I needed to disable self sign-ups because I’ve been getting too many spam-type accounts. Thanks.
lil chick's log
This is a great thread! I’ve really enjoyed reading everyone’s thoughts.
Quote from Judy on June 21, 2019, 9:36 am
Vitamin A may be Mother Nature's way of preventing us from overstaying our welcome. Fish produce millions of eggs, but in the end, they wind up with two that survive so the population is stable. The longer we live the more vitamin A we store until it kills us. Nobody knows how long humans would live if the world wasn't full of Vit. A. Maybe we will find out now that some of us are trying to avoid it.
lol! Carrot sticks are the new cigarettes!
I think my body has sent vitamin A to the facial skin, and I do see now that my face is yellowed (sorry if I repeat.) When compared with photos of my younger self there was zero yellow in my face, but now my face is subtly yellow/orange compared to my neck. (A digression here: but this yellowing can really confuse makeup and clothing choices !)
Since I suspect A in in my skin I've been doing the sun baths thinking it's right on target for me personally.
I sunbathed yesterday and then later was just doing normal things indoors. I wasn't sweating or anything when I noticed something when I looked in my magnifying mirror.
Warning: Grossness factor is high in this paragraph. In large areas of the lower 1/3 of my face, my pores were releasing (sebum?). When I stretched the skin stuff was working its way out of the pores! I can sort of remember things like this happening (just in the chin area) as a teen. But not such a large area.
It made me wish I had a Strigil. Have you ever heard of this? It is an ancient (Greek?) way to cleanse the pores. Check out her glowing skin! I think it is used in conjunction with olive oil. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWvA_uugD9g
I just used cotton balls to clean up the zone. Then I rubbed on a little of my ACV/distilled water solution. Then I rinsed with distilled water.
I'm also reminded of the skin brushing technique that my naturophath recommended to me first time he saw me back a decade ago. It was said to move "lymph" along. You were supposed to gently brush your skin all over your body, in the direction of the heart.
Dream changes: Having multiple-chapter dreams. Wake up, roll over, go back to that dream again.
Scratching and Itching: Realized that we have a strigil at the end of each finger. haha... so no wonder we are feeling like scratching, we need to get this stuff out of our pores. Perhaps scratching is GOOD as long as it is gentle and not destructive.
Movement: I watched a video once of an Aussie lady who cured herself of cancer and part of her detox regimen was to bounce on a rebounder. I was thinking that lot of my tissues are dry, stiff, tight, etc and was thinking about how maybe stretching and movement (jogging, jumping jacks or dancing) in general might be useful.
Supertasting? Back when I was on FAILSAFE (which is the nearest special diet I've been on to low VA) I felt that suddenly I everything tasted DIFFERENT. I've heard some call this "supertasting" and be what kids who are picky eaters experience.
Chicken tastes weird, not every bite but some bites. Gamey (even if not from the farm). Enough to make me want to limit it. Wine tastes acidic and I'm having a hard time talking myself into my vinegar drinks. (But I still want pickles.) Radishes and corn taste fake, like perfume. Cauliflower only tastes ok and the texture is weird. I got "the ick" on some cheap pretzels we have here. Tossing my bag.
Egg white omelettes: don't have a huge urge to eat these. Other foods that are "so-so" are oats, olive oil.
Anything almond or cherry tastes divine. I know cherries should be on the bad list. In the same vein, had a little lemon curd and that was divine (perhaps need vit C) Wheat products and salt: divine. Meat and fish and pork: all taste good, as long as the spices are gentle. Cabbage and onions: luscious, juicy and smooth? haha Cabbage is so under-rated. I want my food to have fat on it, not DRY.
Assessing Progress: I spent a long time thinking histamines were my problem. I watched a lot of videos and saw that some of the people on such diets realized after a while that the diets were only controlling symptoms and not curing anything. Perhaps that is a good measurement stick for a special diet. Not how it handles symptoms but whether if fixes anything. It IS hard to judge whether a condition CAN be helped. And it is hard to be patient.
Soap: I told hubs I was going to start being a lot more cleanly. He knitted his lips together and raised his brows. He knows me haha
I kept thinking about and wondering about the use of olive oil in ancient times with the strigil implement. These toxins we want to get rid of are FAT SOLUBLE after all...
I have decided to continue to be alcohol free. I have just spent too many nights up "poisoned" after alcohol and now after reading the study posted to me by Eliza (thanks so much!). An aha! moment for me.
