Last time we left off, I had discussed my childhood problems with lactose, I had embraced primal, and I was experiencing lots of great benefits.
A lot happened since.
So a few weeks ago, I started getting busy. Instead of making my daily spinach, cabbage and veggie salads, I started relying on potatoes (a supposedly harmless primal starch) to fill me up as a side with my meals instead, and my vegetable intake really went down: Basically just ate green beans, potatoes, and citrus with my meats and cheese.
It started going downhill. Slowly at first, but it fed itself and accelerated. First to go was my appetite and I just seemed to stop eating much (although I religiously kept my 2 eggs + cheese + banana breakfast). I started feeling exhausted throughout the day and by the afternoon, I needed a nap. On days when I had labs from 2-5pm, I would be too exhausted to do anything afterward and just collapse on my bed. I had trouble waking up in the morning, despite having slept for 8 hours with my sleep mask. I would stay in bed around 30 minutes just struggling to get out.
And then it got really interesting. My teeth started to hurt. I mean *really* hurt. Like I developed like 15 cavities overnight. Then I got a bacterial thingie on my eye lid (which luckily I still had the eye drops from last time, so treated it right away). Acne got even worse than it already was, with new ones appearing on previously acne free areas of my face. Something was seriously wrong!! I just completely started freaking out about what was happening to me and I still had no idea what was wrong.
The teeth thing was my clue and it dawned on me that I may be having some sort of deficiency. I thought maybe I needed calcium. But I didn't have calcium. I had some zinc supplements lying around so I took those. The next morning the pain in my teeth had lessened by half. Then I took a magnesium supplement. Waking up the next day wasn't as hard as usual, and it hit me like a lightening bolt that I'd had this exact fatigue problem a couple of years ago and at the time, it also went away with magnesium. So I took myself to GNC and told the nice lady to give me the good stuff. A nice big bottle of A-Z multivitamin, with everything in it, and then some.
Since then I've been taking the multivitamin along with the additional magnesium, and Oh Boy!! I actually ended my lab on Friday, and when Farah called to see if I wanted to go out afterward, I had enough energy and positive motivation to do so. Complete 180 degree turn around. I'm waking up easily in the morning and feeling energetic. My appetite has exploded (even more than before), and I just want to eat all the time. Before, I could easily make myself skip a meal when I'm busy, and make it up later, but not for the past few days. When lunch rolls around, I'm just plain starving. And I'm talking 1:00pm here, not the Lebanese lunch time of 2-4pm. My teeth have pretty much stopped hurting me and my face is rapidly clearing up.
I don't plan to always take the supplements, but I'll definitely keep them on hand for the days or weeks when my diet isn't up to scratch from getting too busy or caught up in things.
So this got me thinking. Primal is great, but I was clearly missing things. First of all, food here is not organic. The only good organic things I've been able to find was some yogurt and labneh (and other dairy things) from this Biomass company based in Qeb Elias in the Bekaa. They've got vegetables, but those are almost prohibitively expensive, and often wilted because not many people buy them. Nothing on meat and eggs so it's all conventional which means nourishment is far from optimal. I asked my aunt, industrial food engineer and quality control, what they fed dairy cows, because I wanted to know what nutrients might find their way to me. Combination of enriched corn, grains feed, and some powdered fish (yes, you read that right). YUM! The cows in Qeb Elias, which are EU bio certified, I believe have roaming pasture space, and feed on grass and hay.
Anyway, I got some liver, chopped it up really small, and put it in the freezer. Every time I cook minced meat, I add around a tablespoon of chopped liver. A couple of times a week. Can't taste it, but the nutrients are in there. I like spinach, but it's not always convenient, so for magnesium, I will keep the supplement around for emergencies.
We've also got a lot of bones, and I'm planning to make an awesome bone broth so I can use it later for soups and things. Bones are supposed to be rich in magnesium too.
I've also given up regular milk (again with the stomach aches, sigh) and now drink coconut milk instead. I've also given up black tea and switched to green tea in the morning, and mint tea in the afternoon. I haven't researched yet how much green tea inhibits mineral absorption, but I think it's less than black. I may just go herbal all the way. Yay for Twinings.
