more fat/calories in the diet IS working better!

After the decades of low-cal dieting that i did, it's psychologically VERY hard to increase the amount i eat.  When i'm eating a ketogenic diet, making progress, and experiencing the lack of hunger i do, it's VERY tempting to take the energy intake lower.  This, however, is a big mistake.

Whether it's because i have a "weak" thyroid to begin with or merely normal response to under-feeding, going too low in energy-intake quickly puts me in "conservation mode."  Lowering intake further -- no matter what the CICO-promoters think -- also lowers fat-burning by the body.  (This SHOULD be good news for some of the obese bloggers we know, but they're so invested in their paradigm they're not even willing to trade their egos for improved health.)

My husband derived determination and inspiration from the LC cruise seminars, and when we got home last month we started applying some new techniques to our diet-and-lifestyle practices.  We procured a blood-ketone meter and found that our ordinary LC diets didn't get us to the range recommended by Phinney and Volek.  Using recipes from the "Fat Fast Cookbook" (adding to our regular regimen, not doing A fat-fast), we managed to raise our fat intake from sixty-something to eighty-something percent of energy, and this has done the trick.  We're BOTH losing.

Additionally, i find that by eating to appetite, i'm not taking in enough food to convince my body it can afford to "waste" fat to fuel me adequately.  Upon the 1200-1400 kcal/day intake, WHICH SATISFIES MY APPETITE AMPLY, my body prefers to being in starvation mode.  When i ADD TO my desired intake by drinking bulletproof-recipe coffee in the morning and consuming a very high-fat dessert, i DO lose.  At a moderate-protein, VLC, VHF level of eating, the body is willing to burn body-fat generously at 2000 kcal -- for me, this is astonishing.

Not only am i writing this as a progress report for a pair of overweight middle-agers, but as a refutation of the confusing information provided to mature women by young male paleos on sites like facebook.  The LAST thing new female low-carbers need is input from half-informed individuals about how little an obesity-resistant representative of an entirely different demographic has to do to achieve success!

one mechanism

When weight loss slows or plateaus, my instinct is to read all sorts of articles/chapters of books on the subject, just to encourage myself, clean up my "technique" and reinforce my will to succeed.  Thus i often read things online which could be considered just confirmation of what i already know, by way of a pep-talk ... but i never know if i'm going to come across something new or especially-inspiring.  I'm sure i've read a lot of THIS info before, but this time i was ripe to appreciate a particular aspect of it.

One of the (many) ways we see the basic CICO concept fall on its ass is where isocaloric diets differentiating between low- and high-carb arms show significantly different fat-loss results.  And one of the (many) ways low-carb diets "waste" calories lies in the process of gluconeogenesis -- turns out, 100 grams of protein convert to only 57 grams of glucose!  That's some pretty impressive inefficiency!

But that's not the mechanism i was referring to.  The one that "turned on the lights" for me just now is the fact that alcohol use INHIBITS gluconeogenesis.  I had observed that i could still lose weight on my ultra-LC regimen with one glass of wine with brunch and dinner, but beyond that it was (if i may coin a phrase) orvieto-land -- that CITY ON A PLATEAU [evil grin].

I already knew that for the best weight-loss results it helps to stay strictly on the wagon.  Just a reminder, then....

no dieting allowed!

Shortly after i started the blog, i also started a notepad document where i compiled ideas for postings and references for later reading (and possible comment).  There are a sluagh* of items on different subjects, but most center on hypothyroidism, which is by far my biggest health hurdle.  I occasionally review my previous notations when i add something to them; sometimes i'm not ripe to appreciate them when i write them down, and i AM, later.

Today i followed a link i discovered some time ago, and it has put me onto a tangent i can believe in.  It speaks of the deiodinases which convert T4 to 3 (and also to rT3), and D1 is shorthand for the deiodinase which contributes largely to SYMPTOMATIC hypothyroidism when it's in reduced supply.  One's T4 can be in an acceptable range, and peripheral T3 can be too low as a result.  There's quite a laundry-list of things which inhibit our D1....

