The time has come. Time to realistically and pragmatically asses my general health condition. I have made overwhelming efforts to feel well. It baffles me to say at least to see no improvements. And it is really disappointing as good health is so crucially needed at this stage of my life/career. However, I must somehow get to the roots of things, understand what is wrong and fix it as soon as possible. And it is extremely tall order as I can’t see any options available as of yet. I mean, what should I change/improve as on a paper there is no way for improvement, or so it seems…
Since I started my Journal here I was trying to make up mind regarding what kind of nutritional strategy to adopt. In the process I realized that there is so much controversial diet related information in the internet that I sometimes wonder whether it is possible at all to reach any reasonable conclusion. Today, I feel like I know even less than what I did 2 or 3 years ago when I had to blindly follow a program implanted by parents. Raw or cooked? Zero-cab or low-carb? 3 meals a day or IF? Vegetables or no vegetables? SFA, MFA, PUFA? With or without salt? Macronutrients ratios etc. etc. etc.
I also have to mention that as long as any diet or dietary concept is concerned I have my hands tied as I struggle to eat normal or even minimal amount of food. If I consume more than half of lb of meat my day/night would be destroyed as a result of uneasiness and distracting feeling of presence of food in the stomach. This drives me mad.
As you all know from my previous posts I have a rather wide field of concerns. Of course, it would have been much easier to decide what to do should I know what is wrong with me. However, what is evident is that I don’t feel well to put it mildly. My major issues include poor digestion, lack of energy and pain in every possible part of my body. As I said before most of my symptoms resemble adrenal fatigue, but I still can’t be sure about it.
I was also considering candida. And it is no coincidence that it was mentioned here first thing for me to look to. But I thought if I had candida I would have benefited from my two months long zero carb experiment. I would have continued that way of eating shouldn't I developed kidney stones. Now I see that fiber is essential in curing candida. A moderator of the anti-candida group stated that “fiber in veggies actually feeds the good bacteria in your gut so you don't want to just try to eat zero carb because you are going to get rid of candida faster, it doesn't work like that.
The fiber helps absorb toxins in your gut and sweep them out, and the nutrients help boost your immune system. Veggies are one of those things you want to choose carefully, choosing the highest nutrients and fiber veggies and ones that work for your body. Veggies are one of those things you also want to keep in balance, not too high and not too low.”
In my situation I must find a reasonable balance as far as carbs consumption is concerned, both in order to avoid reoccurrence of stones in the future and get rid of candida.
It was easy to eat some fruit and honey to maintain proper level of carbs in the diet. But if one tries to overcome candida the abovementioned foods are plainly unacceptable. And you know what, when I excluded sugary carbs (fruit/honey) I realized how difficult is to hit 50-60 g of carbs daily. In order to do that one should consume at least a kilo of veggs. And even this huge amount of plant stuff would only yield as little as 5% of estimated total caloric intake… Heck, no way one can reach Cordain’s suggestion of 35/65 ratio. A person must become a plant processing machine in order to accomplish that…
So the next step for me was to find out what foods I have to use instead. After carefully considering the situation, and bearing in mind seasonable nature of most vegetable foods in the place I live, I came to the conclusion that I will have to heavily rely on cabbage, which is available almost all year round.
And to make it palatable I chose to ferment it. On the one hand, I will have a good tasty source of fibrous carb and on the other it will provide beneficial flora in the gut.
Apart from cabbage I can only get hold of garlic and onion on the regular basis. Armed with this, I seriously intend to conquer candida, whether I have it or not.
I should mention avocados, but this product has several question marks. First, it is always imported in unripe form. Second, I cannot check the source from where it comes. Third, the price… for you to have a clear picture I may use the following analogy: 2 small avocadoes = 20 local reference units = 1 kilo of organs = one lb of the cheapest muscle meat = 10 kilos of marrow bones = 20 kilos of cabbage. So this is not satisfactory option.
Well, lets proceed to the practical aspects now…
As of the 1-rst of August I decided to make several crucial decisions related to the diet. First of all, I realized that I have never tried low carb diet which is low in sugar. I experimented with zero carb (unsuccessfully) but as long as I added back some carbs they inevitably came from fruits or honey, i.e. sugary sources. That is why I came to the conclusion that I should try zero sugar but very low carb diet. Low carb because for the reasons explained above as one cannot eat enough carbs without sugars and starches. And to my delight, no sugar diet is good for both, poor adrenal and healing candida. A kind of win-win situation.
Next, since I seriously decided to clear myself from candida, whether I have it or not, I can no longer eat any dairy… so despite I hate wasting any food, I had to throw away the leftovers of cream by Friday, as this was the day when I adopted my new strategy. This job was eased at that moment by the fact that I stopped to consider dairy as a food…
Yes, you got me right. No diary, no sugar (honey, fruit whatsoever else). Just organs, meat, marrow and cabbage
I want to avoid intermittent fasting so I would eat twice per day, before I leave home for work and after I get back. I will also take some calcium/magnesium supplements for a while to calm myself and ease concerns related to the possible lack of nutrients which may result from such diet or be due to my poor digestion. I will also report when I get hold of adrenal cortex extract.
So, here is my test philosophy in a nutshell:
1 NO SUGAR, NO DAIRY, NO STARCH
2 AT LEAST some carbs to prevent stones formation and provide body with completely oxidized faty acids
3 minimal mineral supplements
4 raw paleo diet, meats and marrow
5 IsoCort (pending)
