Skip to main content

Gastritis: The Fat Fast is Helping

I've finally found a name for what I have: gastritis. From Wikipedia:

Gastritis is an inflammation of the lining of the stomach, and has many possible causes.[1] The main acute causes are excessive alcohol consumption or prolonged use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (also known as NSAIDs) such as aspirin or ibuprofen. Sometimes gastritis develops after major surgery, traumatic injury, burns, or severe infections. Gastritis may also occur in those who have had weight loss surgery resulting in the banding or reconstruction of the digestive tract. Chronic causes are infection with bacteria, primarily Helicobacter pylori, chronic bile reflux, and stress; certain autoimmune disorders can cause gastritis as well. The most common symptom is abdominal upset or pain. Other symptoms are indigestion, abdominal bloating, nausea, and vomiting and pernicious anemia. Some may have a feeling of fullness or burning in the upper abdomen.[2][3] A gastroscopy, blood test, complete blood count test, or a stool test may be used to diagnose gastritis.[4] Treatment includes taking antacids or other medicines, such as proton pump inhibitors or antibiotics, and avoiding hot or spicy foods. (emphasis added)

Since gastritis can come from injury, burns, severe infections, and autoimmune diseases, it looks like there's something to the idea that systemic inflammation can cause it. I'm glad I'm not bonkers.

Antacids and PPIs (proton pump inhibitors) are the wrong treatments. First, they don't address the real problem: inflammation. Second, PPIs and antacids make your digestion worse--you need stomach acid to digest food. The acid is also a line of defense in your immune system: it kills most bacteria on contact. Third, prolonged antacid use leads to mineral deficiencies and increased risk of bone fractures.(1) Acid rebound makes getting off them a nightmare. I've been through it.(2)

To avoid hot or spicy food depends on the person. Chili peppers actually make my stomach feel better.

The fat fast has also made my stomach feel better. I'm on day 1.5 and the bloating is mostly gone, making my belly flatter. I had a wheat belly without the wheat. The soreness at the top of my stomach is mostly gone. I was down 1.4 pounds this morning, which is fine, but not the reason I'm doing this.

I've found that I need to use a lot of salt on this fast. My blood pressure usually runs at the low end of normal, and low-carb makes you dump salt. (A ketostick showed a moderate ketone level today.) Therefore, all my food has to have salt. Not just a sprinkle, not just a lot, but a glittery crust of salt. Otherwise, I feel light-headed. After meals, I also say to myself what I say to my dog: "Give that food a chance to settle. You might find that you're full." Since fat digests slowly (I'm sure my stomach problems slow it down even more), it takes about 20 minutes after a mini-meal to feel full.

My TMJ pain from walking my dog--the thing I think originally brought this on--is almost completely gone since I haven't been walking Molly and I've been going to yoga. My energy is good--I couldn't go tear it up on the dance floor, but going to work isn't a problem.

  1. "The Dirty Little Secret of Acid Blockers" by Lori Miller. Pain, Pain, Go Away! February 19, 2010.
  2. "On the Rebound and Hating It" by Lori Miller. Pain, Pain, Go Away! February 21, 2010.
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
I love salt! That's one thing I refuse to reduce. Lots of interesting info there, Lori, put beautifully concisely.
:)
July 10, 2013
Lori Miller said…
Thanks, Carole. Haven't had any bloating with all the salt, so it looks like I'm not going overboard.
July 10, 2013
tess said…
isn't it amazing how MANY things conventional wisdom is wrong about? luv my salt....
July 10, 2013
Lori Miller said…
And it's amazing how many things can go wrong from one bad decision, like fat is bad for you. Fat+carb is a really bad combination for stomach problems, but fat+salt has been like a bucket of water on a fire.
July 10, 2013
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Moving on to YouTube

