Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?
Carl said:
It sounds most likely to be that, yeah. Thing is, before and after the protocol I had lost weight down to <61kg purposely in order to give my digestion a break and get rid of excess fat that may have been contributing to hormonal issues. I got rather skinny especially after the protocol, have started trying to eat a lot and gain weight since, lifting 3x a week and working on stress management.
I take 2-3 caps of HCL, 1-2 caps of enzymes with meals and Ox Bile with fat bombs, but I never reach the burning feeling and am thinking that I might need even more (which would be expensive!). I still get sluggish and foggy-headed after meals (even with just meat/fat bomb).
I had a long period of either not eating enough so that I didn't feel foggy/feel like I was going to fall asleep at work, but would keep loosing weight (I went down to 55kg at my lowest), or eat large meals to keep my weight steady (at the time it wouldn't go up, and exercise would cause weight to go down) and just accept I was going to fall asleep and be foggy for hours afterwards.
If I remember correctly a few things changed this.
The first one was the MTHFR protocol.
The second was berberine (I see that the 10 day protocol includes it). It healed my gut better than anything else (heck I didn't know it wasn't healed), and balanced my blood sugar (again I didn't know it wasn't balanced as I wasn't testing it).
So it seems my body was in sugar burning (breaking down muscle for sugar) mode - ever notice an amonia smell, especially on waking?
The berberine and MTHFR protocol helped kick me into fat burning mode, and I gained some fat and muscle. Heavy lifting exercise was important here too.
After that was looking into the stress/cortisol connection. Which helped a bit.
Did/do you have to take large quantities of HCL or bile still, or has it evened itself out?
Lastly I added the HCL, b6, zinc, selenium and carnitine. Mostly to try and get my glutathione levels up.
My need for HCL dropped off after introducing the zinc etc and seems pretty stable now. I can't take HCL without it causing my intestines to react - I'll get to that, but it seems to be sulphur related.
Well I don't need an excuse for a steak ;) Why no spinach? While we're on the subject, I eat a lot of green beans and broccoli with my meals when in work, to soak up more fat. Could broccoli perhaps be an issue?
I have been taking carnitine throughout for it's use in fat oxidation and also increasing androgen receptor density (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16826026) so may not notice a difference there.
Give the rare steak a go and see what your energy does. There is active forms of B12, folate, carnisine and carnitine in the meat which get destroyed by cooking.
Why no spinach? I tend to react badly to it - lots of pain/fatigue. This may have changed but I haven't tested it yet.
Broccoli may be a problem because it's a high sulphur food.
Too much sulphur in food or too much HCL (which is sulphuric acid) produce the same results for me, digestive problems followed by fatigue.
Taking the GG probiotics as well as a whole bunch of soil based probiotics helped fix some of this, so did the berberine.
The MTHFR protocol apparently helps unload your body of stored sulphur too (I need to check if I have a CBS/SOUX mutation), and I do notice my capacity to handle sulphur containing food has increased.
I posted about a connection to crones/fibromyalga and the type of gut bacteria you have somewhere on the forum. The difference between remission or not was related to sulphur reducing bacteria in the gut - can't remember if they where high/low in those in remission or not.
So just to check my understanding is correct I hit google:
https://www.paleohacks.com/paleo/sulfur-intolerance-aka-poor-sulfur-oxidation-ever-heard-of-it-6702
Sulfur intolerance is a misnomer. Most with this issue have a problem with foods with a high level of free thiol groups. It also tends to walk hand and hand with Hg toxicity and Selenium deficiency and severe thyroid dysfunction.
The thiol groups allow the Hg to become free in vivo and cause the symptoms. The food does not have to have high sulfur levels to cause this. The most common causes of this in the USA are coffee and chocolate in my experience.
The diagnosis is suspected in those with high Mercury levels. Chelation is the best treatment for this.
We used to have an easy screening test called a plasma cysteine test but it is no longer available to my knowledge. So now you have to do a sulfur exclusion test. Pain in the ass too. In the old days when plasma cysteine was up we would just put you on glutamine and glycine supplements and this would convert the cysteine to glutathione in vivo and it worked real well.
The real reason this is a big issue for paleo folks is many of the foods advocated in paleo 1.0 books have to be eliminated due to the sulfur intolerance. For example, and milk of any kind, kale, sauerkraut, artichokes, eggs, cream, turmeric, spinach, whey, garlic broccoli, cauliflower, onions and all cheeses of any sort.
Kinda sucks.
The rest of the thread goes into other elements, from mutation to parasites and bacteria.
I've run several heavy metal tests with no hint of mercury (or any other heavy metals), so I wonder if it's locked up somewhere.
DMSA didn't phase me at all (I noticed no difference taking it). EDTA/ALA gives me a general energy boost though.
Probably explains why the selenium is helping, perhaps it was just a deficiency in that?