Metabolic Flexibility - Get Real

#242

Hi Wendy, when I am on my regular Tamoxifen brand, then my body responds incredibly well to this WOE, and my lipoedema when I was on my regular Tamoxifen brand wasn’t only kept in check, it was seriously improving, swelling, inflammation going down. Then my pharmacy said my regular brand of Tamoxifen had gone up in cost, and gave me a cheaper brand, which wreaked havoc on my body. Although my weight stayed exactly the same (50kg) I could see and my partner could see it as well how my legs were swelling up again.
Yesterday I was able to get my regular Tamoxifen brand, and it should all now hopefully resolve. Needless to say I will never agree to change brand ever again. I’ve resolved that now with the prescription clerk.

What is your inflammatory condition and how long have you been on your WOE? Healing the body does take time, but any small improvement is worth celebrating. Are you on any medication? Pharmaceutical drugs can affect one’s health outcome and goals, so it’s really about finding a way/WOE that works for you.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #243

Well, that’s an objection that could be used against all dietary changes, since any dietary change affects our intestinal bacteria. Turn the situation around: how do we know that eating a vegan diet is good for our bacteria, and why doesn’t anyone worry about losing the ability to eat meat? If doing things one way is potentially bad, doing them the opposite way could be equally bad, and for the same reason, no?

My belief is that at this point we know so little about our intestinal bacteria that trying to manipulate them is pointless, because we are likely to do ourselves more harm than good. After all, people thought there there couldn’t possibly be any bad effects from recommending the dietary guidelines, and look where we’ve ended up from that!

#244

I think we also need to look at what our ancestors would have eaten, and how our own genetic makeup might affect what we tolerate well, what we don’t tolerate. I am norwegian, and my ancestors would have been eating a lot of fish, meat, eggs, butter, lard, cream etc. In any event they didn’t have access to the rainbow variety of vegetables and fruits we now all have access to today, universally. In my family tree were a lot of fishermen and farmers. Perhaps this is why my body is more happy on a carnivore WOE. But in countries were people would historically consume more exotic fruits, for example, perhaps the tolerance for said fruits would be higher. I very much doubt my norwegian ancestors knew what pineapples or mangoes were, let alone avocados. Those used to be my favourite fruits back when I was on a high carb diet. But were they actually good for me? I was pretty much drowning in inflammation from all the exotic fruit I gorged myself on.

#245

@never2late I have joint pain that is probably related to a chronic Lyme disease infection I had years ago. So as not to hijack the topic of this thread – which is so interesting, I will respond more on your other thread.

I don’t take any medications other than Advil when I want to lessen my joint pain or to be able to do a long hike. I hope you keep us updated on your progress in controlling (curing?) your lipedema, because it is helpful to others who are searching for answers. One problem with this site is that people disappear once the diet stops working for them, so it is very hard to know how helpful it might be for conditions other than T2D, which it obviously helps.

#246

I know very little about gut biome so forgive me if it will be silly :smiley:
But as far as I know/remember/read, we digest animal stuff just fine ourselves and plant matter is where we badly need the help of our bacteria…?
So that’s why the potential problem got attached to the carnivore diet and never to the vegan one (at least I never have read that).
I don’t know and never researched what actually happens as it doesn’t matter to me, I mean it couldn’t change my dietary decisions, I go into the same direction either way.

But who wants to manipulate them? Is it manipulating to eat omnivore? Almost everyone does it. Considering this fear about not being able to eat plants later is something common many of us met somewhere, I understand that someone who doesn’t know what is the case may fear carnivore… Even if I don’t know and still don’t fear such things but I never ever even heard a myth about losing our ability to digest plant food for good, that would sound crazy. I have read about adaptation time when one adds plants back. But it was ages ago (at the time when much protein was strongly discouraged on keto…), I heard nothing like this from the experienced or ex-carnivores here as far as I remember. I probably would remember if there would have been something about some huge troubles… So I don’t KNOW but it doesn’t seem I should concern myself with such things.

