I needed to disable self sign-ups because I’ve been getting too many spam-type accounts. Thanks.
Carnivore and Bile Acid Malabsorption
@nina I'm 15 yrs past menopause, sorry you are being put on HRT so young, for your bones. HRT and potent steroids are the only standard medical treatment for my autoimmune condition, caused by low hormones. I looked here for other answers too.
I found Grants books and tried this instead, several years of experimentation, with Grant's standard lo-A, beef, black bean, rice, then cut out beans/rice due to higher blood sugars. I included more vegetables from diets listed here, because I thought they were necessary. Beans at times also, but no rice no bread. Got amazing relief at times, but not continued. Setbacks. Still had other post menopause symptoms which I thought were unrelated to VA toxicity, continued other misery thought was inevitable. But I did stop shrinking, lost no more height these past few years since starting lo VA diet. Bones are ok too
After reading Grant's observations about carnivores not reporting as many setbacks and following posts by carnivores here, I turned to just beef, bison, turkey and lamb. I added things one at a time, because I thought I HAD to have them, like black beans, onion, cucumber, mushrooms,white cabbage, berries. Flareups are viciously painful, they continued, randomly. I wasn't sure which vegetable or bean set it off, spices though are off the table. I thought vegetables were required for fiber, or you had to have beans, or the symptoms and pain mean you are detoxing. ?? That made no sense to me. Tried supplemental fiber, instead of beans, organic acacia, and the pain returned worse than ever. Threw it out. Almost gave up.
Quitting vegetables was the next step. Quitting the required dose of beans or onion etc has only resulted in uninterrupted relief, for a good number of months now. Surprisingly, after a few weeks, other very common, miserable, painful menopause low hormone related conditions are gone. Supposedly irreversible ones. Completely unexpected. Lowering VA foods alone did not do this. Maybe it was damage from Oxalate as well? Too little fat in the diet? Bone issues can be either VA toxicity or oxalate or both. IDK. I am now sure that horrible things that happen from low hormones are not a normal, inevitable consequence of aging, for which we are required to be put on HRT, financially difficult for many women. I can't speak for what women who have had to have ovaries removed go through, or is this can help them don't know.
I don't fear small amounts of dairy or an egg, a little butter. Still have a morning coffee. NO seed oils.Not any. For cooking cast iron or cut up a strip of bacon. Use fatty meats. I supplement with K2 only not every day.
Maybe you can get off HRT , or the formulation you have is good and helps. Hope so. There is a lot of good advice here its been incredibly helpful, good luck to you with or without HRT hope your bones heal.
It only took about 30 minutes. I see your point it makes zero sense. It just felt like my bowel emptied fully and I felt a sense of lightness. Normally there are only a few pieces here and there and I can feel that there is more. Coffee has always helped me poop. I've always consumed it even during my carnivore journey. It was only the last few weeks that I omitted it. I didn't feel much mentally. Maybe my mood was lower, less focus, less drive and motivation. But I think I slept better (this morning I woke up very tired after I had coffee the last two days). The only difference are my bowel movements. And I don't get quite the same effect with caffeine pills alone.
I'm not sure if I want to keep the coffee. There are toxins, yes. But my bowel is better, my mood is better and I have more drive and focus. Even after 2 months I feel such a big difference. Is there some new research that show major downsides of coffee/caffeine? I have to experiment. Do you never drink coffee yourself?
No, I didn't change anything. I still eat raw and frozen venison, beef and lamb plus raw/frozen fat trimmings and marrow. Occasional beef/veal brain. I eat salt, sometimes dip my finger in ascorbic acid (I don't know why, it just tastes good. Is vitamin C a problem or are there connections to VA detox?)
The ADD is also new to me. I've never had such confusion, lack of focus and inner restlessness. Are there other psychiatric symptoms that come and go?
How long does it generally take for all VA leave the body anyways? (yes I know everyone is different but has anyone gone completely thru it? For Grant it took about 7 years, can someone attest to that?)
