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Has anyone gotten much fatter from low vita? (I have)

#21 · July 2, 2019, 9:00 am

Quote from tar on July 2, 2019, 9:00 am

Quote from Zak on May 28, 2019, 11:14 am

UPDATE: Im now 9 months into this experiment. Another 2 months have gone by. Ive gained another 8 pounds, so Im now up to 228! Fuck me! (oh wait, no one would want to now, im fat). Haha. So Im now up 46 pounds total in 9 months. But ive made some interesting observations.

First of all, Im NO LONGER HYPERTHYROID! Blood tests are perfect again. My only symptom now that has gotten worse is my weight gain. Other symptoms have continued to improve the last 2 months. My sleep is WAY better in the last 2 months. My sex drive is off the charts (by my standards anyway, for a 34 year old fatty). And all my other symptoms have either stabilized or are still remarkably improved from when I started going low vitA with liver flushes.I had somewhere around 25 symptoms when I was at my worst, and about 20 of them are significantly better or gone, 5 havent improved but havent continued to worsen, and then the new symptom of being fat is the only remaining bad one that is worsening.

Second, I have now definitely noticed a strong correlation between the liver flush, my appetite, and my weight. Ive now done I think, 13-14 flushes since I started going low vitA. Ive noticed that whenever I get very few stones out, my appetite is lower and I gain less weight. After 2-3 weeks from the previous flush, my appetite will also be lower and I gain less weight. My appetite is strongest right after the flushes for the first week, ESPECIALLY when I get a ton of stones out. For example, I gained zero pounds for the last half of April and the first half of May (an entire month), but thats because (I think) the liver flush at the start of May I got no stones out, and the one before that in the second week of April I got almost none. But the one I did a week ago I got an enormous amount out. And I gained 5 frigging pounds in a week and my appetite has been huge ever since then. I just dont think that can be a coincidence. The correlation is very strong.

So Im really starting to think my theory about retinoids is correct. Im still very open to be corrected if this theory doesnt make sense. But what Im really starting to believe now is that the massive amounts of stored carotenoids in my skin and other tissues from a decade of being an idiot raw vegan (back when my skin was orange) are only now able to be converted into retinol because my liver is more free of stones and thus much more efficient at conversion. The retinoids are then stored relatively safely in fat cells, because Im producing far more retinoids per day than I can safely detox per day, even though my consumption is quite low (around 25% RDA). So my body has to increase appetite to consume enough calories to create fat to store the retinoids in. If the theory is correct, then at some point, my body will run out of stored carotenoids, and then will be able to detoxify the remaining retinoids much faster than Im consuming them, and Ill lose all the weight quite quickly. If this makes no sense, or anyone has an alternate theory, please let me know!

I still refuse to restrict calories in any way, I eat as much as I want, and I eat whatever I want, with my only restriction being avoidance or severe restriction of vitA foods. Im going on faith here that my body knows what it is doing, and its getting fatter for a reason, because it makes no sense that Id be getting so much better in every conceivable way if the fat gain was a bad thing.

I like your theory. We are all experimenting here with this and I have some side effects from this low A diet that I am dealing with too, although not weight gain.

My question is an uncomfortable one. Your theory has a happy ending, and that you are in fact on the right tract. What would the theory be if it has a negative ending? Meaning, come up with a situation that explains all your symptoms, but that is in fact hurting you more as time goes on. It sucks but it is a good exercise to keep your mind open.

Quote from Zak on May 28, 2019, 11:14 am

UPDATE: Im now 9 months into this experiment. Another 2 months have gone by. Ive gained another 8 pounds, so Im now up to 228! Fuck me! (oh wait, no one would want to now, im fat). Haha. So Im now up 46 pounds total in 9 months. But ive made some interesting observations.

First of all, Im NO LONGER HYPERTHYROID! Blood tests are perfect again. My only symptom now that has gotten worse is my weight gain. Other symptoms have continued to improve the last 2 months. My sleep is WAY better in the last 2 months. My sex drive is off the charts (by my standards anyway, for a 34 year old fatty). And all my other symptoms have either stabilized or are still remarkably improved from when I started going low vitA with liver flushes.I had somewhere around 25 symptoms when I was at my worst, and about 20 of them are significantly better or gone, 5 havent improved but havent continued to worsen, and then the new symptom of being fat is the only remaining bad one that is worsening.

