OT: Low Carb and Pain Reduction

[DocWeezy]

I'm coveting my bread today and will start tomorrow. After one day of low carb I am back on track but it is hard to start. Carbs are so easy. I could live on toast.

Boy, I sure hear you re living on toast, Elle! Been there, done that for years, can never do it again. Sigh. I was really a bread addict and at times I would eat bread or grains to the exclusion of just about everything else...and of course since I wasn't eating fat and very little meat, conventional wisdom said I was eating healthy! Whatta joke! It's interesting, but I put on the most weight during the years when I dieted the hardest and most diligently, following all the popular advice. Weight stabilized once I gave up dieting (although it stabilized too high!)...I still don't "diet" but I've lost 45 pounds since January by just eliminating grains and sugars. Appetite has decreased too.

But here's the really amazing thing: once I really really really quit all grains and sugars (even fruits!), the cravings for bread went away in about a week or so. The first few days were rough, but once I was through the main withdrawal, it became easier. Now I don't crave breads at all.....but craving and missing are two different things. Yes, I do still miss breads and carbs, but I don't crave them so I can resist. My life literally depends on keeping my blood sugars low and that's a great incentive.

Weezy

[Janknitz]

Excellent podcast interview with Dr. Davis here: http://www.fatburningman.com/dr-william ... eat-belly/. It's brief and concise but hits all the important parts.

[Kiralynx]

I'm grateful cuz I'm recovery from breast cancer surgery and it's turning out to be a slow, long haul. At least the doc says knitting is one thing I CAN do.

Weezy,

Best wishes for a smooth recovery. IF you have someone who can fix 'em for you, I recommend "savory smoothies."

Homemade (if possible) broth, because commercial often has sugar of some stripe in it
cooked veggies of some sort
cooked meat of some sort that goes with the veggies, or a hard boiled egg
seasoning to suit.

Throw in blender and blender until super smooth. Drink hot or cold -- your choice. Pureeing makes it extra digestible, and your body can extract the nutrients you need to heal easier.

Before my cancer surgery, I was told "It's not IF you have wound separation, it's how much." And, "It's not IF you have infection, it's how much." And a dozen and one other things.

Among other things, I was doing savory smoothies for nutrition. I had NONE of their dire predictions. AND, one of the surgeons had a different set of interns with him every time I saw him, "So that they can see how an incision of this type SHOULD heal, not how it typically heals."

[Kiralynx]

Note that it's not just the gluten in grains that is an issue. So going "gluten-free" is not the same thing. Replacing gluten with other carby substances like tapioca and rice flour will not have the same benefits.

And Dr. Sidney Valentine Haas published on the fact that it was STARCH that was the problem in 1951. But then someone decided GLUTEN was the problem and science moved on. Supposedly.

[Linus]

I had to avoid gluten a year ago due to celiac. I was surprised one morning to wake without any joint pain. Gone. It has not returned.

Hunger. That is different too. When it has been a long time since a meal, it is no big deal. No cravings. I just eat because I know that it is time and the amount needed to satisfy the need is not much. Staying away from grains helped me.

Gluten free without the starchy replacements is definitely the way to go. Look up the specific carbohydrate diet. The post by Kiralynx is very much relavent here. Joint pain and inflamation along with gi disorders can set us on the path to a higher BMI and lead to apnea.

[DreamStalker]

Our human species evolved as hunter-gatherers and remained so for well over 95% of our existence on this planet. Only in the last 10,000 years of the neolithic have humans begun a chronic deviation from our genetic diet of fresh meats and vegetables. One can argue whether 400 human generations is sufficient to successfully mutate to a high carb diet (assuming you can trace your genetics back to the first agriculturists ... a majority of the world's human population deviated from hunter-gatherer societies only in the past 20 generations, many Native Americans only in the last 5 to 10 generations).

In youth, the genetic expression of our body cells is very resilient to environmental toxins and stresses, a genetic feature that buys us time to reproduce offspring (antagonistic pleiotropy, epigenetics, and cellular senescence). As we age, the resiliency declines and the genetic expression of our individual cells begin to exhibit chronic states of stress and deterioration (ie. aging, poor health, and inflammation-pain).

