Arrgh! Cortisol What am I doing wrong?

[Shelly]

2nd day post 3 day fast. So today I had breakfast of eggs, rice, steamed kale, and cabbage. Didn't get to eat until much later felt extremely stressed BP was 150/100 then ate chicken and steamed veg and small amount of boiled sweet potato and felt a bit better, BP went down to 128/84. But still feel anxious and just had a hypoglycemia episode which I nipped in the bud with small cold sweet potato and some pork. Not freaking so much now but feeling tired and washed out. Doing deep breathing for calming.

Feel like I am between a rock and a hard place. I have tried Keto after two weeks stress levels and liver pain became to uncomfortable to live with and would have sent me to the funny farm. I did the 3 day fast but got liver pain and migraine which did not go away with detox methods so had to stop. Liver is still sore but not as bad. My plan was to go 3 days with fasting and 1 day transition then 3 days maintenance calories to try to avoid cortisol rise. My carb to protein ratio this morning was 60/43 so maybe not good. Macros are 30% carbs, 40% protein and 30% fat. Although my hair mineral lab said to do up to 40% carbs, 40% protein and 20% fat but because I have sugar imbalance I dropped it back a bit even so this correlates for maintenance calories to 175gm carbs, 233 gms protein and 78 gms of fat. Struggling to eat the protein as this equates to about 850 gms of meat fish and eggs. Any advice would be welcome.

 

[Canari]

It might be a reaction to rice. How many eggs for how much rice?

My liver might be better than yours, but I really have a not good background with both liver and pancreas. What works for me is to have more carbs as raw veggies and veg juice. I am nearly starch free. Then, the fat that works for my liver are 2 types: olive oil with lemon juice and no vinegar absolutely. It was not so good when I had more coconut oil, and vinegar. Malic acid in the evening and a mix of lemon juice and some olive oil in the morning as a drink. Dosed instinctively only.... Worked well for my liver and have to do it again.

Veggies, to taste of course but I juice beet and what is too fibrous. I grate carrot. Cucumber up to you... As I am low in sodium, I salt the juice to taste.
Then munch a lot of bitter greens! I mean bitter taste, the one that makes you feel you clean your mouth, tongue and teeth! Chicory salad and dandelion.

Then for me the second thing that saves me for having enough fat is emulsify what i do not take with lemon juice. It means I use eggs for this. This morning I had a fat beef broth, so I have put raw lemon and stirred it in the soup. Then I have always made homemade mayo with egg and oilve oil. Also avocado as I grow them... I also eat some macadamia and brazil nuts, but never use other veg oils, as they are un-emulsified by the extraction. I have nuts with dry figs, that seem to not trigger that much roller coaster in sugar levels. of course eating nuts with another fat also help to emulsify the other fat. Never use veg butter such as peanut or tahini or almond butter, they are already too oily.

I would use mint, peppermint, but not as oil, as leave, and eating the leave. Read about the product atrantil and you will see why they use powdered leave and not oil for this case. Maybe atrantil would be good for you. good product for constipation and all gases in general. Really works.

Tarragon is a good oil, and calming.

About deep breathing, it calms better if you manage a pause after exhale, as this induces a para-sympathetic state. Do a short one with no effort, it is just a pause. Lengthen the pause only with comfort. Too much of a good thing does not work!

 

[Canari]

Also the protein should be very slow cooked, and minimum cooking. I have a better time and no struggle if I have raw veggies with the meat. It chews much easier. Only when I had starches I could not eat raw veggies! I feel good with a veg juice to drink with meat and a salad with a raw egg in it Then I put a recipe for cooking the egg whites in tomato sauce without boiling the egg, as it preserves the amino-acid quality.
Traditionally, my mother cooked fish without boiling it at all, and it was cooked, and more tender. Tender meat harden with cooking. Last night I cooked hard beef, overnight with a slow cooking and no boiling. This morning it was tender...
About eggs: a tartare steack is eaten with a raw egg, and carpaccio is made in lemon juice. Lemon "cook", and egg emulsifie the fat.... recipes really have their reasons!

 

[Shelly]

The idea of emulsifying fats sounds good to me and may help me and slow cooking meat. Due to religious reasons I cannot eat meat with the blood still in it, in other words red. I wonder if I flick from slow 1 to slow 2 as I get mood swings and have this awful cortisol reaction to stress. I have been researching all night and your idea of EVOO is a good one for liver pain it helps reduce fatty liver. I don't think I will fast again as I need to fix my liver first. Liver pain, hypoglycemia all signs of fatty liver. Going to try to fix that first and possibly deal with copper at the same time.

 

[Shelly]

@Canari thanks for your help yesterday. It was quite intense, once everything settled down I realised my carb protein ratio had been off in my first meal and then I got hypoglyceamia. I have switched to brown rice now. Taking dandelion coffee for liver and also cranberry tablets they have helped the liver pain.

