A bloody mess..

I got my period on Juli 1'st. This time it was only 3-4 days late, which is a huge improvement, since the last 2 months, my period was 14 days late everytime. I still got the mood swings this time, the pre-water retention, swollen sore breasts, and it started about 14 days before my period, which is NOT my idea of fun. I only had 1 day of cramps though, which is new.
Even though cycles isn't the most thrilling thing in the world, I do find it quite interesting and I feel for men, in a way because a womens cycle is a good way to track how your hormones are doing and if what your doing (diet, exercise) has an effect.
When I was going from low carb and dieting in general, to high starch, high calories, I went from very irregular periods (coming every 3-6 months, even up to a whole year at one point) to regular periods in about 3 months. In those first 3 periods, they were still irregular but only with weeks. I experienced pre-water retention, swollen sore breasts, mood swings, you name it, I had it. Eventually they became regular and my pre-symptoms started subsiding. I even remember one time, it came totally unexpectedly because I didn't have any symptoms. Only difference was that my periods was now a little heavier than in my teen years, which was always very light.
Now going full blown sugarlicious my periods became irregular once again, being about 14 days late. I got full blown acne and all my pre-period annoyingness (is that even a word?) came right back. Of course, I stuck it out like a champ -insert innocent smiley here- and eventually my acne stopped. On my 3'rd period in Sugar Land, my period is only 3-4 days late. I still had the pre-menstrual crap but only 1 day of cramps (signs of improvement) AND my period has become lighter and not clotting (hope your not eating jam on toast while reading this)
Every girls hates having their period but I must admit I'm looking forward to my next one because it is in the name of science! I have no doubt in my mind that I am on the right track. Sugar has been the missing link in my diet and the ONLY thing I have been avoiding like the plague in the same time period my health started declining.
 

PUFA's -the liquid toxic!

I had to make a "quick" blog post today as Undertow made my brain go wandering, with his answer to my question about how he was going on the "sugar-diet". Here is what he replied:

"Sheila,
So far so good, I am doing one large fruit/juice meal later in the afternoons to increase sucrose intake. It does increase acne. Here are my thoughts on that. These are just thoughts, based on my own research on me. Skip if you don't want to read about acne theories...

Acne seems to be related to insulin resistance (high insulin and increased androgen levels, and increased sebum production) and inflammation (stored PUFA's, stress, etc). I can make my acne flare with a low-fat diet and flare when increasing fruit intake, but make it subside when doing low carb, high fat. So how is that related?

Eating low fat (meaning extremely low PUFA, and using SAT fat only, sparilingly), high unrefined starch, with lean protein, allows the body to release stored PUFA. Released through calorie deficit, fasting or exercise. So this would be low grade inflammation, having stored PUFA's in bloodstream, and could increase insulin resistance. This definitely causes acne for me. I grew up with Mazola in everthing!

Increasing fruit, means increasing fructose, which can mean more trigylcerides in the blood, along with stored PUFA's (if released). More fat in the blood, means insulin resistance will likley be higher. This will cause acne for me, but not for someone with a good metabolism, low insulin levels and nominal blood glucose clearance. My last blood test from about a year ago, showed slightly evelated fasting insulin.

So what does all this mean... Seems like to cure acne and reduce sebum production, you need to remove excess stored PUFA's in your body (eat very low fat, ie minimal butter/ghee/coconut oil), get glucose clearance and insulin levels under control (eat lots of unrefined starch without fat, with increasing fruit load without fat), get sunshine, get some exercise, get your sleep...

Why does low carb reduce acne; lowered insulin, lowered fructose and insulin spikes, less stored PUFA's released due to high fat intake.

Why does milk cause acne grief? It spikes insulin very very well, and contains lots of fat to cause insulin resistance in the person with lowered metbolic rate.

Peat also has said that sucrose will increase the metabolic rate, which will cause thyroid and vitamin A levels to compete. This may be a factor as well. Accutane is vitamin A derivative, and works at decreasing the size of the sebaceuos glands, and most likely inhibiting the thyroid, so lowered metabolism; think low carb. Genetics, probably a factor as well."

Thank you Undertow! Very interesting, is all I can say. My thoughts has also lingered around insulin and androgen production (acne) and how some of all this can relate to me and my issues. In fact, a lot of my problems stems from PCOS symptoms which has all to do with increased androgen production that seems to worsen when insulin gets high. PCOS-women is more often than not, overweight and they get told that loosing weight and going low carb, will help eliminate their problems -and I believe them! BUT there is two sides to the story..

Here is my theory WHY: Women with PCOS have insulin resistance, high triglycerides (fat in the blood) -meaning the body is competing against using fat or sugar as energy. Their fatty tissue is loaded with PUFA's which is why the fat is so hard to lose, because PUFA's inhibits the thyroid (low metabolism) which also explains the saying: "Fat is a way for the body to protect itself from a toxic world". -It really is! Loosing weight means releasing toxic PUFA's into the bloodstream, which again will cause a lowering of the metabolic rate, making it even harder to lose more toxic fat. If you have, let's say 50-100kg to lose, that could be a dangerous road to take. Not all fat is the same. Not understanding that, is not seeing the whole picture. Your body ALWAYS tries to protect you! It doesn't care how much fat you carry, as long as it can protect you from the toxicity of it.
This would also explain why, every time I don't get enough calories, my temperature drop immediately. I believe that is because my body then has to release fat (PUFA's) as energy. The PUFA's then inhibits my thyroid, causing my temperature to drop.
Now HOW do I release the toxic PUFA's from my tissue WITHOUT harming myself in the process?? THAT's what I want to know..! 