#247

I never cared about the diet of my anchestors… I have my own individual body and I ask it. And it doesn’t even want the same as it wanted a decade ago! (Though I think its ideal diet didn’t change, I just couldn’t handle it before due to my past diet very far from my ideal. At least this is my hypothesis, I don’t know enough to be sure…)
There are plenty of fruits here, there are fruit seasons in the bigger part of the year but sugary fruits are very modern… How my anchestors ate 10000 or 100000 years ago? I honestly don’t know. I don’t even know WHERE they were! It’s true even if I just use 1000 years.
(If I know correctly, my very distant anchestors ate mostly fruit and that’s why humans have this cool color vision? :slight_smile: But I know I went too far with that :D)

And it doesn’t matter my anchestors in the last hundreds of years didn’t know banana (one of my fav fruit on high-carb, low-carb and keto) because I love it and as far as I can tell, it’s just another fruit, my body handles it. It has no tartness, that may make difference but anyway… The sugar is the same type.

I believe huge amounts of fruits are bad for absolutely everyone. I would like to know WHY some people seem to be able to eat like that or what is the limit…? Isn’t it the rare part where it’s no individual? The sugar must go somewhere and the fructose is problematic…

But I better go to sleep now, I fear I do a worse braindump when half-asleep…

#248

Don’t you think that may have been the issue more than the fact you were eating the fruit? You can eat fruit and still not over consume carbs, and you don’t have to gorge on them just because you allow yourself to eat them. That’s the problem, we take something and run with it and overdo it until it’s an issue. As a binge eater, I know all about overdoing stuff, but it was me overdoing things that was the issue, not that I ate what I ate.

#249

Except maybe a few specific fruit. I tested watermelon in 2022 and I STILL can’t stop below 1 kg at a time. I even put it away after 650g or something… But I had to get it out again and eat more. Good thing I don’t like watermelon (I just find the texture, “biting into solid water” fun) and that it’s very seasonal and not in my garden…

I am fine with pineapple and mango though. My big favs but still, I can stop. Somehow. They are super tempting and exotic, partially because I don’t eat them every year but the taste is wonderful anyway. And half a mango is so little (my SO eats the other half)! But a proper watermelon is several kgs and it must be eaten in a few days.

Otherwise I agree, it was probably the sugar content, not the specific fruit… And I experienced that one may be able to learn to eat them in moderation. Just not necessarily all of them.
And it took quite a long time for me to be able to eat 10g apple :smiley: it’s not good for it. 10g frozen banana? Easy and satisfying.

(I should train myself out of writing about fruits when they pop up somewhere. No matter how I love them. They are so wonderful that in rare cases they go up to my beloved pork chuck roast tastiness level and that’s my number one.)

#250

Well, perhaps gorge was the wrong word, as I wasn’t binge eating. But I would eat a mango a day, as that was my absolute favourite, I also ate a banana daily because it provided potassium. On my high carb diet I was suffering with so much inflammation. But I believed I was eating healthy. Jumbo blueberries. Pineapple. Mango. Melon. Strawberries. Nuts, dates and some dark chocolate. I also ate a lot of different vegetables, sweet potatoes being a particular favourite and corn. I did enjoy pizza on the weekend, and some wholemeal bread daily. Not cakes, buns, biscuits, etc.

In both the fruit variety as well as the vegetable variety I was always going for that rainbow that was always recommended. I wasn’t eating any processed food. Yet my pain was such I sometimes had problems walking
And I developed breast cancer. Which I now understand can be caused by long term inflammation.

Now when I went keto, all that pain and inflammation just … went. I couldn’t believe it! All I had done was drop my carbs to 20 grams. Then 10, before my body lost interest in carbs altogether and I turned carnivore. Now my father’s father swore by tradition and his typical fare was fish, meat, eggs, butter, cheese and fermented milk. His health always baffled the doctors which used to amuse him, because he was eating in this way. My father’s mother ate both a high fat, high carb diet. She ate herself into T2 with her carb and sugar addiction, and would consume cakes, biscuits, various desserts, candy, etc.

My mother’s mother bought into the modern hype and swore by margerine and skimmed milk. Her food would typically be as low fat as possible. And my mother all her life has cut away the fat on meat. She has also a serious carb addiction, a love of bread, and a whole bunch of health issues and inflammation. I’ve suspected for years processed food is really more to blame for most people’s problems. But I never knew until very recently (when I began keto) that fructose was so problematic, being only metabolised in the liver.

