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Janelle's log
Some of the things I do now make no sense whatsoever to anyone around me and yet I'm doing better than ever!
Quote from Bella on April 5, 2024, 2:52 amCertainly ma’am. It’s only natural that we have to confront our fears around health issues but we don’t have to let it consume us. I’m the #1 guilty party in letting fear repeatedly overtake me due the past traumas experienced from having CFS/ME followed by multiple poisoning which were both iatrogenic and self inflicted in my ignorance. I’m learning to gradually work towards being okay with not having all the answers, forgiving myself for choosing to follow incorrect information, not being able to always 100% control my health and sitting with potential uncertainty while still integrating some level of peace in my existence anyway by weaving in and out of effort mode and relaxation. I’m pretty sure a lot of the stress I’ve put on myself related to all of this has been more harmful than helpful. It’s a delicate balancing act.
You are a smart, resourceful and inspiring woman with a full life ahead of you. You’ve overcome a lot and I’m confident you have the wear with all to achieve your goals.
Thank-you! You have helped me snap out of my critical and hopeless attitude. You said it beautifully that we need to work towards being okay with not having all the answers and forgiving ourselves. 🙂
I am finally doing a lot better. I stopped caring whether I was dairy free or not, although I am sorta convinced that my buttcrack rash is worse with dairy, it never did go away when I tried to avoid it. The itch could be completely histamine driven I have no idea at this point. I had to let go of obsessing over it, and everything else.
Right now I eat a banana, Italian pasta with a pat of butter, some parmesan cheese if I want it for breakfast. Lunch apple juice, 90% ground beef patty, white rice and 1/4 cup beans. Then some sort of meat rice and beans for dinner. Sometimes ice cream, but I have been able to avoid it more often lately now that I have added back juice and cheese. I don't crave cheese so it's not that I couldn't stop eating it. But I do crave sugary foods if I try to be sugar free. I told myself if my only somewhat unhealthy thing I eat is juice then so be it! It greatly reduces cravings to have some. My body is so used to it, I drank sugary drinks my entire life.
Now that I'm not taking activated charcoal I was able to tell what color my stool actually is! It's a nice dark brown. Hallelujah. And so far no IBS!! I was a little concerned that would come back off the charcoal, but that has not been the case. I have done a few enemas since, but lately haven't wanted to. I want to test out the actual bean protocol which is 1/2 cup beans three times a day. For more serious digestion problems it's 6 times a day. I may not need to do that, but I will if needed, goal is to poop easier.
The numbness and tingling in my hands and feet are gone. I think it was mainly a bulging disk in my back. It can cause nerve issues as the bulge presses on the nerves. I can't sit on couches that round my spine.
My period this month has been way better, far less clots, which really freaked me out back when that started, I had my worst period I think I've ever had back when I quit orange juice and was trying to go dairy free and very low vitamin A. It's been up and down since then but mostly not that good. So far so good being more balanced it's also good that days are longer and I'm getting a lot of sun. I really enjoy gardening, we are converting our backyard to a native wildflower oasis. So many birds and butterflies now visit it.
@janelle525 Well you mentioned you live in Florida, personally I think carotenoid fruits like oranges are helpful in sunny/hot climates. When I drunk orange juice in Costa Rica it made me feel amazing in the sun compared to when I didn't drink it.
Quote from Alex on April 14, 2024, 12:45 pm@janelle525 Well you mentioned you live in Florida, personally I think carotenoid fruits like oranges are helpful in sunny/hot climates. When I drunk orange juice in Costa Rica it made me feel amazing in the sun compared to when I didn't drink it.
Yeah I think I would go back to OJ vs apple juice it's just that I'm not going to spend that much money for organic as oranges are heavily sprayed. Especially in Florida, we have the citrus greening problem. I was getting kinda concerned how many pesticides I've drank over the yrs. Organic apple juice is much cheaper. I've been eating more tomato based products lately and I think lycopene is helpful for UV exposure, it's what protects it from the intense sun and many believe it helps our skin too. I was concerned about nightshades, but I've eliminated them completely before and didn't notice anything different.
