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Turning the Puzzle Sideways: Sleep, Diet and the Brain-Gut Connection

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Re: Turning the Puzzle Sideways: Sleep, Diet and the Brain-Gut Connection

#81

Post by londt8 »

peteretep wrote: post #33
Aromasin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found with me that, after trying keto for ages and loving how I felt but hating the diet itself, I managed to pin point the issue down to grains. Any form of grain, be it rice, wheat, barley, oats etc, all seemed to mess me up big style. I'n now on a diet of mostly fruit, nuts, beans, seeds and tubers and I'm better than I was on keto on almost every measurable factor. I think cutting out the carbs initially imp…

It's a shame there's so much pseudo-science around food intolerances, as I'd basically dismissed out of hand that I might be intolerant to some foods. As part of a separate diet, it's become clear to me that bread caused the life-long indigestion I've suffered, and that eggs were causing my skin to be bad, neither of which were links I'd made before. Also currently on a diet that isn't keto -- I'm eating a lot of veg…

Have you checked for diabetes?

Re: Turning the Puzzle Sideways: Sleep, Diet and the Brain-Gut Connection

#82

Post by tomp »

portroyal wrote: post #31
devilmoon wrote: post #26

Something to consider when talking about anything wheat/gluten related is that SO many people nowadays are starting to show signs of gluten intolerance/allergy and this might be due to glyphosate rather than the gluten itself. I come from Italy and trust me when I tell you that everyone and their uncles eat a diet that is 99% gluten-based, however until a few years ago nobody ever had problems with it. I am starting…

> I am starting to truly believe that we are slowly poisoning ourselves without realising it and then blaming the wrong culprits for it. I have a background in hospitality, so I used to think about this all the time. I fully agree with you because I have no idea where all these allergies came from. It doesn't help that the problem is exacerbated by restaurants bending over backwards to fill chairs -- many of those al…

> many of those allergies are just diets with parlance that cooks easily understand

Absolutely. My dad has a strong aversion to garlic - it's not an alergy, he just can't stand even the faintest taste of it in food. After years of telling the waiters "absolutely no garlic" and the waiters bringing food with garlic and him complaining and the waiters answering "the cook said it's so little you shouldn't be able to taste it" nowadays he just says "I'm alergic to garlic" and he has problems much more rarely.

Re: Turning the Puzzle Sideways: Sleep, Diet and the Brain-Gut Connection

#83

Post by rofo1 »

brainzap wrote: post #71
rofo1 wrote: post #17

I've had my share of sleep problems in the past. Fixed it by reading "Why We Sleep" and "Circadian Code" and borrowing a lot of ideas and suggestions there. I immediately gave up coffee, at first, a long with a bunch of other things (details at [0]). Anyway, recently I started experimenting with coffee again and it turns out it didn't have any impact on my sleep, whatsoever. I started drinking coffee again (albeit, l…

The problem I see with all these Anecdotes is, that when a person starts to take care of their body like you did, they attack multiple health problems at once: improving sleep, reducing coffee, eating more greens, a little bit more workout. So it is more the sum than a single thing.

To be precise, I was never out of shape in my entire life. At some points, I was extremely fit, some moderately fit, but I was never in a bad shape even when I wasn't sleeping right.

So, that in itself didn't help with my sleep, for example.

It might be more psychological than anything else. Wouldn't surprise me!

Re: Turning the Puzzle Sideways: Sleep, Diet and the Brain-Gut Connection

#84

Post by tomp »

iamben wrote: post #22
rofo1 wrote: post #17

I've had my share of sleep problems in the past. Fixed it by reading "Why We Sleep" and "Circadian Code" and borrowing a lot of ideas and suggestions there. I immediately gave up coffee, at first, a long with a bunch of other things (details at [0]). Anyway, recently I started experimenting with coffee again and it turns out it didn't have any impact on my sleep, whatsoever. I started drinking coffee again (albeit, l…

I loved "Why We Sleep" (was a HN recommendation, I think!). One of my biggest takeaways was learning to not feel guilty about it. I think the constant 'hustle mentality' ends up making a lot of this community (in particular) demonise sleep in an "I'll sleep when I'm dead" and "if I'm not working 22 hours a day I'm being out hustled!" When I 'forgave' myself for sleeping (which sounds mental, but bear with) and starte…

Same here. I have a friend who has limitless energy - he can party until 5pm, sleep for 2 hours, then go skiing the next day. All my youth I've felt guily about not being able to do this.

Recently I've simply accepted that my body needs more sleep, and I feel better if I satisfy this need, so I try to sleep more. I still struggle to go to be (the internet is just so interesting!) but at least I don't feel guilty anymore.

