Confusing adaptations

Diet and health history:

​

For the first 30 years of my life I ate more refined garbage than I care to remember. It's what I was raised on didn't realize how damaging it was until my mid twenties. I became chronically ill so gradually that I barely noticed. When it finally hit me that I needed to change something my body, mind and gut especially were in rough shape. Western medicine only made things worse. I gave up on pharmaceuticals and became aware of the concept of food as medicine. After years of experimentation, research and suffering I found my first taste of relief with a ketogenic lifestyle. As a carb addict for decades the adaptation was unpleasant and faith based. But well worth it. For 2 years I felt better than I could remember feeling since childhood. I didn't realize how inflamed I had been for years until it was finally subsiding. I didn't know I could feel so loose, emotionally level, strong and energetic. I kept pushing myself physically, testing my limits like I was making up for lost time. Intense exercise, cold exposure, long fasts that I pushed through while ignoring warnings to eat and rest. I became overly aggressive and chronically on edge. I just wanted to fight, fuck and feast. I felt primal. What followed was a brutal crash that left me bedridden, weak and sick. The opposite of how I had gotten used to feeling. I suspected that I fried my adrenals. Ketosis seemed to be too straining for me now and I couldn't handle vegetables and fiber as well as before. I began getting very inflamed and worse than before I had ever become fat adapted. It felt like I developed arthritis overnight. I went from wanting to conquer the world to getting panic attacks in the grocery while. I could barely function and had to quit my job. I seemed to react negatively to all food and fasting too. It seemed like the beginning of the end. I began eating carbs again which was quite a shock to my system. Had awful hormonal reactions. Then keto again. Then more fasting. Less fasting. Eventually I came across the notion of eliminating plants altogether as an elimination diet. Many things felt better right away, but other things felt worse. Lower bloat turned into upper bloat. Diarrhea turned into constipation. Energy went up then down then up then down along with my emotions. My physical and mental states changed too often to remember let alone write down. Nothing was consistent. I ended up committing myself to eating 3 month raw carnivore. The science made sense so me and I didn't seem able to tolerate eating anything else, so I figured why not. Felt better for the first couple weeks then terrible. Constant flu like symptoms, night sweats, mental instability, chronic aches, irregular bowel habits. . . . Felt like death was near again. Yet a part of me felt like it was the right thing to do, so I kept going. Hard to explain the feeling. I suspected it was detox related and that cooked food might help pause it, which it seemed too. I then began the GAPS diet, which revolves around animal products and fermented veg, and felt much better. That turned into an epic junk food binge over Christmas that last a month. Then slowly got back to more strict GAPS. Eventually the cooked food began to taste very wrong and I was instinctively drawn back into eating raw meat along with the fermented veg. Then just raw carnivore again with occasional cooked meat. Mostly eat beef, fish, meat stock, egg yolks and little to no salt. And that brings the story to today.

​

Recent symptoms:

​

I cycle between diarrhea and constipation (seems like constipation at least). Greasy loose stool but always dark brown. Often times I will go a week without passing anything. Gut tenderness and tension at times with varying degrees of bloat and tenderness. I started off with no bloat at all and now, 4 weeks in since my last plant foods, I am more often bloated than not. My tongue is often coated when when waking and has sore white lines that can't be scraped off that seem to migrate and come and go depending on what I eat or how long I have fasted. My tongue looks worst when I wake, better the longer I fast and best right after eating anything. Lately I was passing much mucus (sometimes only mucus) when moving bowels, but no blood or pain. Though I do often get a tender abdomen upper and lower. Much gurgling and some sharp cramping. Flu like symptoms cycle. Sometimes I feel like I'm about to die and other times feel like going for a run and like my old athletically inclined self. Very confusing. Nasty mood swings (anger, depression, ennui) followed by zen like emotional stability and joy. Body and head aches. Shortness of breath. Muscle cramps. Flaky itchy skin on face and scalp. All these symptoms come and go. I intermittent fast daily (not intentionally, just following hunger cues). Night sweats occasionally, nausea. The list goes on and on. I've seen many doctors. All my test results come back in the normal ranges so they tell me on paper I'm healthy so they don't know what to do for me. They only things that were really out of range were cholesterol (of course), ketones (of course) and my testosterone was really high. Some other markers were out of range but borderline and often in range again on retesting.