Quote from Janelle525 on December 12, 2023, 8:07 amQuote from Inger on December 12, 2023, 6:39 am@janelle525, have you considered trying a low vitamin A bean protocol a la Karen Hurd? That is awesome for liver and gallbladder issues. Its hard as you have to give up every stimulant, even perfumed anything, but it really helps. You might want to look into it. For some people they have to start with 1 bean 3 times a day and work up from there. If they cant tolerate more. After 10 months on the program my liver and gallbladder is already so much better!
Unique Hammond, the other Bean Queen, she is also so awesome. She healed herself from Chrons disease with the bean protocol. She was very ill when she found Karen.
Yes! I should have mentioned that I also can't tolerate beans! I was obsessed with Karen Hurd's protocol for a while, I didn't trial it properly though, she claims she never had problems with anyone tolerating beans within several days, I was like uhhhh then you haven't met me! I tend to go all in too quickly. I kept telling myself I can trial the one bean a day then two beans a day and so on... but I was like that is ridiculous if I can't tolerate a handful how I am ever going to?! So I never did it. I think I will try it. I definitely have SIBO, anything that isn't well digested by the time it reaches the end of my small intestine causes IBS. I am not sure why fructose doesn't though as that is a FODMAP, but fruit and sugar is absorbed towards the beginning of digestion so thankfully that works good for me. I guess my gut microbiota are whole grains, beans and nut lovers!!! I used to be able to have some of all of that. Now I can't even have one granola bar.
I come from the WAPF and Ray Peat camp. LOTS of vitamin A mainly from butter, and dairy. I did eat liver sometimes too, and forced down fermented cod liver oil every once in a while, though it was so nasty I avoided doing it THANKFULLY! But during Ray Peat when I developed psoriasis in my butt crack I was taking retinol palmitate every now and then like 10,000 IUs. Again by the grace of God the one all the Ray Peat fans liked to take stopped being made and I never bought it again.
I've been avoiding all major sources of vitamin A since 2018 and it has never cleared up. I still ate dairy and ice cream though and recently I was drinking orange juice everyday. Unable to give up my favorite foods. I just switched to apple juice instead, I'm so used to sweet drinks thanks to Ray Peat it's hard to give up. I do think my body can handle fructose better than a lot of people. My fasting glucose is always perfect. My blood pressure tends to be too low.
We might be similar other than sex. It all sounds like horrific frequent bile dumps that never let you improve the recipe of your bile. AKA, your guts are recycling too much and excreting too little of the old bile. Please consider this experience.
Quote from Joe on April 14, 2024, 8:33 pmQuote from Janelle525 on December 12, 2023, 8:07 amQuote from Inger on December 12, 2023, 6:39 am@janelle525, have you considered trying a low vitamin A bean protocol a la Karen Hurd? That is awesome for liver and gallbladder issues. Its hard as you have to give up every stimulant, even perfumed anything, but it really helps. You might want to look into it. For some people they have to start with 1 bean 3 times a day and work up from there. If they cant tolerate more. After 10 months on the program my liver and gallbladder is already so much better!
Unique Hammond, the other Bean Queen, she is also so awesome. She healed herself from Chrons disease with the bean protocol. She was very ill when she found Karen.
Yes! I should have mentioned that I also can't tolerate beans! I was obsessed with Karen Hurd's protocol for a while, I didn't trial it properly though, she claims she never had problems with anyone tolerating beans within several days, I was like uhhhh then you haven't met me! I tend to go all in too quickly. I kept telling myself I can trial the one bean a day then two beans a day and so on... but I was like that is ridiculous if I can't tolerate a handful how I am ever going to?! So I never did it. I think I will try it. I definitely have SIBO, anything that isn't well digested by the time it reaches the end of my small intestine causes IBS. I am not sure why fructose doesn't though as that is a FODMAP, but fruit and sugar is absorbed towards the beginning of digestion so thankfully that works good for me. I guess my gut microbiota are whole grains, beans and nut lovers!!! I used to be able to have some of all of that. Now I can't even have one granola bar.
