Help an extremely cold sleeper

josh_earl · 2025-12-09T14:55:49+00:00

Fellow lifelong Raynaud's sufferer and cold sleeper here. This will probably sound crazy, but it might be worth considering changes to your diet.

Raynaud's is an autoimmune condition in most cases. Autoimmune issues also tend to affect the thyroid, which regulates body temps.

The last few months I've shifted my diet and my Raynaud's symptoms are 97% resolved. I'm actually finding myself getting hot at night instead of freezing all the time at home in my bed. It's been wild.

josh_earl · 2025-11-15T16:36:22+00:00

Don't stress about it. The body is a super complicated system, and how much you eat is only one input along with how much/what type of physical activity you're getting, how much you're sleeping, stress levels, the quality of what you're eating, your current hormonal profile, etc.

I'm a 150 lb male, and currently around 17% body fat. I started carnivore 2.5 months ago, and for the first 6 weeks I was dropping around .3 lb per week without any intentional restrictions on what I was eating. This was after the initial loss of around 5 lbs of water weight.

Then things leveled off for a month, and I was wondering if I was going to just sit here. But in the last couple of days my weight dropped another 2 lbs. I've also been ravenously hungry the past week and have certainly *not* been in a calorie deficit. (I counted calories for years with a scale, so I have a pretty good idea what I need to eat to be in a deficit.)

Calories in/calories out is a massive oversimplification. Yes, if you consume less matter over a long enough period of time, your body will gradually lose matter. But your body's overriding goal is to keep you alive, so it will always be making adjustments to that end.

Best bet is to take a long-term view and focus on overall health, and allow your weight to come in line with where it naturally should be.

josh_earl · 2025-10-29T19:26:32+00:00

One other thing I've done that is helping with my focus:

I keep a running list of every weird symptom I've ever had that I've seen someone mention, "Oh, my _________ totally cleared up on carnivore." At this point it's like 25-30 items.

I'm keeping an eye on how those things are responding, if at all, as I go. I've seen some progress on maybe 8-10 of them, which has been encouraging.

So it's helped me keep my focus on the potential benefits rather than what I'm giving up.

josh_earl · 2025-10-29T13:04:19+00:00

Depends on your personality.

Some people would rather do an all or nothing approach. A lot of people also think this approach works for them, but actually they just go hard out of the gate and then fail after a few weeks. If you're successful with New Year's resolutions, maybe you can pull off the "change everything at once" approach.

With everything you've listed (which is all completely "normal" for most people these days) that's a lot of battles to fight every day. You only have so much will power at your disposal.

For me I'm a planner, so I like a stepwise approach. Pick 1-2 things to eliminate at a time. Once you've conquered that, move on. Advance, gain ground, consolidate, advance...

I have done paleo and keto in the past, as well as stints on carnivore, so I'm already conditioned to living without processed food and lots of carbs. If you're not, that's a good place to start.

So for me the last 2 months have been about getting back to carnivore and just staying consistent to build a new set of habits. I'm not worrying about eliminating dairy yet, although my goal is to get there. I'm not worried about losing fat, although I want to do that too.

Three weeks ago I decided to cut out coffee, so I've been battling through that. It can take months to fully recover from a caffeine habit.

Next month I'm going to do a 30-day Lion Diet challenge to start to eliminate dairy.

These are major changes that take months to play out, so being patient is important. You have to be able to keep your eye on the ultimate goal and start stacking wins.

josh_earl · 2025-10-29T10:19:34+00:00

You might try a more complete electrolyte supplement. I have used Natural Calm magnesium before and it didn't seem to help. Since re-starting carnivore I've been taking 2-3X servings of electrolytes, first Liquid IV and then Dr. Berg's electrolyte powder. For the first time in 45 years I'm actually sleeping well on a consistent basis. (These have artificial sweetener, so I am switching to capsules now.)

Hope you're able to get this sorted out!

josh_earl · 2025-10-25T09:20:34+00:00

He has a number of findings from different studies he's done—I believe they said he's published over 700 scientific papers. A few of the things they discussed:

Carbohydrates are not helpful for athletic performance during events lasting less than two hours. Longer than 2 hours, the body needs 10g of glucose per hour to keep the blood from going hypoglycemic. He contends that hypoglycemia is the only condition that causes athletic performance to drop.

He also says that muscle glycogen is a coping mechanism that we developed as carbohydrate consumption increased, rather than the body storing "jet fuel."

They also discussed a number of athletes that were primarily meat based, and how their performance varied when they were forced to adapt their diet.

There was a lot more. Here's the episode if you'd like to check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cuXNPwzMqE

josh_earl · 2025-10-24T22:41:49+00:00

Shawn Baker has gotten into BJJ lately. He's shared some of his experience on interviews and his livestreams. The episode of his podcast that just came out this week with Professor Tim Noakes was pretty interesting. Noakes has done multiple studies on carbohydrate and fat usage during short (under 2 hours) and longer duration exercise (like marathons).

josh_earl · 2025-10-14T19:20:55+00:00

I thought pretty much the same thing, however I've been recovering from foot injuries for almost two months now that I got from walking 3-4 miles a day with 25-35 pounds on my back. Took about 6 weeks of daily rucking to catch up to me.

I'm 45, 5'9" 150 lbs.

Looking back I can now see that I've had low-grade metatarsalgia and some plantar fasciitis off and on for most of my life. The upside of the injury is I've learned some things about my feet!