​

Summary:

​

So basically I'm overwhelmed by all these symptoms and all the conflicting information I find online when researching. I have no idea what's wrong with me, but it seems heavily influenced by diet and my gut. Despite what the doctors say, I do not feel as though I am in good health, but hopefully on my way to it. My primary question is could this all be a healing crisis? Or am I making myself worse by continuing on this way? Has anybody had or heard of similar symptoms while transitioning? I really want to stick with this diet because from my research and instincts it seems like the way to go. Plus I think my body needs consistency and the flip flopping between different diets is likely straining my system too much. I suppose I'm just looking for reassurance that I'm on a beneficial path that I can commit to that might get worse before it gets better. I'm strong willed, but ignorant. Right now my leading theory is die off (30 years of eating all the sugar I could get my hands on likely built up quite a gut flora imbalance) and that perhaps I just haven't been patient enough with trying to repair three decades worth of eating garbage. I know diet is only one component of health, but I really believe in the science behind this way of eating and diets similar to it (carnivore, primal, etc). I've stuck with this style of eating through the unpleasant symptoms because I have simultaneously experienced health improvements as well which have led me to wonder if I'm on the right track and perhaps things get worse before they get better. Plus, my instincts tell me this is the way to go. Maybe I just need to tweak my approach, or just power through and give it time. Hard to say. If anyone can relate to my journey, has any ideas why my body might be reacting this way or has any suggestions of things to try, I would be most grateful to read them.

​

Lengthy post. Thanks for reading.