The conclusions drawn in the article are NOT what i find interesting here.  THEY say, because of the actions of these Ds, to be healthy the patient's TSH number is immaterial and if there's not enough free T3 ... GIVE 'EM MORE DRUGS!  We want our DRUUUUUUGGGGS!!!  MO-O-O-O-ORE TEE-THREEEEEE!!!!!

As they say down in Texas -- sheeee-YIT!  I know people want to feel normal, but did it never occur to them that the body is dialing down on thyroid conversion for a reason?

A few of the things that suppress D1 (and which they discussed in the article) are:

• physiologic and emotional stress; 
• depression; 
• dieting; 
• weight gain and leptin resistance; 
• insulin resistance, obesity and diabetes; 
• inflammation from autoimmune disease or systemic illness; 
• chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia; 
• chronic pain; and 
• exposure to toxins and plastics.

Taking the T3 to normalize physiological processes while the causes of reduced D1 are tackled is obviously very supportive to the patient.  But taking the supplement and not addressing the ROOT CAUSES is just plain dumb.  This goes back to my objection to looking for "temporary relief, indefinitely"!

The body OBVIOUSLY wants us to slow down when these destabilizing causes are in action!  It wants us to fix what's the matter, not carry on as if nothing were wrong.  Remove the poisons, heal the injuries, outwear the stressor while getting extra rest, increase omega3 and hang around upbeat friends to help inflammation and mood, and ... FGS stop calorie-restricted dieting!

One thing i find marvelous about LCHF is that i'm "never" hungry.  Assuming i eat the right foods, i can eat to fullness in two to three meals, i'm not tempted to snack, and i don't gain weight.  I just CAN'T consume those "excess" calories that CICO-enthusiasts are so fond of condemning -- there's no room.  Entering my intake in FitDay reveals to me that while eating this way, i spontaneously eat from 1200 to 2200 calories per day, with between half and three-quarters of them from fats.  I guess some people would call that low end "calorie restricted" but since i'm not consciously trying to do so, and it doesn't happen every day, i don't believe it would be accurate to call it CR.

Apparently, a thyroid-challenged person HAS to find non-toxic foods that will satisfy without causing her/him to gain, if T3 values are to remain within an acceptable range.  And while i would object to telling hypothyroids "don't diet!" if they have excess fat that is burdening their systems, i know damn well that choosing a reducing diet careful is in their best interests!  ... I also hope that they'll exercise reasonable skepticism about the absurd promotion of a LFHC diet for their condition!
_____
* while trying to ascertain the proper spelling of "sloo" -- whether it's slough or slew -- dictionary.com informed me that this americanism derived from an irish word.  therefore i'll honor the source by spelling the original way.  erin go bragh!  ;-)

interpersonal variability

[sigh]  THIS is what weight-loss experts and obesity researchers just don't want to know about.  And IT'S OUT THERE!!!

... I almost feel as though i should say, "He's coming for you, Barbara!" -- quick, name that quote!  ;-)  Okay, it's out of my system.  And now i've caught up on my Monday morning reading and am ready to start using my brain again ... if i can.

If you read people's life- and weight-histories with an open, inquiring mind, you will be struck by some interesting points:  person A and person B may have a huge amount in common, and nevertheless have very different experiences with the same diet and supplements.  Person A gets a simple energy boost from tyrosine, but B and C get uncomfortably wired with it.  Person C on the other hand likes the effect of carnitine better while A feels it a drag on her thyroid function.  Person B cannot seem to tolerate ZC but C loves it and A doesn't find it necessary.  C likes fasting, A does not.  ... I could go on and on.

PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT, which is why there will never be one perfect food regimen for everybody.  Perhaps it DOES boil down to microbiota and epigenetics.  Those Self-Proclaimed Experts on Weight (SPEWers for short) at this point begin to deride those who don't fit the middle of the bell-curve, accusing them of considering themselves unique snowFLAKES and fragile flowers, and they are absolutely 100% fucking WRONG.

This may be why they cling so tightly to CICO (which most people consider significant though not necessarily definitive) -- their mind-set REQUIRES truisms or they become so psychologically uncomfortable that the world becomes untenable.  I hope a little more evolving will get them to the point that LIFE, that sea of uncertainty we inhabit, will no longer be required to conform to their mold!  Their kind of thinking is what brought on the heresy-seeking inquisitions of history, and we know how well they turn out.  Pogrom, anyone?

VARIABILITY:  it exists.  Live with it.

calories are good (from the right sources)

After decades of trying to minimize the number we can be satisfied with, in the course of a day, i find myself a delighted contrarian on the subject now.  Who'd'a' thunk it?

Calories, carbs, fat-grams, points -- it seems to help people focus on what they're doing, to have something to count.  In fact it's an old esoteric secret, using something that's merely emblematic to focus concentration where it's needed to do a job (think voodoo doll, or an icon, mandala or candle-flame).  Also, measuring things and mathematical gymnastics are "scientific" tools that help us to feel that what we're doing is based on solid, reliable FACT, rather than the shockingly-bad ideas which have gifted us with the "obesity epidemic."

It's easy for me and my contemporaries to remember back, and see how things have changed in the diet-and-health realm.  When i was a child, there were darned few "fat kids" in our school; nobody but "health nuts" went out of their way to get exercise, and yet before the age of menopause/andropause few people were particularly overweight.  These were the days when everybody ate white bread and drank whole milk, we weren't afraid of sugar, our home and school meals were full of fats AND carbs, and the only reason we used margarine in our house was because it was significantly cheaper than butter and we weren't very well off.

My kids, however, grew up in a society in which we were rather afraid of eating the "wrong" foods.  In search of health, their generation has enjoyed a surprising lack of it:  obesity, diabetes, infertility, mental disorders, ... i don't know where to stop.  Suffice it to say, our dietary changes seem to have wrought a sad result -- all in the hopes of IMPROVING health.  :-(

So here we are today, struggling to fix the damage done by the mistaken or greed- or fanatically-inspired diet advice of the last half-century.  It's truly and disgustingly absurd how we have clung to some of the most archaic, simplistic non-science -- like the obsession with calories.  Ironically, the Mephistopheles of my dietary-morality play, Ancel Keys, did a piece of early work which shines a beacon of brilliance upon this murky subject.  The "starvation study" showed that low calorie intakes (higher than a lot of diet plans dictate) caused some nasty psychological effects, as well as other health issues.  Calorie restriction was pretty well proven to be a bad idea -- yet that is the CONSTANT advice one is given for weight loss, improved health AND longevity.

For millions of years nobody counted calories, and the human race thrived and multiplied.  Then suddenly people started paying attention to the situation in large numbers, and the situation went straight to hell.  To me, this is just confirmation that whenever mankind sticks meddling fingers into natural processes, we fuck it up.  Science thinks it knows a lot more than it really does -- be skeptical of its sweeping pronouncements!

So ignore calories!  The only good use for paying attention to them is in making sure you're getting ENOUGH FAT.  YES.  This is opposite everything we learned before ... but we can all see where THAT idea has gotten us.

better losing through chemistry -- not physics

This post is for my daughter.  She's getting to the age when it's becoming more difficult to lose weight.  She, too, isn't far from her goal, and of course losing the LAST five or ten pounds is trickier than the FIRST ones.

So, baby, it's time to dump the CICO (calories in, calories out) meme!

Because of the fact that it's possible to starve off weight, it's gotten stuck in people's heads that all you have to do is reach that golden imbalance of calories and the weight HAS to come off.  It's only logical -- IF you approach biology from the perspective of physics.  Big mistake.  Weight, or should i say, FAT loss is much better approached from the perspective of chemistry -- BIOCHEMISTRY to be exact.  Because a mammalian body does not work like a calorimeter in a laboratory.