I really do think I'm having less aches and pains on low VA and that has changed my sleep patterns for the better. Despite that, I also feel a certain low energy-- but it isn't horrible. As someone said, I just feel like eating and sleeping, LOL.
I have always loved the phrase "omnivore's dilemma" (not the book, just the quandry). What SHOULD we eat if we can eat anything? What a design flaw (as a species) to have weak eating instincts! haha I keep reading through old posts, for instance the ones about Darwin and his skin problems. It was mentioned that in his time the rich often ate liver. I was once talking to my fave Thai restaurant owner. She said they didn't eat like "this" at home (gesturing to her restaurant). Plainer. Kings and Lords got mysterious diseases like obesity and gout. A friend was raised in a trad society--lots of beans and white rice in his up-bringing and he's a picture of health.
I wonder about the fact that it doesn't seem like Low-VA graduates can go back to what we think of as "normal, modern eating". Is it the body talking? Is it saying: "NOPE"?
So I have a new one for the books: I awoke to a loud "horn" noise in one ear. As if someone flicked my ear drum. Perhaps my body is working on inner-ear detox? I see that it is listed as a possible Meniere's symptom.
Another new symptom: swollen feet. I'm having a harder time blaming VA for this one, but why not? I suppose though it could be the heat and the menopause changes.
Hubs has a summer virus consisting of malaise and sore throat-- strangely a friend in another country also has a similar virus and has given up vit A this month.
I was thinking about how I often feel poisoned after eating anything deep fried in a restaurant, such as french fries. Anyone else here have this problem?
Strangely, I CAN eat potato chips from a bag, so something must be different about restaurant grease.
I wonder if there could be some sort of thing where A or carotenes are getting broken down into retinoic acid in there and I'm perhaps highly sensitive to it? I bet these oils are much more apt to be sitting there oxidizing between fries and when the restaurant is closed.
I would guess that this might point to some people actually being almost allergic to RA because I'm sure the amounts would be quite small.
I've had similar response to restaurant deep fried stuff, but only sometimes. I also have a deep fryer at home, have never had that problem, and I am a horrible procrastinator when it comes to changing my fryer's oil. I've always put it down to a difference of fatty acids; mine is loaded with coconut oil and tallow (mostly saturated fats), theirs are filled with vegetable oils (much higher in polyunsaturated fats - PUFAs).
Malcolm Gladwell did a fantastic podcast on how McDonald's ruined their own fries in the early 1990's by shifting from mostly saturated fats in their fryers to PUFAs.
I suspect it is more a problem of polymerized/oxidized PUFAs in fryer oil that hasn't been changed often enough (think boiled linseed oil as a paint hardener) than a retinoid problem. Just because Grant has identified for us a nasty toxin, it doesn't mean there aren't others.
Continuously reheated animal fats like tallow are not completely without fault unfortunately. They have a very high oxidized cholesterol content, I have read through studies on this.
I would still choose tallow over Canola oil though.
Customers will complain if a restaurant uses tallow for take away food because some of the customers eat the chips when they are cold and the beef tallow solidifies which they don't like. Then there are the health oriented lemmings that demand rancid vegetable oils and the vegetarians who demand the same.
IMO the best option for deep frying is beef tallow that is changed frequently but I'm also interested in palm oil and coconut oil since they are both low PUFA and have zero cholesterol.
Many restaurants reuse the oil for a long time (think weeks/months) which will create a lot of oxidized PUFAs in plant oils and oxidized cholesterol in animal fats. I think there are also chemical additives (anti foaming agents? etc) that are added too. Potato chips from a bag are made in a factory where they have much stricter protocols for changing oil.
I used to have a deep fryer full of beef tallow and stopped using it as I would feel poisoned after eating the food. It wasn't because it was beef tallow, it is because I didn't change it often and my liver was not healthy. These days I can eat a lot of deep fried restaurant food with no problems.
Some real progress for my peeps (thanks for all the support here!!!). left pic: June 17, right pic: July 8 (began cutting back on vitamin A on May 21). On the left cheek you can see that the rosacea looks about the same. But I'm pleased to have lips again! (there are no products on my lips in either picture)
If you compare face to neck (in each picture) you will see that my face is starting to match my neck more.
Face and neck are two different colors in the first pic.
I feel that my rosacea is actually "standing out" more now, haha because my background skin is becoming a healthier color.
Uploaded files: