Vegan diet has helped me! Only one "small" problem....

After being on a vegan diet for a few weeks, I've seen a remarkable decrease in negative symptoms. I am able to sleep for 8-10 hours without having to get up to use the bathroom (I used to go 2-3 times a night!). When my girlfriend lays her head on my outstretched arm, I don't get that tingling sensation in my fingers anymore. Most importantly, I have felt something I have not felt in a long time: I can actually feel FULL after I have a meal. One large sweet potato for dinner and I'm satiated and have no cravings. My temperature is almost always above 98 degrees, earlier it was always under 98.

But of course there has to be a downside and this is it:

I can't get erections while vegan. I went to stay with my girlfriend for the weekend and I couldn't keep it up. So last night I decided to test if it was the vegan diet so I got some fried calimari, a chicken sandwich, and some french fries for dinner and went to town. Sex was no problem after that. Could it have been a coincidence? Or maybe performance anxiety since I hadn't seen my girlfriend in a while, I'm at a summer job a couple hours away so maybe it was something else.



So I think the answer for me is to severely limit how much animal products I eat, but just have a couple cans of sardines every day so that I do get enough protein and I can maintain an erection. But I don't want to go back to a low-carb diet because I think that was inducing insulin resistance on me, because now that I've stopped I've noticed a reduction in the diabetes related symptoms.

Also another thing to think about is this: is it really a bad thing if we aren't constantly turned on by the opposite sex? I don't think it's natural for any animal to have sex all year around like humans do. I think it's kind of a deviancy that civilization brings upon us. We are supposed to have sex just during a short mating season, and then focus on other things. Wolves mate like this, but when we take a dog and give it civilized foods, the dog wants to have sex whenever it can get it. Source: http://ktk.ru/~cm/contin.htm

Hey Espio, I have to agree that ever since I went (80%) raw / vegan I've experienced AMAZING changes in my sleep patterns. I've gone from having to force myself down with some warm milk and a sleeping pill, to entirely forgetting that I had a problem to begin with. I also feel the need for less sleep now, do you find yourself waking up before your alarm?

As for the feeling of being "full", isn't it awesome? I used to overeat because I was really actually hungry. My body was screaming out for nurishment, and I was doing "all I could" to give it said help.

Correct me, anybody, if I'm wrong... but a lot of meat / processed foods have hormone additives that can add to libido? I have had a similar experience... I used to have many more intimate desires while eating the s.a.d diet. I don't think that in the long run this is too bad, what's the common opinion regarding the body readjusting to the new diet?

Espio - One way to counteract the libido problem is Arginine Pyroglutamate. Take a 1,000 milligrams of this should make the difference.

As for myself, I cannot be filled with vegan foods but that's only me. Glad you found what works best for you.

CS- thank you for that recommendation, i'll try it

action<reaction- Yes I have been waking up earlier as well. Sleep is overall more refreshing. It's really nice not having my schedule influenced by when I eat. I can skip meals whenever I want and feel fine. If I'm late for work, I just skip breakfast. If I'm busy at work, I won't take a lunch at all and it's fine.

As I understand, the unaltered digestive enzymes in uncooked food allow for your body to not really get more energy from the food that you eat, but to save more energy on the whole digestive process.

I wish I could explain more efficiently, but there's a lot to do with free radicals and leukocytosis.

A lot of athletes now are opting for this diet, it's supposedly great for stamina and recovery time.

Espio -

This is very interesting. I would like to know what your typical meals look like for breakfast, lunch and dinner...

I'm in a bit of a hurry, I'll answer that question of what i usually eat later after some thought. But I would like to say that I am NOT trying to start the low fat vs. low carb debate thread over again, I agree with CS that everyone has a different nutritional type and should do what works for them. I know that whenever a study compares a high meat diet to a high carb diet, the high meat diet usually does much than the high carb diet at insulin sensitivity. I listened to those studies and ate a high meat diet, and my blood work got WORSE, even though I had started taking the immortal hair top 6, so something wasn't right. CS once said that most of the population are protein types and thrive on a high meat diet, I think that is why all studies show the high meat diet to be doing better, but for the population that are carb types, eating a high meat diet takes us down the road of insulin resistance, as I had ALL of the symptoms of diabetes (tingling in hands, using bathroom 2-3 times a night, muscles fatigue quickly with high intensity exercise, much gum recession, constantly hungry and never full, etc)

Hmm how strange - maybe your body simply craves _some_ meat? I mean usually that seems to be the trick for most people, the body does seem to benefit from meat, but just not too much of it

1..... wrote:Espio -

This is very interesting. I would like to know what your typical meals look like for breakfast, lunch and dinner...

Breakfast- some brocolli and cellery, dipped in peanut butter
Lunch- same as breakfast, or a cucumber, and some fruit
Dinner- Baked sweet potato with just some cinnamon on it, some fruit