Second, I have now definitely noticed a strong correlation between the liver flush, my appetite, and my weight. Ive now done I think, 13-14 flushes since I started going low vitA. Ive noticed that whenever I get very few stones out, my appetite is lower and I gain less weight. After 2-3 weeks from the previous flush, my appetite will also be lower and I gain less weight. My appetite is strongest right after the flushes for the first week, ESPECIALLY when I get a ton of stones out. For example, I gained zero pounds for the last half of April and the first half of May (an entire month), but thats because (I think) the liver flush at the start of May I got no stones out, and the one before that in the second week of April I got almost none. But the one I did a week ago I got an enormous amount out. And I gained 5 frigging pounds in a week and my appetite has been huge ever since then. I just dont think that can be a coincidence. The correlation is very strong.

So Im really starting to think my theory about retinoids is correct. Im still very open to be corrected if this theory doesnt make sense. But what Im really starting to believe now is that the massive amounts of stored carotenoids in my skin and other tissues from a decade of being an idiot raw vegan (back when my skin was orange) are only now able to be converted into retinol because my liver is more free of stones and thus much more efficient at conversion. The retinoids are then stored relatively safely in fat cells, because Im producing far more retinoids per day than I can safely detox per day, even though my consumption is quite low (around 25% RDA). So my body has to increase appetite to consume enough calories to create fat to store the retinoids in. If the theory is correct, then at some point, my body will run out of stored carotenoids, and then will be able to detoxify the remaining retinoids much faster than Im consuming them, and Ill lose all the weight quite quickly. If this makes no sense, or anyone has an alternate theory, please let me know!

I still refuse to restrict calories in any way, I eat as much as I want, and I eat whatever I want, with my only restriction being avoidance or severe restriction of vitA foods. Im going on faith here that my body knows what it is doing, and its getting fatter for a reason, because it makes no sense that Id be getting so much better in every conceivable way if the fat gain was a bad thing.

I like your theory. We are all experimenting here with this and I have some side effects from this low A diet that I am dealing with too, although not weight gain.

My question is an uncomfortable one. Your theory has a happy ending, and that you are in fact on the right tract. What would the theory be if it has a negative ending? Meaning, come up with a situation that explains all your symptoms, but that is in fact hurting you more as time goes on. It sucks but it is a good exercise to keep your mind open.

#22 · July 2, 2019, 1:02 pm

I'm on low vitamin A for 6 months now. I also did liver flushes and used a moderate regime with no restrictions to the amount of food. But I didn't gain a pound. My weight is usually 152 lbs in the winter and drops to 147 lbs in the summer. I'm doing a lot of cycling (8 x 25 minutes per week on my city-bike all year and in summer 2 or 3 rides of an hour per week on my race-bike. This year my weight dropped faster to the 147 lbs then usual. My BMI is ca. 21 (normal) but my fat-percentage is really low. My estimate is 7-8%. A year ago I had a raised TSH (hypothoroid); don't know if the low vitamin A has improved that. But anyway I didn't got any fatter on low vitamin A. Maybe my appetite is just on different level such that I can maintain my weight but not gain anything despite stored retinoids & carotenoids.

#23 · July 16, 2019, 10:06 am

Quote from Zak on July 16, 2019, 10:06 am
Thanks for the replies guys. I suck at staying up to date on this. But Ive FINALLY made a major breakthrough and everything makes SO much more sense.

Somehow, Ive spent 8 years learning about health yet never really spent much time investigating sugar, specifically fructose, at all. I knew that the whole low carb thing makes no sense scientifically or historically (with traditional diets). And so I wrote off any expert who had anything to do with the theory as a nut, and wouldnt look at anything they had to say. Turns out, it was a situation of throwing out the baby with the bath water. After reading multiple books on the subject, and from watching my own experiences, Im about as convinced as possible that Matt Stone is 100% wrong about sugar being a good idea for any situation except maybe the first couple weeks of refeeding. That includes fruit juice and all the grape juice I was consuming on Grants diet. Somehow, the liver flushes and/or low vitA diet greatly improved my appetite. But because about 20% of my calories were coming from sugar, and because I was eating a low choline diet thanks to eliminating eggs due to the vitA content, I was inadvertently giving myself fatty liver and obesity, and probably pre-diabetes too. So I was fixing one thing (rapidly decreasing my retinol stores) while screwing up another. Hence why so many of my symptoms were going away as I continued to get fat.

