Alberto's Journal

[albertoceraw]

After a year eating raw paleo I decided it would be a good idea to begin a log, to record what has my journey so far, what I've learned and the road in front of me. I think this first entry will be just about how it all began.

As most people here, I also arrived at raw food through malady. It began in august 2012 when I was 22 years old and no health issues. It started with some weird abdominal disconfort accompanied by gases. At the moment I thought it would be some fleeting malaise so I didn't do anything about it for a month. But things soon started getting worse, soon exercise gave me insomnia; I got more and more bloated, to the point it caused me great pain; heartburn so bad I thought it might be a heart attack;  ibs which wouldn't let me out of the house; anal itching that would make me stop right in my tracks in disbelief of how bad it was; very poor digestion, I could eat at 3pm and still feel full at 1 am next day.

Soon I was so brain fogged and so full of anxiety and discomfort that I could barely do any mental work. There were weeks where I would have to smoke and drink just to manage the anxiety and pain. Meanwhile I went to see many doctors, but you probably can guess how that went. Basically tests showed nothing, so It was all in my head. And they would say this to me even after nights that were so bad I thought about calling an ambulance.

So after one of these doctor appointments I realized that If they were right I was doomed. This was maybe after half a year seeing doctors, and loosing a lot of money.  Luckily for me I found soon enough about candida, and how happy I was to find that it explained almost everything. So I dived right into the candida diet, and so the nutrition voyage began.


I was amazed to see that for the first time in 6 months my symptoms were subsiding. Almost all candida related problems went away, yet I still didn't heal completely. As I was to find out, candida was only a layer. This made me begin researching compulsively about nutrition, now that I knew this was the right way. I spent my time reading in the internet and looking for different foods in markets, spending what little money I had left.

However, even though I got rid of many symptoms, some things got worse. Leaping from candida diet to gaps, then learning about paleo, etc didn't seem to really improve anything. I went from thinking I had gastroparesis to fructose intolerance. In the end it didn't matter much, I got to the point where I has hungry all the time my weight dropping drastically, overeating to satisfy my hunger; drank kefir like mad, ate a lot of nuts, etc. I could barely do any physical or mental activity, and going out to get my food was quite the chore. I finally came to the point where for one whole week I could hardly digest anything and could barely sleep due to the intense pain peristalsis caused in me. All plant matter I ingested would come out exactly as it came in.

After that horrible episode I resigned to the fact that I could only eat meat. So for a couple of weeks ate nothing but boiled meat, coconut oil and whatever fat I could get. And this was great, for the first time in months I feld I was finally getting nourishment.

All this nutrition experimenting probably took 3 months. Then I learned about raw meat....


----------------

Alberto

[cherimoya_kid]

Good luck.

[albertoceraw]

I read about eating raw meat in a blog, and even though it made sense it didn't struck me at first as something that would make a big difference, so I left it at that. What got me into raw meat was in a way, pemmican. I loved making pemmican, and one day, when I had set meat appart to dry out, I decided I would try it out. To my surprise it tasted so good that I emptied the plate. The experience was quite revealing, it immediately stopped making sense to me to cook meat.

I switched to raw right away and started reading about the subject: aajounus vonderplanitz, burger, this forum... At the beginning I followed a lot of AV stuff, some of it helped, a lot of if didn't. Same with Burger. I went through some really bad detox, expelled gallstones, severe diarrhea, rashes, etc. However even though my digestion was better, I still was in a very poor condition, I could barely think or communicate.

It took a lot of experimenting inside raw foods to start feeling better. There were many difficulties as well,  like finding quality animal products. I live in Mexico city where basically people still don't care much about nutrition. Another problem was that I was trying to do cetosis/vlc in a naive sort of way. That and the fact that I was continuously experimenting with different foods, which didn't necessarily go well.

It wasn't until august 2013 that I went zero carb that I finally made progress. For the first time in several months my mind started working again. So basically it was a matter of removing all plant material from my diet. It also helped me doing zc finding a somewhat good source of food, like grassfed beef and, well... "good" bacon.

[TylerDurden]

Mexico City..... Oh dear! One of the cities with the most air-pollution on Earth!

[cherimoya_kid]

It's probably easy to get organ meats there, right, Albert?

[goodsamaritan]

Thanks for sharing.  Amazing journey.

[albertoceraw]

Mexico City..... Oh dear! One of the cities with the most air-pollution on Earth!

One of the cities with most pollution in general. It saddens me to think that this was once one of the most beautiful places in the world. What was once one of its most attractive aspects, it's mountains, are not even visible due to the smog.

