Feeling better after eating red meat?

[Bergkamp]

So usually I don’t eat red meat much (mostly chicken, fish). Due to some circumstances I ate a lot of red meat in the past week (mostly beef) and I feel a sudden boost in energy and general well-being. Now that could also be random but just wanted to find out if it has something to do with my diet.

Is it possible that eating this much beef has something to do with it? I do have iron deficiency and anemia resulting from that, but that can’t improve after only a week of eating red meat I guess? Is there something else in beef that could cause this type of effect?

 

[BrightCandle]

Unlike me/cfs anaemia really is that simple. Increase red meat intake and your body gets what it needs and improves. Most people with deficiencies of various types take a week or two of a supplements and change their diet and recover, it's very quick. ME warps your expectations of treatment effectiveness for simple things in how incredibly difficult it is to make even minor gains, the variance of which 99% of the population wouldn't even notice day to day, but for a person with 5% energy 1% is a big deal.

 

[ChrisD]

I always feel better after Red meat, Beef and Lamb. For the first year of my illness I was living in a very plant based city and embraced that lifestyle, not realising how bad it was nutritionally. Then I switched the other way and did a PK diet as per Myhill, but with a few tweaks and started to realise just how important animal fat and protein was to my wellbeing. Unfortunately it's more of a maintenance thing for me rather than progressive recovery through nutrition. So I keep my meat intake pretty high without issues. In the last few years I've started to discover the benefits of nose to tail i.e. Offal. And plan to incorporate much more into my diet this autumn and winter

 

[Bergkamp]

Unlike me/cfs anaemia really is that simple. Increase red meat intake and your body gets what it needs and improves. Most people with deficiencies of various types take a week or two of a supplements and change their diet and recover, it's very quick. ME warps your expectations of treatment effectiveness for simple things in how incredibly difficult it is to make even minor gains, the variance of which 99% of the population wouldn't even notice day to day, but for a person with 5% energy 1% is a big deal.

Thanks, interesting explanation, although my doctor said that even with supplementation it usually takes months to see your iron going up, so really wonder if that’s the case here or not

 

[wabi-sabi]

Thanks, interesting explanation, although my doctor said that even with supplementation it usually takes months to see your iron going up, so really wonder if that’s the case here or not

Sometimes it's just nice to know that somethings works, even when we don't know why.

 

[Rufous McKinney]

Due to some circumstances I ate a lot of red meat in the past week (mostly beef) and I feel a sudden boost in energy and general well-being

I think its tied to our poor utilization of glucose and possibly fats. Our bodies seem to crave protein, and the quality of lamb and beef is particularly good for our defiencies which, in my case, includes too much wind. Lamb and beef are energetically grounding. So I treated my wind, on a diet which increased these grounding foods.

I don't do well on these plant based fake proteins. Digestion goes off etc. I'd like to save the planet by being vegan, but really don't know how, and I try to eat grass fed whenever possible.

 

[christiankatz]

This is interesting. I've never been a fan of meat unless it's doused in ketchup. Thanks for the post. I might have to consider this, although touching raw meat creeps me out.

 

[Rufous McKinney]

I've never been a fan of meat unless it's doused in ketchup.

I tried for a long time to be vegan....was really sick then....it just did not work for my type 0 blood.

 

[BrightCandle]

I tried vegan for a while but it very quickly didn't agree with me and I got quite unwell quickly. I wasn't aware of the B12 and other supplementation and high soya intake that was really necessary to make the diet work and I think I had already gut issues with Soya at that point. I ended up mostly on Keto and Carnivore after that and that worked really well for a while and I had a tonne of energy. I didn't see that first crash coming however and since then pure Keto/Carnivore has not been the right thing to do, I need carbs simple and complex or the brain fog is worse, optimal nowadays seems to be the minimum carbs I can get away with and daily meat and eggs. I take in a lot of protein now, my body seems to crave and need it and my muscles are building from doing nothing other than eating it.

I think with this disease you have to find where that optimal point is for your body, its probably not the same as me. I would rather not be eating meat from an ethical environmental point of view, I am higher than average now and that is definitely not what I want to do but my health has to come before this small environmental impact. But if it improves your condition you just got to do it.

 

[Rufous McKinney]

I am higher than average now and that is definitely not what I want to do but my health has to come before this small environmental impact. But if it improves your condition you just got to do it.

a friend of mine swears red meat has something in it that makes her and her daughter experience more inflammation, her daughter has rheumatoid arthritis.....genetic birth defects...odd stuff...

I take the opposite view. I don't like fish and won't be living on that at all.

In 1969, I started vegetarian, and this mean buying odd soy products at the Seventh Day Adventist market. I was considered very odd, I recall.

then: Ehret's muscousless diet, I ditched 99% of all foods. Oh that was really bad.

I basically could not survive at field station and camps, eating cheese and lettuce, the vegetarian options.

Later I discovered at some retreats, with vegetarian gourmet food, that I'm starving the whole time.

Now, I find some carbs are: somehow needed, and a hard core keto thing is not desirable for me, either.

 

[christiankatz]

Now, I find some carbs are: somehow needed, and a hard core keto thing is not desirable for me, either

I tried keto for a while, and I felt completely drained of any remaining energy and kinda depressed. Carbs are my friend to some degree. Plus with keto, major constipation!

 

[Rufous McKinney]

Carbs are my friend to some degree. Plus with keto, major constipation!

I'll admit to having to solve a "sugar problem"...(cookies, I did like cookies)...but generally I have always used the whole wheat and health store breads, so the fiber and all seems helpful for digestion...

personally I feel the energy runs out in my gut, is more the reason for acute gut issues, than the what did I eat -but this stems from blaming food for many years....

 

[L'engle]

It could also be b12, folate, zinc, l-carnitine. Iron would take longer to show an large effect but since we notice subtle effects more than healthy people you could see a slight improvement.

I don't know why but I also do better with red meat. Bison is particularly effective, being very high in iron and other nutrients. I get lazy and go without meat for weeks sometimes and seem to worsen over time. I don't eat it everyday but several times a month if I can. Vegetarian proteins like soy and legumes make me feel worse. I was a vegetarian for a long time so I'm not just someone who is used to meat as a habit. I don't even particularly like meat in most forms, but it does improve my energy level.

 

[Azayliah]

I have found eating red meat, turmeric, and cherry juice to be helpful to my muscles aches. I have a type of muscle pain where it doesn't hurt until I poke at or rub an affected muscle; easing that pain can help my energy a bit.

I've also noticed that sometimes if I deviate from my usual diet I might experience a boost just like what you described. This has occurred a variety of foods--a hearty salad, wheat germ, chocolate, fried rice, milk, fish, supplements, medication, cheesesteak, boiled eggs, coke cola, etc. I usually notice the boost within hours of eating the food, and there is a decreasing effect (ex: it works the first and second day but not the third), so if it took days of eating beef for you to notice the increased energy then I'd guess it's not this.

 

[Seadragon]

Also feel slightly better after eating red meat, particularly beef/steak. I crave protein all the time also and if I eat meat free one day, the next day I will be slightly worse.

I need carbs also though so Keto would not be for me.

I did read somewhere on the forum a while back a post by someone (I forget who) saying high protein diet can help the body heal more efficiently.