And also, what do you know about bone health? Why is it that there is osteoporosis? Only because of low hormones? Or are there other factors? I can't find answers. And I really want my bones to be healthy...
YES! It is beyond complicated.
Thanks for your answer. So did I understand correctly, you consume coffee, beef, bison, lamb and turkey and this diet gave you complete relieve? What were those symptoms of yours that you experienced and are now gone?
Yea I listened to Dave Asprey and also Jamie Seeman which both see bio identical HRT as "Bio-Hack" with zero to very little downsides. I do topical estradiol in very small amounts. Only started a week ago. Have to combine it with progesterone to shed the uterine lining. I have no idea if I am doing the right thing here.
Yes I have had far better improvements after I stopped trying to eat vegetables, beans too. I do have occasional bacon some butter/ yogurt. Mindsethealth.com has a good list of 34 symptoms, as do many similar websites. Pretty accurate list. None of these sites mention lichen sclerosus or other of the pathological, painful skin conditions that are common after menopause and not talked about. There are entire clinics around the country dedicated to these conditions, treated with hormones, steroids and sometimes a low oxalate diet.
Grant talks about VA toxicity causing sclerosus of the skin, one being like another, wherever they appear. The skin damage that happens is given different names depending on where it appears. He feels its one and the same source and I am inclined to agree.
Bone health is said to be related to diet, hormones, age, calcium, activity, vitamin D so many factors. Being researched to develop more drugs as the existing ones have issues, Research seems to be funded by drug industry, Vitamin D or K industry.
Wait, are you saying that you had STOPPED drinking coffee for the past few weeks, and then you had a more normal stool 30 minutes after your first reintroduction of coffee? I don't think I was aware you were drinking coffee on your carnivore diet...or maybe I forgot, hard to keep track of what different people are doing on this forum!
Coffee is definitely going to muck with your body, that could easily be the culprit for so many of your problems, although I would think that after a few weeks of being completely off it you would see some noticeable improvements beyond just sleep...unless the coffee was creating a detox roadblock and getting off it has opened the gates for Vitamin A or oxalates or something else to start coming out of storage.
No, I never liked coffee or caffeinated tea. The only caffeinated substance I ever liked was chocolate. I think it's so funny (or tragic, really) that so many people who are otherwise strict carnivores are still stuck on coffee. Anthony Chaffee talks about how he has gotten sucked back into coffee or caffeine pills a number of times due to his insanely long work shifts, and how he regrets it every time because it only makes him feel good temporarily before he starts feeling way worse than he does without it. It's a drug and is prone to abuse like any drug.
I like the taste of small amounts of ascorbic acid as well, maybe because it's chemically similar to glucose and is therefore perceived as sweet on some level by the brain. Some people think larger amounts of Vitamin C slows the ALDH or ADH system and therefore hinders Vitamin A processing. I tend to think the opposite: that large amounts lead to oxidation of Vitamin A and therefore speed the elimination of Vitamin A through its conversion to more toxic forms like retinoic acid, although in my own experimentation I haven't seen strong evidence either way, mainly just the feeling that when I started taking it to stop my gum inflammation/recession the Vitamin C seemed to actually make it worse.
I haven't read much about osteoporosis. I've mainly just heard about associations with oxalate toxicity and lack of Vitamin D, but it certainly seems like Vitamin A toxicity could be a cause because it is integral to bone restructuring. Vitamins A and D are said to "balance" the breakdown and buildup of bone, I guess through control of calcium deposition and collagen formation? I think Chris Masterjohn wrote about this.
I don't think there's enough data to create a good frequency distribution of time it takes to deplete Vitamin A. You'd have to constantly take invasive liver biopsies, and there is so much variability in Vitamin A metabolism due to differences in diet, activity, geographic location, and genetics. I'm in the middle of consulting with Judy Cho's outfit and they've claimed it can take 3-5 years, but I have no idea where they got that number, I'm going to ask them about it.