If you want to mitigate the deterioration of your health and prolong youth, the best way to do that is to start at the cellular level ... with a dietary and physical activity regime that "mimics" the lifestyle of our evolutionary ancestors of the paleolithic. Stop eating modern corporate mono-agricultural poison (ie. processed carbohydrate "foods")! Eat only fresh meats and vegetables, get out and walk every day and do other various forms of physical activity, get some sun exposure, and plenty of good rest and sleep.

[Captain_Midnight]

As we age, the resiliency declines and the genetic expression of our individual cells begin to exhibit chronic states of stress and deterioration (ie. aging, poor health, and inflammation-pain).

.

DS is on the right track, our ancestors evolved by adapting over manifold millennia to entirely different diets, and our (genetically) unprepared metabolic machinery reacts to excessive carbohydrates in a host of ways (mostly bad) and a proliferation of inflammatory cytokines is a big one. (Lots of studies, here's one... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18046594 )

Carbos invite increased systemic inflammation (as does OSA, btw) and this aggravates pre-existing issues such as arthritis.

I have inadvertently tested this on myself. I have occasional lower back "issues" from frequent distance running; and I found that can make things much worse by eating ice cream. I repeated this little experiment lots of times (until I finally connected the two dots) and it rarely failed. Now, my back is much better due to some core-strengthening exercises, however I now know better to keep a safe distance from the ice cream case in the supermarket.

Bottom line, lower carbs = pain reduction (= many other health benefits)

.

[Janknitz]

Captain Midnight, I have a recipe for homemade coffee ice cream--low carb. Can be made with cream or with coconut milk. Ice cream was the one thing I really missed, and now I can be low carb and still have ice cream. Yum! Let me know if you want the recipe.

[napstress]

Count me in on the pain reduction club. Before eliminating ALL grains/sugars and frankinfoods, it would take me several minutes to be able to stand up straight after sitting for a while...had to let the pain in my lower back/hips subside before I could really stand up straight. It made me feel SO old and decrepit....moving around hunched over for a few minutes after standing up. Weezy

Ohmygosh! This is exactly what I had been experiencing for the past few years. I'm in my mid-40s and looked like a much older lady just getting up from the table after breakfast (which consisted of an egg and a piece of what I thought was a pretty wholesome piece of toast). It would take a while to stand up straight again after clipping my toenails. I told my doctor about it, but she had no explanation for it. I felt she wasn't taking me seriously. This delay in unbending hasn't happened in a long time, and I didn't even notice that it was gone! It has to be the low carb, gluten-free diet I've been on since the end of January. Thanks, Weez, for the reminder, and to the original poster for helping me make the connection!

Captain Midnight, I have a recipe for homemade coffee ice cream--low carb. Can be made with cream or with coconut milk. Ice cream was the one thing I really missed, and now I can be low carb and still have ice cream. Yum! Let me know if you want the recipe.

Please, do tell!! I don't do coffee, but could tweak.

[Lizistired]

Napstress, that's great. I don't know how long it was before I realized I hadn't taken any pain meds.

I had a flare up this week though. I used to blame it on the kind of weather we've been having, but that hasn't been consistant since I cut carbs. So I started making a list of what I had been eating out of the norm...

Roasted Duck from the asian grocery.... unknown seasoning
Panax Ginseng liquid I found in the cupboard....... sweetened with honey, 4gr of sugars per serving, x3 in 2 days
a tomato and a big red bell pepper ........carbs?
Then I remembered an article I read a couple of years ago about the Nightshade family of plants contributing to joint pain in some people.
Potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant are the most common.
So I thought I would share a link for those interested. It quotes information from the Westin A. Price website, and personal comments that sound a lot like this thread.

http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/201 ... -pain.html

It was probably the honey, but maybe a combination. That tomato and avocado salad was to die for, but I could exercise some portion control on the bell pepper.

[BlackSpinner]

Yes the deadly nightshade family is heavily implicated in "arthritis" pain.

Also

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the ... -depressed

[Janknitz]

Here's the ice cream recipe from Peter Attias blog with my comments in parenthesis.

From Peter Attia's blog
We’re still working on the nuances, but the current version is composed of 3.5 cups whole fat (35% fat) cream, (or  3 cups plus two egg yolks.  )(you can use full fat coconut milk instead of cream).
1 cup of zero sugar almond milk,
1 tbsp vanilla extract,
2 tbsp almond extract,(optional)
3 tbsp ground espresso powder, and
2 tbsp xylitol.  (I add 3  tbsp. )
 
This makes enough to feed about 8 normal people, or me (Peter) in one sitting.
 
