Feeling the worst iv'e ever felt in my life on primal. page 2

[jellyfish]

Diet does make a great scapegoat. It's so easy to control compared to other things. Granted, it is almost always part of the problem, but the brain is a funny thing. Having physical revulsion to meat is most likely mental, not biological (unless your meds are disrupting your processing of the meat thus leading to the feeling of revulsion.)

You're taking on too much too fast.

Sort out your mental issues/reactions to medications/whatever else you're not telling us first. Eat a happy vegan primal if that's what your body wants right now. Don't worry about building muscle until you get other issues worked out. You don't need to stress your body more than it already is. Lower the stress and other things like sleep issues will most likely fall into place.

Makes a lot of sense and I really appreciate it. I will mention though that i'm not on the meds yet but am hoping to start later this week assuming everything in my blood panels looks good.

I'm not like repulsed by meat in an ew gross kind of way and will happily eat a bucket of chicken legs in a night but it's like after days on end of eating meat heavy it starts to just feel wrong and awful. Have you ever had something that when you first put it on your plate it's hot and delicious but by the last little bit it's cold and slimy and hard to swallow? It's kind of like that but not really.

[sarasue624]

I do understand what you mean about the days on end revulsion. I get that way about eggs.

But one day I realized that if eggs sound yucky to me (and I love eggs most of the time) that's probably a sign that I'm not hungry enough to be eating. Are you eating meat at set times out of habit or because someone at some point told you you should? Is your tummy literally rumbling and your mouth salivating when you smell food cooking?

If you've been pushing the protein to gain muscle I don't really have any good advice for you other than to go visit some primal friendly bodybuilding forums. Still, though, see how the meds treat you first and let your body adjust before stressing it out more.

[Travis Mcgee]

Hi Jellyfish,
I have been exploring this paleo thing for a while and just started reading this forum today and saw your post. My son has an auto-immune illness called PANDAS, which stands for pediatric auto-immune neuropsychiatric disorder associated with streptococcus. The gist is that the immune response to the strep throat bacteria becomes faulty and starts attacking tissues in the body, as in Rheumatic fever, where the antibodies attack the heart and joints. In PANDAS, the faulty antibodies are believed to attack the Basil Ganglia in the brain, causing a host of symptoms, but primarily OCD and anxiety. Some researchers now believe that all OCD is auto-immune and infection triggered. If you have a history of frequent strep throat infections, sinus infections and possibly other infectious triggers such as Lyme disease or mycoplasma pneumonia, than you might have PANDAS. Have you ever noticed your symptoms worsening with illness, such as an upper respiratory infection or noticed symptoms lessening after a course of antibiotics? If so than that me be a clue. PANDAS is considered a pediatric illness, meaning researchers believe you get it while you're a kid, but it doesn't mean you can't have it as an adult, especially if you got it while you were a kid. I'll post a few links below if you are curious to learn more. The first link is just some general info from the NIMH just to show you that this is legit. The next three are from a psychiatrist who treats adult PANDAS, though he is not the only one. Good luck and feel free to contact me.
NIMH Pediatrics Developmental Neuroscience Branch
EVIL PANDAS: A Scourge on the Brain | Psychology Today
Evil P.A.N.D.A.S., Part II: Adult Affliction & Treatment | Psychology Today
PANDAS: for Patients, Parents and Physicians | Psychology Today

[Drumroll]

So you are eating carbs and are NOT very low carb? So we can effectively rule that out as a cause? Yay, finally something where we can't just say "lol he's low carb, or course he's got issues."

Hmmm... Maybe even changing it up could help you. You know, trying the lower carb thing for a bit.

But before you do, you need to go see a qualified doctor, and perhaps also a nutritionist for some serious tests and advice. It's tempting to blame the diet here, but that tendency needs to be kept at bay until someone who has a bit more knowledge has spoken on the matter. And that's not us here on this forum.

