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New 30 Day (or longer) Experiment
I just now saw the edit in your post several days ago where you mentioned the yellow in your diarrhea...I didn't notice it earlier, otherwise I definitely would have responded earlier. The way you characterized it as the color of urine with a bunch of riboflavin is EXACTLY how I've been characterizing it for years now, lol. Glad to hear you came to the same conclusion!
I don't know how often you were eating onions, cauliflower, or other vegetables that contained sulfur before you started your recent experiment, but those things can definitely slow down the dehydrogenase systems involved in eliminating Vitamin A. I would bet that their removal, along with removing all the other vegetables you were eating, is the main reason you're suddenly dumping what appears to be Vitamin A.
Carnivore is the simplest solution to getting all those bad vegetables out of the diet. Carnivore + white rice seems to be the next best bet. I recently watched a video by Greg Nigh discussing his thoughts on hydrogen sulfide SIBO and sulfur intolerance...seems like the vegetables he names would make a good short list of those to avoid for any kind of detox, but especially Vitamin A. I still think it's hilarious that he's so baffled as to why sulfur in meat isn't a problem but sulfur from vegetables is always a problem...
Anyway, sounds like you're running a good self-experiment. Look forward to seeing your updates.
@wavygravygadzooks Good point about the sulfur; I basically ate onions every day before this experiment because it was the easiest way to add some extra flavor to my food without having to use herbs or spices. I think removing the veggies from my diet was a big reason as to why I had diarrhea, with another likely contributor being reduced fiber (which probably also had a sudden affect on my gut microbiome). My goal after doing this diet is to transition to a carnivore diet, as I am a firm believer in plant foods causing inflammation and other issues in the body based on my own experience with oxalates. I was planning to do my current dietary experiment for up to 90 days, but I am honestly getting so sick of rice and I am not even 15 days in lol. My updated plan is to continue my current diet for only 30 days and get some blood work done as a baseline for comparison to what my bloodwork will look like after 6 months on an all muscle meat carnivore diet.
Yeah, I don't know how you manage to eat just rice for an entire day at a time! That would do awful things to my energy levels, and it does not even begin to satisfy me when eaten alone. I think I'd be way better off fasting for a whole day than eating just rice, and I say that as someone who, until recently, had relied on white rice for energy for over a decade.
Week 2 Update:
First, short daily notes:
Sunday – Did an unexpected ~20 hour fast… was not hungry? Ate lamb chops for dinner to get at least one higher fat meal each week, did a little over an hour of walking outside, a little over an hour tanning outside, used the sauna for 25 minutes, and did 3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing
Monday – meat (venison) and rice day, just 3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing
Tuesday – all rice day, did 10 minutes of breathing exercises, used the sauna for 25 minutes, and used the vD lamp for 10 minutes; also got a massage in the evening, which helped my back
Wednesday – meat (venison, elk) and rice day, did 10 minutes of breathing exercises, used the vD lamp for 15 minutes, and walked outside for a little over an hour
Thursday – all rice day, did 10 minutes of breathing exercises, got 10 minutes with the vD lamp, walked outside for 30 minutes, and used the sauna for 25 minutes
Friday – meat (elk, bison) and rice day, did 10 minutes of breathing, used the vD lamp for 15 minutes, had 25 minutes of sauna use, and walked outside for over 1.5 hours total; had another weird cramp while deadlifting… this time in my left quad?
Saturday – Did a 24 hour fast, ate a small amount (4 oz) of elk, and then had a large loaf of bread made of cooked white rice and white rice flour for dinner; had 25 minutes of sauna use, did 10 minutes of breathing exercises, and had 10 minutes of vD lamp use
Summary: Overall, this week was a better experience than the first week; I did not experience diarrhea, but did have a less severe muscle cramp in my left leg/quad while deadlifting that has never happened before. This was quite bizarre and continues to give me some pain two days later; hopefully I can massage out the tension. I am now convinced there is something weird going on with my electrolytes, i.e. an imbalance. I did have 1.5L of coconut water (I know I said I would limit it to 1L after week 1…) on Thursday and the cramp happened on Friday. I am thinking my potassium/sodium ratio is off for whatever reason. I am now going to only drink 0.5-1L of coconut water daily, with the 1L being on the rice only days since I can use the coconut water when baking my rice bread for lunch or cook my rice in it for dinner.
Luckily, despite what happened to my back last week, the only modification I made to my exercise/training this past week was lowering the weight on the deadlifts, which ended up in a different “injury” anyway lol. My back continues to feel fine enough to lift…we shall see about my quad. Thus far, I have been able to stick to my planned exercise routine (kettlebells and calisthenics on Saturday, have not exercised yet today, which is Sunday). My enthusiasm for experiment is slowly declining if I am to end up with some bizarre pain each week that lasts 3-4 days. Again, I am thinking either an electrolyte imbalance or just pushing detox too hard with the breath work, tanning, and sauna on top of reducing my dietary intake of things that slow down the ALDH pathways (onions, cauliflower, coffee, etc.). Hopefully the worst is behind me and week 3 and 4 are pain free.
