. Libido is working together with my mild depression and absolutely killing my joy in life at this point.

4. Eczema, my biggest problem

Eczema is coming back in form of rashes. Not significant enough that I lose sleep over but starting to have pain from showering and irritation from itch. This needs to be addressed and reverse back to recovery path.

5. Negative food
I've been "cheating" or consuming many bad food, such as cookies, extra artificial condiments, chips, coffee, alcohol, etc. These habit must go as they only provide short-term relief but produces more stressful conditions for me in the long-term.

6. Stress-release

Recently been slipping on weightlifting as habit, which have provided me a strict guideline and routine to follow before. I will return to training schedule of 3 days minimum a week, every week.

7. Under eating

Not eating enough is perhaps another reason that I am having many issues in my energy level currently.

8. Core diet currently

Here is the diet I am mostly following right now
Chocolate almonds (about half a pound)  Need to go
Dark Coffee (1 cup /day)
Scrambled eggs (6eggs/meal, twice a day) mixed with chili powder, condiments such as black pepper, salt.
Sweet potato (1/day)
Apples when I'm near school with no food to eat.
Alcoholic drinks on weekends
Artificial sweeteners in water for drinks

As many of you probably shaking your head, i know..I'm slipping into bad habits again.

I really need to address this problem of feeling cold..it is absolutely killing my desire+habit of eating RPD ..I've done enough research to know that RPD is the fastest way to recovery and robust health but I'm so cold that everytime I have thought of not having cooked food I get depressed.

How do I get out of this cold mess of thyroid problem/adrenal fatigue/ candida/  chronic fatigue?  It is driving me insane.

9. Core habit: Food Journal

From today onwards I will document my food in a food journal on my ipod

[eveheart]

How do you get around? Walking or bicycling can help lift SAD. Or chopping wood.

[badboy9311]

I walk a lot. I used to go around town on my longboard but my friend sinked it to the bottom of the lake so now I walk majority of the time. It's actually the most pleasurable thing I get to do out of all the stuff I'm dealing with lately.

It's just that it's getting cold as well and I tend to avoid the outside. But at the same time not seeing the sun makes me sad as well.

[goodsamaritan]

Thank you for your personal reporting.

Makes me think of the challenges when my children get to your age.

Probably the motivation to stick to healthy lifestyle would be...

... you want to get them girls???

... you had better man up and try to do the best raw paleo diet and lifestyle you can because when your looks and health fail you, the girls will all be gone.

Something like your challenge happened to my brother in his 1st year of college.

He got assigned to UP Los Banos and we lived in Manila.  So he had to live in a dorm in his college.

He was on SAD, we did not know any better... he ate the crappiest junk, no home cooked, just commercial crap and even instant noodles.  He got horribly sick pronto and his full body psoriasis flared up.  He was forced to request the college to assign him to the manila campus (or quit college if he wasn't able to).

Today, my kids appreciate just how amazingly better our home cooked meals are compared to eating outside.

My 11 year old (2nd boy) just had a basketball accident and had an inflamed knee injury, his diet protocol was raw oysters, raw tuna and some lightly seared t-bone steaks.  Aside from ice on his knee every 3 hours.

[eveheart]

It's just that it's getting cold as well and I tend to avoid the outside. But at the same time not seeing the sun makes me sad as well.

I've lived in your type of climate, and I don't recall avoiding the outdoors because of cold weather. Just be sure to wear the right clothes, including layers that you can open or shed when your body warms up. This will warm you better than hot food.

[jessica]

To me it sounds like you need rest and to focus on diet.  I would suggest doing cooked paleo and continuing to include starches while you transition back into a healthier Pattern of eating and eliminate caffeine(and nuts and fruits IMO) from your diet.  Make broths with oxtails or other gristly bits and herbs, onions and celery and drink those with warmed meat, fat and greens.  Try doing small amounts of physical activity, such as stretching, breathing exercises and maybe some body weight exercises and walks, but do not over exert yourself.  Focus on getting good quality sleep, remember you are healing, be gentle with yourself. Your heat issues sound like low thyroid, add some seaweeds into your diet.  Try eating large quanities of proteins and fats for breakfast and lunch and a starchy dinner and see if that helps your body warm up.  Add raw milk to your diet if its accessible, it will help nourish you with vitamin d, heal your intestines and skin.  Switch up your protien and fat sources like fish, oysters and pastures pork if available.