I come from the WAPF and Ray Peat camp. LOTS of vitamin A mainly from butter, and dairy. I did eat liver sometimes too, and forced down fermented cod liver oil every once in a while, though it was so nasty I avoided doing it THANKFULLY! But during Ray Peat when I developed psoriasis in my butt crack I was taking retinol palmitate every now and then like 10,000 IUs. Again by the grace of God the one all the Ray Peat fans liked to take stopped being made and I never bought it again.
I've been avoiding all major sources of vitamin A since 2018 and it has never cleared up. I still ate dairy and ice cream though and recently I was drinking orange juice everyday. Unable to give up my favorite foods. I just switched to apple juice instead, I'm so used to sweet drinks thanks to Ray Peat it's hard to give up. I do think my body can handle fructose better than a lot of people. My fasting glucose is always perfect. My blood pressure tends to be too low.
We might be similar other than sex. It all sounds like horrific frequent bile dumps that never let you improve the recipe of your bile. AKA, your guts are recycling too much and excreting too little of the old bile. Please consider this experience.
Yes I think my bile was pretty toxic but I think I also had SIBO because of it so no matter how hard I would try to push on the fiber it would always cause IBS. I finally solved the IBS with charcoal, coffee enemas and small amounts of black beans.
So I had a major sleep attack today, I almost fell asleep at 12:30pm but had to stay awake because of homeschooling, and then I was forced to take a nap at 2. I think it was hypoglycemia but carbs don't help these sleep attacks. I was fine the last few days, the only thing different I did this morning was eat a banana. I hadn't eaten them in the last few days. I know potassium acts similarly to insulin, so it can lower blood sugar (at least according to Ray Peat), if that's what happened to me I can definitely confirm that! I've had these sleep attacks more frequently since switching to a mostly carb heavy breakfast, but I hadn't really tried no banana, just a couple days here and there when we run out. I do think I've had blood sugar problems most of my life. I think I was self medicating with sugary drinks most of my life as well, they kept a continuous stream of sugar coming in. And fructose doesn't need insulin, so if my insulin causes hypoglycemia then fructose bypassed that. I think this is why so many people need to be on keto diets, they have major blood sugar problems.
Quote from Jessica2 on May 21, 2024, 3:18 amHave you ever considered buying a glucometer or a continuous glucose monitor to keep track of your insulin levels? The continuous glucose monitor would be more expensive but you don't have to do the needle. It could be a valuable tool for you to be able to handle any ups and downs of insulin before more drastic measures would be needed like medication.
I considered one a long time ago, but I was able to stabilize it. I used to get adrenaline rushes 2 hours after breakfast. I haven't had that in a long time. But now I get this sleepiness. It's not everyday thankfully. It may only happen after I've been very active. I generally don't eat enough especially now that I'm limiting fat. I may just give that up lol. I just wanted to the stop process of becoming insulin resistant like most of America.
Hi Janelle, I started taking some nutrition classes last year that really helped me learn a lot about MY body. I think one big mistake I’ve made multiple times in my life has been mimicking other people’s diets (Ray, Grant, carnivores…) and ultimately failing because A. Most were male & B. No one really focused on Blood glucose, Macro ratios and micronutrients. All of those things are crucial for humans and especially women because we are not small men. They become even more critical as we age in my experience. I might be kind of odd ball in this community as I do believe nutrients from minimally processed foods matter as well as how our unique context determines our individual macronutrient needs. Anyway the energy slump is a bummer and I’m sorry to hear you’re having this right now. Hopefully it passes soon. Sorry to ramble on in your log…