But then, longer back in my family tree, were mostly fishermen and farmers, and they would have been eating pretty much how I am eating now, on carnivore, though unprocessed meat and dairy, probably a lot of game, possibly some seasonal fruit they could grow themselves, and some berries growing in the wild. And so I do think that does matter. My mother and her mother always believed in the benefits of consuming many fruits and vegetables, and shunned satured fat like the plague. I used to believe that too, although as a kid I was always tearing into the fattiest of meats as my father was big on meats. My mother would always shudder at the fat and cut it away. And later when I grew up I began to do the same. I shunned satured fat for many years. And consumed the recommended rainbow variety of fruits and vegetables. And ended up with chronic inflammation and cancer.

#251

Ouch. My Mom rarely ate meat but she ate HCHF as basically everyone. I didn’t even know low-fat is a thing in my first decades I think… (But I didn’t know being outside of gender binary is a thing until I turned 17 and had a more serious gender identity crisis than when I was a few years old… I realized things there pretty quickly :))
And Mom sometimes ate bread with pork fat tissue. (Ew. I liked my pork fat with pork meat, thank you very much. I don’t know why bread with lard is fine and dandy and bread with pork fat tissue isn’t…)
I am very thankful that while we ate high-carb, lots of sugar, lots of starches, sunflower oil and margarine (ew. Mom was a peasant girl when a kid, why she didn’t know better… maybe it’s not so simple where there is a huge pressure and little information), we ate high-fat with plenty of animal protein as well at least (we merely ate very little meat but lots of animal products). I can’t imagine HCLF wouldn’t be WAY worse for me than HCHF in the way I did. I had plenty of nutrients I am pretty sure and always felt quite healthy.
But then I went low-carb, keto, tried carnivore and it turned out there is better… I feel sorry for everyone (past me included) who don’t get triggered to try something that may be better than their original diet. Other options just wasn’t really around, very nearly everyone ate like us or worse, some didn’t eat meat, I consider that little difference (for me. as I ate very little meat and lots of animal fat and animal protein anyway)…

My anchestors were very healthy as far as I know. They ate everything but of course, sweet pastry wasn’t around just about any time even though it wasn’t a celebration thing, they baked moderately often. They were active and had good genetics I am sure, it helps. And except one very very healthy person, I don’t KNOW if they had some kind of problems inside that only they felt… But they definitely weren’t sickly and worked all their life in some way or other. Even an old men could handle a gaggle of kids if he had the right skills for it :wink: It was a great help! And the kids weren’t too bad, surely it couldn’t work with everyone, Mom talked how she could make them behave, they were so adorable to behave for such tiny rewards…

Very similar. It’s not like I ever was taught about nutrition… WHY? We have learned so much useless things in school. Though even experts have horrible ideas about nutrition now BUT some very, very basic facts, maybe? I knew nothing when I was a young adult.

Wow! It can’t be something very common. In general in the world, I mean. Peasants here always ate high-carb I am pretty sure. And the not quite poor ones ate a decent amount of fatty meat, eggs and fatty dairy (not 2.8% milk like the common one in the supermarkets. they got off some for sour cream or other fatty dairy items but they ate that too).
People are strongly encouraged to eat low-fat since some time now but they very much refused it until now. The same with vegetarianism, most people just won’t give up their (fatty) meat as it’s tasty, simple and surely there are zillion other reasons. Most of our traditional dishes are meaty and many people can’t imagine not eating those.

Can’t really blame them as it can be read EVERYWHERE since we are alive. It’s an extremely strong message and if you don’t know better and even if you just look at those lovely, juicy, natural enough delicious items, they look pretty innocent. I know non-animal carbs mess with me and STILL can’t look at vegs and fruits and see them wrong. They screaming nice and healthy :smiley: (Maybe the very sugary fruits less so. But still quite…) I just know they aren’t, for me, in more than tiny amounts. So they can’t fool me but I still look at them lovingly. We had a long, very loving relationship.