Different macronutrients (fats, proteins, carbohydrates) set off different enzymatic and hormonal responses as they're digested.  In fact, a lot of disagreement exists about macronutrients ... to the point that some people don't like to use that concept at all.  Corn oil and coconut oil perform VERY differently in the body -- the former encourages weight gain and ill health while the latter does just the opposite.  The two major proteins in dairy products, whey and casein, have individual affects which are practical mirror-images of each other, but work well in tandem (if they're not screwed up by pasteurization).  "Cellular" and "acellular" carbohydrates can basically be described as good and problematic, respectively ... especially for people who have our genetic heritage (easily fattened).

I can't begin to describe all the biochemical cascades that happen when we eat different types of foods, but the short version is, it's best to minimize blood-sugar spikes both in number and intensity, for the sake of fat loss and for general health.  To accomplish this, fewer meals/snacks per day with a low glycemic load in each is desirable.  It's also a good idea to take fewer carbs early in the day, and the lion's share of your daily ration in the evening, for various reasons.

Although the simplest form of CICO is "dead," that doesn't mean you can completely pig out so long as your carb count is low -- this is the secret of successful low-carbing that an awful lot of people don't seem to realize.  If you're eating the right kinds of foods (not low-carb junk food), they'll fill you up and satisfy you at a surprisingly low calorie count, and your appetite won't drive you crazy, as it will on a low-fat-low-cal diet.

So eat to appetite, from a menu list of whole real foods:  meat, eggs, cheese, avocados, olives, butter, coconut oil, and colorful vegetables, and properly-prepared pickles are your friends.  Eat things like nuts mindfully, because they can add up fast.  Ditto for low-carb baked goods, nut butters, and the denser starchy/sugary vegetables like carrots and beets.  Use fruits with caution, as you would any source of sugar.  Discrimination in your condiments is a MUST.

...I think that's enough for today!  :-)

another reason people love ELMM

...Not only is it SIMPLE and intuitive, ELMM provides self-aggrandizement to those who flock to its banners.

I was just reading Dr. Sharma's post for today, and it hit me:  it's all about oneupsmanship!  ***I*** am not overweight and you are, therefore ***I*** am a better person because ***I*** control my appetite and have the WILLPOWER to get off my butt and EXERCISE!

Now, THIS is not an original idea, but rather sad; an awful lot of people have been so misled by modern entertainment and pop-psychology that they feel they have to be special somehow, and the best way to do that is to make somebody else "lesser."  It's finally considered uncivilized to do this in an across-the-board fashion with race, "handicap" and gender, but those with a high-school-level brain (whether or not they have their PhDs) still bolster their self-importance by means of artificial logical arguments ... like ELMM.

(So how do i explain those who insist on the relevance of ELMM, but are still overweight?  Hmmmm....)

;-)

back to (ab)normality

The long weekend went by with limited havoc to my body, and once again i restart my "normal" eating patterns with relief and pleasure.  I breakfasted at 10 with a big patty of grassfed ground beef and coffee, and will dine probably in the late afternoon with a beautiful thick ribeye steak (no bone, alas).  By tomorrow morning, i hope the puffiness in my hands and feet will have disappeared -- i got pretty badly dehydrated one day, and am still feeling the effects of it.

One reason occurs to me why fasting is such an attractive concept to low-carbers and paleoids:  you get the "new diet enthusiasm" from time to time in a rather painless fashion!  I was envisioning how i would be eating today -- how i USED to eat regularly when actively watching my weight, which was pretty much ever since i was 23.

It was low-calorie, and therefore low-fat, and therefore UNSATISFYING.  For about the first three days of any new regimen, one had a great deal of enthusiasm, because the easy weight poured off (literally, down the toilet), and the novelty made it INTERESTING.  I'd start every new diet with a great deal of hope -- THIS ONE has got to be the right one!  Ah, the endorphins....

