Fat cravings

[Waco]

Hello!

I have been following mb properly for 2 months now and have come up against a slight issue...

I am underweight (on that bmi chart) and am fairly skinny, i seem to be craving fatty foods, i use on average about a teaspoon or two of oil in my cooking and have a little bit of tahini some days

So my body seems to say, eat more fat in your diet
my mind says eat more fat in my diet
mb as i understand it says don't eat more fat in your diet

Any thoughts?

Thank you

Mark

[Blue Dolfin]

It's normal to lose weight when you start eating the macrobiotic way. You're not absorbing all the nutrients as well because the intestines aren't used to the food yet, but that will change with time. It will really help to chew very, very well. Also, remember that the body converts extra carbs into fat. Just be sure you're eating enough food. It might take time for the diet to help calm an overactive thyroid, too, in case that is a cause of your skinnyness.

[Waco]

Thank you

in the mean time i had i bit of a binge on tanini and honey sandwiches, which then devolved into eating some chocolate left over from christmas!!!

I have psoriasis, and i just read on a internet site that amongst other things psoriasis may be caused by the body’s inability to metabolise fatty acids. It recommends digestive enzymes to remedy this. Does umeboshi or saurkraut or miso make a good replacement? Do you think this might be related?

what can cause an overactive thyroid?

Much thanks

Mark

[Blue Dolfin]

Hyperthyroidism and psoriasis usually don't happen together. Read this page.

Lipase deficiency is suggestive of a weak pancreas as well as possible gallstones. What you have just binged on is a slightly less harmful (to you) form of what probably caused the problem in the first place (red meat, dairy products, sugar, trans-fats).

If the skin condition really bothers you, it won't hurt to take some supplemental enzymes for a while, but please don't become dependent on them or allow yourself more leeway to binge hoping the supplements will take care of the root cause, because they won't do it. They just make it a little easier to live with the problem.

Continue eating a wholesome and rather "wide" macro diet with plenty of variety, and your overall condition will continue to improve.

I read your answer to Waco and am curious about your advice to "eat widely." I'm new to macrobiotics, trying to heal a life threatening condition, and was told that it is very important to eat "narrow" in the beginning. I was also told to eat virtually no oil for the first month (except for small amounts every ten days), that I would "never heal" and "never discharge the excess" if I didn't do this (have NO oil). Are there controversies about these things in the MB community? If so, is there something I might read that would enlighten me to make my own decisions? I didn't like the "threat" that came with the counseling. Will someone "discharge" even if they are eating very little of something like oil, or does one have to eliminate it entirely (something that seems dangerous to me). Also, while I can see the need to eat narrowly, there is some indication that breaking that narrowness, even to have an extra baked apple or day of millet in place of brown rice, would be troubling. I'd love any opinions on this.
--Meeso

[Blue Dolfin]

meeso - I too came to macrobiotics with a life-threatening condition. In fact I was told in no uncertain terms by an oncologist that I would be dead in two months or less no matter what I did. I tried sticking to the straight and narrow path but I was not digesting and assimilating the food well in spite of a tremendous amount of chewing. The evidence of this was visible every morning in the commode, which appeared to contain vomit more than feces even though the food had passed entirely through my digestive tract. I also lost more than 30 lbs. in one month's time after starting MB, and I wasn't too heavy to begin with.

Knowledgeable TCM practitioners advised me to use some Chinese herbs to build my strength, and I was given moxa and acupuncture treatments (moxa only in the beginning as I was too weak for needles). Finally a very wise Western TCM doctor told me to widen my diet a bit. After doing that my healing accelerated.

Since I don't know what your life-threatening condition is and have no idea about your past habits, present condition, etc. there is no way I can give you proper suggestions. All I can do is report what worked for me and tell you that I've seen too many people try the strict form of the diet and bounce like a yo-yo from one extreme to the other putting great strain on their bodies in the process.

I am not aware of a controversy among MB counselors on this score but then again I am not in close contact with many in the community anymore. I do know there are many differing approaches and opinions. You really need to look at your counselor's track record and ask around. Feel free to send me a PM and I will pass on any info that I might have heard but I won't malign anyone unless I have firsthand knowledge or have heard from someone whom I wholly trust that their advice has damaged others.