Now everything is simple. A month ago I completely cut fructose (and thus, all sugars) from my diet. And I started eating eggs every morning. Within 48 hours, my appetite dropped, my irritability was cut in half, skin and scalp issues started to resolve themselves, I regained my thirst for normal water instead of sweet drinks, my sleep became SO MUCH better, my bowel movements became much more pleasant, and my weight gain finally stalled (maxed out at 230 pounds... almost 50 pounds up from 9 months prior). A month later (today) those symptoms have continued to improve, and Ive lost 10 pounds, back down to 220, with no signs of that reversal stopping. I lost those 10 pounds with NO exercise. NO calorie restrictions (Im eating about 2700 calories a day and losing 2.5 pounds of fat a week... I eat when Im hungry and eat til Im fully). NO macronutrient restrictions (I eat lots of white starchy carbs like wheat). NO food group restrictions (unless you consider sugar a food group). And NO fasting of any kind.

This is now the closest Ive been to fully regaining my health since I started fucking it up with ridiculous alternative diets in 2011 to solve my skin and energy issues. I eat a diet composed almost entirely of lots of eggs, bacon, beans, butter, salt, white bread, white tortillas, white bagels, white rice, beef, chicken, cheese, sour cream, milk (3% whole only), and a bit of random vegetables. Basically, all the stuff that the government says is bad for us. Its also very close to what traditional agricultural societies ate without any health problems. No wonder everyone is sick. I consume less than 5 grams of sugar a day, down from around 200 grams a month ago (at least half of which was from grape juice). I only drink water and sometimes some milk. VitA consumption is probably 100% of RDA, but I dont think that matters.

So.... do I think Grant is wrong? Hell no. I still think his theory makes a ton of sense. Though I thought it was a bigger piece of the puzzle than it probably is. Add in slow metabolisms (addressed by Matt stone). And fructose (addressed by gary taubes, richard johnson, chris masterjohn, among others). And an impaired liver (addressed by anyone who advocates liver flushes like andreas moritz). And micronutrient deficiencies, which pretty much every sane person agrees is an issue. And THEN you have a true recipe for health disaster.

I also suspect that a huge part of the reason that vitA is a problem today isnt just because of consuming too much, but also because we are expelling too little. When the liver becomes increasingly filled with retinol, it starts releasing more and more in the bile. We have an enterohepatic circulation of bile where the vast majority of it gets repeatedly reabsorbed in the intestines. Soluble fiber, which traditional people ate tons of, binds to bile and breaks the enterohepatic circulation of bile bound retinol so it can be expelled. We dont eat anywhere close to enough soluble fiber to maintain a sub toxic level of retinol. I was eating almost no soluble fiber.

https://academic.oup.com/nutritionreviews/article-abstract/43/8/250/1806488?redirectedFrom=PDF

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5900220

But there is two solutions to this:

One solution is put yourself back on a highly restrictive diet (in this case, black beans, grapes, beef, rice salt, and a few other low vitA foods), and maybe overload on the soluble fiber (beans have tons as it is) and wish you were dead every time you had to eat the same meal again... and if you are anything like me, screw your body up even more because of the extreme restrictions.

OR

Break the cycle by doing liver flushes every few weeks until all the stones are gone and retinol levels are greatly reduced. Even if the liver stones arent really what we think, the fact is you release enormous amounts of bile bound retinol into the toilet by doing these. I release SO much bile it just doesnt stop. Im very convinced that it was these flushes that increased my appetite again by getting rid of retinol and cholesterol stones..., and then set me on the path to becoming a fat piece of crap, all so I could learn all this new stuff and finally make sense of everything. So that I could just stop with these restrictive diets and go back to eating a reasonable balanced healthy diet. My only dietary restriction now is fructose and polyunsaturated fats, which of course means very limited junk food. Otherwise I just eat healthy nutrient rich tasty foods. And I do liver flushes every 2-3 weeks.