A day in my shoes..

This is how a day easily could look:

Morning. Raw milk, frozen fruit, oats, syrup.

 

Before noon. 1 carrot.

                                                   

Around noon. Crispbread with cheese and jam.

                                            

Afternoon. A glass of raw milk, and some watermelon.

                                                                                                         

Dinner. Lamb with potatoes, beans, onions, butter and a little ketchup.

                          

A little later..Dessert. Watermelon, orange juice with gelatin.

                                                                      

Evening snack. Crispbread with cheese, jam and a glass of orange juice.

What I have noticed in the last couple of weeks, is that I haven't smelled that ammonia smell, I sometimes smell when sniffing in hard, after something as simple as walking. From my research, ammonia is a byproduct of protein and you get the ammonia smell when your body doesn't have sufficient carbohydrates to use for energy, instead it is forced to break down muscle tissue for energy. Small note: I DON'T EAT LOW CARB?! Eating high starch didn't help one bit on the ammonia smell but sugar seems to have cured the problem. I will say that I have only noticed it recently. It didn't happen over night (maybe I wasn't eating enough sugar in the beginning) I've actually battled with this ammonia smell for many years now, always smelled it after doing a session of hard cardio (more understandable when I WAS actually low carb, back then) in the gym, but later on it happened even after a walk.

The other night I woke up around 2-3 am felling a bit uncomfortable, I had some pain in my lower abdomen area. I got up because I felt like standing up. went to the toilet to pee. Afterwords I sat down on a chair. The pain got worse, now moving to my belly and all the way to my solar plexus. I quickly went back to bed because I was afraid if I didn't go now, I wouldn't be able to move later. In bed, it got way worse, I started getting cold sweat. The pain was excruciating. It constantly moved from lower abdomen to solar plexus area. Suddenly I felt like vomiting! If it isn't because I hate vomiting with a passion, I would have barfed! I was shaking like crazy. I fell down on the floor in a praying position -not because I believe in God but because it was the only position that felt somewhat comfortable! After about 30mins of hell, the pain subsided and I felt totally exhausted, like I had run a marathon! Next day I was feeling kinda blah, all day. My stomach was a little uneasy.
I went to the chiropractor because my back has felt locked and my mom who has been giving me massages, have noticed that my whole ribcage is twisted. I wanted to know if that could have caused my pain that night too. My chiropractor looked at my back and said it was crocked  and that my lower back had no movement what so ever. She said it most definitely could cause problems that spiraled out through my chest, solar plexus but she told me that the symptoms I had that night, more resembled  kidney stones. Never thought of that. I've actually had these "attacks" before. Something aint right, that's for sure.

Fell in the sugar trap and I don't want out!

Can't believe it has been so long since my last log post. I haven't been here since Christmas! Rosenfeltc (a blogger on 180 ) reminded me of my absence when he posted some questions in the comment section, in my last post. Let's just dive right into it.. I have to admit, I was starting to feel quite discouraged after reintroducing more carbs and calories in general, to my diet. even though I felt better than when I was obviously starving, and my period was back, I still had problems lingering. It felt like the honeymoon was over and some of my problems came back. My hands and feet were still ice cold (which is a true stress response) I still got dizzy when standing up and my energy still just wasn't quite there. I still wasn't able to keep my temperature up, it was hovering around 36 degrees, being higher in the morning and dropping as soon as I got up (sign of high adrenaline in fasted state). Also, my pulse never came above 60.
I believe it was April (late March) i started introducing sugar to my diet, as in Ray Peats recommendations. So more than 2 months have I been doing this.
How was my reaction? Terrible! Acne, bad (face, chest, back)! I felt like I was coming down with the flu! I almost gave up a few times because the acne was so bad, but I had to give this a fair chance before I could give my judgment. I also tried adding a natural thyroid supplement but had to stop it because my resting pulse reached 140 bpm and my blood pressure dropped even further! That was actually quite scary. Here is my theory on why I tink I reacted so dramatically to thyroid meds; 
For example when you go from a starch based diet to a sugar based diet, your adrenals have to kick in higher gear to support your new increased metabolic rate. When you eat starch only, you get satisfied quicker, eat less calories and therefor have a lower metabolic rate so your adrenals doesn't have to do much effort to keep thyroid and adrenals balanced. When you switch to sugar, your metabolic rate increases and your adrenals have to "wake up" and produce more adrenaline, cortisol to make up for inadequate thyroid function, until thyroid hormones eventually can balance out the adrenal hormones.
I believe my adrenals (at the time) was too weak to handle the extra thyroid hormones. Sudden increase in thyroid without the supporting adrenal hormones, yells disaster. It should be interesting to see how my body handles thyroid hormone, after eating a high sugar diet for many months -if I even need it at that time.



I will go more into depths about how my diet is currently looking, in the next blog post.
As of now, I don't have any reactions to sugar anymore. No acne. More energy. Better body composition. My temperature is higher (still not all the way there) And most important, no cold hands and feet! No stress reaction! That is huge!


Btw. I got a an 11 + years old root canal removed because of this blog post from Danny Roddy. Yes, it was infected. I just got it pulled out so now I am missing a tooth in my left side, and I am thinking about getting the other one (right side) pulled out too but I must admit, the thought of missing not 1 but 2 pretty important tooths for chewing, is making me think twice before I decide (plus I'll look funny) One thing is for sure, root canals are no good! read the blog post.
That is it for now... I'll be back!