When I say "eat widely" I mean 40% grains is plenty and 10% animal foods isn't too much. Also, don't be afraid to eat the vegetables that are often listed as "minimize" such as green beans, celery, sprouts, okra, etc. This is such a minor thing compared to stopping refined sugar and flour, dairy, red meat and all the chemical food additives. It is not gonna make or break your healing process. I would much rather see someone eating fresh vegetables of almost any variety than find that in trying to be too strict they ended up face-down on the floor in Baskin-Robbins! And, yes, I've been there, done that and got the T-shirt.

Beginners in macrobiotics generally have weak intestines and a deficiency of hydrochloric acid and no idea how to chew properly, therefore cannot absorb enough of the nutrients in wholesome food and thus get strong cravings for something their bodies are more used to. This can be compensated for to a certain extent by having an expert cook preparing your meals, but very few beginners have access to such strong cooking. Certainly their own cooking will not suffice to make a narrower diet adequate.

These cravings are nearly impossible to defeat entirely, and with a life-threatening condition you absolutely do not want to risk being unable to keep from indulging in the foods and drinks which contributed to your illness, which is what almost always happens if the diet being followed is too narrow in the beginning.

The main thing to keep in mind is you're working on a slow process of changing your blood quality. That is what heals you. If, during that process, you restrict the diet too much, discharging can become very uncomfortable and taxing to the body which is trying to heal itself. So the point is to consider whether what you are eating and drinking is or isn't going to improve or at least not worsen your blood quality. There is no way on earth that switching rice for millet or eating a baked apple or having a teaspoon or two of sesame oil is going to produce bad blood.

Let me give you an example from my counseling experience. I was helping a 57-year-old male leukemia patient. When I arrived on the scene he was too weak to walk. He was also coming straight off of a lifetime of standard American diet so there was no way he could jump right into a strict MB regimen and expect to get well. He ate and drank only what I prepared for him for nearly a month and was feeling better and better. Then he went to his doctor who checked his blood and found a normal white cell count.

To celebrate, he took me out to a restaurant and let me order his food. I ordered broiled white meat fish of some kind, a baked potato, broccoli and a tossed salad with lemon only. While I was in the restroom he ate a slice of bread with butter (real butter) thinking what I didn't know wouldn't hurt him. But the next day he was feeling very sick, had diarrhea, and told me about the butter. He said "that's the only lesson I'll ever need about dairy products."

But you see, if he had done this, say, two weeks into the diet, it would have set back his healing a lot more. Leukemia doesn't take long to heal because the blood changes so quickly.

If you are really serious about re-establishing your health, please get some help from a well-qualified practitioner of TCM. Tell me where you live and I will help you find someone in your area. I don't claim to know it all but I have outlived my death sentence by more than 30 years so far so I must have done something right, and it sure wasn't following a narrow diet in the beginning.

[Waco]

Much thanks for your advice, to me it sounds well balanced and goes along nicely with some of my own veiws!

I will not be taking digestive enzymes as my aim is to find out about getting rid of psoriasis, rather than getting rid of psoriasis at all costs. Do you feel then that the weak pancreas and the inability to metabolise fatty acids would be a symtom rather than the cause and that they would sort themselves out if the cause is removed and a decent diet is followed?

I will be avoiding gluten for the next couple of weeks as i feel that might be associated, and i will certainly follow your advice on eating widely while still eating mb stylee, for me i think that basically means maybe a little more in the way of oil, toasted seeds, sprouted stuff and dried fruit (cooked in millet porridge with a pinch of seasalt ) I am and will also be using some medicinal herbal teas. I know some say not too use them, but i am starting out into studies of herbal medicine, and find them useful, as well as it being a good learning experience trying them out on myself