When I did my refeeding on matt stones recommendation 4 years ago, I ate a ton of maple syrup and other fructose, and fructose has always been a decent sized part of my diet... so I really think it set the stage for what I experienced the last few years. And my entire life prior to doing diets I had always eaten quite a lot of sugar, and polyunsaturated fats, so those 2 things could really be the major root causes of my initial problems I tried to fix 8 years ago. But it all seems to have come full circle. Maybe Im missing one or two more major pieces. But I think Im VERY close now. All the pieces are fitting perfectly. And my only noticeable remaining symptoms are being fat (seems temporary), low energy, a few embarrassing bowel issues, and really shitty blurry vision. But thats really nothing. Im experiencing less than 1/5th of the extremity of issues I was experiencing prior to Grant, and less than 1/20th the issues I was experiencing prior to Matt Stone. And Im very very close to being back to where I started in 2011. Except my skin is WAY better! Smooth and soft instead of flaky and disgusting.

Ill continue the updates once a month or so. Im really going out on a limb here so hopefully I dont come back two months later and say it didnt work after all, and that I am, in fact, an idiot. That would be embarrassing 😛

Thanks for the replies guys. I suck at staying up to date on this. But Ive FINALLY made a major breakthrough and everything makes SO much more sense.

Somehow, Ive spent 8 years learning about health yet never really spent much time investigating sugar, specifically fructose, at all. I knew that the whole low carb thing makes no sense scientifically or historically (with traditional diets). And so I wrote off any expert who had anything to do with the theory as a nut, and wouldnt look at anything they had to say. Turns out, it was a situation of throwing out the baby with the bath water. After reading multiple books on the subject, and from watching my own experiences, Im about as convinced as possible that Matt Stone is 100% wrong about sugar being a good idea for any situation except maybe the first couple weeks of refeeding. That includes fruit juice and all the grape juice I was consuming on Grants diet. Somehow, the liver flushes and/or low vitA diet greatly improved my appetite. But because about 20% of my calories were coming from sugar, and because I was eating a low choline diet thanks to eliminating eggs due to the vitA content, I was inadvertently giving myself fatty liver and obesity, and probably pre-diabetes too. So I was fixing one thing (rapidly decreasing my retinol stores) while screwing up another. Hence why so many of my symptoms were going away as I continued to get fat.

Now everything is simple. A month ago I completely cut fructose (and thus, all sugars) from my diet. And I started eating eggs every morning. Within 48 hours, my appetite dropped, my irritability was cut in half, skin and scalp issues started to resolve themselves, I regained my thirst for normal water instead of sweet drinks, my sleep became SO MUCH better, my bowel movements became much more pleasant, and my weight gain finally stalled (maxed out at 230 pounds... almost 50 pounds up from 9 months prior). A month later (today) those symptoms have continued to improve, and Ive lost 10 pounds, back down to 220, with no signs of that reversal stopping. I lost those 10 pounds with NO exercise. NO calorie restrictions (Im eating about 2700 calories a day and losing 2.5 pounds of fat a week... I eat when Im hungry and eat til Im fully). NO macronutrient restrictions (I eat lots of white starchy carbs like wheat). NO food group restrictions (unless you consider sugar a food group). And NO fasting of any kind.

This is now the closest Ive been to fully regaining my health since I started fucking it up with ridiculous alternative diets in 2011 to solve my skin and energy issues. I eat a diet composed almost entirely of lots of eggs, bacon, beans, butter, salt, white bread, white tortillas, white bagels, white rice, beef, chicken, cheese, sour cream, milk (3% whole only), and a bit of random vegetables. Basically, all the stuff that the government says is bad for us. Its also very close to what traditional agricultural societies ate without any health problems. No wonder everyone is sick. I consume less than 5 grams of sugar a day, down from around 200 grams a month ago (at least half of which was from grape juice). I only drink water and sometimes some milk. VitA consumption is probably 100% of RDA, but I dont think that matters.

So.... do I think Grant is wrong? Hell no. I still think his theory makes a ton of sense. Though I thought it was a bigger piece of the puzzle than it probably is. Add in slow metabolisms (addressed by Matt stone). And fructose (addressed by gary taubes, richard johnson, chris masterjohn, among others). And an impaired liver (addressed by anyone who advocates liver flushes like andreas moritz). And micronutrient deficiencies, which pretty much every sane person agrees is an issue. And THEN you have a true recipe for health disaster.