About a week in, it's not nearly so interesting anymore, and the "hunger" starts becoming a problem.  I say "hunger" rather than HUNGER, because my belly could be full of chicken or fish and vegetables -- LOTS of vegetables -- and yet i'd be pacing around the house trying to stay out of the refrigerator....  Not that there was BUTTER in there, or bacon, or anything my body was nagging me for, but anything that might fill the nutritional void.

I'll actually say what i've thought so many times over the last couple of years -- OMG, if i only knew then what i know now....

But those first three days of a new diet WERE exciting.  I read and re-read the philosophical chapters (and recipe sections) of books, and of course they all MADE SENSE ... they just weren't descriptive of how a body actually works.  CICO "makes sense" but it isn't that easy to make it "go."  Coupled systems and unintended consequences, you know.

Fasting seems to bring back a bit of that old excitement.  We know that all kinds of little invisible changes are happening -- our bodies are gobbling up those little useless proteins that are floating around, using glycogen storage, up-regulating enzymes we need for fat-burning, that sort of thing.  If we're ketone-adapted already, we don't even feel any particular hunger.  On Labor Day, my husband and i cooked and cleaned and shopped, and didn't even notice that we ate nothing that day till early evening.

I've never really felt impelled to do the alternate-day fasting, but eating in a 6-8 hour window comes naturally to me, so long as i'm eating the right foods.  This fits in beautifully with the default diet i've adopted, a personalized version of the Strong Medicine regimen.  Two to three meals a day, comprising 16-18 oz. of animal-protein foods total, and no plant-source carbs till evening, if then.

Back on my diet today -- ah, what a relief!  There's nothing like eating what you really want to.

but you CAN'T count 'em

More and more people are saying, in the low-carb world, that calories still count.  In an abstract way, you can't argue with the logic -- if, over time, your intake of energy is less than what your body burns or excretes, you can't help but lose weight ... and the opposite scenario works, too.

The sooner people are disabused of the idea that they can eat endless quantities of fatty foods (as long as they're low-carb) and still lose weight, the better.  It seems typical that SOME of us get carried away with tricky stuff like heavy cream and nut-based baked goodies....  To reach our goals, a LITTLE self-restraint seems inevitable.

But as Pal Jabek once said, although calories count, don't bother to count them.  I would change that maxim a bit, myself -- energy-balance counts, but there ain't no way on god's earth you can measure it without a great deal of time, money (a metabolic chamber can't be cheap, nor endless blood-tests), and expertise.  Calorie tables, and the amount your treadmill says you're burning, are bullshit -- both being notorious for telling you what you want to hear:  the low end of the truth in the first case, and the upper end in the other.

Biology just doesn't seem to work like math and physics, but has the subtlety and "surprise" of chemistry.  Perhaps the people who cling to CICO are those who want to force the numbers to do what they want done?  A left-brain/right-brain situation?  :-)  I'll leave it to our psychology-savvy friends to illuminate us, there.

The compromises we make for the sake of success don't seem that tricky.  We don't HAVE to eat our coconut-flour pancakes in the form of a chunk of raw coconut beside a couple of plain eggs as some purists would have us do, nor should we have to forgo cream cheese because it's "processed."  But chowing down on the equivalent of a cupful of nuts (easy to do when they're ground up), or drinking a whole glass of cream seems like TOO MUCH of a good thing, to me.

theory and practice

The important thing, in so many different areas and on so many different levels is ... what WORKS?

That's what my blog is all about.  Doesn't matter what the researchers (and dilettantes) philosophize -- if theory (actually, hypothesis) doesn't fit what happens in real life, it ain't true.  And i'm not calling genetically-engineered rodents "real life."  For flesh-and-blood humans who want to shed a few pounds, what WORKS?

