Recently I’ve been attempting to get in more calories (specifically from carbs) to keep my thyroid function strong and my stress hormones at bay. I did this by eating more food more often, even if I didn’t feel like it. Since I’ve never been able to maintain on just simple sugars, these meals would mostly contain a lot of freshly hydrolyzed starches (oats, rice, boiled potatoes, pasta, homemade pancakes, etc.) One unintended result is that I wasn’t really eating outside of my meals. I was never much of a snack person, but previously I would use them to fill in the caloric gaps when I wasn’t taking my dietary needs as serious.

I didn’t even notice it at first, but the dandruff on my head and chin had both cleared up. Then a few instances occurred where I ate something out of that norm (sandwich roll, granola bar, room temp fried potatoes) that the dandruff came back, and I put it all together.
I also noticed that I was no longer experiencing loose stools, which was something kind of new to the past year or so. In fact, the opposite had occurred, and I now had to go back to supplementing a small amount of magnesium.

I’ve since been more diligent with my starch intake, only eating them fresh, hot, and hydrolyzed. As a result, I’ve continued to be symptom free from the aforementioned afflictions.

Now I intentionally used “cleared up,” and not ‘cured’ in the title, because I imagine that there is some underlying minor gut dysbiosis still unaddressed. Nonetheless, I still wanted to share this anecdote in hopes that it works to clear some issues for others.

I find LED light, particularly white and blue, very harsh. I have a business a block away from my home with super bright LEDs for their parking lot, and I have to close the blinds at night because it’s so irritating.

Last time I was at the store to buy bulbs, the only incandescents I found were little appliance bulbs. I had to buy online.

@Sugarnotsnow Very interesting, and I’m curious how safe this is over a period of time.
I’m not looking to lose any weight myself, but I do know that most people trying, regardless of the other macros, tend to never cut protein

Speaking of macros, upon skimming the link the best I could, I didn’t see where they listed the mix for the rest of the diet, nor do I know enough about mouse feed to guess.

IIRC, Ray shifted favor towards a reduced protein intake in his later years. I do not know if that was what he felt was best for him personally or if it was a generally recommendation for the fully developed adult population.

@LucH what is considered to be a high dose of K?
I tried to look over your link, but the page wouldn’t translate on mobile.

I went through something similar where I cut out starches. I tried to eat as much fruit as I could, but it wasn’t cutting it. I had many hypothyroid symptoms as a result. Starches were the only thing that fixed it.

Cassava is fairly calorie dense, so I would agree that it’s a good choice for someone trying to reintegrate starches after a struggle with them. I would advise, though, to attempt to find it organic, as it is the GMO crop most widely sold for human consumption (that’s what I have read at least.) Anyone with gut/digestion issues probably doesn’t want to be ingesting glyphosate.

I think that magnesium would be your best bet for constipation. Which form you take is up to you. I prefer mag-malate from Seeking Health. I found it mentioned as having no excipients on the toxinless site. Mag-glycinate tastes awful to me, and would get too clumpy. I haven’t tried the Mag-oil but I’m sure you can find a wealth of reviews in the thread that their site would link you to on that product page.

I believe calcium is generally considered a cause of constipation, so I don’t know that upping it would help any. With that being said, calcium, magnesium, and K all work together and most people seem deficient across the board, so upping them all in moderation could be a good thing if you’re already seeing results from the K2

I was always very thin no matter how much I ate. It wasn’t until I incorporated weight training that I gained anything that would stay on.
I went from 163 lb to 210, still lean, over the course of about 2 years on the SAD diet. I haven’t trained going on 8 years now and eat what you would expect from someone who posts here, and I’m still at 190 and lean.

So my suggestion would be to use moderate resistance training while eating a high calorie diet that fits both your needs, as well as the parameters of a “peaty diet” (I dislike using that term since RP said himself that there is no such thing.)
It’s not going to be 11 lb/month (I don’t think that goal is realistic as an endomorph to be honest) but there’s a good chance that what weight is put on will stick around long term.

@mostlylurking said in Are Nuts In Their Natural State Used Differently By The Body Than Their Processed Oils?:

just a heads up about the avocado oil; Ray Peat warned about the toxicity of avocados here: https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/vegetables.shtml
"Not all fruits, of course, are perfectly safe--avocados, for example, contain so much unsaturated fat that they can be carcinogenic and hepatotoxic."
from the references: In Vivo 1998 Nov-Dec;12(6):675-89. "The promotive tumorigenic effects of other high-fat diets (avocado, soybeans) were associated with high content of some polyunsaturated fatty acids (linoleic and alpha-linolenic)."
also: Ann Nutr Metab 1991;35(5):253-60. "Effect of dietary avocado oils on hepatic collagen metabolism. Wermam MJ, Mokady S, Neeman I Department of Food Engineering and Biotechnology, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa. The effect of various avocado and soybean oils on collagen metabolism in the liver was studied in growing female rats for 8 weeks and in day-old chicks for 1 week. In comparison with rats fed either refined avocado oil, refined or unrefined soybean oils, rats fed unrefined avocado oil showed a significant decrease in total collagen solubility in the liver, while there were no changes in total collagen, protein and moisture content. Chicks fed unrefined avocado oil as compared to those fed refined avocado oil also showed a decrease in hepatic total soluble collagen while hepatic total collagen remained unaffected. Electron micrographs and light-microscope examinations of rats' liver revealed collagen accumulation in the periportal location. This is suggestive of the early stages of fibrosis."

Thank you for correcting that. I had originally only pointed out that those foods weren’t nut/seed derived, but when I went to proofread the whole post I added in about PUFA without making sure it fit the criteria for all the foods.

Whenever I would eat avocado I’d get cold-like symptoms. I originally chalked it up to food intolerance and avoided it thereafter, but it could have been the PUFA considering I had intuitively avoided other high PUFA foods since my teen years.

@Butter-Girl depending on how far you moved, there might be some trees close by. It wasn’t until I identified what a black walnut fruit looked like that I realized they’re all over around me, mostly on public land.

Yeah, I imagine an occasion single nut off the tree isn’t going to do much harm. I still wouldn’t make a habit of it, but I wouldn’t fret over it either.
Considering the work involved, most people wouldn’t bother getting to the point of overeating them straight off the tree.

I know that TerraSoul sells some nuts direct from refrigeration when you buy from their website. I used to get their Brazil nuts and keep them cold, eating one a day for selenium, after scraping the skin off *a seed/nut’s skin is where their phytic acid is concentrated, and that stuff will bind up important nutrients, including but not limited to calcium, magnesium, zinc, selenium, and potassium. Contrary to what you read online, soaking doesn’t always fix this, especially if the seed/nut isn’t viable to sprout (heat treated/irradiated/broken/deshelled in some cases)

I definitely second what LucH said in regards to using Vitamin E to reduce harmful effects.

@mostlylurking I had bought a bunch of macadamias in the past and kept them refrigerated, but then the same thing happened where they eventually tasted rancid so I trashed them. Macadamias are highest in MUFA, which while not as dangerous as PUFA, is still very much prone to oxidation/rancidity.