Thanks for all the replies, guys. I haven't tried the butter snacks yet, Psyche. I'll give it a go. Spoonfuls of coconut oil have been my go-to, but like I said before, I try to avoid nuts in general. Maybe I'll pick up some almonds/almond butter since they never seemed to bother me before.
Laura said:
I don't think you should lower your protein until you have healed your gut. In fact, I think that protein reduction should sorta come naturally: if your gut is healed, your body gets the nutrients it needs, it turns off the hunger switch. So you know that your gut is healed when you naturally eat less.
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So, potassium and fish oil.
Then, do work on the gut healing with L-glutamine and colostrum. I think this is something Dugdeep needs to attend to in a serious way, too. He may need to keep his proteins higher while the gut heals. (And so may others!)
OK, I'm upping my protein a bit again. I do think I was eating too much of it previously, but dropping right down to 25g/meal was obviously not right for me. I had naively thought that since I was able to incorporate eggs into my diet again, my gut must be healed. This is obviously not the case.
I have been doing high dose fish oil and potassium (about 160-200mg from various sources) and have been doing lots of water. I've also been starting each day with 5g of l-glutamine. Haven't got the colostrum or lactoferrin yet. I'll grab them today.
Gertrudes said:
Also, I do consider that even though there is a guideline, we have to account for individual differences, in other words, we should probably use the guidelines but with margin for flexibility. For example, according to BMI charts, I should be weighting 13kg more. There is no way whatsoever I could ever reach that.
Yes I think this is a good point. Some of us may have higher protein needs. I could very well have leaky gut issues or some sort of hidden damage somewhere that's making me require more protein. I think I was getting too much before, and this whole exercise has been useful to see what the eventual protein goal is. I'm going to cut down significantly from what I was eating, keep the fat high and the carb low and make sure I'm getting enough protein to keep from feeling hungry.
Trevrizent said:
Feeling hungry may be a sign of needing more fluid intake (seem to recall this either from a thread here or from reading it in one of the books (Fiber Menace?)), taking on board more fluid will also give a feeling of fullness. The time between my three meals is now more regular.
I'm drinking a lot of water, so I don't think this is the issue, but thanks Trevizent.
Psyche said:
It also seems to me that you were eating too much carbs as in fruits and others in the past (it is so easy to be a carb junkie!), so your transition should be a difficult one.
I guess this is a possibility. I was experimenting with high fruit intake at one point before Laura told me to knock it off
. I'm wondering now if all the excess protein I was eating was just a way to replace sugar. I think I was, and am, in ketosis (I was showing ketones in the urine, when I was still measuring), but could I have still been a sugar burner even though I was eating extremely low carbs (many days 0 carbs)? I don't know.
Gandalf said:
I could have written what you have just written dugdeep.
And I even don't know anymore what to eat for a snack when I hike or ride my bike.
I used to eat a lot of carbs when I was doing these two activities but since I have cut on my carbs, I have not found something to replace that for the moment. Still experimenting.
Glad to know I'm not suffering alone, Gandalf :). The first thing I thought of when you mentioned hiking and biking was jerky. Have you tried that? I think I might try to get some of this myself - it might be a good way to go for snacks. Adding fat somehow would probably be key.
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This morning I cooked up a 1lb (raw, bone in) pork chop in lard, fried up some mushrooms, onions and celery in a whole lot of ghee and added a couple of teaspoons of pesto to make a nice fatty sauce. As an experiment, I ate until I felt sated. I ended up eating about 2/3 of it, but probably could have stopped earlier. I slurped up the rest of the fat that was there and put the remaining meat in the fridge for later.
This was probably too much protein, about 70g or so, so I know I can't necessarily just leave things to instinct. Years of eating "every last bite" on my plate have likely programmed me to go beyond what I actually need. There is no question I have "food issues," or what I beleive Don Juan called "food anxiety." So much so that my entire career has centered on food (I was a chef for a number of years and then became a nutritionist. Jeez). Looking back on how I was freaking out last night, I wonder about how much of that was a reflection of the predator freaking out about being cut off from his food supply.
This is worth exploring more, but for now I need to get to work :). Sorry for the length of this post and thanks a lot for all of the input everyone.