I also suspect that a huge part of the reason that vitA is a problem today isnt just because of consuming too much, but also because we are expelling too little. When the liver becomes increasingly filled with retinol, it starts releasing more and more in the bile. We have an enterohepatic circulation of bile where the vast majority of it gets repeatedly reabsorbed in the intestines. Soluble fiber, which traditional people ate tons of, binds to bile and breaks the enterohepatic circulation of bile bound retinol so it can be expelled. We dont eat anywhere close to enough soluble fiber to maintain a sub toxic level of retinol. I was eating almost no soluble fiber.

https://academic.oup.com/nutritionreviews/article-abstract/43/8/250/1806488?redirectedFrom=PDF

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/5900220

But there is two solutions to this:

One solution is put yourself back on a highly restrictive diet (in this case, black beans, grapes, beef, rice salt, and a few other low vitA foods), and maybe overload on the soluble fiber (beans have tons as it is) and wish you were dead every time you had to eat the same meal again... and if you are anything like me, screw your body up even more because of the extreme restrictions.

Break the cycle by doing liver flushes every few weeks until all the stones are gone and retinol levels are greatly reduced. Even if the liver stones arent really what we think, the fact is you release enormous amounts of bile bound retinol into the toilet by doing these. I release SO much bile it just doesnt stop. Im very convinced that it was these flushes that increased my appetite again by getting rid of retinol and cholesterol stones..., and then set me on the path to becoming a fat piece of crap, all so I could learn all this new stuff and finally make sense of everything. So that I could just stop with these restrictive diets and go back to eating a reasonable balanced healthy diet. My only dietary restriction now is fructose and polyunsaturated fats, which of course means very limited junk food. Otherwise I just eat healthy nutrient rich tasty foods. And I do liver flushes every 2-3 weeks.

When I did my refeeding on matt stones recommendation 4 years ago, I ate a ton of maple syrup and other fructose, and fructose has always been a decent sized part of my diet... so I really think it set the stage for what I experienced the last few years. And my entire life prior to doing diets I had always eaten quite a lot of sugar, and polyunsaturated fats, so those 2 things could really be the major root causes of my initial problems I tried to fix 8 years ago. But it all seems to have come full circle. Maybe Im missing one or two more major pieces. But I think Im VERY close now. All the pieces are fitting perfectly. And my only noticeable remaining symptoms are being fat (seems temporary), low energy, a few embarrassing bowel issues, and really shitty blurry vision. But thats really nothing. Im experiencing less than 1/5th of the extremity of issues I was experiencing prior to Grant, and less than 1/20th the issues I was experiencing prior to Matt Stone. And Im very very close to being back to where I started in 2011. Except my skin is WAY better! Smooth and soft instead of flaky and disgusting.

Ill continue the updates once a month or so. Im really going out on a limb here so hopefully I dont come back two months later and say it didnt work after all, and that I am, in fact, an idiot. That would be embarrassing 😛

Corey has reacted to this post.

#24 · July 16, 2019, 11:01 am

Hi Zak, thanks for the update! I'm glad things are going better for you and that you are figuring yourself out.

IMO everyone is different and one of the problems we "health" seekers have is thinking that there is one answer.

Perhaps we are lost because of the divisional thing (between generations) that has gone on for (70 years? or more). In the past, we would have learned what to eat from a tradition that went back centuries. We would have gotten something more personal and more suited to who we each ARE.

Matt Stone is a great guy and lots of good information flows around him. But I can't ever figure out why he'd WANT to eat all that sugar. I'm pretty sure I'd barf it up about an hour later.

My bowels work great like clockwork...unless I eat fiber. I feel good on berries, bad on sugar, good on starch, bad on alcohol, and on every diet I've ever been on (and there have been lots! lots of sugar, no sugar, low fat, high fat, low carb, high carb, lots of meat, no meat etc etc) I've never had anything but a high metabolism and been skinny. Everyone is different. Good luck finding your answers.

#25 · July 16, 2019, 11:12 am

Hey Zak, thanks for the update. If you've been doing low-VA for close to 10 months while your dietary history was not crazy high in VA (you said between 3-5 times the RDA right, so 9000-15000IU/day?), it makes sense that VA overload would no longer be an issue for you.

