What did you eat today?

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

Walkie, I think my metabolism is screwed from too many years overeating simple carbs.

I find that I'm more alert, much less prone to binge eating, when I keep simple carbs to an occasional treat (like once a week maybe).

[Walkie]

Walkie, I think my metabolism is screwed from too many years overeating simple carbs.

I find that I'm more alert, much less prone to binge eating, when I keep simple carbs to an occasional treat (like once a week maybe).

Don;t be too quick to blame yourself. I did a lot of research into this shit, a few years ago.  when i was trying to figure out WTF was going so going so badly wrong with my body and brain? and WTF i could do about it?   Found out there's a whole bunch of inborn metabolic disorders  which have been stongly linked with autism , but they're not all the same.   For instance, some can be managed with a  low carb,  high fat diet ; some can be managed with a low fat , high carb diet.  Pick the wrong option of those two, and the results can be highly dangerous.  So self-treatment isn't a recommended option ofc,.

But in n the absence of specuialist diagnostics and treatment from the NHS ( They just offerered me the vague opinion that yeah,  I do seem to have one of those disorders, but since none of them are curable, no point in pinning it down precisely  eh? Besides which the waiting list was way too long already, without adding some old fart like Walkie to the back of the queue) I  figured that I had nothing to lose by taking an educated guess, given that life had gotten utterly unbearable anyways.   And it very much appears that I guessed correctly

So it might be that you made a less educated but equally lucky guess about which way your own metabolism was swinging, and what manner of dietary modification you needed to make.  But if it's one of those things, then you didn't create it with your  with bad eating habits, you were born with it.

[odeon]

Nothing yet. Too early. I don't understand people who eat breakfast.

I don't understand people who don't. I think it's my favourite part of the day. 

It's not for a lack of trying but I literally feel sick if I do.

[renaeden]

I eat breakfast every day. It's the first thing I do when I get up. Dinner is the meal that I may sometimes skip.

[Phoenix]

I made the yummiest salad for lunch that was big enough to be an entire meal. 2 cups red leaf lettuce, 1/2 cup frisee, 1/2 cup chopped cucumber, 1/2 cup roasted baby potatoes, 3 oz grilled chicken, 0.5 oz fat free shredded cheese, 0.5 oz dried cranberries and 2 TBS balsamic vinaigrette.

[odeon]

Had to think about this, but yeah, I made a mean stroganoff.

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

Walkie, I think my metabolism is screwed from too many years overeating simple carbs.

I find that I'm more alert, much less prone to binge eating, when I keep simple carbs to an occasional treat (like once a week maybe).

Don;t be too quick to blame yourself. I did a lot of research into this shit, a few years ago.  when i was trying to figure out WTF was going so going so badly wrong with my body and brain? and WTF i could do about it?   Found out there's a whole bunch of inborn metabolic disorders  which have been stongly linked with autism , but they're not all the same.   For instance, some can be managed with a  low carb,  high fat diet ; some can be managed with a low fat , high carb diet.  Pick the wrong option of those two, and the results can be highly dangerous.  So self-treatment isn't a recommended option ofc,.

But in n the absence of specuialist diagnostics and treatment from the NHS ( They just offerered me the vague opinion that yeah,  I do seem to have one of those disorders, but since none of them are curable, no point in pinning it down precisely  eh? Besides which the waiting list was way too long already, without adding some old fart like Walkie to the back of the queue) I  figured that I had nothing to lose by taking an educated guess, given that life had gotten utterly unbearable anyways.   And it very much appears that I guessed correctly

So it might be that you made a less educated but equally lucky guess about which way your own metabolism was swinging, and what manner of dietary modification you needed to make.  But if it's one of those things, then you didn't create it with your  with bad eating habits, you were born with it.

I don't know for sure and I wouldn't count on our Medicare (Oz equivalent of NHS) sinking its limited resources into investigating my metabolism.

As a young kid I was forced to overeat, which probably didn't help. Then for many years I ate a lot of carbs because wasn't that what the experts said we should do?

By the time I hit about 40 it was catching up. If I ate simple carbs at lunchtime I would "crash" an hour later, as in I would be in a sort of semi-awake state, guzzling coffee and struggling to keep my eyes open. When that starts to happen I have to switch to non-starchy vegetables and protein at lunchtime.

I don't usually have breakfast because I don't wake up feeling like breakfast and it makes me feel blerrrggghhh if I eat early in the morning. On the odd occasion that I do have breakfast it just makes me hungry again by mid morning due to blood sugar crash.