 

[mattyb]

You are not trying to diminish cortisol, you are trying to increase sensitivity to cortisol so you don't crash. Your lack of cortisol sensitivity is what creates episodes of hypoglycemia.

Fasting (or any caloric restriction) will fix fatty liver, FYI. Just look at the Newcastle studies. They cured type 2 diabetes in people because it got rid of fatty liver and fatty pancreas. Newcastle studies had people consume 500kcal/day of vegetables, veggie juices, and protein shakes for 3-8 weeks.

You may just need to do some caloric restriction and exercise for a prolonged period of time to get your weight down and treat fatty liver, if you can't tolerate fasting.

Remember, all fat leaves your body via CO2. You breathe more, you lose more fat. You eat more than you breathe, you gain fat. EVOO does not help treat fatty liver, it's calories, it's carbon, anything that increases caloric intake will make fatty liver worse. You should just consume as many greens and vegetables as possible. Supplement with small amounts of protein/fat and even less carbs. Vegetable juices will likely help.

EVOO normally would help with stimulating secretion of bile from the gallbladder, but since your gallbladder was removed it won't be helpful for you. The effects of fasting will be different in you because of this. I think the liver pain may be partially from the removal of the gallbladder, not from the fatty liver (people with fatty liver normally have an easy time fasting with minimal to no pain and less hypoglycemia).

I wish surgeons would stop removing gallbladders. That causes so many issues in the long term when people are seeking real solutions.

 

[Canari]

EVOO normally would help with stimulating secretion of bile from the gallbladder, but since your gallbladder was removed it won't be helpful for you.

Gosh, I forgot this point! EVOO is helpful when there is pain from gall bladder!

I realised my carb protein ratio had been off in my first meal and then I got hypoglyceamia. I have switched to brown rice now.

Same as minerals, ratio is an important point...

 

[Shelly]

You are not trying to diminish cortisol, you are trying to increase sensitivity to cortisol so you don't crash. Your lack of cortisol sensitivity is what creates episodes of hypoglycemia.

Fasting (or any caloric restriction) will fix fatty liver, FYI. Just look at the Newcastle studies. They cured type 2 diabetes in people because it got rid of fatty liver and fatty pancreas. Newcastle studies had people consume 500kcal/day of vegetables, veggie juices, and protein shakes for 3-8 weeks.

You may just need to do some caloric restriction and exercise for a prolonged period of time to get your weight down and treat fatty liver, if you can't tolerate fasting.

Remember, all fat leaves your body via CO2. You breathe more, you lose more fat. You eat more than you breathe, you gain fat. EVOO does not help treat fatty liver, it's calories, it's carbon, anything that increases caloric intake will make fatty liver worse. You should just consume as many greens and vegetables as possible. Supplement with small amounts of protein/fat and even less carbs. Vegetable juices will likely help.

EVOO normally would help with stimulating secretion of bile from the gallbladder, but since your gallbladder was removed it won't be helpful for you. The effects of fasting will be different in you because of this. I think the liver pain may be partially from the removal of the gallbladder, not from the fatty liver (people with fatty liver normally have an easy time fasting with minimal to no pain and less hypoglycemia).

I wish surgeons would stop removing gallbladders. That causes so many issues in the long term when people are seeking real solutions.

Me too. I so regret listening to them 20 years ago. I tried to talk my mother out of having it done but she was too afraid of doing a liver flush because they were big and then called me to say that after having her gallbladder out she can no longer drink alcohol and nor could I after. My daughter has had gallbladder attacks and is now on a liver cleansing diet, thankfully she found that epsom salts really helps with attacks.

Sometimes I wonder if they left something in me because I have had liver pain ever since. I am thinking of asking my Dr for a liver ultrasound to try to work out what the pain is as if it was fatty liver I have been on a low- moderate carb diet for quite a while around 100-150gm carb a day. However I have just googled the type of pain I have and it seems as if there are a lot more out there like me with pain in the liver. I did have pain before the fast but it got worse with the fast. I will still do a liver flush as it is possible to have stones in the bile ducts even without a gall bladder plus having done them before I often had felt much better.
I thought that finishing a 3 day fast that I would not need to be too careful coming off as I would not have gone into ketosis but it is 3 days later and I am at 30% of maintenance calories. I have not gained weight but I have not lost anymore. I have been in 30-45% deficit from maintenance the last 3 days I am reluctant to increase calories as I do not want to gain what I have just lost.. So perhaps I should just eat one meal a day and go to 500 calories, would it be possible to do that over a year?

 

[mattyb]

The bile ducts may have healed poorly or were damaged in the surgery. This often will happen after gallbladder removal. The treatment for this is to go back in for another surgery and have them fix the bile ducts. It works when done properly. Go see your doctor and talk about this. Having liver pain post surgery is not normal, needs treatment.

No, not possible to do 500kcal/day for a year. It only takes about 8 weeks (maximum 12) to cure fatty liver with that kind of diet. The pounds come off very quickly. Afterwards you can resume eating a healthy eucaloric diet.