Well, that's all for today. Another nutritional mystery solved.
A lot happened since.
So a few weeks ago, I started getting busy. Instead of making my daily spinach, cabbage and veggie salads, I started relying on potatoes (a supposedly harmless primal starch) to fill me up as a side with my meals instead, and my vegetable intake really went down: Basically just ate green beans, potatoes, and citrus with my meats and cheese.
It started going downhill. Slowly at first, but it fed itself and accelerated. First to go was my appetite and I just seemed to stop eating much (although I religiously kept my 2 eggs + cheese + banana breakfast). I started feeling exhausted throughout the day and by the afternoon, I needed a nap. On days when I had labs from 2-5pm, I would be too exhausted to do anything afterward and just collapse on my bed. I had trouble waking up in the morning, despite having slept for 8 hours with my sleep mask. I would stay in bed around 30 minutes just struggling to get out.
And then it got really interesting. My teeth started to hurt. I mean *really* hurt. Like I developed like 15 cavities overnight. Then I got a bacterial thingie on my eye lid (which luckily I still had the eye drops from last time, so treated it right away). Acne got even worse than it already was, with new ones appearing on previously acne free areas of my face. Something was seriously wrong!! I just completely started freaking out about what was happening to me and I still had no idea what was wrong.
The teeth thing was my clue and it dawned on me that I may be having some sort of deficiency. I thought maybe I needed calcium. But I didn't have calcium. I had some zinc supplements lying around so I took those. The next morning the pain in my teeth had lessened by half. Then I took a magnesium supplement. Waking up the next day wasn't as hard as usual, and it hit me like a lightening bolt that I'd had this exact fatigue problem a couple of years ago and at the time, it also went away with magnesium. So I took myself to GNC and told the nice lady to give me the good stuff. A nice big bottle of A-Z multivitamin, with everything in it, and then some.
Since then I've been taking the multivitamin along with the additional magnesium, and Oh Boy!! I actually ended my lab on Friday, and when Farah called to see if I wanted to go out afterward, I had enough energy and positive motivation to do so. Complete 180 degree turn around. I'm waking up easily in the morning and feeling energetic. My appetite has exploded (even more than before), and I just want to eat all the time. Before, I could easily make myself skip a meal when I'm busy, and make it up later, but not for the past few days. When lunch rolls around, I'm just plain starving. And I'm talking 1:00pm here, not the Lebanese lunch time of 2-4pm. My teeth have pretty much stopped hurting me and my face is rapidly clearing up.
I don't plan to always take the supplements, but I'll definitely keep them on hand for the days or weeks when my diet isn't up to scratch from getting too busy or caught up in things.
So this got me thinking. Primal is great, but I was clearly missing things. First of all, food here is not organic. The only good organic things I've been able to find was some yogurt and labneh (and other dairy things) from this Biomass company based in Qeb Elias in the Bekaa. They've got vegetables, but those are almost prohibitively expensive, and often wilted because not many people buy them. Nothing on meat and eggs so it's all conventional which means nourishment is far from optimal. I asked my aunt, industrial food engineer and quality control, what they fed dairy cows, because I wanted to know what nutrients might find their way to me. Combination of enriched corn, grains feed, and some powdered fish (yes, you read that right). YUM! The cows in Qeb Elias, which are EU bio certified, I believe have roaming pasture space, and feed on grass and hay.
Anyway, I got some liver, chopped it up really small, and put it in the freezer. Every time I cook minced meat, I add around a tablespoon of chopped liver. A couple of times a week. Can't taste it, but the nutrients are in there. I like spinach, but it's not always convenient, so for magnesium, I will keep the supplement around for emergencies.
We've also got a lot of bones, and I'm planning to make an awesome bone broth so I can use it later for soups and things. Bones are supposed to be rich in magnesium too.
I've also given up regular milk (again with the stomach aches, sigh) and now drink coconut milk instead. I've also given up black tea and switched to green tea in the morning, and mint tea in the afternoon. I haven't researched yet how much green tea inhibits mineral absorption, but I think it's less than black. I may just go herbal all the way. Yay for Twinings.
Well, that's all for today. Another nutritional mystery solved.
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