Thankyou

Mark

Blue Dolphin : Thanks so much! But oops--I meant to write "NON-life threatening condition" so as to make you aware that nothing dire was happening (just uncomfortable and frustrating). Still, that said, there is a bit of time pressure on my situation, since i'm really trying to heal multiple things and one of them is uterine fibroids. I'm trying to avoid a second surgery (first was a myomectomy), but if they grow too large and cause too many problems that i'll probably end up with a VERY unwanted hysterectomy. I'm also trying to do away with many other problems that are hard to quantify or describe. I've been on the diet for a short time, and am noticing positive improvements already! However I am VERY afraid of starting to discharge in a super unpleasant way, as I have water fasted before with some pretty bad consequences. I'm also afraid of doing harm to myself, as some of the other problems I haven't described seem to have come out after a very aggressive homeopathy treatment. I've tried TCM, and found myself having great difficulty tolerating herbs (which I love in concept), though a local (American) TCM herbalist has been able to make a dent in my condition in spite of this. This is one of the issues--I'd like to do the diet while continuing the herbs, but the counselor is very much against this. I don't want to listen to her, but the herbs alone haven't fully helped my problems and i'd like to see what MB can do without stopping the herbs. The counselor says the herbs are too yin and I "won't heal" if I don't do this right, ditto the oil (I "won't heal" if I don't deal the regimen described). I don't want to stop oil completely--it's not that I can't do this, but that I don't want to for fear of health worsening. I suppose I should go to someone else for MB counseling (i'm curious who you would recommend in my area for TCM, though the herbalist I go to is well known and supportive of MB). I think, though, that you've answered my question about the controversy. I'm thinking I will go with my instincts, but I'm going to have to find a different, more open-minded MB counselor, as I need someone to guide me along here in some way especially if I discharge unpleasantly.
--Meeso

Blue Dolphin: I just re-read your post and am even more appreciative. Truthfully, I do feel that I am making progress in some way in a short period of time--I look and feel better, so something is right. And I have in fact been doing MB but with a slightly wider stance than the counselor intended. I've felt intuitively that it was okay, but have worried about the advice I got. I am curious, though what you mean by "Ending up in the floor at Baskin-Robbins." Do you mean that you craved ice cream, gave in, and literally passed out from it? Do you think that giving in to a craving for, say, chicken, could produce a similar response? How does one know if one will get sick from a bit of butter, like your patient, or if something like butter is "the problem" and whether it is early enough in treatment to impede progress? I hope this is clear. I appreciate your advice. Though I don't know you, your advice seems sane, balanced, and thoughtful.
--Meeso

[Dorf]

Hello.

Wow. You know what? That was the topic of my thoughts for the last few days and I thought I was going to go crazy! Ugh! In fact, to fullfill my cravings, I indulged in Jo Louies snack cakes and yogurt and froot loops.

That might just be the sugar craving, but man it is harash and it is a totaL LOW to the self esteem. So yeah. Thanks for openeing up the topic, and I would encourage anyone out there who knows whats going on exactly in how to combat unwise nutritional dillemas.

I know I am just starting off in Macro. It has been about 2.5 years. Within this time I have been weening myself off of eggs, meat, fish and my final accomplishment, soon to be DAIRY!! Dairy is the most prominent in my life. I drink it in my coffee in the morning.

Soo, take care everyone. And I hope that everyone in this forum is well.

Ciao.
From La Dorfo!

[Blue Dolfin]

Originally Posted by Meeso

I am curious, though what you mean by "Ending up in the floor at Baskin-Robbins." Do you mean that you craved ice cream, gave in, and literally passed out from it?

That was a figure of speech, sort of. I didn't actually pass out in an ice cream shop. What I meant is I know what it is to get uncontrollable cravings, yield to them and suffer unpleasant consequences.

Originally Posted by Meeso

Do you think that giving in to a craving for, say, chicken, could produce a similar response? How does one know if one will get sick from a bit of butter, like your patient, or if something like butter is "the problem" and whether it is early enough in treatment to impede progress?

First of all, thanks for the compliments. I'd like to point out that I'm not a doctor, I never had any patients, and I don't give "treatment". That being said, the answers you seek are learned through trial and error. There are so many variables involved that it's not possible to give a single correct response.