[goodsamaritan]

I agree with Jessica.
Go cooked paleo diet if raw is unreachable for the moment.
My children are mostly cooked paleo diet.

[badboy9311]

To me it sounds like you need rest and to focus on diet.  I would suggest doing cooked paleo and continuing to include starches while you transition back into a healthier Pattern of eating and eliminate caffeine from your diet.  Make broths with oxtails or other gristly bits and herbs, onions and celery and drink those with warmed meat, fat and greens.  Try doing small amounts of psychical activity, sub as stretching and maybe some body weight exercises and walks, but do not over exert yourself.  Your heat issues sound like low thyroid, add some seaweeds into your diet.  Try eating large quanities of proteins and fats for breakfast and lunch and a starchy dinner and see if that helps your body warm up.  Add raw milk to your diet if its accessible, it will help nourish you with vitamin d.  Switch up your protien and fat sources like fish, oysters and pastures pork if available.

I've included kelp into my supplement stack as of now. Taking it about 4-6 of those / day..recommended dosage.
Seaweed does not exist around here other than the junk food kind, but i'll double check
I'm lactose intolerant now, can't find raw milk around here either. Asked around couple years back apparently stores around my area don't really carry it because it's quite hard to deal with legal issues / potential drawbacks from customers

Really trying to pinpoint my issue right now..I'm going to review my own principles of health and turn this around.
1. Lifestyle + Diet causes health issue. Nothing else...Formulate a good lifestyle with good diet = health
2. Inflammation is the name of the game, the more inflammatory food = damaging system. The more anti-inflammatory food = recovering system
3. Natural food > Processed in terms of anti-oxidants, nutrient content and lack of AGEs
4. AGEs causes aging in the body, and the more I research into it the more I realize AGEs also link to all sorts of health problem
5. AGEs may also link to testosterone receptors in rats (recent findings)..Such an under-researched area in science..Cooked food vs raw food changes
6. Anecdote I find that western lifestyle just consist of higher chance of hairloss for people. Almost every family member of my own who've been to the North America society develops hair-loss (male)
7. DHT and hair loss is well documented, but the reason it causes miniaturization of hair follicle is still very vague. Immortalhair seems to provide very great source of information on the matter. Looking into the research further. Seem to be connected with adrenal, thyroid glands which I do have major issue with. DHT also seems to be less of the focus of issue here for me because I do not have that much body hair. It is either a) I have high amount of DHT and it's overly inflammatory for my scalp or b) I have low amount of DHT, but my body so inflammatory it's still attacking my hair follicle. More into the mechanism later.
8. Low libido seems to be connected with low testosterone..It make sense that I have low T because I've been training hard to couple years in weight lifting (despite on and off) but my muscle growth seems to not even compare with newbies who started for 1 year on bad diet. Genetics definitely play a roll but I think that the only way is compensate with better health to make up for poor genetics. Over the last 3.5 years I've transitioned from 130 - 140 lbs, which is very little for muscle mass despite I've gotten much stronger. Under eating/ Overtraining / Hormonal influence seems to be the only question here. Since I do take a lot of time off, I believe undereating and hormones to be the only issue.

Practical step first.
A. Sticking to a RPD..Making bone broth when cheap bones and vegetables are available
B. Scalp issue is causing more hair loss, it is possibly a combination of eczema + candida, or just scalp eczema. Either way I sort of see them as the same thing. Most hair are scratched off but minor thinning at the crown is coming out. Really don't want to go the drug way but If this doesn't get solved in a year that might be the only option
C. Stress release techniques: Stretching, Spiritual walks + Muscle release techniques
D. Upping fat content as prime key in diet. Fat is key to energy and calorie intake. Going to finish up the marrow bones I have right now first.
E. Looking into fixing my organs and make them run properly as well. The only difference between a guy who have no issue with health whatsoever despite eating junk all the time and me, is only possible in a better running system. The only way they have a better system is better organs, endocrine system and blood flow etc. Basically their engine is running better and body is able to regenerate and clean out the junk they're eating

[badboy9311]

Research Notes

Thyroid , Heat and Diet
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2011/08/low-carb-high-fat-diets-and-the-thyroid/

Going to look into this later, really busy lately
But basically a moderate carb, moderate carb and high mono-saturated fat (so animal fat) would be optimal for thyroid function and temperature..need to review this soon