It's probably easy to get organ meats there, right, Albert?

Well, sort of. On one hand, in Mexico people still enjoy a lot certain organ meats. In street food the "tacos de cabeza" are very popular;  tacos made from everything in the pig or cows head: tongue, eye, brain, cheek, snout, etc.  This makes very difficult to get offal from the head, it's actually the only animal parts I haven't got the chance to try raw, since the head is always sold separately to the taqueros. Stomach and intestines are the next in popularity. Yet organs as kidney, liver, heart, etc are not really popular. 

Offal is very easy to get, but of a poor quality.  In the city most meat comes from the north of Mexico, which is very similar to Texas in meat standards now a days, grain-fed and chemical ridden. This meat is usually considered as superior in quality. I have tasted raw liver from these cows and its bad. So what was hard was getting quality organs, and since in mexico grass-fed is not a distinction people are aware of, this was sort of difficult.

In the south of Mexico things are quite different. The states of Veracruz, Tabasco and Chiapas have a big cattle industry, yet it is mainly for milk-production. All cattle there is grass-fed and in general well-treated. Since my family is from Chiapas and has had a ranch there for 200 years, I know a bit on the subject. I went last summer there as raw foodist and its paradise, I might write about it later.


So when I set out to look for food, I was only looking for meat from the south; that was good enough for me (If you ever go to Mexico, it's what I would suggest). Yet even this was difficult. Eventually I went to a market famous for its exotic products. They sell tiger, lion, buffalo, armadillo, crocodile, boar, etc. There in one of the stands I finally found meat from tabasco. That's were I get my meat from, yet they only offal they have are kidneys, testicles (which are ok, but I get tired very easily of them) and occasionally bone marrow.

In the city I also found a health store which sold organic grass-fead meat from Veracruz. It's from a ranch called La rumorosa which is basically the first to target this market.  There are other ranches but they are to small to have a constant supply in the city. The only problem was that it was really pricey; 23 dollars for a kg of meat. Yet, to my delight they also sold liver cheaply at 8 bucks per kilo. This is excellent liver and I stock up on it every I chance I get, which is not always often.

So in general it hasn't been that easy, though I'm broadening my searches and hope to find more good stuff soon.

Thanks for sharing.  Amazing journey.

It has been pretty amazing (and frigging hard) so far, as for what I have learned. Before I got sick I thought often about how we feed.  I enjoyed food enormously, and ate in what I considered a healthy way at the time; still I couldn't find any sense in the way we ate, (you know based on pleasure) and I wondered if any sort of truth could be found on food. And life works in strange fashion, I got that truth the moment I tried raw meat for the first time.  It has been a journey I feel I was meant to have  and it has really taken me far. And I still have a lot of  road in front of me...

[albertoceraw]

Well, since I haven't had time to write the chronological followup I thought I'd write about the non-diet related things I began doing. After realizing how deranged we were about eating, I began researching about other aspects of daily life in the same way as to find a more rational way to do them.


Squatting in the bathroom

It's definitely easier, and I've gotten quite used to it, to the point where it feels really uncomfortable not squatting.


Cold-thermongenesis: Cold showers, no warm clothes.

When I was sick I became very squeamish about cold, so I decided to start doing some cold-thermogenesis. I've improved greatly my cold tolerance yet I cannot say it has had a definite influence on my health issues.


Hygiene: making my own deodorant, toothpaste, creams, hair products.

I think the only thing left to do is making my own soap. In general I'm ok with the results from self-made products, especially facial cream.



Posture: Sleeping, sitting, walking, standing up.

This might be some of the most difficult changes to make since they're son engrained in our behaviour. It's specially difficult to change sleeping patterns, since at first many postures don't seem to bring sleep at all. Walking and standing properly are also hard since it's hard to be constantly aware of how you do this things. Sitting also took some time and pain to learn to sit in the floor. I also fashioned special furniture to work in more organic postures.



EMF, earthing and circadian cycles.

Sadly I haven't been able to experiment as much as I would like with this. It's really difficult to do in Mexico City. As little as I managed to do these things, they do seem to lead to a much calmer life.



And even though making all these changes makes it harder to coexist with this society, Krishnamurti once said it very well, "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

[nummi]

I think the only thing left to do is making my own soap.