@nina Why don't you change the type of meat you eat for a while and see if that changes things? From what I can tell kinesiologically, your body would do much better on pork than darker meat. It would reduce the iron overload, too, and probably help with osteoporosis. Pigs are closer to humans in terms of meat than cows or sheep so short of eating humans I dare say pigs fed a healthy diet are probably the best food on the planet for us. If whole religions forbid the eating of pork there must be something to it. Always do the opposite of what "authorities" say.
In my case, since I've switched to a 100% pork diet with lean meat + pork belly fat I feel like born again. I never expected it would be the beef but did some muscle testing eventually and found that pork suits my body a lot better. Should have been doing that much earliert but sometimes you miss the obvious. I also eliminated some mineral deficiencies in due course, also checked kinesiologically (I'm a do-it-yourself kind of person and not into blood tests), and it makes a hell of a difference. Selenium, Zink, Magnesium, Potassium, Manganese, Chromium, Molybdenum, Vandium, all low, while Vitamin stores are all in the 90% range without supplements. In hindsight it's logical since the top soils have lost much of their mineral content in the last decades and if our food lacks them, we would do so, too.
Makes sense that you feel better after drinking coffee. It's a drug, after all. You would feel better on coke or heroin too, but only for a while before things get much worse. Meat and water is best, and whatever minerals your body lacks.
YES I did stop coffee/caffeine at the same time. I thought about the idea that coffee stopped me from detoxing too. But can coffee stop ALL detox? I don't think so. A lot of long term carnivores still do drink coffee and many of them omitted it for more than just a few weeks and noticed no significant difference. So I am not sure. If it helps me poop 3x a week I might keep it...
Oh cool. So you are consulting with Judy herself? Or one of her coaches? Keep me posted on what they say. They are big on gut restoration too. Would be interesting to hear about their protocol...
OK now it gets more and more confusing. I still think that ruminant meat is healthier for humans just looking at our evolution. But I could be wrong of course. I don't have access to high quality pork just wild boar and that has similar iron content to beef. How do you test for things like that anyways? I'm not familiar with muscle testing and kinesiology....
The thing with the minerals makes TOTAL sense. I looked into supplementation as well. But it gets so complicated with all elements being connected that I didn't even start. Any recommendations on mineral supplements? Do you use all of them individually or is there some sort of a complex like trace mineral drops?
Quote from Nina on November 14, 2022, 12:06 amOK now it gets more and more confusing. I still think that ruminant meat is healthier for humans just looking at our evolution. But I could be wrong of course. I don't have access to high quality pork just wild boar and that has similar iron content to beef. How do you test for things like that anyways? I'm not familiar with muscle testing and kinesiology....
The thing with the minerals makes TOTAL sense. I looked into supplementation as well. But it gets so complicated with all elements being connected that I didn't even start. Any recommendations on mineral supplements? Do you use all of them individually or is there some sort of a complex like trace mineral drops?
It's most likely not the same for everyone. Some do better on beef, some on pork, maybe others on venison, chicken or fish. I know that for me by far the best meat is pork, from those I have tested. Doesn't mean it's the best for everyone but for you I get 62% compatibility for beef, 46% for venison, 92% for pork and 67% for chicken, just as examples.
Feel free to look into kinesiology/muscle testing on the web. It's easiest done for most people if they have a helper but can be done alone with a bit of training. Basically, if a muscle tests stongly it means yes or good, if it tests weakly it means no or bad, depending on what one asks. Since the body doesn't lie it's a safe way to find out what's right or good and what isn't, provided the correct questions are asked in the right way. Experiment with it. It's a very helpful talent in all kinds of situations. I've also been using it extensively to remove energetic blockages in myself and others during the last decade or so.
How do you measure those compatibilities so accurately? Is this even possible? WOW. I wanna be able to do that. I am a total newbee and know nothing about kinesiology/muscle testing. Are there some good resources where it is best to start? It feels quite overwhelming when fist learning about a topic. I'v been confronted more and more with alternative methods and really wanna learn..
Also the energetic blockages sound interesing. I feel like I am blocked on almost every aspect of my life. Fear, worry and information overload keep me from going forward. Hell I don't even know where I wanna go. It feels like I lost connection to my inner wisdom. Know what I mean?