I have all the signs of someone whose metabolism is screwed from years of overconsumption of carbs, but obviously there could be more going on. I have ways to deal with it, just need to be more consistent.

My son is different, he has no interest in food most of the time. Rarely gets hungry. Some days I look at how much he eats, at his age I would have been eating 5,000 calories a day (seriously) and a lot of days he would barely get 1,000. And to even eat that much requires a lot of encouragement, threats to turn off the wifi, etc. And there is no point waiting for him to get hungry, we have tried that.

I suspect that it is something like sensory processing disorder with my son. As a toddler, and even now, it was difficult to get him to drink water. He would take a sip if his mouth was dry, that was about it. His pee would be dark and stinky (and usually splashed all over the toilet seat). No recognition of feeling thirsty, just a need to drink water because his mouth was dry and uncomfortable. Same with cold, he would go swimming in the middle of winter while all the surfers were out in their full-length wetsuits, and say that the water felt hot. If we don't push him to eat he starts getting lethargic and sleeping all the time rather than thinking "hey, I need to eat something".

[Walkie]

ooh! I just had one of those lightbulb moments when you said "high protein diet" .  It's been perplexing me for years tthat so many people have been cutting down the carbs, but inreasing their fat intake.  It's far from obvious to me  how that's supposed  to healthy, in the main?  In mean , that could be drastica;ly unhealthy. even dangerous , in the event of any number of diverse health conditions,  couldn't it?    I should've realised long ago.  They must all be following a high protein diet, like yourself

in my own case, keeping down my  fat intake to 35g /day max (above which figure, I'm apt to become acutely ill in short order, these days) has inevitably entailed cutting down my protein intake,  try as I might to avoid that, because the range of  protein foods which  don't contain something like  twice as much fat as protein is woefully limited.  Yep,  even when you're looking into vegetab;e sources.  Sure, you get more of the 'heathy"fats from vegetable sources , in the main, but my body doesn't seem to notice the difference. So  I've naturally come to avoid most protein foods as "much too high in fat". I don't think of walnuts for example as protein food. cos when i eat them, i'm effectively limiting my protein intake to the tiny bit of protein I can wring out of the things before i hit today's  fat limit. So they're a rare indulgence, and my signature Carrot and Walnut Salad has a  much lower walnut content than it used to have    I usually call it Carrot Salad nowadays, to avoid disappointment 

I surely wouldn't leap to the conclusion that your son has a problem with fat metabolosm,  like myself. )it's too easy to project, isn't it?) but it struck me right away as very intersting that he can survive on such a low calorie diet.  So can I.  Not only survive, but get fat on it  . I've been that way all my life, and that ought to have ben a red flag, if anybody understood these things back then. I was actually born chubby, in spite of my Mum being thin as a wraith and apt to "eat like a sparrow" and had difficulty keeping my weight  down ever since.  I realised that something distinctly weird was going on with my metabolism  when, around my mid-thirties, I decided to cut myself down to 600 calories a day. I knew nothing about nutrition, so didn't realise how damferous that is, just decided it was time for drasticc measures.  As the only able-bodied adult in a household of four at the time, i didn't need to go out of my way to exercise...though I have to admit I performed my daily tasks in a slow, plodding fashion , which i've never ben able to train myself out of,  still at least i was constantly active , which ought to count for something, right? I kept that up for nine months, with no ill effect , but disappointlingly little weight loss. The most I managed to lose in the space of a month was 5lbs.  So, I  belately, borrowed a library book about all that, and discoverered that my experience was not theoretically possible. It's not possible to live on such a low calorie intake. I should have been losing weight much faster than that in my sleep . So said the book.

I didn't go to my doctor about this, ofc . Had no expectation of beimg believe.d And it didn't really sem like a problem. as such, just a flaming nuicance, and a curiosity.  I  started to joke that my body was fuelled by a nuclear reator,  10 years or so later, I got a job in a warehouse, and found that I could just about keep up with the demanding workload, if i continually munched on high carb foods, as I worked. I also steadily lost weight doing that, though i wouldn't say it's worth putting oneself through such a punishing regime just for that. There were also numerous downsides, such as frequent pulled muscles and spectacularly stupid accidents on account of my brain flipping out. If I hadn't been an Agency worker  (so they didn't need to worry about health insurance on my account) I'm pretty sure they'd have tried to give  me the push. They had one other worker like me, on the permanent staff. He had his very own accident book, and they kept sending him for medical assessmenents, but he always  came back with a clean bill of health. I'm also pretty sure he was a spazz, like me.  He had the usual range of spazz social graces. 