Re: Turning the Puzzle Sideways: Sleep, Diet and the Brain-Gut Connection

#85

Post by diydsp »

collyw wrote: post #42
devilmoon wrote: post #26

Something to consider when talking about anything wheat/gluten related is that SO many people nowadays are starting to show signs of gluten intolerance/allergy and this might be due to glyphosate rather than the gluten itself. I come from Italy and trust me when I tell you that everyone and their uncles eat a diet that is 99% gluten-based, however until a few years ago nobody ever had problems with it. I am starting…

What's the advice for avoiding it? Organic food (which I always thought was a fad)?

one tip is avoid GMO foods. the mods make the food resistant to glyphosate, so they can spray it heavily and the crop survives, weeds don't. more gets in your body though.

there are also many google-able tips, such as washing foods better, choosing organic, eating less processed food and more, e.g. https://janeshealthykitchen.com/avoid-these-foods-with-monsa...

Re: Turning the Puzzle Sideways: Sleep, Diet and the Brain-Gut Connection

#86

Post by fifnir »

laforge wrote: post #14
iamben wrote: post #2

I've been on a ketogenic diet for a year now and sleep has been the biggest thing. I was a light, restless sleeper and I noticed very quickly how how much better my sleep got. I'd fall asleep quicker and it feels (and tracks) deeper. I don't wake as much, sweat nearly as much when I sleep and wake up feeling far more rested. Sleep aside, I don't sweat nearly as much during the day and I've shaken almost most all the…

Maybe you want to consider to switch to a whole food plant based diet. Other than the other „lifestyle“ diets such as low carb, the plant based is actually backed by science. A good source is nutritionfacts.org and the book „how not to die“ by the same author. If you asked me to switch two months ago, I‘d say no way. But the science behind it convinced me to try it and it is so much easier than expected.

What's the best that we can eat? --> What we're evolved to eat What did hominids eat up to 10.000 years ago? --> Everything except carbs as we know them today

There's your connection of science to low-carb

Carbs in the quantities that we have them these days are ridiculously unnatural,

Re: Turning the Puzzle Sideways: Sleep, Diet and the Brain-Gut Connection

#87

Post by coldtea »

coldtea wrote: post #51
laforge wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you want to consider to switch to a whole food plant based diet. Other than the other „lifestyle“ diets such as low carb, the plant based is actually backed by science. A good source is nutritionfacts.org and the book „how not to die“ by the same author. If you asked me to switch two months ago, I‘d say no way. But the science behind it convinced me to try it and it is so much easier than expected.

If the science is a private website and a book by the same person, it's not really "science". And by mixing and matching different research papers, any diet peddler/author/etc can make it appear as their specific diet is "backed by science" (when it's just a bunch of disparate papers in its favor, without context -- e.g. later responses to those papers, quality and reproducibility, papers that study the exact opposit…

>* The website is not by a single individual with commercial interests. All revenue from the book goes to his foundation, which runs the website*

Not sure for the particulars of this case, but setting up a "foundation", "non profit (which gives one huge salaries as 'expenses')" and so on, are the oldest tricks in the book for con-men, from churches, to donations, activists, etc...

So "all money goes to the foundation" is hardly comforting (the foundation can be setup to cut them a big payslip for their consulting/services/running it, save him tax, etc, in the end make them more than they would make with a "for profit" entity).

Re: Turning the Puzzle Sideways: Sleep, Diet and the Brain-Gut Connection

#88

Post by sz4kerto »

coldtea wrote: post #64
sz4kerto wrote: post #20

I developed a pretty bad pollen allergy around the age of 30. Every spring I had to take antihistamines that helped a bit (not completely), but they made me either anxious or sleepy. Then just for fun I made a bet with a friend of mine -- I tried to do a half-distance amateur tri race (1.9k swim, 90k cycle, 21k running) without any carb intake. So I dramatically decreased my carb intake for 3 months or so from Februa…

1/2 weeks seems trivial to A/B test. Just eat no gluten but still carbs for 2 weeks, see what happens, and then all carbs again.

2 weeks of a full-on allergy is really bad, and it also affected by other stuff (like rain, etc.) It's hard to control.

Re: Turning the Puzzle Sideways: Sleep, Diet and the Brain-Gut Connection

#89

Post by appleflaxen »

How does the analogy in the title have any bearing on the anecdote shared by the author? It's not as if he adopted a different perspective and thereby gained intuition... instead, he stumbled upon something that he attributes credit for fixing his problem, then backed into a justification.

The anecdote of "ketogenic diet really helped my sleep" seems worth sharing. Everything else feels tacked on.

Re: Turning the Puzzle Sideways: Sleep, Diet and the Brain-Gut Connection

#90

Post by justtopost »

spraak wrote: post #62
dr_dshiv wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it is glycemic load? I completely agree, but I get hit hard by sugars, bread, mashed potatoes and cheap fries (really good fries I justify).

Processed carbohydrates will by definition hit you hard. Added oil is also hard. Try intact grains, e.g. rice, quinoa, millet, barley, etc. Even whole wheat bread or pasta will hit harder than boiled wheat grains.

Added oil is just fat, not bad for you. Specifically since op mentioned keto.
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