Pro-metabolic Lifestyle // Ray Peat
Lately my main focus has been on tweaking my nutrition and lifestyle habits since I had not been feeling so well for the past few months. So in this post I want to share with you what I have been doing so far concerning these changes; disclaimer - no medical advice here - I am not a physician nor a nutritionist, I am just a woman dealing with hormonal issues sharing what works for me.
So, what a does pro-metabolic lifestyle actually mean, you might wonder. Well, the goal is to support your metabolism as much as possible so your cells can function at their best. Through living a pro-metabolic lifestyle we want to nourish our body and soul and feel well. Of course this is more than just nutrition. It is about finding balance in life, having a good mindset that actually helps us to feel as good as we possibly can.
Essential for me is getting enough sleep. That is the most important thing for me to feel well. So I aim for at last 7 hours or more if needed. Sometimes I might even fall asleep at 8-9 pm and you know what, that is totally fine with me if that is what my body needs.
Also very important is outdoor time, spending time in nature. I think the worst you can do is staring at a screen all day, no matter if it is a computer or a mobile phone screen. This is just not good for you. Neither for your vision, eyes and vision keep on getting much worse through too much close-up time (another post on this might follow) and also it is not good for emotional health - especially not spending hours on social media and starting the comparison game. Thanks but no! So outdoor time, time in nature is important. And light movement like walking or bike riding is good to get some sunshine and fresh air.
Nutrition is another important thing. Of course here is no one size fits all, each one has to figure out what works and what does not work. I try keeping things simple and delicious and yes, what I eat on a daily basis is certainly not recommended in mainstream nutrition that usually promotes diet-fads that certainly won’t support your metabolism and make you feel well. My goal is to eat in a way that supports my thyroid and my liver, to get as many nutrients through food as possible and to enjoy the food that I have on my plate , especially since eating has not always been my friend and I had many episodes in life where I could barely stomach anything. So the deliciousness factor is super important for me.
Keeping PUFAS (polyunsaturated fatty acids) low is key - because they wrack havoc on your health, suppress your thyroid and therefore your metabolism.
Basically just think of what your grandparents ate, trash the PUFAS and the processed food and go for delicious homemade food I’d suggest. That will already a big and important step for supporting the liver and thyroid. In the and of this post I will link to Ray Peat and some nutritionists I have learned a lot from so you can dive a little deeper into research and also I wrote another blog post a few years ago that I will also link to.
So here is a list of pro-metabolic food that works for me:
dairy; especially milk, cheese and greek yogurt
eggs
ripe fruit (when not available, I just go for canned fruit)
fruit vegetables like zucchini, eggplant, bell peppers, cucumber, tomatoes
root vegetables (haha, I am German so I can’t live without potatoes)
meat cooked with the bone (think of osso busco, chicken wings and drumsticks), it comes with lots of gelatin when cooked and eaten from the bone
homemade liver pate (liver is a true powerhouse when it comes to vitamins and minerals, think of it as a super multivitamin) that I eat on sourdough bread with marmelade. I don’t fancy liver I gotta say but with sourdough and marmelade, I can totally eat it.
oysters (another multivitamin powerhouse just like liver, rich in selenium and copper), that is also not what everyone loves just like liver, but you can make it palatable through cooking an oyster chowder. Next I want to try making an oyster spread with cream cheese, tabasco and worcester sauce and see if this is palable as well so I can also eat it on a daily basis with sourdough. I still gotta try though and then I will let you know if that works for me or not
shellfish and white fish. I love prawns and they are my favorite cooked in butter with garlic and then eaten with canned peach on the side. So yummy!
I love making curry-like dishes that I eat with well-soaked and washed basmati rice and yogurt. Yummy, so delicious!
chocolate milk made with organic milk, honey, casein powder and gelatin. So nourishing and this is my favorite evening drink or also drinking it during the day is making me very happy and feeling relaxed and well-nourished.
saturated fat; butter, coconut oil, ghee
honey
grated carrot with apple (carrots help to get rid of excessive estrogen, and I eat it with the apple because that is how I like the taste of grated carrots)
salt
supplements I take are vitamin k+d, vitamin e and whenever I feel really bad because of hashimoto flare-ups, I like to supplement with selenium as well
I also eat pasta or pizza or whatever I am craving once in a while but more or less I now try sticking to a pro-metabolic nutrition because it makes me feel well and it is also very simple, easy and delicious. I sleep better, my body temperature is in a healthy range and my mood is much better and stable when I am eating this way.
Here a few links as I mentioned above;
http://raypeat.com/articles/
https://www.thenutritioncoach.com.au/blog/
https://katedeering.com/blog/
https://www.instagram.com/kittyblomfield/