One last thing that I wanted to note about this week was that I found new guided breathing videos on YouTube and gave those a try. The channel they were listed on is named Breathwork Beats if anyone is interested in checking it out. The channel has longer videos (30+ minutes), but also shorter (~6-10 minute) videos that guide you through a few rounds of different breathing techniques and breath holds. I find these videos help keep me accountable when it comes to daily breathing exercises; they help me focus on what I am doing and give me some structure rather than me just sitting down and breathing on my own. I hope to not rely on these in the future, but as someone who is trying to get into daily breath work, I think these are helpful.
I've been fighting what appears to be electrolyte problems (incessant body-wide twitching, regular cramping) for a very long time, certainly for the entire time I've been low Vitamin A, and I'm pretty sure the problems have been worse overall on low Vitamin A. I've tried supplementing all the electrolytes in different amounts, nothing seems to solve the problem. It seems to be something inherent to detoxing Vitamin A (or something else) that cannot be resolved with electrolyte intake. I recently suggested that it could be related to a lack of taurine, due to the body throwing all its taurine at Vitamin A coming back into the liver from the peripheral tissues. My problems could obviously be different from yours, but we seem to be eating pretty similarly at the moment and have both had histories of high oxalate and Vitamin A intake.
I've also had a number of weird injuries on low Vitamin A that sometimes come and go and don't make a lot of sense outside of some part of a detox process...these include pain in one of the joints of my big toe (from walking/running), a pulled hamstring (from yoga), a pulled shoulder (from swinging an axe and/or bucking logs with a saw), and recurring knee and elbow pain at sites of previous injuries. The reason I say they don't make sense is because I was doing these activities before and after the "injury" at approximately the same intensity without problem...it's like there's some localized temporary weakness in the musculoskeletal system that comes and goes. Maybe it has to do with fluctuating calcium levels from Vitamin A? Alternatively, I know that Sally Norton talks about oxalates getting stored in injury sites and that their coming out causes inflammation at those sites...slight possibility that has something to do with it?
Quote from wavygravygadzooks on May 15, 2022, 11:08 amI've also had a number of weird injuries on low Vitamin A that sometimes come and go and don't make a lot of sense outside of some part of a detox process...The reason I say they don't make sense is because I was doing these activities before and after the "injury" at approximately the same intensity without problem...it's like there's some localized temporary weakness in the musculoskeletal system that comes and goes.
@wavygravygadzooks You hit the nail right on the head in terms of how I would describe it! My pains seem to come somewhat randomly with varying intensity, but often in the same areas...left low back, right wrist, left calf, sometimes weird tightness in my shins, etc. I too cannot seem to pinpoint what brings on these episodes, but noticed they are worsened by and more frequent with high oxalate and/or high lutein intakes. I have been avoiding both oxalates and lutein as much as possible for months even prior to my current experiment, but still get these weird musculoskeletal issues. I have played around with electrolyte ratios as well with no noticeable, repeatable outcomes, so I too have come to the conclusion that it is apparently just part of this detox process.
I used to think that vA's effect on calcium metabolism were a cause of my weird muscle and joint issues, but since my hair calcium has been on the low side (even for Dr. Smith, who likes it around a 42 in whatever the units are) for over a year, I was less convinced calcium blood level fluctuations were an issue. I may want to revisit that thought, especially since these "injury" flareups seem to coincide with more tanning, i.e. may be linked to increased vD production and the relationships between vA, vD, and calcium metabolism.
Quote from wavygravygadzooks on May 15, 2022, 11:08 amMy problems could obviously be different from yours, but we seem to be eating pretty similarly at the moment and have both had histories of high oxalate and Vitamin A intake.
I thought you were doing a high fat all muscle meat carnivore diet based on some of your previous posts. Have you switched over to rice (or other grains) and leaner beef/red meat? If so, do you mind sharing why? I know you were having some issues with diarrhea, primarily due to a high fat intake, if I remember correctly.
Sorry if my dietary history isn't clear...I have been flip-flopping a bit over the past several months in an effort to mitigate some of my symptoms like gum recession and colon motility issues.
I have primarily tried increasing and decreasing white sushi rice intake, although I've also played around with tiny amounts of blueberries and supplemental fiber (psyllium husk, acacia) here and there. I eat twice per day and have been eating between 1 and 4 cups total of cooked sushi rice per day (so between 1/2 and 2 cups per meal). I honestly still can't tell if it's making a big difference, in part because I crave fat so much I can't help but eat some at every meal, which then conflates whatever results I might get from eating more rice. White rice just does not satiate me at all, and I'm not interested in eating fiber at my meals (when I take supplemental fiber, I do it once in the morning hours before I eat my first meal). I swear, I could eat at least 4 cups of cooked rice twice per day even after eating 2 pounds of 80% lean beef...I get absolutely no satiety from it, and I think it actually just makes me hungrier than if I didn't eat it.