I definitely think impaired liver function is one of the main causes of general health deterioration in western countries since it messes up your body in uncountable ways, and there are many ways to get there, including alcohol abuse, protein deficiency or just overfeeding on fat/sugar for too long. VA toxicity would be one of the least known ways to get there and its significant for health-conscious people since we end up inadvertently poisoning our livers. Personally I was also eating tons of saturated fat and sugar per Matt Stone/Youreatopia/Ray Peat for much of the period I was overloading on VA and it no doubt made everything that much worse.

Moderate fat in combination with soluble fiber, low sugar, low VA, high protein, high carb and at most moderate alcohol seems to be a good combo for restoring liver health.

#26 · July 16, 2019, 11:18 am

I wanted to just add one or two tiny little tidbits that occur to me after skimming this thread. One: I see here that you've played around with iodine. I want to tell you that made me feel like CRAP. (God I'm so through with supplements!) But I did seem to get something out of taking a tiny amount of kelp daily for a while. Two: Your liver flushes are about olive oil. I have never had a good "feeling" about olive oil. My body doesn't want it. It doesn't taste or smell delicious to me like other fats do. The world thinks so much of it, but I wouldn't notice if it disappeared from the planet. Once, an Italian woman asked on a forum: is olive oil fattening? This was a pro-fat, trad food forum! I would guess if anyone's genes would have been OK with olive oil it would have been her! Anyways, it struck up an interesting convo and certain people DID think olive oil might have caused her weight gain. Does it smell and taste good to YOU?

#27 · July 16, 2019, 11:30 am

Haha yes Lil chick I agree. I should clarify, what I thought was not that there was one answer, but rather, that there was one MORE answer I hadnt yet found for my health puzzle, and that I had hoped it was the vitA puzzle piece. For sure there are many major dietary puzzle pieces. And Im all about the really BIG puzzle pieces because I really despise restricting, and micromanaging every aspect of my diet (which I used to do, prior to matt stone). Ideally, there are just a few big pieces that, if addressed, will be 'good enough' for great health. Hopefully, those are vitA/liverflush, fructose, pufa, metabolic rate, and micronutrients... I guess Ill see.

Like you, Im not a fan of fiber. I much prefer white grains with low fiber. But I do think the soluble fiber historically had something to do with removing retinoids. I could be wrong. Either way, I prefer liver flushes.

As for sugar, Ive always had a huge sweet tooth and loathed restricting calories and carbs, so matts advice really appeals to me (and I still think most of it is on point... just not the sugar). Cutting it out is annoying, but its not NEARLY as soul destroying than if I had to cut out all carbs. I have no idea how people can live on a low carb diet. Id last maybe a day and then blow my brains out lol.

#28 · July 16, 2019, 12:27 pm

Quote from collden on July 16, 2019, 11:12 am

Hey Zak, thanks for the update. If you've been doing low-VA for close to 10 months while your dietary history was not crazy high in VA (you said between 3-5 times the RDA right, so 9000-15000IU/day?), it makes sense that VA overload would no longer be an issue for you.

I definitely think impaired liver function is one of the main causes of general health deterioration in western countries since it messes up your body in uncountable ways, and there are many ways to get there, including alcohol abuse, protein deficiency or just overfeeding on fat/sugar for too long. VA toxicity would be one of the least known ways to get there and its significant for health-conscious people since we end up inadvertently poisoning our livers. Personally I was also eating tons of saturated fat and sugar per Matt Stone/Youreatopia/Ray Peat for much of the period I was overloading on VA and it no doubt made everything that much worse.

Moderate fat in combination with soluble fiber, low sugar, low VA, high protein, high carb and at most moderate alcohol seems to be a good combo for restoring liver health.

Im curious why you mentioned saturated fat, implying that eating a lot is problematic for the liver? Im 100% on board now for the sugar being problematic. But saturated fat? It should be helpful for VA removal if anything? Had you been eating low fat or high PUFA along with the high VA, Id expect your problems would have been worse, no?

Yeah I definitely dont think my VA issues are/were as bad as many, especially compared to someone like Grant. I certainly didnt have debilitating autoimmune issues (though both my parents do, so it was only a matter of time Im sure). My problems have likely always been more fructose and liver congestion related than VA, but I think VA was a contributor for sure.

