Carnivore Diet for ME?

[Richard7]

I do test my ketones. I have a ketonix breath acetone metre and unrine test strips.

As I understand it the acetone metre is a good measure of recent BHOB utilisation and the urine test is a reasonable measure of production over a longer term (several hours).

At the moment I am between 1.5 and 4mMol on the urine test and Red (the highest reading) on the ketonix.

 

[BeADocToGoTo1]

An interesting article I just saw on the carnivore diet.

https://chriskresser.com/the-carnivore-diet-is-it-really-healthy/

 

[Richard7]

@BeADocToGoTo1 I have not read your thread, I have just glanced at it.

But, I am taking Betaine HCL and pepsin + Creon (pancrelipase) + some plant enzymes that contain more lipases and proteases. The plant proteases are there to replicate the work of the exopeptidases that are tethered to a healthy person's small intestine, and which are needed to activate the proteases in creon.

When I was consuming carbohydrates I was taking plant enzymes which contained invertases/sucrases and maltases to break complex sugars into glucose and fructose.

I think this mix is working fairly well, when I started on PKD I was taking less lipase and had flecks or even lumps of undigested fat in my stools. I have tried larger doses of creon - which made digestion uncomfortable (burning sensations) I have not tried larger doses of the separate plant based lipase but I guess that makes sense.

I am also taking ox bile at the moment.

I found last year, or maybe the previous one that taking strong hibiscus tea or eating a lot of liver could induce endogenous bile production, but as I said I have not been in the mood for liver and hibiscus is definitely not a part of the PKD.

 

[outdamnspot]

Kind of had a weird experience the past two days. I guess you could say I practice 'flexible' carnivore, i.e. predominantly eat meat and then will include vegetables, avocado etc. as my tolerances allow.

I had been growing increasingly intolerant to avocado and crashed severely two days ago, so decided to have a reset day and only consume meat. The next day, I woke up with disabling fatigue but was also clearheaded, euphoric, motivated etc., which seems to happen whenever I eliminate carbs/plant matter completely. I had quite a bit of energy later in the day, even though I was mostly running on adrenaline.

As an experiment, I decided I would consume some iceberg lettuce last night before bed to see if adding in a small amount of carbs would improve my energy and still give me the benefits I see on meat-only days. Since it's also histamine/salicylate free, I figured the chance of a reaction was low.

I was right insofar as eating the lettuce (maybe 1.5 cups) did normalize some of the fatigue, but it also brought back the terrible brain fog, lack of motivation etc. I get with stuff like avocado (which I presumed was the histamine/salicylates).

Is there any plausible explanation for this? If our guts are in bad shape, could all plant matter/fiber in and of itself just be inflammatory? I was thinking I could maybe blend the lettuce into a smoothie next time to see if it makes digesting it a little easier.

 

[Richard7]

@outdamnspot

I guess that there are two pathways to an answer to the brain fog problem. One could be that your brain was working well on ketone bodies and the glucose in the lettuce stopped the ketone production. You could test this with glucose.

Or its really something to do with the lettuce and avocado. Which could as you note be a reaction to something in the food or some byproduct of fermentation. I think the time it takes for the fog to fall could be an indicator, as a reaction to a fermentation byproduct should take longer. But this sort of problem is really hard to sort out.

Indeed the thing that really appealed to me about paleomedicina's approach was the claim that it would heal the gut barrier and thus simplify this sort of problem.

I hope you can find something that works for you.

 

[Richard7]

@outdamnspot

re your earlier post on liver. I had about 200g pan fried liver and 150g bone marrow on Wednesday and it seemed good. On Thursday and today I felt no better or worse than usual.

I plan to try it again soon.

 

[outdamnspot]

@Richard7 why would lettuce stop ketones production? I've been in Keto for 3 years, and aren't the net carbs like 1-3g from a lettuce serving? I very rarely have days where I consume zero carbs.

The liver I bought last time was pre-frozen. I bought a fresh piece to try this time to see if it makes a difference. I also feel like I did improve in certain respects for the week after I ate the liver, as an earlier poster also mentioned, though it may be a coincidence.

 

[Richard7]

@outdamnspot

No I am wrong you are right, the lettuce does not contain many available carbs.

So I guess we are stuck with the difficult route.

I don't think frozen should be an issue. I but beef livers whole (3-5kg) and slice them into pieces and freeze them for later use.

One issue could be the kind of animal. When I order livers I specify that I want it from a pastured animal, which is not hard to do in Australia, or at least my part of it.

I have heard and read reports from Americans who have found livers from feed-lotted animals to be bad -to appalling. I have no idea what a veal liver would be like. ( I recently heard the same thing about beef marrow)

Personally I find that beef liver is the easiest to eat pan fried. Lamb is stronger: I used to eat more of it when I was making pates it went so well with mushrooms, onions, mace and sage. I occasionally used chicken livers for pate, but mostly added them to ragu bolognese (or a variation upon it). I don't really care for the "conventional" chicken liver but wonder if a pastured one would be better.