One good thing when one doesn’t get any nutrition education that I didn’t get such things either. No one told me that huge amounts of fat, eggs or saturated fat would be bad. Not like I would listened but maybe they could have influence me a tiny bit in my formative years…? I probably suspected that overeating wasn’t good but no one batted an eye, they even told me to eat more… Yeah, that’s a problem here.
I heard about eggs and cholesterol later (oh that old myth, still goes strong) but only here and there along with little fat and other crazy things, everyone around me ignored it. People eat lots of eggs, they are in cakes and traditional pasta and everything, egg dishes are popular too as they should ;). (I suspect Hungarians eat very, very much cakes and other sweet things. I just read a recipe and almost faint, they are SO FATTY, where they put away that energy? Into fat reserves, yep, it’s quite visible, I don’t want that. And it’s theoretically possible to eat little of it but if one makes some biscuits for their little family using 500g butter, well it’s not where one just eat a single one or two… Fine, maybe it’s just 250g for biscuits but 500g fat for thicker cakes is pretty normal. I just looked the numbers up, yes it is normal.
And that’s only the fat, of course the sugar is sky high too. And the starches but lots of recipes focus on fat and sugar and uses plenty of nuts and other oily seeds.)

At least you had that. And good that we have our instincts even without knowledge. We don’t know exactly what we need if we are lucky, we still get many things right. Eggs and dairy, I ate those galore all my life (except 1-2 years when I hated eggs and I was a vegetarian, HOW? shudder I felt fine as always). It’s good to have something I kept, almost completely vegetarian low-carb/keto -> carnivore-ish was a pretty big jump for me.

I couldn’t care less about the colors and no one could force me to eat leaves (except a few selected ones in moderation) but I got the rainbow for sure! I loved most vegs except the green leaves. Green peas for green, my little super delicious darlings, they almost completely disappeared some time on low-carb.
It wasn’t necessarily a problem. Get the rainbow but the amount matters a lot. But as plant carbs mess with me even in small amounts, I really should avoid them almost completely. But I don’t get the rainbow anymore except if you look at my whole year… I can imagine not eating purple vegs for months but why wouldn’t I? I don’t need ANY vegs nutrition wise. I may fancy a bit with my meat here and there. But vegs and fruits play little role in my nutrition. They are just little things for enjoyment.
Yeah, things changed, I finally read about nutrients and found things drastically different than what so-called experts said. But there were some facts that almost everyone agreed on. I have learned about carbs not being essential on a vegan site. It is simply such a big fact that only the worst or most delusional people (who knows anything about nutrition, not the average person whose nutrition “knowledge” is mostly bad myths) denies it. It’s just not something normal people read and hear about. No, it’s all about low-fat and eat lots of vegs and fruits, even weather forecast sites have the latter when weather gets “bad”.
I never cared about healthiness of vegs and fruits, they were irresistible to me so I ate them either way. But even that changed, yay.

(Robin) #252

I have not heard of there being a correlation between cancer and inflammation. I have heard that one indicator of cancer is often inflammation, as your body is trying to fight the cancer. But not that inflammation would be the causation.

#253

Hi Robin. I only really heard about that recently. It was Dr Fung in a video on his youtube channel who addressed this. He has also written a book called, if I’m not mistaken, the cancer code. Of course, just because he’s a kidney specialist doesn’t mean he’s a cancer specialist.
I’ve not read any of his books, but I have watched some of his youtube videoes addressing metabolic health. I believe he also thinks cancer could be due to metabolic damage, unless I’m remembering that wrong. I have a pretty rubbish memory. So much for the clarity I was hoping to achieve on this WOE, I suppose that in part at least could be Tamox.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #254

As far as I understand it, cancer and inflammation are related by having a common source: metabolic dysfunction. Insulin-resistance and hyperinsulinaemia cause a lot of different types of damage. The oncologist Thomas Seyfried believes that all cancers are caused by metabolic damage.

(Robin) #255

LOLOL Rubbish Memory is my middle name.

I dealt with my breast cancer before I found keto. Now, I would be researching the heck out of it and looking to my diet for answers. Never crossed my mind back then.

Now, I’m actually anxious for my next colonoscopy, just to see if there is a difference.