Later still, i found that I lost weight  (albeit slowly again) without even trying  , after switching to a high carb , low fat diet. And now, at last it it makes sense. My body can  use simple carbs, but it can't burn fats,  not near as efficiently as needed, own body fat included; so my brain flips out whenever the  blood sugar dips. That's my present understamdimg anyway. unconfirmed by medics, because they just don't have the resources to be able to investigate it as  thoroughly as all that.  But at  least that model very much helps me to survive, and to make some  sense of my increasingly numerous, weird and alarming symptoms. Actually I 'm pretty sure I'd be dead, if I hadn't got that one figured out in the nick of time.

I have more to say, but I'm out of mental puff ATM. Just providing a bit of food for thought.

Good luck to you and your kid,

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

Walkie, I don't really try to limit fat intake. When I say that I switched to protein for lunch, I meant something like lettuce leaves with canned tuna mixed with mayo. Or a couple of pieces of roast chicken and some non-starchy vegetables. Too much protein is rough on the kidneys and can undermine the benefits of a low carb diet. So the diet that works best for me is very low carb, moderate protein, high-ish fat, as in I will have a couple of good dollops of butter on my broccoli and snack on high-fat cheese like Brie (with pumpkin-seed crackers).

Lots of non-starchy vegetables is my preferred way of eating low-carb. For me, the only thing that really works is following a diet where I can eat as much of I want of a limited range of enjoyable foods. Once I cut out the carbs though, I actually want to eat a lot less and I can go all day without eating and not have any sort of energy crash until well into the evening.

I get that everyone is different, and if I try to fuel myself with simple carbs it leads to lots of really bad blood sugar crashes, and binge eating. The one-size-fits-all approach to dieting that was pushed from around the time of the food pyramid (1992?) is rubbish. IMO.

My tummy upsets come from things like lactose and wheat. And citrus fruit and a few other things.

[Walkie]

I get that everyone is different, and if I try to fuel myself with simple carbs it leads to lots of really bad blood sugar crashes, and binge eating. The one-size-fits-all approach to dieting that was pushed from around the time of the food pyramid (1992?) is rubbish. IMO.

Absolutely.  And your diet sounds similar to mine, way back when . I could very happily eat a a whole panful of cabbage with a dollop of butter and call that lunch. It  isn't near so nice  without the dollop of butter, though and  i'm still casting round fpr a workable alternative. My most recent  butter substitute   to brighten up my veg was a (carefully measured, being mindful not to overdo the olive oil) diollop of (organic, no presevartives) hummous , but i think i've developed a sesame allergy now, 

I might have to buy a blender  and make my own (sesame free )  hummous at this rate. Not sure I could bring myself to use it though. I forced myself to use onet hose things when my son was small enough to need baby-food , but it never stopped setting my teeth and nerves on edge, and it was so hard to clean, i don't get the "convenience" aspect at all   

anyway, like i said,  sounds like you have yourself pretty well sorted

just curious about your son, drawing some (maybe relavant, maybe not)  parallels, and not quite getting around to the important bit, which is this:

I suggest you pay close attention to all his neurological symptoms (eg the clumsiness) and make a list. Because if he does have an innate  metabolic disorder, the most obvious symptoms will probably be neurological in nature . And if you're looking for an investigation of the same, Neurology should be your first port-of-call.  Neurologists are triained to recognise the signs (errr, at least more than they used to be) , That;s because the brain is more vulnerable to energy defects than pther organs. and is generally the first to show the strain (along with the rest of the nervous system, ofc)  Next most vulnerable are the muscles, so muscle cramps are common with many  of these disorders, along with twitches , spasms etc which mihght be neorological or muscular in genesis, given that we're looking at a systemic disease.

as ypu might have gathered from m y previous post , difficulty losing weight can be a sign,  as can difficulty gaining weight.

I suggest you run searches on the terms "Mitonchondrial Disorders"and  Ïnborn Errors of metabolism" and try to get detailed lists of symptoms, note any that your son displays.  Do the same for all his close relatives.  Some of them are surprising ; some of them you wouldn't even think of as symptoms, just peculiarities (such as "Benign Familial Megalocephaly or, in common parlance  herdiitary big head  . I have that . Got it from my dad, gave it to my son.  Am  somewhat proud of it) . Some (such as premature deafness) not making any obvious sense, at least  from a lay perspective.