What kind of alternate universe do some "scientists" inhabit?  My guess is, it's one where there are no actual physical NEEDS -- just ***ideas*** tra la la....

How many times has a certain philosophy "made sense" and yet turned out to be 180-degree WRONG?  [cough **lipid hypothesis** cough...]  "Just logical" reasoning put us in the position we now inhabit:  ELMM!  CICO!

Raspberries.  The shoe doesn't fit.

still benefitting from the magic, a tribute, and more

I am completely flabbergasted by the way "Strong Medicine" is STILL working.  If you follow Dr. Donaldson's directions perfectly, you lose weight at a steady predictable rate.  If you occasionally make a minor diversion, you MAY do even better. 

Yesterday, my porky breakfast was overlarge, and my lunch appetite didn't appear; i varied things up with half a small acorn squash with butter and a couple of ounces of sake in mid-afternoon.  Then i had my freshly-crockpotted chuck roast for supper (without the coffee) ... and found myself down a WHOLE pound this morning.

Why, in the names of all the gods at once, is this book not still in print?!  I'm forever in the debt of that dear lady, H, who recommended it -- and i'm going to change the template of my post in her honor, because she mentioned the current one bothers her eyes!

***
So far, today has already been stellar in the blogging world, with Pal Jabekk and Zoe Harcombe contributing intelligent, fact-rich, applicable-in-vivo-as-well-as-in-theory articles.  One can read a long time without picking up stuff that one can actually USE.... 

As a matter of fact, Mr. Jabekk wrote a very good essay last year, on the subject of "setpoint theory" which i agree with intellectually as well as through experience.  I've always HATED the acceptance this HYPOTHESIS has so long enjoyed, as it's absolutely unfathomable by my "instincts of rightness" ... or call it "intuition"!  Sorry, but when my subconscious mind puts the brakes on believing in something, i've learned (over 56 years) that it pays to heed it!

Enjoy the rest of the weekend, everyone!

appetite still down

The scale read 3/4 pounds lower AGAIN today -- not that i'm complaining!  :-)   I DO find it exceptionally interesting.

It has occurred to me recently, how artificial are our eating cues these days.  If a paleo/primal outlook should do anything, it's to bring to our attention what natural human behavior really is, and how we have perverted it.  Not only is WHAT we're eating out-of-phase with the natural:  HOW we're eating is just plain WARPED.

     "I'll eat when i'm hungry, i'll drink when i'm dry,
         and if the moonshine don't kill me, i'll live till i die!"

:-D

Except ... we DON'T.  We eat by the clock, and we eat what is lying around handy, and we try to eat as much as we can get away with.  WHY?  Why do we feel compelled to eat when we're not hungry?  If a certain foodstuff is labelled "healthy," why do we feel like we have to consume it, even if we don't have an urge to do so?

The ancient peoples whose health and fitness we want to duplicate would not feel inclined to find something to eat if they were already satisfied, unless it were stuffing on fruit in autumn, to put on weight to last the winter (which is apparent from our disinclination to stop eating glucose-supplying foods when we once start).  The other day, when i was overfilling myself on meat, this was a prominent thought.  As an experiment, this behavior might be interesting and instructive, but as an everyday occurrence, i can only believe that it undermines health. 

Now, here's where someone with decades of experience has a breadth of understanding that young "obesity experts" may never obtain!  I clearly remember being constantly unsatisfied on a low-fat regimen, and the bliss of Atkins lay in the ability to eat to appetite and still lose weight.  Perhaps this is why some "new" low-carbers overdo (and fail ultimately) -- they are so hungry from before, and their bodies react so gratefully to consuming animal fats, they lose track of their natural appetites when they have permission to eat these traditional foods. 

That, and all the low-carb treats which seduce one into thinking one CAN eat one's cake and have it, too -- quite literally.  [shaking head]  superfluous foods -- junk calories -- are something to avoid no matter what they're made of.

