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Tim's Log
@tim-2 eating for taste works in natural environment so you eat high calorie things that are good for you and not some poisonous plant or something. But unfortunately now you can not do that if you can go shopping to the supermarket, have fast food places and junk (designed by scientist so they are highly addictive) everywhere.. Look at average person in countries like USA, UK, Australia etc.. how it's working for them.. Fortunately now we also have the most knowledge than before. So we can do our best to choose foods that are good for us and at least somewhat tasty hehe..
Some have asked what my diet is like currently so here is what I ate today:
Breakfast:
Organic whole wheat Mini Bites cereal
Organic activated almond milk
Half an apple
Lunch:
White bread
Beef silverside
Gherkins
Hummus
Rice crackers
Blueberry muffin
Iced tea
Dinner:
Steamed cabbage
Fried onion
Fried mushrooms
Organic chicken nuggets
Beer
Whole grain chips
Lime jelly
Blueberry muffin
hehe interesting. That half an apple is for busting pectin levels? My diet now is like mostly oats, whey protein, white/brown rice, bananas, some forest fruits, here and there watermelon(basically the only one food high in vit A that I crave in the summer) sometimes buckwheat and all kinds of meats mostly poultry, ground beef/pork and pork/beef sausages.. So I still enjoy low vit A diet. Like I said the only food that I crave especially in the summer is watermelon.. I don't like carrots, sweet potatoes, pumpkin etc. at all..
@jiri
Haha yeah and I just prefer half a one chopped up with my cereal. I have oat granola sometimes but I've stopped buying it since it's not organic and oats can contain so much glyphosate. I'll probably start making porridge with organic oats sometimes.
My local supermarket has a decent little section of prepared organic meats like meatballs, burger patties and chicken nuggets.
I haven't given in to watermelon yet but I'd say I'm close to normalizing my serum retinol levels and when that happens I'll be having some watermelon to celebrate it.
I'll probably get my serum retinol tested sometime next year. I'd say my levels are still high at the moment but hopefully by next year I'll see a decent reduction.
Slow consistent improvement in general health and skin. Room for improvement with sleep, if I don't get much exercise in on a given day I'll find it hard to get to sleep.
Hello Tim.
I've started the low-ish vA in june so 4months ago and the main reason for it being my big seb derm (face/scalo/ears/beard) and so far nothing has changed yet. So in september I have cut out all vA and I'm currently eating : Lean beef/chicken/turkey, white beans, white/brown rice, white cabbage, white chinese cabbage, peeled zucchinni and cucumber, white belgium endives, parsnip and choko sometimes. Also 1 pear or 1 apple per day.
I tried oxygenated water 10% tho and after trying every topical approach under the sun the last 5 years I have to say that I'm impressed with it. I've started 3 days ago and use it morning and night before moisturizing and it helps a lot for sure. I only use it on the part of my face that are visible, not the scalp/beard/ears as It's just to ease my mind and stop thinking about it every time I talk to someone. This was a huge huge problem in my life for these last years and only things that would work was tacrolimus or cortisone but obviously each time I'd stop it would come back twice as bad even with antifungal/antimicrobial cream/lotion/potion you name it. Even oral antibiotics/fungal did nothing so.. Oxygenated water isnt perfect but at least there is SOME improvments - I'm happy to have my face not looking like a leper, even tho it's not perfect but I know it's the internal stuff that will cure it. Hopefully the oxygenated water effect will stick until it does.
I have tried every diet under the sun these last 4 years (from raw vegan to carnivore) and most likely harmed my body in the process. The keto part gave me upper right quadrant pain that I'm still experiencing today tho all scans etc are good, and it's not related to food (I'm feeling a light discomfort 24/7) I had my period with CLO, Liver etc... But I don't believe I went crazy with it or stick to it that long. I guess we'll see, tho I admit that I'm nervous to not see any improvment in 3 months.
You seemed to experience some benefits pretty early right ?
@mat Hey I also suffer from Sebderm. I am eating low vitamin A for 4 months and I didnt see any improvement as well. It got even worse when I ate a lot of white rice and was almost zero Vitamin A. Thats why Im pretty sure that this condition isnt about just Vitamin A but there are likely more problems within our bodies.
Quote from Max on October 15, 2021, 5:18 am@mat Hey I also suffer from Sebderm. I am eating low vitamin A for 4 months and I didnt see any improvement as well. It got even worse when I ate a lot of white rice and was almost zero Vitamin A. Thats why Im pretty sure that this condition isnt about just Vitamin A but there are likely more problems within our bodies.
Hi Max, my sebderm has passed in 3 months of diet. Try calcium carbonate, maybe you don't have enough of it. Ray Peat said that calcium deficiency can cause this. I have also significantly reduced my B6 consumption.
When you say oxygenated water do you mean hydrogen peroxide? Using it in a spray bottle twice a week was a life saver for me. 10% is quite strong, I used 6%. While hydrogen peroxide is very helpful I think it may age the skin if used long term.
A leper lol, yeah I can empathize with you as to what a nightmare it is. I had extreme dandruff since I was a teenager and got seb derm later on, I tried so many nutritional approaches as well.
Very soon after beginning a low vitamin A diet I saw a dramatic reduction in the severity of the seb derm so I knew it was connected to vitamin A. The current thinking on seb derm is that it is caused by Malassezia furfur in areas with high sebum production. What doesn't make sense though is the patchy nature of it and that not everyone with high sebum production suffers from seb derm so the root cause is obviously not the yeast. I believe the mechanism may be elevated retinoic acid levels increasing skin cell turnover (think retinoic acid skin peels) in specific areas, when these areas coincide with high sebum production areas the combination of sebum and dead skin cells may provide the ideal conditions for the yeast to grow, the yeast then causing the redness and clumping of skin cells leading to flaking. That's just my working hypothesis though, I don't know for sure.
Following a low vitamin A diet did not cure the issue immediately but that makes perfect sense. If one has Hypervitaminosis A it normally takes years to reduce serum retinol and retinoic acid levels in the body to healthy levels. I can happily report that following a low vitamin A diet has CURED me of seb derm. In the last few months my seb derm and dandruff have been at such low levels that I haven't had to use hydrogen peroxide or any shampoo at all. I have some minor redness on my chest, I have no seb derm around my nasolabial folds and I only have minor dandruff in my beard and scalp. It's so minor now that all I need to do is simply use a facecloth every now and then in the shower to scrub the areas.
I advise against following a restrictive diet, I've discussed my recommendations here and on my Youtube channel.
Is the pain in your liver area? I experienced that years ago when I was consuming a lot of vitamin A and following a WAPF inspired diet.