#256

Hi Robin. It is easy to give into thoughts of fear. Thoughts of what ifs … When I began my WOE I was concerned I’d be putting too much strain on my body. But my body welcomed it so much that the inflammation I’d been struggling with, the lipoedema pain went. So I thought, well it must be good then. I very quickly found my body leaning into carnivore, and at first I resisted it. Why? The fear carnivore would cause other kinds of cancers. But again, my body kept telling me it wanted to eat this way. Still, I resisted, trying to at least keep it keto, adding in this and that for variety.
Then I discovered a lump on the side of my chest where I’d had the mastectomy. And immediately I blamed my WOE and seriously considered adding back in as much variety as I could. I got the lump examined in the hospital and it was revealed on scan to be just a harmless cyst filled with water. My relief was so immense. And this was really the turning point for me, in deciding to no longer let fear control me
To trust my body’s instincts and enjoy my WOE with no more doubts. Because I now believe it is right for my body. Reading too much science (impossible to wrap one’s head around, and mostly biased) can be detrimental.
In the end eating intuitively I believe is the best way. That is not to say we can proclaim ourselves cured of everything and never go to another doctor’s visit. It’s always worth getting our health checked out. Best of luck with your colonoscopy.

(Robin) #257

Yep, we think alike. My body is WAY smarter than me1

#258

I know very little about cancer but I am pretty sure no woe can just make a lump in weeks… And why would one get cancer just because not having variety? Maybe you know something I don’t but it’s odd to me.

I think I always trusted my body, it’s my body, it knows best what it is good to it (though I think not everyone has such a smart one or the communication isn’t right, maybe something interferes… but I still trust MINE), it’s another matter I clinged to joyful things and freedom and whatever… Sometimes my mind and body wanted somewhat different things (even if my mind knew it isn’t ideal, it wanted it. probably all people here knows the feeling). They are more aligned now but I needed some training and practice and somewhat changed preferences. I don’t desire the same things I once did. So it’s not I say NO smartly, I just don’t get tempted like before. (I still have worse moments so room for improvement.)
But the original situation was already not too bad for me. It still takes a lot of time to find my sweet spot :frowning: So many things to try, so many slightly problematic desires to change… I am good at struggling with tiny pebbles in my way :frowning: No major ones just something isn’t quite right and I don’t get my results.

I can’t really interpret that. Our body doesn’t always tell us explicitly what it wants. If it’s inexperienced, it may be totally confused so it’s useful to have some knowledge, idea, experiment to try…
Sometimes mine wants to stop being hungry, it’s the worst. It doesn’t want any food, just no hunger. But it’s smart. It just have these quirks sometimes… I usually can handle it at this point. So that’s it, sometimes it tells me what it wants, vaguely (“food!”) or not, sometimes I need to do all the decisions and usually we work together to figure out what to do.
I definitely don’t follow some plan without listening to my body, it would be unnatural.

#259

Hi Shinita. I think there is a balance between eating intuitively and also having a bit of knowledge. The problem is when that knowledge is derived from a lot of biased science and studies which then interfers with common sense. My knowledge was very basic when I first began eating ketogenically.

My very basic grasp of the WOE was: 1) Insulin must fall and stay low in order to heal metabolic damage. 2) Fructose is problematic, being only metabolised in the liver. 3) Saturated fats actually protect the heart instead of putting it in danger.

And this was a very good place to start from. It was simple. Solution to metabolic damage? Cut the carbs. Easy. I cut them first to 20, then 10, and my appetite and palate changing along the way, I lost interest in carbs and plants and began swinging more towards carnivore.

Then it got complicated. I discovered there is so much conflicting information. I was initially interested in IF/EF, but read fasting could cause proliferation of cancer cells and so, because of my medical history, decided against it. Then I researched carnivore and discovered of course both very negative opinions about it as well as positive. Unfortunately we human beings tend to focus on the negative. If that wasn’t true newspapers wouldn’t sell, and noone would be paying much attention to mass media. So any negative opinion, observation is noticed. And of course several articles regarding both keto and carnivore swing that way. Such negative impact is very potent for someone who went into keto/carnivore for health reasons rather than weightloss. There is a lot of prying on the people who seek solutions to their health problems, resulting in them being tugged in any which way.