Appetite is something we need to listen to very carefully.  You have to be able to distinguish belly-hunger from mouth /imagination-hunger.  If we ignore it and restrain our eating to save calories, we set ourselves up for mistakes later -- i think this applies to pretty much everybody!  Beyond that, i believe one has to know one's body very well indeed, because they DON'T always perform predictably.  THIS is the problem with the medical business' "one size fits all" prescriptions.

If you're belly-hungry, EAT (that is, eat something which YOU have found truly nourishes YOU).  If you're not, DON'T.  I'm going to eat within Donaldson's guidelines, but not more than appetite allows -- that should improve the program.  I'll let you know....

i can't bear eating all this FOOD!

The scale is down 3/4 pound again, and i even allowed myself half a cup of cooked white rice with my beef tenderloin last night.

But my discomfort level has risen:  between the lack of salt and the high meat intake (about 50% higher than it was a month ago), my stomach is not at all happy, even with daily use of betaine-HCl.  Today is a day for readjusting the formula.  (I just took a 1/4 t. of sea salt, washed down with water, as a good beginning.)

I was VERY comfortable on the IF technique of coconut milk in my coffee for breakfast, and only two real meals per day.  The only trouble with that was, i wasn't losing any weight, despite consuming fewer calories than i am now.  (So THERE, CICO people!)  When one of Donaldson's patients reported in without having lost any weight on one occasion, it turned out that he had begun skipping breakfast in hopes of reducing faster....

Yesterday, i DID feel improvement in my bad knee, and the other felt pretty much normal again.  I did my half-hour of walking on the treadmill upstairs instead of around the neighborhood, because i suspected the cold was affecting my knee badly.  Treadmills aren't perfect walking-machines, though -- posture and muscle use don't mimic REAL walking (see Dr. Wong...).  Today i'm going to walk outside at a warmer hour, or use the stationary bicycle; i customarily use it for my Tabata sprints, as it's MUCH kinder to the knee.

...I just resolved to name my knees -- "my once-injured knee" is so unwieldy -- so it'll be Ralph (the "bad" one) and Louie.  ;-)  I'm so original!

Volume of meat is going down!  Instead of 8 ounces, it's going to be 6, and i'm going to put salt on it.  Truly, it hasn't been my taste buds that missed the salt, it's been my stomach-acid missing the chlorine!  In all the agonizing over sodium in the last few decades, "experts" predictably overlooked the other important ingredient of table salt.  Without a good source of chlorine, less stomach-acid is produced -- and contrary to what "everybody knows," an awful lot of indigestion is due to LOW acid, not high.  As a hypothyroid, i'm already inclined to have low stomach acid (which is why i keep the betaine supplement on hand), and i've been exacerbating it.  That stops now.

On the positive front, allergic symptoms are reduced on my lower-toxin diet.  I was surprised to see, under the strict PPC regimen, that i still showed a little cheek-flushing in the evenings -- something that i hitherto blamed on wine.  The most likely suspects were nightshades (which i took it very easy with), eggs (eaten in moderation), and nuts (mostly consumed in the form of coconut milk).  Last night i took stock, and found the flushing significantly reduced. 

Well, today is going to be a low-intake day, just to reset my system.  I WILL stick to the approved food list in "Strong Medicine" though!  Considering that i lost approximately 3 pounds in three days, there's no doubt that Dr. Donaldson was onto something, even though the medicine seems to be a little TOO strong for ME.


p.s.  Despite the dire warnings of reduced thyroid function on a VLC diet, i've noticed no such reaction -- and believe me, i know what it feels like.  I hypothesize that:  1) sufficient protein ingestion raises insulin levels enough to allow the receptors to work just fine, and;  2) being well-adapted in ketosis with plenty of glucose made by the liver from protein AND fat (as confirmed with my glucometer) provides all the glucose necessary for T4 conversion.  Dare i suggest that the trials where thyroid function was impaired took place in particularly-established glucose burners...?