When you get cravings try to satisfy them with the "next best thing" if possible. Like, you want a steak sooooooooo bad, see if some organic beef broth will do it for you. (I once contracted amoebic dysentery - bloody diarrhea with mucus, too weak to stand, the whole shebang - and although I couldn't eat, I kept dreaming about eating steak. I told my friend who was a TCM practitioner and he said, for goodness' sake, have some beef! So I had a friend bring me a can of broth, drank it, and then I felt much, much better almost immediately. This was in about my 7th or 8th year of MB. I had never before craved beef during those years but enjoyed the smell of it being cooked.)

We are free to take any food. The wise way to do it is with awareness of how it will affect us and acceptance of the consequences. The food is not to blame for how we feel. We are responsible because we choose what to eat (and drink), when we eat it, how much of it we eat, how we prepare it and what else we eat along with it.

In the beginning, trust what you learn from those with more macrobiotic experience than you have, and trust what your own body tells you. Learn to distinguish between pathological cravings ("I want") and genuine messages from the body which say "I need". And be honest with yourself! We never need ice cream or sugar! Especially not with uterine fibroids!!!

Those fibroids are painful and will be made worse by extreme foods. The less you take of refined sugar and animal protein, the better, but if your body says it has to have some chicken, have some chicken broth.

When you're questioning whether or not something is going to help or harm you, take a little of it, and then pay attention to whether your pain is greater or smaller the next day.

As to herbs, I can put you in contact with a long-time macrobiotic Chinese herbalist. Send me a PM if you're interested. The person I'm talking about is VERY good and WILL be able to help you.

Blue Dolfin, thanks for your help. I'm sorry everyone if I seem to have hijacked this thread a bit! In fact I'd like to send you a message, but for some reason the system won't log me in. I sent a message to the administrator to fix this. I'm curious who you'd recommend, but, truthfully, I can barely take herbs without getting strange "Reactions" that aren't typical or seemingly of the digestive system. The herbalist I see has her own herb company with many well made liquid extracts, and some of these, when formulated very carefully, have helped me, but not to a great extent. At this point there is NO raw herbal formula that I can tolerate. It's been quite a challenge for her (and me); hence the desire to try the food-based macrobiotics. In fact in just a few weeks macro, with some sweet veggie drink AND aduki tea which I think is KEY for me, I've seen great improvements, so i'm hopeful. I'll try to send a pm when they'll allow me to.
--Meeso

[Blue Dolfin]

meese - sounds like whatever herbs you've been getting aren't Chinese formula. They generally do not use raw herbs or extracts. And I doubt that any MB counselor would advise against using a genuine Chinese herbal formula. You may have been told that extracts are too yin because they contain much alcohol. There are not many single herb extracts I would recommend, myself, but Chinese herbal formulas are more like a soup that you cook using various roots, bark, leaves, seeds, flowers and other parts of plants prescribed for you. If you use ICQ you can contact me via # 67147737.

BD: Nope, they are definitely chinese formulas--she is a noted herbalist/acupuncturist. (My latest formula is qing shi yi qi tang mixed with si wu tang; the former is a spleen/stomach formula called "clear the parasites and build the chi" or something like that. The latter is for blood deficiency.) She pushes patients to use the twigs, stems, etc. but sometimes this isn't feasible, and she also has these liquid extracts made with just a bit of alcohol (they're not tinctures). She uses them for lazy yuppies (like me) (but I couldn't tolerate the twigs and stems and can't really tolerate most herbs at all). She has had this company for a long time, and is well known, and she also sells liquid mixtures, (mixed for each individual client), to other herbalists to use with their lazy yuppie clients. They have helped me!! Basically, I need most formulas to be mixed with "si wu tang" or I cannot tolerate them. IT's very strange and if I try to describe you'll want to tune out. She just does what seems to work and has stopped asking too many questions, because my problems make no sense. Anyway, I don't want to hijack this thread any further, but not sure what "ICQ" is. Would it be inappropriate for me to give my yahoo address here? It's not my "real" address so if it gets funny e-mail I'll just stop using it.
--Meeso