The termimo;ogy is a bit f of then of them fuzzy and inconsistent., unfortunately. with some authiroties, very logically  trying restrict the cateoiry "Mitochondrial Disorders" to errors in Mitochondrial DNA (which is maternally inherited) but most of them still including most ( or maybe all) the disorders that might interst us, as autistics , under that heading , even though many of these have an autosomal inheritance pattern (but they affect mitochondrial function) .  That's why I suggest the 2nd search term, as a catch -all for these.

the heredty is often pretty complex, though wouldn't you know it? often involving multiple genes ; and with different generations often displaying widely diverse symptoms, eg mother has high b;ood pressure, child has low blood pressure; both symptimatic of same disorder, FFS. You can see why the NHS can't be arsed?  But your son;s youth would give him an advantage re. getting onto relevant waiting lists, methinks.

All these disorders tend to be progressive with age , especially if left untreated,  due to normal deteriation of mtochondrial function with age as well as cumulative permanent damage caused by metabolic crises.  I guess that we old farts have diffuiculty getting a place in the queue for investigation cos its a bit too late to prevent that, and cos it's so friccking long we'll probably die before we get to the front. Certainly not because we're less sick.  I once  found an NHS website page (for Doctors, but they forgot to exclude the patients) that explicitly stated that admittance to that waiting list should be determined by likely benefit to patient.  It didn't attempt to  define that term,  so i've just had to settle for a guess.

I really think its worth looking into,  booking  in with a neurologist, and turning up armed with all the potentially relevant info you can muster.

Again. good luck!

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

Walkie, I have the hereditary giant head as well. Because I am very tall (6'6") and also with a large build, it isn't super noticeable. But I've never known anyone with a head bigger than mine. Hats tend to be very expensive. The last couple of times I've needed a hat I went to a specialist men's hat shop in the city and asked "what's the biggest you got?" and they brought out the biggest hat they had from out in the stock room. Which still didn't fit, so we had to go up a full size from their biggest hat (special order) and wait a few weeks for it to arrive, just to get it on my noggin. I have never met someone with a head as big as mine, I guess some of the giant pro wrestlers with acromegaly would have bigger heads. Guys like Andre the Giant and Big Show. Also Tony Robbins (the motivational speaker who also has acromegaly). I don't have acromegaly, I'd be dead by now if I did.

I also have hereditary bad teeth. My mother had ALL her teeth out by the time she was 14. Mine are on their last legs, I'm overdue to get a full set of implants or false teeth.

My lunch today was half a kilo of mixed frozen broccoli and cauliflower, with a good dollop of butter and some shaved Italian cheese (strongly flavoured, similar to parmesan). It was excellent.

I'll comment some more about my son later.

[Trigger 11]

Vegan apple smoked sausage.

[SBI_Patience]

I made this earlier.

[renaeden]

^ I would eat that. Today for lunch/dinner I had cheesy potato bites cooked in the air fryer. Eight minutes from frozen and they were done. Much quicker than using the oven.

[Walkie]

^ I would eat that. Today for lunch/dinner I had cheesy potato bites cooked in the air fryer. Eight minutes from frozen and they were done. Much quicker than using the oven.

Yeah, SBI's pic looks delicious, even to a vegan.   I wouldn't eat it. but i did dream about it 

This is the first I ever hear about air fryers, so i've been doing a bit of online research. I particularly checked out cleaning instructions. coz i  definitely don't want any gizmos that are hard to clean. I found this little snippet worrying:

Air fryer components are covered with a non-stick coating. If you accidentally scratch the pan with a utensil or by incorrectly placing the basket into the air fryer, the heat from cooking may cause bubbling to occur. Fortunately, the non-stick coating isn't harmful and doesn't pose a health risk, so it won't poison your food even if a few scraps get lose in it.

(https://www.newair.com/blogs/learn/air-fryer-cleaning-maintenance)
What? First I've heard of a genuinely non-toxic non-stick coating, too.  Since the Teflon scandal broke, I avoid non-stick coatings like the plague, and it's woefully clear that you just cant trust any such reassurances.  Might be true, but let's wait and see what our great grand children have to say about it, eh? And I'd sooner ask somebody who knows how to spell "loose", come to that 
So, if they all come with  this "harmless non-stick coating" which might get loose in your food, count me out