#29 · July 16, 2019, 12:35 pm

Quote from Zak on July 16, 2019, 12:35 pm

Quote from lil chick on July 16, 2019, 11:18 am

I wanted to just add one or two tiny little tidbits that occur to me after skimming this thread. One: I see here that you've played around with iodine. I want to tell you that made me feel like CRAP. (God I'm so through with supplements!) But I did seem to get something out of taking a tiny amount of kelp daily for a while. Two: Your liver flushes are about olive oil. I have never had a good "feeling" about olive oil. My body doesn't want it. It doesn't taste or smell delicious to me like other fats do. The world thinks so much of it, but I wouldn't notice if it disappeared from the planet. Once, an Italian woman asked on a forum: is olive oil fattening? This was a pro-fat, trad food forum! I would guess if anyone's genes would have been OK with olive oil it would have been her! Anyways, it struck up an interesting convo and certain people DID think olive oil might have caused her weight gain. Does it smell and taste good to YOU?

NO! haha it smells horrible. Tastes horrible too. Im with you, its probably the only oil I cant stand the taste of. It used to smell ok to me, but drinking half a cup of it, now 30+ times for the flush, it makes me gag just smelling it. Ive never been a fan of olives either. But the effectiveness of the flush is unrelated to olive oil. You could use any oil, its just needed to force a huge and rapid bile release. And it needs to be with a fat that is liquid at room temp (otherwise Id probably use butter, yum!). Most other fats that are liquid at room temp are seed oils, and thus very high in PUFAs. So id rather stick to disgusting smelling and tasting olive oil. But yea otherwise Im totally with you, Id be fine with it not existing.

And yea im basically done with supplements too. There is just so much complexity to the human body and though it may seem like a good idea, we still are just guessing at the downstream effects. I add gelatin to my beef, and I use a magnesium spray. And otherwise Ill just use supplements very rarely. I dont even know if they do anything, but I have a huge supply of them from my health nut days so whatever. Some K2, zinc, a couple others. Eating a healthy diet I get at least 2 times the RDA of every nutrient anyway, except for magnesium which is low, and K2 which doesnt show up on any list anyway so I have no idea.

Quote from lil chick on July 16, 2019, 11:18 am

I wanted to just add one or two tiny little tidbits that occur to me after skimming this thread. One: I see here that you've played around with iodine. I want to tell you that made me feel like CRAP. (God I'm so through with supplements!) But I did seem to get something out of taking a tiny amount of kelp daily for a while. Two: Your liver flushes are about olive oil. I have never had a good "feeling" about olive oil. My body doesn't want it. It doesn't taste or smell delicious to me like other fats do. The world thinks so much of it, but I wouldn't notice if it disappeared from the planet. Once, an Italian woman asked on a forum: is olive oil fattening? This was a pro-fat, trad food forum! I would guess if anyone's genes would have been OK with olive oil it would have been her! Anyways, it struck up an interesting convo and certain people DID think olive oil might have caused her weight gain. Does it smell and taste good to YOU?

NO! haha it smells horrible. Tastes horrible too. Im with you, its probably the only oil I cant stand the taste of. It used to smell ok to me, but drinking half a cup of it, now 30+ times for the flush, it makes me gag just smelling it. Ive never been a fan of olives either. But the effectiveness of the flush is unrelated to olive oil. You could use any oil, its just needed to force a huge and rapid bile release. And it needs to be with a fat that is liquid at room temp (otherwise Id probably use butter, yum!). Most other fats that are liquid at room temp are seed oils, and thus very high in PUFAs. So id rather stick to disgusting smelling and tasting olive oil. But yea otherwise Im totally with you, Id be fine with it not existing.

And yea im basically done with supplements too. There is just so much complexity to the human body and though it may seem like a good idea, we still are just guessing at the downstream effects. I add gelatin to my beef, and I use a magnesium spray. And otherwise Ill just use supplements very rarely. I dont even know if they do anything, but I have a huge supply of them from my health nut days so whatever. Some K2, zinc, a couple others. Eating a healthy diet I get at least 2 times the RDA of every nutrient anyway, except for magnesium which is low, and K2 which doesnt show up on any list anyway so I have no idea.