 

[outdamnspot]

Does anyone know if carbs obtained from meat sources are utilized differently re: energy production than from plant, nut sources etc.? I tried liver again before bed last night and my reaction was milder than last time (some slight depression, fog, sinus congestion) which is good, but I also have a lot less energy than I was expecting -- compared to when I can tolerate things like avocado etc. Even the iceberg lettuce gave me more energy than this. But liver has more carbs than both those foods (I think my serving was 7-9g?).

Interestingly, my urine was also bright yellow.

I'm learning overanalysis doesn't really work with these food reactions, since any given day can produce a different result, but still curious.

 

[outdamnspot]

Also @ChrisD you said you hit a wall with Carnivore; was that even with consuming a lot of fat? I ran my diet through cronometer and typically I'll have a lean steak for my first two meals of the day (or white fish), and then a pack of ground beef before bed. This seems to leave me pretty severely fat/calorie deficient which might explain at least some of the fatigue/weakness, and I imagine it could get expensive trying to make that up by consuming more steak. So I bought several packs of ground beef (80/20) and was going to try consuming just that for a few days to see if the added fat/calories makes any difference.

 

[zedrexvsyrex]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this (only read 3 pages), but anything with zero carbs is very hard on the liver because even in ketosis, the brain still needs ~25% of its energy usage to come from glucose (why this is though, I haven't been able to find out why). This means that your liver will have to convert protein into carbohydrates (glucose), mostly for your brain, which is why your blood glucose levels stay normal on a ketogenic/carnivore/ZC diet. This can cause a fatty liver over time though, and the long-term risk for this is cirrhosis.

The liver can fully regenerate though within about 6 months from practically nothing. Well not really; I heard that if you cut out half of the liver, after 6 months, it will be—albeit in a deformed shape—and will have about 80% of its functionality. This is for a really healthy liver though, not sure about a bad one.

The remedy for this from what I've read (and this is just me connecting 2 completely unrelated things together, so take it with a grain of salt), is fasting. My understanding is that when in a fasted state, your body is primarily burning fat. As glycogen levels are depleted however, your body will need to use protein and convert it into glucose (which I mentioned before), BUT the protein it will prioritize first will be scar tissue and excess skin, so long as you are placing SOME kind of physical stress on your muscles periodically throughout the day, during the fasted days. Then there's the whole science with autophagy and mitochondrial biogenesis (which I think would help CFS/ME symptoms greatly since mitochondria are the primary producers of energy), which is essentially when your body will recycle and/or digest all the lagging cells/cell parts, in order to keep only the most efficient and productive cells alive during the period of starvation (fasting). Then, when the fast is broken, your cells will divide again to replace the lost cells. And because your body had prioritized the healthiest cells first, THOSE are the cells that will be dividing and replacing the lost cells. In other words, you are replacing all of your bad cells with good cells. Even further, your body will induce mitophagy (same thing as autophagy but specific to mitochondria) and when in a fasted state form more mitochondria as well (mitochondrial biogenesis) giving more energy; read about AMPK, mTOR and insulin.

Thinking about this further, I would guess that it also depends on how bad your liver is though. If someone needs a liver transplant, then this might make things worse. But it could also get better. I don't think anyone has really conducted any studies on this.

 

[zedrexvsyrex]

Let's not forget that the same FDA that recomends 30g fibers a day is the one that made that bizarre pyramid with bread being our primary source of energy, which lead to the obesity epidemic we're living.

Just have to point something out—the food pyramid was created by the department of agriculture, not the department of health. That should tell you about all you need to know in terms of monetary gain....

I would recommend you do not eat potatoes at all with ME/CFS.

I have experimented with a potatoes on a starch based diet and eaten them every day as the only source of starch/carbohydrate for weeks at a day. If you have ME/CFS like I do then it is an autoimmune disease of the adrenergic receptors and muscarinic receptors.

Certain plants contain choline esterase inhibitors. These prevent the breakdown of acetylcholine. Potatoes are parcitularly high in these as are nightshades. Other plants have them too such as blueberries. This inhibitor will cause high levels of acetylcholine to build up and you will become increasingly stimulated, anxious and develop insomnia.

A person with ME/CFS will be particularly sensitive to these effects. You can learn more here: https://sites.google.com/site/annerwright/cholinesterase-inhibitors

Don't forget, the Irish practically lived off of potatoes for several hundred years

 

[outdamnspot]

Managed to make it 4 days eating only meat so far (only confounding factor would be the fact I have a teaspoon of coconut oil in my coffee, which is technically contraindicated, but since it doesn't contain plant fiber, I thought it might be okay, or at least not interfere with the adaptation?). Anyway, upping my fat ratio did help a little with energy, i.e. I don't wake up debilitated by fatigue. But I don't really feel good on the diet: physically, it's a lot cleaner, but with less inflammation my body is just pumping out a lot of adrenaline and I'm noticing a strong increase in anxiety/agitation.