You’ll need an ice cream maker, obviously, to mix at at freezing temperatures

[GatorLord]

I don't know if I had a correlation with low carbing and pain reduction, but I do have a lot of experience with both separately and can offer a few helpful tips.

I lost about 45 lbs while low carbing and found it to be a great tool for me. I like meat. My wife at the time learned all kinds of low carb recipes and I was her willing guinea pig...later piglet. My big tip for anyone doing it for any length of time is to buy lots of sugar free diet jello and keep a big pan of it in the fridge for snacking at all times. Make it daily if you have to.

As for pain reduction: I have a severe form of Myofascial Pain Syndrome. National experts I've consulted tell me it's one of the worst they've ever seen...touring, training experts. At the worst, I was on enough fentanyl (hundreds of times stronger than morphine) to level an army division and it wasn't covering the pain. I couldn't even tell I was on it, only if I wasn't.

I'm on NO pain killers now, thanks to a simple mix of two grocery store items that cost $.28/gal to make if you source at WalMart. It was the biggest blessing via an accidental discovery I've ever made. What is it? Magnesium Bicarbonate (MgHCO3).

If you're like me, you're going 'what the heck is that?'. It's a mix of Milk of Magnesia and seltzer water...or rather magnesium hydroxide (MgOH) and carbon dioxide (CO2) for the techies. Basically you mix a serving capful of MoM (45ml) into a liter of very cold carbonated water, seal it, shake it and put it back in the fridge...in about 20 minutes, shake it again...and the neatest thing happens...the bottle that was threatening to pop, caves in. All that MoM and gas is now dissolved Mag Bicarb in water. Dilute this into 2 gallons of tap water and use it in any consumable water-based drinks...kool aid, coffee, tea, etc...

I knew within 4 hours that I was coming off the meds. It took a few weeks just to prevent withdrawals due to the amount of narcs I was on, but the pain killing effects continue to this day 9 months later. I won't be without it. I take the concentrate with me on trips. I invested in a home carbonation system to make it now for a couple cents a gallon. My doctors use it, their families use it, my old agency's adminstrators and their families use it, my family uses it.

My sister was like me and ready to retire in agony, as I did three years earlier. She started drinking it over her husband's concerns and had the same results I did and now she has no plans to retire. He's drinking it now too for other reasons, as it's an excellent antiarthritic, which is probably what it's most famous for. I don't have arthritis (that I know of), but the pictures of terribly twisted hands being restored to motion and dramatic reduction in visible arthritis in some of the early studies done in Australia are jaw dropping.

Do not let my experience sway you into anything other than researching Magnesium Bicarbonate water yourself. Nobody is making any money off of this, so it's just word of mouth for now. I think the discoverer in Australia is doing pretty good down there now that the clinical studies are coming back all positive, but around here all we have is each other. Fortunately it's cheap and super easy to make at home.

p.s. Start slow on the water and build up...let your insides tell you when you're ready for more. If you have loose stools, cut back until you don't and then increase slowly again. I drink a gallon a day, but I didn't start there. You might want to start with half a liter of the dilute and proceed slowly up to the amount that seems to offer you the most benefit.

Also, keep using it. Don't stop. It will dissolve calcifications in heart, artery, muscle, brain, and other tissues where calcium shouldn't be solidified, but it takes time. It will also complex with calcium to aid in bone and tooth formation and strength. It's not rocket science, but it is science. Once you really grip the magnesium/calcium interactions and the body's bicarbonate systems it makes sense to have a convenient form of both. All I know is it saved me.

[Captain_Midnight]

JanK writes...Captain Midnight, I have a recipe for homemade coffee ice cream--low carb. Can be made with cream or with coconut milk. Ice cream was the one thing I really missed, and now I can be low carb and still have ice cream. Yum! Let me know if you want the recipe.

Absolutely, and thanks. In fact, if it's not too lengthy, it could make a valuable contribution if posted on this very thread.

Thanks muchly!

.

[Captain_Midnight]

JanK, I read down just a bit farther, and surely enough, you had already posted the coffee ice cream rec. tks again.