But in the end, after all this, and yes a lot of time was wasted during this interval in worrying, second guessing, over-analyzing, I just decided to give my body what it wants. Carnivore. My MIL was shocked when I told her about my WOE, and still is very doubtful, but she at least said last time we spoke that I am looking well. She eats a high carb, very low fat diet, drinks skimmed milk and eats margerine. She refers to vegan and vegetarian food as healthy and how I eat, well she’d rather not say anything about, lol. My mum too wasn’t happy when I told her I went carnivore, and adviced me to eat a variety of fruit and vegetables. My SO supports me in my WOE which means a lot.

As we are swayed by opinions, both of strangers, so-called experts and also family members, we are prone to doubt, that is only human. So I have resolved to just listen to my body. As to what you say about the body sometimes not being hungry, that happens to me too. And then I don’t eat, if I am feeling good, but if the body is also showing signs of needing more energy, I feed it regardless. So I judge on how I physically feel. I eat to satiety without weighing anything, measuring macros. I don’t do IF/EF, I simply don’t have the energy for that.

I was drawn to my WOE because of my love of simplicity. My SO thinks it’s odd how I can just eat the same things not wishing for variety. Well, I don’t. A daily plate of eggs and bacon. A couple coffees with cream. Some chunks of meat and cheese. Fish on some days. A couple cups of green tea. And I’m happy.

#260

I can’t do much with that as candy, the worst kind of subpar booze and a cheesy omelet is all vegetarian… “Vegetarian diet”, it only says that one doesn’t eat the kind of animal products that directly comes from harming an animal body (it’s surely not exact enough but I hope you know what vegetarian is, to a great extent).
It may be super unhealthy and very healthy (for the one in question, not for everyone, there is no such diet). It may be super fatty (mine was that, I surely ate more fat as a high-carber vegetarian than on carnivore most of the time) or not at all. I ate high-protein from animal sources when a vegetarian while most probably don’t.
I know vaguely what is the common, stereotypic vegetarian diet BUT one can do it way, way worse - or way better for the ones who needs high-fat high-protein as I seem :wink:

I see no problem with a good, healthy vegetarian diet. Mine wasn’t quite that, not even on keto but it’s because my body feels best on extreme low-carb (at least plant carbs wise). It may be wonderful for others, even a HCLF one. Or a HCHF one but it has a bad reputation, I suppose few people can pull it off well…
Amount of carbs is one thing, it matters very much what the carbs are. My SO changed that part drastically, cut out sugar, kept starches, doesn’t buy overprocessed stuff (he mostly eats food we cook from simple ingredients)… Even his sweets are home-made and not even remotely as sweet as candy from the stores are (cutting out sugar changes things). He run out of his sweetener and now he simply eats sweets without sweetener as well (with fruit, he isn’t me, he needs something sweet). They already barely contained any… Compare that to some vegetarian eating chocolate and sugary biscuits as I did at 17 (I ate lots of good food, sure, I got my nutrients but I got lots of unnecessary and bad things as well)… And all the sugary soups, main dishes and pastries… My poor past me. I felt well and healthy and very, very satiated (except when getting hungry, that was often way sharper than now) but it still couldn’t be all good.

I am all for finding our own best possible woe :slight_smile:

It’s actually SOME variety :wink: Especially if the meat isn’t always the same cut from the same kind of animal :wink: But I know what is it to like one cut and eating it almost every day :smiley: I need other items but strongly depending on my 2-3 fav pork cuts? That’s easy. They just don’t get boring easily. Only if overdo them but with so many meat options, eggs and little dairy, it’s not a real concern, usually. My top fav items are lovely every time, no matter how often I eat them. See eggs. I eat them very, very nearly for every meal and usually not just 1-2, since 10+ years. And I NEED them, love them… They aren’t as fun as pork but useful.
“Eggs” - even that offers a big variety though not enough and not perfect nutritionally, good thing I eat meat too :smiley: But it adds variety as one can make them into so many very different dishes, drinks, soft ones, firm ones, some are even crispy! I need variety regarding texture and eggs help a lot with it. And meats are totally different with their fibers =)
I try to do something with my spices now but I just… Don’t really need them. Maybe if I have some old lean dried out meat or tasteless chicken. But good meat, a pan and some salt? Perfection. Even if I eat it for the zillionth time in the last year.

(Robin) #261

I eat the same thing over and over again… love it.