​

​

​

Diet and health history:​For the first 30 years of my life I ate more refined garbage than I care to remember. It's what I was raised on didn't realize how damaging it was until my mid twenties. I became chronically ill so gradually that I barely noticed. When it finally hit me that I needed to change something my body, mind and gut especially were in rough shape. Western medicine only made things worse. I gave up on pharmaceuticals and became aware of the concept of food as medicine. After years of experimentation, research and suffering I found my first taste of relief with a ketogenic lifestyle. As a carb addict for decades the adaptation was unpleasant and faith based. But well worth it. For 2 years I felt better than I could remember feeling since childhood. I didn't realize how inflamed I had been for years until it was finally subsiding. I didn't know I could feel so loose, emotionally level, strong and energetic. I kept pushing myself physically, testing my limits like I was making up for lost time. Intense exercise, cold exposure, long fasts that I pushed through while ignoring warnings to eat and rest. I became overly aggressive and chronically on edge. I just wanted to fight, fuck and feast. I felt primal. What followed was a brutal crash that left me bedridden, weak and sick. The opposite of how I had gotten used to feeling. I suspected that I fried my adrenals. Ketosis seemed to be too straining for me now and I couldn't handle vegetables and fiber as well as before. I began getting very inflamed and worse than before I had ever become fat adapted. It felt like I developed arthritis overnight. I went from wanting to conquer the world to getting panic attacks in the grocery while. I could barely function and had to quit my job. I seemed to react negatively to all food and fasting too. It seemed like the beginning of the end. I began eating carbs again which was quite a shock to my system. Had awful hormonal reactions. Then keto again. Then more fasting. Less fasting. Eventually I came across the notion of eliminating plants altogether as an elimination diet. Many things felt better right away, but other things felt worse. Lower bloat turned into upper bloat. Diarrhea turned into constipation. Energy went up then down then up then down along with my emotions. My physical and mental states changed too often to remember let alone write down. Nothing was consistent. I ended up committing myself to eating 3 month raw carnivore. The science made sense so me and I didn't seem able to tolerate eating anything else, so I figured why not. Felt better for the first couple weeks then terrible. Constant flu like symptoms, night sweats, mental instability, chronic aches, irregular bowel habits. . . . Felt like death was near again. Yet a part of me felt like it was the right thing to do, so I kept going. Hard to explain the feeling. I suspected it was detox related and that cooked food might help pause it, which it seemed too. I then began the GAPS diet, which revolves around animal products and fermented veg, and felt much better. That turned into an epic junk food binge over Christmas that last a month. Then slowly got back to more strict GAPS. Eventually the cooked food began to taste very wrong and I was instinctively drawn back into eating raw meat along with the fermented veg. Then just raw carnivore again with occasional cooked meat. Mostly eat beef, fish, meat stock, egg yolks and little to no salt. And that brings the story to today.​Recent symptoms:​I cycle between diarrhea and constipation (seems like constipation at least). Greasy loose stool but always dark brown. Often times I will go a week without passing anything. Gut tenderness and tension at times with varying degrees of bloat and tenderness. I started off with no bloat at all and now, 4 weeks in since my last plant foods, I am more often bloated than not. My tongue is often coated when when waking and has sore white lines that can't be scraped off that seem to migrate and come and go depending on what I eat or how long I have fasted. My tongue looks worst when I wake, better the longer I fast and best right after eating anything. Lately I was passing much mucus (sometimes only mucus) when moving bowels, but no blood or pain. Though I do often get a tender abdomen upper and lower. Much gurgling and some sharp cramping. Flu like symptoms cycle. Sometimes I feel like I'm about to die and other times feel like going for a run and like my old athletically inclined self. Very confusing. Nasty mood swings (anger, depression, ennui) followed by zen like emotional stability and joy. Body and head aches. Shortness of breath. Muscle cramps. Flaky itchy skin on face and scalp. All these symptoms come and go. I intermittent fast daily (not intentionally, just following hunger cues). Night sweats occasionally, nausea. The list goes on and on. I've seen many doctors. All my test results come back in the normal ranges so they tell me on paper I'm healthy so they don't know what to do for me. They only things that were really out of range were cholesterol (of course), ketones (of course) and my testosterone was really high. Some other markers were out of range but borderline and often in range again on retesting.​Summary:​So basically I'm overwhelmed by all these symptoms and all the conflicting information I find online when researching. I have no idea what's wrong with me, but it seems heavily influenced by diet and my gut. Despite what the doctors say, I do not feel as though I am in good health, but hopefully on my way to it. My primary question is could this all be a healing crisis? Or am I making myself worse by continuing on this way? Has anybody had or heard of similar symptoms while transitioning? I really want to stick with this diet because from my research and instincts it seems like the way to go. Plus I think my body needs consistency and the flip flopping between different diets is likely straining my system too much. I suppose I'm just looking for reassurance that I'm on a beneficial path that I can commit to that might get worse before it gets better. I'm strong willed, but ignorant. Right now my leading theory is die off (30 years of eating all the sugar I could get my hands on likely built up quite a gut flora imbalance) and that perhaps I just haven't been patient enough with trying to repair three decades worth of eating garbage. I know diet is only one component of health, but I really believe in the science behind this way of eating and diets similar to it (carnivore, primal, etc). I've stuck with this style of eating through the unpleasant symptoms because I have simultaneously experienced health improvements as well which have led me to wonder if I'm on the right track and perhaps things get worse before they get better. Plus, my instincts tell me this is the way to go. Maybe I just need to tweak my approach, or just power through and give it time. Hard to say. If anyone can relate to my journey, has any ideas why my body might be reacting this way or has any suggestions of things to try, I would be most grateful to read them.​Lengthy post. Thanks for reading.​​​ https://ift.tt/eA8V8J https://ift.tt/2JWd49O