Using soaps isn't a good idea... (I'm assuming you mean the kind of soap sold is shops just not with the toxins, so just a basic soap as if from good ol' times)

Soap removes the natural layer of oil/fat and bacteria from the skin. Then the skin dries up. To try and prevent damage from such drying up the skin will begin emitting excessive oil/fat - you'll feel uncomfortable, especially after you've ditched soaps and then test soaps again.
Since natural bacteria that should be living on you are not there then any dirt and sweat and oil/fat on your skin will go rancid - where stench comes from.
Soaps and such things kill and remove the bacteria and oils/fats. But you need those things... they act as a defensive mechanism against some hostile external stuff.

I haven't used soaps or anything like that for about 5 months, except on my hands when they are covered with some really nasty stuff, but then I immediately apply some animal fat or olive oil.
I use a glove like thing made from hemp or something similar. Though a piece of cloth or a small towel would do as well. You just scrub yourself.

[albertoceraw]

Using soaps isn't a good idea... (I'm assuming you mean the kind of soap sold is shops just not with the toxins, so just a basic soap as if from good ol' times)

Soap removes the natural layer of oil/fat and bacteria from the skin. Then the skin dries up. To try and prevent damage from such drying up the skin will begin emitting excessive oil/fat - you'll feel uncomfortable, especially after you've ditched soaps and then test soaps again.
Since natural bacteria that should be living on you are not there then any dirt and sweat and oil/fat on your skin will go rancid - where stench comes from.
Soaps and such things kill and remove the bacteria and oils/fats. But you need those things... they act as a defensive mechanism against some hostile external stuff.

I haven't used soaps or anything like that for about 5 months, except on my hands when they are covered with some really nasty stuff, but then I immediately apply some animal fat or olive oil.
I use a glove like thing made from hemp or something similar. Though a piece of cloth or a small towel would do as well. You just scrub yourself.

I agree with you Nummi, I  use soap to wash my hands, and when I shower I use it on my armpits and pubic area. Mainly the hairiest parts. I never  use soap on other places. 

[albertoceraw]

The first months eating raw I did not experience that much of a relief since I was experimenting with a lot of foods and in general not caring that much what I ate except that it was raw. I also began to try ketosis in very naive ways which brought some bad experiences. After about 3 months of eating in this way and seeing no progress I decided to try again to a more zerco-carbish approach in a more committed manner. So I went out to search for better fats and meat, and eventually found a place where I could get my grassfed beef and reasonably good bacon and eggs.

And so, with 10 g approx of carbs coming from avocado and eggs, I started to regain for the first time my speech and mental capacities. I was able to go back to school and perform adequately. So it was basically removing fiber which allowed me to focus again. 

And so it's been pretty much like that since then. Mainly eating raw meat and raw bacon, adding other stuff depending on the circumstances. I did experimenting in a more controlled manner, with sometimes dire consequences. I once tried to reintroduce fiber, and began dinning salads. The first two days where OK, but the third I could not sleep due to the unbearable pain which lasted a couple of days. I tried introducing more fruits yet my body expelled most almost immediately. If I had papaya on an empty stomach it would come rushing out in a pair of hours, albeit with no pain. The only fruits I could digest were basically banana and avocado. I ate no vegetables, except occasional experiments with vegatablesjuice, which I could reasonably tolerate.

I ate occasionally organ meats and sea food. I tried some herbal teas. Liver flushes, but basically after two times I expelled gallstones they didn't do much. I've had some high meat throughout the year, which I enjoyed when I ate it, though I maybe I haven't eaten enough to make an impact.

This year  I discovered I could tolerate well enough nuts, seeds and peanuts.  I mean, they felt a bit heavy to digest, but I COULD digest them without any pain. I overate them at first since I was ecstatic at finding I could eat something other than meat and bananas. And since I wasn't very happy about eating bacon I tried to up my intake of fat through avocado and nuts. And to my surprise I started doing worse. Even though I didn't have any digestive issues, I started loosing energy, mental focus, clarity,and got back the same sort of "autism" I had before. I slept a lot during the day and could barely do any work.

[albertoceraw]

So where am I now?

The last months I have been investing more in experimenting with my diet. Since I now have a job that pays me enough to not worry about food, I've been able to acquire everything I need (which I couldn't before). Also having a rigid schedule and being away from home forces me to be more disciplined with what I eat, which is great for experimentation.

After almost a year and a half eating raw many of my health problems have vastly improved while others have barely began to get better. It's amazing to see the profound impact eating raw it makes on the way you see everything. The switch was so deep and drastic I have trouble being aware of everything that it changed. And even though I'm thankful for all the things I've learned, it also reveals sooo much more madness in the world, and it's hard not to loose heart. It definitely gives you a sort of Plato's cave feeling.


