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Has anyone gotten much fatter from low vita? (I have)
Quote from collden on July 16, 2019, 2:12 pmQuote from Zak on July 16, 2019, 12:27 pmQuote from collden on July 16, 2019, 11:12 amHey 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
Thats a good article. I had actually read it during my fructose - research obsession the last month, but I just read it again for review. So yes, fat can cause fatty liver. But fat (saturated fat anyway) is usually found with other nutrients, one of which is choline. Cheese, egg, milk, and especially egg, has lots of saturated fat. But why would that even matter when those foods all contain a good amounts of choline, and methionine which I believe can be used to make more choline. On a mostly whole foods diet, I just dont see saturated fat being an issue? If you are eating nothing but cookies, or bread and butter, yeah sure, then saturated fat could be a problem, but if thats your diet, you have bigger problems right? lol.
Fructose on the other hand, rarely seems to be coupled with anything close to reasonable amounts of choline or really nutrients in general. Fruit drinks and sodas and candy being by far the worst culprits. But also sugar cereals and other processed crap. Fruit may well be perfectly fine, though I nixed it for now just to be certain of the results.
As a rough guess, my diet is about 40% carbs, 35% fats, and 25% protein, and weight loss seems very easy. Though we will see if that continues.
The article does help make sense of why diets like the mcdougal diet would work well though. Low in fat, and low in sugar, mostly just starches. Though I really dont believe eating so restrictively is necessary, or likely very healthy long term. But it is interesting. I think my bigger goal is focusing on getting more nutrient rich foods rather than restricting foods... which is why ill eventually add fruit back in for sure.
Zak I was in a grumpy mood when I wrote this morning, I'm happier now and happy for you. 🙂
How are you getting on with the blurry vision now? I was pinning VA toxicity on the source of the problem. Mine seems to be getting slightly better after a month low VA. I see you increased the saturated fat, this had a distinct effect on my blurred vision. I was full keto so my fatty meat and butter consumption was huge. I have upped my B vitamins, particularly B1, also, which may have helped.
I'd love to hear if anyone has any updates or new findings regarding weight loss or gain. Since I have gone low vit A, I have also been able to eat more while not gaining as much weight as I would have before (I think). However, I believe I have gained some weight (but not a huge amount).
@leap7 How long have you been on the diet?
My husband and I both lost about 4-5 lbs during the first two months, then our weight stabilized. But we have lost volume, our clothes seem a bit too large.
After 8 months (now) it seems we are starting to lose weight again, very slowly. We do not restrict our intake of food, but are slightly less hungry overall. Also there are definite signs that we are turning white fat into brown fat. The fat under the skin is looser. Sometimes we gain a little weight but it doe not last. Generally this is due to adetox burst bringing inflammation. All in all I would say that our weight is much more stable, less fluctuating than before the no VA diet.
My husband says he has gained a bit. I would say that he seems shaped differently. Most obvious slimming 1. in the face 2. when looking at him from the back. He still has some excess right around his liver area in front. But to me, even that seems a bit less "tight".
I would guess that some people's weight (and hubs face might be in this category) is myxedema. This is a symptom of "low thyroid" but I think it can happen with "normal" thyroid test results. IMO cells can be resistant to thyroid hormone (just as they can be resistant to insulin) causing what has been called "type 2 hypothyroid". Dr Mark Starr wrote a book about it, but he didn't seem to know the root cause (IMO). Maybe, like many mysterious things, VA is related.
If VA is involved, I think this would take a long time on lowered-VA to overcome, since each resistant cell and the thyroid and adrenal... all need to be brought back to health.
Another thing is, and although it has become a cliche, but hubs is "big boned". I would expect that bone mass might increase on lowered VA as osteoperosis resolves itself.
@ourania I've been following the diet for about 7 months now.
Something I've wondered about is how Grant said that he started eating less food, but had the same amount of energy, and didn't lose any weight (if I'm remembering correctly). From a Ray Peat perspective, wouldn't this be a negative thing, as maybe a sign that your metabolism is slowed down? Because I know some people believe that being able to eat a lot is a sign of a healthy metabolism. Any thoughts?
For me vitamin A toxicity caused weight gain & the detox diet stopped the weight gain. However, at points in the detox (been doing for 22 months) when I was making mistakes (inadvertently) & ending up with vA coming out of liver & accumulating rather than getting out the body, I have had little blips of weight gain.
It wasn’t until about 10 months in that I felt my body was ready to loose some weight. Since then I’ve lost a few pounds without really trying. I don’t push it as I’m assuming my body wants to reduce fat slowly. My total vA poisoning weight was 28 lbs divided into 2 ‘poisonings’ (2013-14 & 2018) when I took vA supplementation & pushed my body into toxicity. I’ve only realised this in hindsight - I put it down to age. However, it’s so clear precisely what was happening now I have the vA knowledge. Going back through old notebooks the very month my weight started to increase...I started on high strength CLO!! VA made me fat - of this I have no doubt. I’m hoping in another year I’ll have got rid of it all 🤞
Quote from Jenny on August 4, 2020, 5:12 amFor me vitamin A toxicity caused weight gain & the detox diet stopped the weight gain. However, at points in the detox (been doing for 22 months) when I was making mistakes (inadvertently) & ending up with vA coming out of liver & accumulating rather than getting out the body, I have had little blips of weight gain.
It wasn’t until about 10 months in that I felt my body was ready to loose some weight. Since then I’ve lost a few pounds without really trying. I don’t push it as I’m assuming my body wants to reduce fat slowly. My total vA poisoning weight was 28 lbs divided into 2 ‘poisonings’ (2013-14 & 2018) when I took vA supplementation & pushed my body into toxicity. I’ve only realised this in hindsight - I put it down to age. However, it’s so clear precisely what was happening now I have the vA knowledge. Going back through old notebooks the very month my weight started to increase...I started on high strength CLO!! VA made me fat - of this I have no doubt. I’m hoping in another year I’ll have got rid of it all 🤞
Wild isn't it!
I did the "milk diet cleanse" with added daily cod liver oil march 2020 after over a year on the carnivore diet and next thing you know I'm 20 pounds up with cellulite.. After the milk cleanse it was ray peats metabolic vitamin A fest. I went from 54kg on the carnivore diet to 78kgs last time I weighed myself.
Only just found this info a week ago after overdosing on tomato sauces and already I feel a tad less puffy.
One thing I thought about when reading this @zak was I wondered if you may have been flushing out VA too fast from the liver and putting on body weight to store it in if it was reabsorbed instead of excreted.. If you've solved the problem by removing fructose thats awesome, then maybe not an issue. But that's the first thing I thought about when reading this.
Garrett Smith is adamant liver flushes are not good. If it's redistributing the bile that would NOT be good, if it does make it's way out of the butt fine, but one time I did one when I had cholestasis and nothing came out, I was in agony all night with nausea, I was like OH NO I just reabsorbed all that crap!