Eating for Heat

So I wanted to let you all know that I am making alot of progress in my AF symptoms by working to raise my metabolism. This is due to the work of Matt Stone, who most people believe is a lunatic, (and I also automatically thought he was a lunatic at first too!). I mean, how could my gut-healing-low-carb-adrenal-healing-perfect-paleo diet be wrong?

For two years now I've been religiously following the dietary advice for adrenal fatigue of Wilson (both), Lam, the Weston A Price foundation, Natasha McBride, and Mark Sisson to name a few. And for two years I've seen MINOR improvements. Yes, removing processed foods has done well for me overall, but I was still left feeling cold, anxious and brain fogged while I continued to lose my hair and my muscle as my body was catabolizing itself. Oh and not to mention the utter full body pain upon waking in the morning and the digestive maladies. My allergies too became worse and worse. But I digress, I was still convinced I was on the right track to health. I continued to eat my piles of vegetables, drink my gallons of spring water, and avoid starch, sugar, and grains like the plague.

After the allergy bucket finally busted one day my body was thrown into complete havoc to the point that I was forced into an eating regime that had specifically been created for the most allergic people on earth. Three of the main staples in this plan were white potatoes, white rice, and maple syrup. STARCH! SUGAR! EEEKKK MY ADRENALS!!! But it was either eat the potato or starve. So I ate the damn potato.

A few weeks went by on this eating plan and I slowly began to feel like a human again. I had energy. My anxiety was gone. Even my digestion began to improve (ie not feeling like I've ingested glass after every meal). I was truly perplexed and decided to do some digging into this phenomena. This is when I came across Matt Stone over at 180 degree health.

Matt's theory is that eating "warming foods"- particularly carbs, sugars, and good fats will raise metabolism. When metabolism raises, body temp raises, the digestive fire starts burning again, muscle comes back and hormones level out. He has found that people like myself who have spent years over excercising, over stressing, and under eating are prone to hormonal imbalances and adrenal fatigue. I came to realize that I have been killing my metabolism slowly over the years through my obsessive efforts to stay thin and trim. And to add insult to injury, following the poor advice of "experts" claiming carbs would raise my blood Sugar and hurt my adrenals, and that Sugar would "feed" the imaginary candida I had only made me so much worse than I had been to begin with (the original complaint was anxiety attacks, insomnia, and adrenaline surges).

This all made so much sense to me because I immediately felt exponentially better since adding back starch. I decided to look deeper and give Matt's re-feeding approach to restarting my metabolism a try.

It's been almost 3 weeks and I've been eating to my heart's content the most calorie dense foods I can find. I start the day off with a big old glass of full fat raw milk and some gluten free pancakes with maple syrup and butter, or 4 eggs mixed with a giant serving of white rice and gobs of butter. I gorge on home made ice cream and I eat organic kettle potato chips by the ton. Everything with loads of Sea Salt of course. I hardly eat any green vegetables at all (they were making me sick anyway!) and I've cut my consumption of liquids by more than half. I drink when I'm thirsty but I'm no longer forcing water down my throat. Whenever I'm hungry I eat and I don't think twice. I'm getting close to 3,000 calories a day and I'm barely exercising at all. Just some light walking or yoga every now and then.

I know y'all are probably cringing right now as you read this, but let me tell you I am getting better and better and my body temps are continuing to climb. Brain fog is virtually non existent. My hair is growing again and the oil is returning to my skin. I have energy. No anxiety. Hypoglycemia is a thing of the past and believe it or not my blood Sugar readings are BETTER than they ever were during my ketogenic diet. Even the bags under my eyes are fading. I'm over all in much better spirits.

I've put on a few pounds but I finally have stopped looking like an aids patient. My digestion is still not perfect, but that was one of the worst issues I had along with the allergies. I'm still working on re-introducing foods, but I have noticed that my reactions to previously offending foods are less severe. I also have MCS and have noticed that since I started re-feeding I rarely need my mask anymore and am tolerating airbornes that used to knock me out much better now.

My body temps are averaging in the 97's now whereas before starting the re-feeding I was in the frigid 95's and peeing like Seabiscuit.

So it seems that in a way the nutter Natway was right. Not about the plant and fruit stuff (animal products are absolutely necessary!) but definitely the caloric intake.


I'm sure I've got a long way to go to undo the metabolic damage that I've done to myself over the many years of stress and physically abusing my own body, but I've finally found something that in a crazy way makes sense and is actually working so I wanted to share it with you.

Matt's two latest books are Eat for Heat and Diet Recovery 2. He's a crude snarky SOB but he tells it like it is (I actually love his personality but many view it as unprofessional). He really has helped lots of people with trashed endocrine systems so frankly he can swear all he wants IMHO. He doesn't push supplements and snake oils. He doesn't have his own line of products aside from his books either. He offers tons of free info and participates on his own forums, answering people's questions all the time. No $300 for 30 minute phone consultations a-la-Lam. My kinda guy!

He also talks a great deal about stress, the hypothalamus and the limbic system which really hit home with me as I've been working on retraining my brain from MCS.

Not saying its the magic bullet (because there isn't one!) but it certainly is helping this chick tremendously. If your uber restrictive low carb Paleo diet isn't giving you the results you need, consider this approach. You're going to go crazy at first because it basically counteracts 90%of what we've been taught is "healthy" for our adrenals, but you might just be surprised when you take the plunge actually FEEL better.