Failure - Poop & Carbs page 2

[MissJecka]

From being on the forums for a while, I can honestly say not many folks here follow a HFLC diet, or even the PB to a t! I know I just listen to my body, just like you do (OP). I eat rice and some starchy vegetables like sweet potatoes, white potatoes, and the occasional ear of corn once or twice a year. Why? Because it makes my body feel better. When I was ultra-low-carb (doing the 21 Day Sugar Detox) I was in gastrointestinal distress to the point of tears. Obviously my body doesn't like that, so I slowly upped the carbs and natural-sugar-laden veggies/fruits until I got to a level that works for me. I currently eat about 130g of carbs - some days higher, some days lower - because that's what works for my body.

Kudos to you to following whatever works for you, but definitely don't blame the "primal diet".

[Graycat]

I know what you are going thorough, and the two things that have made a huge difference for me:

~ daily probiotic

~ 500mg. magnesium citrate at bedtime

Eating fermented foods whenever you can is really beneficial too.

[Kochin]

You need a balance of veg. If you needed to hit 180g of carbs to get things going, there's a chance you weren't eating enough leafy veg (low in carbs and high in cellulose and soluble fibers). Maybe not, but my guess is that you'd need at least an apple and 100g of cabbage/spinach/lettuce a day to keep well. That's loads of fiber right there, and can fit into LC, if you want to take that route. Unsure about VLC.

[RichMahogany]

So I've been working on being primal for a few months. Over time I have more & more constipated, to the point of agony. My weight has been frozen, naturally, because I'm full of it. Literally.

For the past three days I decided I could not think about carbs, I had to eat nothing but veg until my gut sorted out. I know from past experience that I do well on mostly veg.

I have eaten almost nothing but raw veg for the past 3 days and finally today I'm having some forward progress. It is so painful that I had to call in sick to work. But things are finally moving. I'm having cramps that are more painful than childbirth labor pains were. It's pretty intense around here today. (I haven't had a bowel movement that was more than the volume of a golfball in more than two weeks now. The irony with my last statement is that I have been looking more & more pregnant the past weeks. So in a way...)

I've been eating around 180g of carbs per day, all from veg. But even before things started moving I felt satiated and my weight loss picked back up. It isn't just from having less food weight in my gut - my pants are looser in the backside all of a sudden.

Paleo has taught me a lot - I will never use vegetable oils again. I've given up my gluten-free treats that were really just processed junk. I think about how close my food is "to the dirt". How close is this food to its natural state?

But I have also learned that not every human being can be lumped together & told, "you should eat less than this many carbs & have lots of fat". I have obviously not been thriving on it.

My plan is to loosely mesh together Eat to Live with Primal - I know, it sounds impossible, right?? But with the idea that I will eat almost all veg, but some lean protein as I feel the need or want it.

I wish all of you the best, and if you are thriving on Primal, that is GREAT and I hope you have further success. But if you aren't - don't be afraid to think outside the box. Pure logic says that no one source has all the answers. Find your OWN best health, regardless of the "label".

If you ask me what my way of eating is... I'll say "it's my very own". I'm trying to take the best of what many great thinkers have come up with & do what is best for me, not what works for anyone else.

I can't believe I'm the first to suggest that the fiber is the problem rather than the solution here. If I ate that kind of quantity of vegetables, I'd be having the same troubles you are. Try a couple days of nothing but buttered meat, eggs cooked in coconut oil, and a big cup of coffee or 3 and see if that doesn't fix you right up.