I'm starting to wonder again if I'm somehow low in zinc despite all the meat I eat, and if that's the reason for my gum problems. I had tried supplementing with zinc picolinate for months before and not seen any improvement, but then I saw a video by Masterjohn about zinc picolinate not being useable by the body, and after I read the papers he cited I have to say that there does appear to be something odd about the picolinate form. I'm going to try supplementing with liquid zinc sulfate and see if I get different results from that.
It seems very unlikely that I could be starved for zinc eating all the meat I do, but two thoughts are that:
(1) the amount of B vitamins and other nutrients in the meat that support detox are high enough relative to zinc that they encourage detox (and damage from detox) to continue at a pace that outstrips the capacity of my zinc intake to repair the damage, and
(2) if zinc picolinate really is problematic because it's bound so tightly as to not be usable, it's possible that I made my zinc status worse when I was taking it and am still trying to recover from the losses. This might happen if the body sees the zinc picolinate in the blood, decides that it needs to get rid of some extra zinc because there's a bunch of it coming in, and somehow dumps the useful stores of zinc instead of, or along with, the zinc picolinate. This idea is probably a stretch, but I've mentioned there was someone on Smith's site that was taking 300 mg (yes, three HUNDRED) of zinc per day for a long while, and I'm pretty sure it was zinc picolinate...I don't think you could take that much supplemental zinc every day for more than 2-3 weeks without starting to get some sign of toxicity, which, in conjunction with my own experience, leads me to conclude that the zinc picolinate is likely providing no benefit and could be making things worse. As an additional part of the quandry, I had high-normal serum levels and very high-normal hair levels of zinc, but indication of zinc deficiency on a Spectracell MNT. I didn't know what to make of that combination until I looked into zinc picolinate, and then I drew this hypothesis.
I have an issue with vitamin d, every time I have taken it I develop muscle pains in my back and shoulders, very similar to the pains I have with oxalate, strange but maybe it stirs some oxalate deposits or something to do with the calcium metabolism, that's my theory. I actually have low levels of vitamin d, not crazy low but low according to the ranges of the lab.
In the winter I have opted for ignoring it because I just don't tolerate vitamin d supplement, I even tried the lamp and that had a similar effect, it just took longer than taking the pills for the symptoms to show up. If I get sun on my skin unprotected I don't get this issue though, there is something that sunlight seems to have which I'm ok with it, but not ok with the sun lamp.
By the way I even used to get a weird sensation on my waist after using the sun lamp, kind of like I had a burn but no burn! Interesting your results so far, your theory about vitamin d might be onto something, specially with sun lamp.
@wavygravygadzooks I agree that rice is not satiating. I am getting through a lot of white rice, i.e. a 2 lb bag of rice plus a 1.5 lb bag of white rice flour each PER WEEK on this current experiment, but never feeling satisfied, despite eventually feeling full; I essentially want to just keep eating, but need to stop before my stomach feels uncomfortable and I hate the next few hours of my day.
The information you mentioned on zinc, especially zinc picolinate, is interesting. I am currently following Dr. Smith's supplement recommendations and taking up to 60 mg of zinc picolinate in a day. I think this dose is very high, as I am only 110 lbs. I do track my blood and hair levels of zinc and did not notice any weird patterns, but it is hard to imagine that I actually need or am absorbing 60 mg of supplemental zinc in addition to whatever zinc I am getting from meat. My blood levels of zinc actually come back lower than I'd like, which is concerning because I do not want to keep increasing my supplemental zinc intake. Once this 30 day experiment ends, I want to increase my meat consumption quite a bit and progressively lower the dose of supplemental zinc until I stop it completely.
@luisa I stopped taking vD supplements more than 4 years ago because I never noticed any benefit and now believe it may have caused harm. I am now very much against supplementing any fat soluble vitamins.
Have you only tested vD 25-Hydroxy or have you also tested your calcitriol (vD 1,25 Dihydroxy)? I get both tested and also have a consistently low or deficient vD 25-Hydroxy level, even in the summer when I tan or spend time out in the sun for a few hours each week. The active form of vD (1,25 Dihydroxy) tends be in range when I get it tested though.
It is interesting that you get a different effect from the vD supplement and sunlamp than the sun. I agree that the vD supplement may be causing some dysregulation in calcium metabolism, but I never thought about how oxalate deposits may be involved in that.
@mmb3664 I only get vD 25-Hydroxy test, it's really hard to get other vitamin d tests here in Canada or at least it has been the case for me. My levels have been consistently low even in the summer. I'm not sure why I get a different effect from the sun than the lamp or supplements. I had really high hopes for the lamp but no :(. I watched a video recently regarding sunlight and the different spectrum of lights that we get from the sun so that might be an explanation, I haven't verified these sources though but there seems to be some research backing it. I think vitamin d alone by itself does something with calcium metabolism or oxalates that my body doesn't like at all, specially after lower vitamin a, again that's just a wild theory, I gave up on trying to get levels up and just try to tan in the sun as much as I can in the summer, I feel good with it, also I try to get to the Caribbean beaches in the winter when it's possible :).