Remember when the blogosphere was a wild ride? Doctors, writers and researchers dove into research, picked apart studies and stood up to official advice and conventional wisdom that didn't work. We found each other in the comments and made a community.  Along the way, Dr. T. Colin Campbell's research got exposed as shoddy by an English major, Tom Naughton made us laugh, "safe starch" fads made us scratch our heads, "Diabetes Warrior" Steve Cooksey almost went to jail, CarbSane trolled everyone who was anyone, and CarbSaneR trolled the troll.  Now it's very quiet. Blogs don't come up in Google search results anymore and even if they did, most of the bloggers have stopped writing.  That's why I've moved on to YouTube. Videos do come up in search results and my shorts--which are mostly what I make--get pushed out to hundreds of people or more. My videos are on food and health (biohacking), but also on growing things and fixing things. If you...
2 comments
Read more

Palpitations Gone with Iron

Thanks to my internet friend Larcana, who alerted me to the connection between iron deficiency and palpitations, I doubled down on my iron supplements and, for good measure, washed them down with Emergen-C. It's a cold medicine with a mega-dose of vitamin C, plus B vitamins and minerals. I don't think vitamin C does anything for a cold (a friend bought the stuff and left it at my house the last time she visited), but vitamin C does help iron absorption. After doubling up on iron in the last three days, I feel back to normal. (I'd already been taking quite a bit of magnesium and potassium, so I probably had sufficient levels of those.) How did I get so low on iron? Maybe it was too many Quest bars instead of red meat when I had odd cravings during my dental infection recently. Maybe because it's too hard to find liver at the grocery store and I haven't eaten much of it lately. Maybe the antibiotics damaged my intestines . And apparently, I'm a heavy bleeder . ...
18 comments
Read more

We Hate the ADA; Why does the Perfect Health Diet Get a Pass?

Some people keep touting the Perfect Health Diet as low-carb, but carb levels that are mostly in the triple digits aren't generally regarded as low-carb; in fact, one of the authors says low-carb diets are unhealthy. A lot of us hate the  American Diabetes Association's advice for diabetics: start with 45g to 60g of carbohydrate per meal and go higher or lower from there. That's 135g to 180g of carb. Perfect Health Diet advice for diabetics: eat 20% to 30% of your diet as carbohydrate. On 2,000 calories, that's 100g to 150g of carb. On 1,700 calories, that's 85 to 128g; on 2,200 calories, that's 112 to 168g. Depending on your carb and calorie intake, carbs would be 85g to 168g per day. That's not a mile off from the ADA's recommendations. Paul Jaminet, one of the authors of the Perfect Health Diet, says, "the basic biology here is that the body's physiology is optimized for a carbohydrate intake of about 30%." He warns against a ...
14 comments
Read more

Not Only Cheaper, But Easier

A while back, I wrote about saving money on break time coffee and snacks. I haven't done very well putting it into practice. But a post by James Clear today got me thinking about it again: Warren Buffett uses a two-list system to prioritize things. Check it out --and follow the instructions. Using Buffett's two-list system, two of the goals I ended up with were taking care of myself and saving $400 more per month than I already am. As I said, I've been wanting to save money, and the system made me really focus on this. I came up with 11 money-saving ideas, six of which had to do with food. Buying hamburger in bulk. Ranch Foods Direct sells one-pound packages of 80% lean pastured ground beef in bundles of 20 for a lot less than Whole Foods. Sprouts only carries super-lean beef that's grass-fed, and it's more expensive, too.  Not driving to Whole Foods. Whole Foods is out of my way, and saving a weekly trip saves gas. Coffee at home, tea at work. Tea is fr...
24 comments
Read more

1972: Carole King, M*A*S*H and...Food for 2014?

I feel well enough to try Atkins induction again. The palpitations are gone, even without taking potassium. My energy level is back to normal--no more trucking on the treadmill early in the morning  to burn off nervous energy or emergency meat, cheese and mineral water stops after yoga. It's back to lounging around to Chopin and Debussy in the morning and stopping at the wine bar for pleasure. I'm using the original Atkins book: Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution from 1972. While looking in the book for a way to make gelatin (which is allowed on induction, but Jello(TM) and products like it have questionable ingredients), I felt the earth move under my feet : those recipes from 42 years ago look delicious and they're mostly real food. It makes sense, though: the cooks who wrote the recipes probably didn't have had a palette used to low-fat food full of added sugar or a bag of tricks to make low-fat food edible. Anyone who writes a recipe called "Cottage Cheese and...
21 comments
Read more