[sbhikes]

I'm not like repulsed by meat in an ew gross kind of way and will happily eat a bucket of chicken legs in a night but it's like after days on end of eating meat heavy it starts to just feel wrong and awful. Have you ever had something that when you first put it on your plate it's hot and delicious but by the last little bit it's cold and slimy and hard to swallow? It's kind of like that but not really.

I know EXACTLY what you are talking about. I believe this is when you have had too much lean meat. Either stay away from meat until it's appealing again or else eat fattier meat from time-to-time. 85/15 hamburger, add some bacon to whatever, make a pork butt roast or something. This is a well-known reaction to too much lean meat. Even Vilhjalmur Stefansson wrote about this in the early 1900. None of the meat-only eating cultures in the world eat only lean meat. They eat both lean AND fat and quite a lot of fat. Only lean makes you very sick. I realize you aren't trying to go meat-only, and neither am I, but the same thing will happen on a mixed diet that doesn't have enough fat but has too much lean meat. Not everyone needs to eat tons of meat. So follow your appetite on this one.

[Owly]

Some of us eat meat less often than others. I eat a lot of eggs, but some days I may not eat any meat, while on other days I might have it at two or even three meals. Don't feel that you have to eat loads of meat, and if you prefer seafood over red meat, then I think it's okay to get most of your animal protein from those sources.

I agree with people above who are suggesting seeing your doctor, though. This sounds like more than just the change in diet.

[merryish]

I agree with Owly - if you don't want to eat meat, don't eat it. Eat more fish instead, add more vegetables back in, go for vegetable sources of fats like avocado and coconut oil instead of the lard-heavy meats that make you miserable. The most important thing I've learned about the Primal lifestyle is, it isn't a one-size-fits-all way of eating. The important thing is to eat as cleanly as you can and cut out as much processed crap as you can; the rest you can tailor to your situation.

And you don't have to do the same thing all the time, either. If you're sick of land animals, switch to fish or shellfish for a while. If you're sick of fish, try poultry. If you don't feel like meat at all, skip it for a while. Eventually you'll probably want some again, but it's definitely not worth the level of stress you've built up around it. Paleo/Primal isn't the "eat lard or ELSE!" diet - there are all kinds of healthy fat sources that don't come from cows or pigs, so there's no reason I can think of for you to bury yourself in cow and pig meat if it's making you this unhappy.

If the way you're eating right now fits the parameters of "healthy" but isn't sustainable for you, then you're just setting yourself up for misery, stress and failure by trying to continue it. My suggestion would be to pick the top three dietary sources of misery in your life right now and get rid of them; replace them with something healthy that you actually enjoy, instead. N=1!

Good luck, I hope it gets better for you soon!

[zoebird]

Ok, I'm going to see if I understand this.

You have OCD/anxiety, sleep issues, and difficulties with gaining muscle, while also having an eating disorder (of sorts, whether or not it's official).

You went vegan, then pescitarian when you added in fish, and ate very little "bad stuff" (sugar, soy, etc). Doing this abated your anxiety/OCD and eating disorder issues and you lost the bulk of your weight during this time. But, it didn't solve your sleep issues, and you found it difficult to gain muscle.

So, you went paleo -- which mostly involved getting rid of grains, but you are not low carb, and adding a lot of meat which you find makes you feel yucky.

My suggestion is to do a pescitarian paleo diet.

Eat the fish/eggs/seafood as you prefer. Add in a bit of red meats as you want it -- if you want it. And from there, just eat the veg/fruit that you want.

From there, just track your sleep and stress levels, and then consider doing lifting twice a week (compound movements) and see how it goes. You might be surprised.

Sleep is probably the real problem.

[RaeVynn]

Changing from vegan to paleo - even with the pescatarianism in the middle - you could very well be dealing with digestive difficulties due to mismatched gut flora. It takes some time, and maybe some probiotics (do ask your doctor/nutritionist), for that to shift away from grain/veggie digesting to animal protein digesting.

[magicmerl]

My suggestion is to do a pescitarian paleo diet.

Yeah. When I read that you were a pisco/ovo vegetarian, I was thinking yay, just like all of us!

You don't HAVE to eat red meat. It just tastes good.