As a way of helping others ( and maybe get help myself ) I'll make a log of my successes and failures in my health seeking.


Exercise Induced insomnia.

I'll begin talking about one of the symptoms that baffled me the most: INSOMNIA. It might have been my first symptom in my health decline, and it has been also the one I have been able manage best.

It began when I decided to do more exercise and began doing capoeira classes at night. To my surprise, I didn't come home to a night of deep sleep but, even though I was spent, I would lay restless all night. This would even happen if I did exercise midday. 

Soon after I began having my digestive issues and seeing doctors. I still remember the answer a doctor gave me after I asked about the lack of sleep. I'll never forget it since it was probably the greatest display of ignorance and medical incompetence I've seen. He said to me: " If it was up to me, I'd rather make exercise than sleep". YEEZ, THANKS FOR YOUR INSIGHT DOC, so glad you went to medic school to give a professional answer like that. I'd be better off asking the taxi driver his opinion...

So it took some time before I understood what was happening. Finally researching I found something that helped. It was a glucose depletion issue. Which made sense in retrospect, since I've always eaten pretty low carb in my opinion.  So I tried eating bananas after making exercise at night and it worked, I slept well.

I mean, it's still a difficult balance being in ketosis and making exercise without getting insomnia, but at least I can manage it.

But it didn't end there. I also began having a different kind of insomnia where I would wake up at 2 AM. This was easier to figure out  though. It was because I began eating too late. I would go to sleep maybe an hour after a meat/fat meal. So I just stopped eating late at night.

And that ended the insomnia mystery for me, even if I'm still prone to it.

[ciervo-chaman]

very nice journal alberto i would like to know how are you doing right now!
so if you are in ketosis and do excersise, you have to consume some carbs for sleeping? this is still being this way? did you had a hard time going from burning sugar to burning fats?

[albertoceraw]

I started doing ketosis before going raw, when I felt terrible so I can't say what was from the transition to keto and what from shitty health, but it was hard.

Yes, you can consume carbs while being in ketosis. But it's a bit risky calculating how much. I could eat up to 100 g of carbs after workout and still be in ketosis. If I couldn't sleep it was a good sign to get some sugar.

It has gotten pretty interesting lately. I've made great improvements in my health lately. I'd say the "only" thing left if the constant brain-fog, which I also think I might be on the road to heal.

I have finally solved my digestive issues and I'm now able to digest everything again. This has been great because I now can do better excercise without worrying about carbs. That has also has improved how I feel.


The final clue to the brain fog seems to be also the root of all the problems I've had: Copper toxicity. I'm not sure if its due to pyroluria or other factors, but supplementation of zinc and eating seeds and nuts has bastly improved my health, even if theres lots of road to go through yet.

[albertoceraw]

Winter has been quite the detox.

I been doing considerably better after introducing iron to my diet. When winter began, I was excercising well and beign productive, yet I felt my lungs a bit constipated, and would wake up with dried muccus in my upper airways. Eventually decided to make a ginger tea recipe I used to do to dicongest, and it worked wonders. I spend a day or two with heavy flow of muccus and felt way better after.

But I started having digestive issues. Eventually one day I waked with heavy nausea, I vomited a lot, and felt really week. That baffled me, since it sort of came out of nowhere. I felt really shitty and bit scared,  but my best guess was that I had gallstones so I fasted and did a liver cleanse at night. Next morning tons of gallstones came out. I Was really happy I managed to solve that issue quickly.

Still, my digestion hasn't got that much better. I began having a lot of gas, and a bit of indigestion still. Did some egg flushes but nothing came out. Now I know its nuts and seeds that are cousing me distress. Maybe my liver is still week or maybe I still have stones. Should consider another flush maybe next month after letting my liver rest.

[jessica]

Eat better sources if fat until your liver amd gallbladder heals.  Nut and seed are difficult for many to digest. In my experience, any hih levels of fat from non animal sources has caused gallbladder issues and nausea.  Sometimes it was easily eliminated with a sip of apple cider vinegar, other times it has caused rashes and prolonged feeling of dis ease and sickness.  In the long run I have found that almost completely eliminating seed and avoiding nuts all together is the best option.  You get a better ratio of omega 3's with animal fat and no anti nutrients. I have never had any amount of animal fat consumed raw, unrefined or even cooked cause gallbladder or liver issues.

Do you eat any cultured, fermented, or aged foods?  What is your current diet?

[albertoceraw]

Yeah I agree about better fats.