 

[Richard7]

It is a shame to hear that anxiety is up @outdamnspot. I have had major issues with it in the past, and still occasionally have issues with it.


I have two thoughts.

The first is inositol.
I have lots of inositol whenever I feel the need. I seem to have a very high need for inositol, I bought 4 pounds in my last order and use more than a pound per month. I suspect that it is because people make inositol from glucose-6-phosphate a glycolysis intermediary and glycolysis is impaired in pwme/cfs.

Inositol is known to reduce anxiety https://examine.com/supplements/inositol/ the standard dose for anxiety is 14-18g. I take a heaped tablespoon with a large glass of water or more often my electrolyte mix. I take a couple of doses most days, I have found that I know when I need it and take it long before I get any symptom of anxiety.

The second is PoTS
When I get anxiety now it is usually PoTS, I drink an electrolyte mix that I have made up of salt, potassium chloride, magnesium sulfate and tricalcium phosphate all day and add salt to my meal or meals. So the solution is rarely to add salt - though this does still happen sometimes. Mostly I think it is an indication that I have been too vertical for too long.

But my situation may be different to yours, I was in bed for most of the time for the last two years. When I started getting better late last year I found that I was in a lot of pain and had to do remedial exercises so that
I could build up the muscles that had become deconditioned.

But having said that, last weekend my neighbours made a lot of noise and I have been pushed to the point where I am overreacting to noise and somewhere on the slope to hyperacusis. I only managed the day by sticking noise isolating earphones in my ears.

 

[Richard7]

I might just add an update on my progress.

Since having that liver I have had two other doses of about 200g beef liver, plus chicken giblets, beef heart, bone marrow and lots of bone broth. So I am back into the offal thing and I have found that I have switched to a preference for eating just one meal a day.

I am feeling better with the live and other offal

 

[outdamnspot]

@Richard7 thanks for the tip. I tried Inositol years ago for OCD and recall it making me a little brainfogged; I'm more cautious about supplements now, since I tend to react to everything but might be worth revisiting. I do also have POTS and consume salt (incl. potassium salt) several times a day.

Not sure how useful these updates are for anyone, but anyway, I'm on day 5 or 6 (lost count) of ZC. Proud I made it this far, at least, since I was extremely worried about my functioning declining on the diet. It seems that eating 1kg of ground beef a day does help me maintain just enough energy to keep trying. However, my results are mixed. The extreme anxiety of the first few days has subsided. But in its place, I'm getting similar symptoms of gut inflammation, brain fog, depression, apathy etc. as when I react to other foods, so I'm a little confused.

It could conceivably be 'detox', since upon waking, I'm passing a strange, chemical-like stool (typically I don't have *any* bowel movements without an enema, regardless of how badly I eat); but I also worry I'm becoming intolerant to even ground beef since I think it's high histamine?

 

[Lolo]

@outdamnspot I vaguely remember reading somewhere on line that to avoid histamine in mince you need to grind it yourself fresh. But don't quote me I have read that only once.

When I was doing carnivore stools were always black, infrequent and small especially compare to when I was vegan.

I have done a bone broth fast today just to see how I feel. I think I eat too much.

 

[outdamnspot]

@Lolo pretty sure I read that too, though it wouldn't be practical. I could maybe try buying fresh mince from a butcher to see if it makes a difference.

 

[Lolo]

@Lolo pretty sure I read that too, though it wouldn't be practical. I could maybe try buying fresh mince from a butcher to see if it makes a difference.

Yeah I wouldn't be bothered doing it either, don't believe in making more work for myself. Same with juicing and smoothies. They both would leave me hungry anyway.

 

[Richard7]

OK I may have spoken too soon. Yesterday, the day after the third approx 200g dose of liver in under a week I had a couple of moments of lightheadedness, followed by moderate agitation/anxiety late in the evening and overnight had issues with tachycardia when standing and for quite a while (maybe 15minutes) after lying down.

Which seems a shame as I was enjoying the liver, and generally feeling better. I want to take a short break and try it again to make sure that it is not just a coincidence, but it seems that we are quite similar @outdamnspot .

Oh and to the anti-anxiety list I should have added that I take L. Rhamnosus. This is kind of complicated L. Rhamnosus, L. Casei and L. Paracasei are species with massively overlapping genomes that are not always marketed under the right species name. I found that yakult (really a mixture of strains of paracasei) helped with anxiety/PoTS symptoms and tried several related probiotics that did not come with massive doses of glucose until I found one that worked as well.