Thank you for your help.
Coffee/caffeine in "normal" quantities should not completely shut down your ability to clear toxins and metabolites, but I'm sure it slows it to some extent, which is going to be worse for some people than others.
I had been chowing down on lamb tallow recently, sometimes eating as much as 100 g in a sitting. That seems to have consistently given me burning loose stools at least once per day, often 2-3 times per day. Not that you want burning diarrhea, but it seems like the most common advice for lack of bowel movements on carnivore is to up the fat intake and I'd have to say it works for me one way or another.
I saw a practitioner once who wanted to do "muscle testing" for supplements. She told me to close my eyes and hold out my hand, and then she placed an unopened plastic container of one supplement in my hand, then removed it, then put another in my hand, then removed it. Based on how much my hand dropped each time, she told me my body was indicating one supplement more than the other. I recognize that science has not yet described how everything works, but if this was an appropriate application of "muscle testing", then it is obviously complete bullshit.
For it not to be complete bullshit, you would have to be able to replicate the results. This would mean repeatedly placing different objects of equal weight in someone's hand while they were blindfolded, in such a way that they were not able to feel or smell a difference between the objects through tactile or olfactory sensation (i.e. putting the objects in tightly sealed containers of the same type), and the outcome would have to be the same for each object each time it was placed in the hand. You would do this on multiple occasions, separated by some reasonable amount of time, and randomize the order of objects placed in the hand each time. Beyond the fact that nobody has done this and gotten the same results, you would also have to ask the question, what does it mean when your hand drops X amount of distance when you place non-food items in it? What does it mean if your hand drops an inch when you place a tennis ball in it but only a half inch when you place a golf ball in it? That you're supposed to be a golfer? That you're supposed to play tennis more to bring up your inner tennis chi?! lol It's completely absurd.
@nina I measure them using a specific muscle in the body that is linked to the conception and governing vessels which closes or opens a circuit depending on how the question is asked.
It has nothing to do with what @wavygravygadzooks has described. I don't even think that counts as genuine muscle testing since it's usually done differently. The way most perform it is by testing the strength of the arm. While it is held at a 90° angle from the standing body the helper presses down on it. First it is tested with positive and negative answers that are known to gauge general strength/resistance, with the practitioner stating e.g. "My name is Nina" - which would give a positive in your case, so the muscle remains strong, and then perhaps "My name is Emily", which in your case would give a negative so the muscle goes weak. That done, other questions can be asked or things put into the other hand of the practitioner and the muscle will remain strong or go weak depending on the answer to the question or the reaction to the substance that is held.
Now, my personal system is a bit more elaborate but the basic mechanism is the same. I'm just using a smaller muscle, and since I've become highly energy senstive after years of training it's quick and easy to get accurate answers to questions.
Also, with practice comes certainty. It's like any other talent that you train. You get better and more confident over time and the more your subconscious mind is convinced that what you do works, the better it does. We all create our own reality, after all.
As far as energetic blockages go, the mechanism is similar but once a question has been asked and a blockage found, I keep my focus on the blockage and feel it dissolve. This can be very quick or take a long time. I've had all from a mere second to more than an hour for a single blockage to dissolve, and they are found all over the place. It's nothing that can be made up since things can change, sometimes quite dramatically, after blockages have been removed, even for people who are unaware that it has been done.
Also, the more blockages are removed the more magnetic one gets (if one allows it). This is easily explained - we feel better when we can release information/energy because it expands us, and we feel worse when we have to take up energy because it contracts us. This is the information overload you've mentioned. When we're in the vicinity of a person with lots of blockages, meaning lots of energy in their aura that is blocked and cannot be released, that puts a certain pressure on us to take up some of that energy, which doesn't feel good. Contrary to that, around a person with very few blockages and a quiet aura we can give off some of our energy which always feels good. Animals are very sensitive and react strongly to that. People would be too, but most are not in good contact with their animal instincts anymore. Also, the fewer blockages there are, the smoother everything seems to go in life.