#30 · July 16, 2019, 2:12 pm

Quote from collden on July 16, 2019, 2:12 pm

Quote from Zak on July 16, 2019, 12:27 pm

Quote from collden on July 16, 2019, 11:12 am

Hey Zak, thanks for the update. If you've been doing low-VA for close to 10 months while your dietary history was not crazy high in VA (you said between 3-5 times the RDA right, so 9000-15000IU/day?), it makes sense that VA overload would no longer be an issue for you.

I definitely think impaired liver function is one of the main causes of general health deterioration in western countries since it messes up your body in uncountable ways, and there are many ways to get there, including alcohol abuse, protein deficiency or just overfeeding on fat/sugar for too long. VA toxicity would be one of the least known ways to get there and its significant for health-conscious people since we end up inadvertently poisoning our livers. Personally I was also eating tons of saturated fat and sugar per Matt Stone/Youreatopia/Ray Peat for much of the period I was overloading on VA and it no doubt made everything that much worse.

Moderate fat in combination with soluble fiber, low sugar, low VA, high protein, high carb and at most moderate alcohol seems to be a good combo for restoring liver health.

Im curious why you mentioned saturated fat, implying that eating a lot is problematic for the liver? Im 100% on board now for the sugar being problematic. But saturated fat? It should be helpful for VA removal if anything? Had you been eating low fat or high PUFA along with the high VA, Id expect your problems would have been worse, no?

Yeah I definitely dont think my VA issues are/were as bad as many, especially compared to someone like Grant. I certainly didnt have debilitating autoimmune issues (though both my parents do, so it was only a matter of time Im sure). My problems have likely always been more fructose and liver congestion related than VA, but I think VA was a contributor for sure.

I'd think some fat is good for improving digestion and stimulating bile release, especially when there is also enough soluble fiber in the diet, but too much fat is just as much of a burden for the liver as sugar, or more even. Chris Masterjohn has an article on choline and fatty liver where he shows that dietary fat promotes fatty liver as much as sugar, and the more saturated the fat the worse the fatty liver. Then again PUFAs may cause worse liver damage due to peroxidation even if it accumulates less, but less fat in general is probably better. Olive oil might be beneficial.

https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/blog/2010/11/23/sweet-truth-about-liver-and-egg-yolks

Quote from Zak on July 16, 2019, 12:27 pm

Quote from collden on July 16, 2019, 11:12 am

Hey Zak, thanks for the update. If you've been doing low-VA for close to 10 months while your dietary history was not crazy high in VA (you said between 3-5 times the RDA right, so 9000-15000IU/day?), it makes sense that VA overload would no longer be an issue for you.

I definitely think impaired liver function is one of the main causes of general health deterioration in western countries since it messes up your body in uncountable ways, and there are many ways to get there, including alcohol abuse, protein deficiency or just overfeeding on fat/sugar for too long. VA toxicity would be one of the least known ways to get there and its significant for health-conscious people since we end up inadvertently poisoning our livers. Personally I was also eating tons of saturated fat and sugar per Matt Stone/Youreatopia/Ray Peat for much of the period I was overloading on VA and it no doubt made everything that much worse.

Moderate fat in combination with soluble fiber, low sugar, low VA, high protein, high carb and at most moderate alcohol seems to be a good combo for restoring liver health.

Im curious why you mentioned saturated fat, implying that eating a lot is problematic for the liver? Im 100% on board now for the sugar being problematic. But saturated fat? It should be helpful for VA removal if anything? Had you been eating low fat or high PUFA along with the high VA, Id expect your problems would have been worse, no?

Yeah I definitely dont think my VA issues are/were as bad as many, especially compared to someone like Grant. I certainly didnt have debilitating autoimmune issues (though both my parents do, so it was only a matter of time Im sure). My problems have likely always been more fructose and liver congestion related than VA, but I think VA was a contributor for sure.

I'd think some fat is good for improving digestion and stimulating bile release, especially when there is also enough soluble fiber in the diet, but too much fat is just as much of a burden for the liver as sugar, or more even. Chris Masterjohn has an article on choline and fatty liver where he shows that dietary fat promotes fatty liver as much as sugar, and the more saturated the fat the worse the fatty liver. Then again PUFAs may cause worse liver damage due to peroxidation even if it accumulates less, but less fat in general is probably better. Olive oil might be beneficial.

https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/blog/2010/11/23/sweet-truth-about-liver-and-egg-yolks

Has anyone gotten much fatter from low vita? (I have)

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