My diet was more or less the following.

non-excercise day

light fruit breakfast

about 2 handulls of seeds and raw peanuts, maybe 200gr?

meal of raw beef meat and fat

light fruit

on a excecise day I replace nuts and seeds for white rice, potato or sweet potato and home made dried meat and a 1 lt of fruit-vegetable juice.

I add saurkraut, organ meat, and seefood on the weekends usually.  I take a zinc supplement also. I used to eat high meat more or less often, but after a batch that went wrong I haven't gotten back to it.

I don't usually eat nuts, I just bought some recently,but seeds were a great adition which helped think a lot more clearly when I began eating them daily.  Right now I think I'll replace them with eggs and vegetable juice while I wait a little before reintroducing them.

[albertoceraw]

Well,  digestive issues continue, and I'm pretty sure it's still the liver. I find diffucult to digest nuts and seeds, but also animal fats as I now have to accept.

I guess the only option is doing another liver cleanse on the weekend, but since the flushing with eggyolks didn't do much last time ( maybe becouse my liver needed rest from recent flush?) I think I might go with a coffee enema this time, although I'm still unsure if it'll work with me.

Anyways, time to fat-fast and eat some appfel.

[albertoceraw]

Well, I did a coffee enema in the morning hoping to flush my liver in a quicker way. But I don't think it worked. Did a water enema first, and then the coffee one, and just felt a little push in the liver at the beguining but that was it. No stones came out.

So I'm getting ready to do a olive oil flush in the night, and hope that gets it out since my liver feels pretty congested.

[ciervo-chaman]

do you feel neccesary to do that things? or you feel guilty and want to "pay for your sins" ??

many people i have read that warn about enemas and things that go in the holy hole. they says that our body has all the tools to get the things out of there, and if it is given time, eating the right foods (all raw is almost always "right", but it depends on how much you eat too)

if you interfere with the body's tools, you are extending the restoration of the malfunction.

when i have problems, cause i have ate toxic things during many days, usually i go for a lot of fat (cream and butter, avocados, the best i can get) for a couple of days, and then, i feel like my bowels can be emptied again.

hope you feel good

[albertoceraw]

Haha, sins? with coffee enemas?
No, I find liver flushes are necesary, maybe not coffee enemas in particular, since I've yet to see its merits. I do not belive in dogmas, so I do not close myself to any options out there. I like to see for myself. I have not really found merit in eating 100 % percent raw, as I have not found it sufficient to heal all my ailments. I've had to search in a lot of other places to keep healing.

The body was adapated to heal in an enviroment way different to the one we live in now. We must seek ways to help our body.

My problems are not from eating toxic stuff. I think my diet right now is as good as it gets.

Anyways, I think the flush worked. I believe my digestion is way better today even If I didn't went to the bathroom to throw stones even after I took epsom salt with water.  I think the epsom salts even made my stomach a bit upset.

Thanks for the good wishes, I hope your coping well over there.

[albertoceraw]

Well the flush might've helped my liver but apparently the coffee enema had a negative impact in my intestinal flora.  After I had it, I've been having undigested food on my stools agains, especifically, spinach.

Ah, just when I was beguining to feel I was about to be healthy again, so much starts going on. But I can't complain, I've been healing pretty rapidly the last 6 months. I just want to relax about my health for the first time in almost 2 and a half years.

[nummi]

I think the epsom salts even made my stomach a bit upset.

Too strong solution? If not dilute enough it will definitely upset stomach.

[albertoceraw]

Too strong solution? If not dilute enough it will definitely upset stomach.

Yeah, most probably.

[albertoceraw]

My digestion hasn't recovered yet, but it's not as bad as before. Mainly still some trouble to digest fat. Nuts and seeds give me gas, and I can't digest vegetables well again. Other than that I've been feeling good, which is a problem since I think it makes not take as seriously my still latent health problems. Been doing to mucho excercise, which is great but I've paired it with trying to eat vegetables, which taxes my GI and eating a bit late, which gives me poor sleep.  So now I think I've stressed my body.

However... Intelligence and mood are getting better and better, I've now energy to exploit my day fully. I'd say I've regained 60 or 70 % of my health.

I have some interesting personal proyects right now. I'm making healthy food products for sale. RIght now I make raw nut bars and dehidrated meat "cookies".

Theres a lack of nutrition conscience in Mexico and I'm trying to make healthy options available.

Right now I think my body is healing really fast and thats why my liver might not be as strong as before.  All the extra activity is making me a bit unstable and I should consider some rest.