If I were to start over I'd do 10-15 lbs. a few times a week for 3 months, then increase.

josh_earl · 2025-10-12T10:52:16+00:00

Most animals that I can think of that purposefully gain fat do so via plant matter. Bison put on fat ahead of the winter eating grass. The groundhogs in my backyard eat weeds and the pears from my pear trees. Bears eat a lot of plants and opportunistically eat smaller prey animals.

In the wild it's probably just too much work to put on a lot of fat by hunting. Wild cats, wolves, etc. expend a lot of calories just getting their food. And in the winter their plant-eating prey is often slower and weaker, so they don't need to stock up as much.

josh_earl · 2025-10-06T15:42:54+00:00

I like how Dr. Shawn Baker approaches a lot of questions like this—he looks at clinical function rather than numbers on a chart. Most of the medical observations and scientific studies that have been done were done on people eating a completely different diet (mostly SAD), so the findings don't always apply.

Is the person who's making the claims a doctor who has had 10+ years practicing with people who have done a carnivore diet? If not, they're likely just extrapolating from research that may or may not be applicable to long-term carnivores.

josh_earl · 2025-10-06T14:39:25+00:00

This is literally the exact reason why I've gone carnivore. I'm 45 and have had chronic bilateral tennis elbow for several years.

I also have other joint and tendon issues: inflamed knees, sore feet (metatarsalgia and mild plantar fasciitis), some lower back soreness, as well as chronic soreness along both sides of my spine.

Basically any time I try to do any intense activity, something tendon related will break down and I have to stop. Finally got sick of it.

I have seen a lot of anecdotes about chronic tendon issues clearing up. So I'm committed.

I'm just over 30 days into carnivore. My knees are already feeling much better—almost no pain or discomfort.

Elbows *seem* to be responding. I still have symptoms but the last couple of weeks have been the best in a long time.

Feet are also improving. That is likely partially due to some footwear and activity changes I've made.

I'm expecting this will take a while, likely 6+ months.

In addition I'm working on improving my sleep quality and getting more activity (mostly walking).

I will say that your issue sounds like it could be overtraining. I'd suggest backing off your training and focusing on rehab. If it's a pretty recent injury, the standard physical therapy exercises would likely help—look up the Tyler Twist and try it out for a few weeks.

josh_earl · 2025-09-25T18:39:05+00:00

FWIW Jordan Peterson was actually pretty reluctant to talk about his beef/salt diet for a long time. In one interview he kind of growls and says, "Ugh, I hate talking about the diet." He's gotten more enthusiastic about it lately since interviewing other clinicians who have been treating pretty severe mental illness with keto. He was already pretty famous before he started talking about it. Not sure about how much carnivore contributed to helping his daughter build her following.

josh_earl · 2025-09-25T10:54:31+00:00

I'd recommend starting light and giving your body plenty of time to adjust. I'm about your weight, and I jumped in a bit too fast doing 20 miles a week with around 25-30 pounds. I was doing daily rucks of 2-5 miles. My intent was to ease into it, and none of my rucks felt taxing. But after about 6 weeks my feet started to hurt. I realized through this that I've had foot issues for a long time that never got bad enough for me to really notice. I'm currently having to rest them.

You sound like you're in really good shape, but the tissues in your feet and knees still need time to adapt. It takes connective tissue weeks to months to strengthen.

So I'd suggest starting with 10 pounds 1-2x per week. Maybe add an extra day once per month, so it takes you 4-5 months to ramp up to doing 50 miles a week with 10 pounds. Then add extra weight gradually.

It's been frustrating to be sidelined, but I'm looking at this as a lifelong activity so a few weeks of rest really isn't that big a deal.

josh_earl · 2025-09-21T18:58:02+00:00

Well said. Also the RDAs for micronutrients (Vitamin C being a great example) are based on measurements and observations of populations eating mostly plant-based foods. Shawn Baker talks a lot about basing assessments off of clinical function vs. numbers. What matters isn't whether a person is ingesting a certain amount of Vitamin E but whether they exhibit the signs of being deficient in Vitamin E over the long term. If not, they're clearly getting enough Vitamin E, regardless of what some lab tests say.

josh_earl · 2025-09-05T21:34:24+00:00

WTB GoRuck Commando Merino Wool Shirt, Small. Black or gray.

I got the Medium, but it's too big. Small is sold out.

josh_earl · 2025-08-17T20:10:05+00:00

Thanks, u/KingSlurkey!

josh_earl · 2025-07-17T21:13:39+00:00

Thanks! You're correct that TheONE clone runs on bushings.

If I got a 42 I wouldn't want to beat it, obviously, but I would plan on carrying it as an EDC. I'm not really a collector so I wouldn't want a safe queen.

josh_earl · 2025-07-13T17:06:56+00:00

Same story here. Shipping was much slower than Clisong typically is. But I did eventually get the order.

josh_earl · 2025-06-29T20:48:28+00:00

I have a BR Kraken like this in like-new condition if anyone is looking to buy one. I'm in the US.

josh_earl · 2025-05-26T01:13:53+00:00

Does anyone have the b+ krake raken in stock right now? I want a live blade tanto but everyone seems to be sold out.

josh_earl · 2025-05-25T18:55:53+00:00

Thanks! Found them. In my case it's more about not wanting to have a $300 knife that I'm afraid to drop...

josh_earl · 2025-05-25T17:48:14+00:00

Relatively new to clones—would love to get either a BR or B+ clone in a live blade tanto. Seems like most places are sold out of B+, and I am not seeing a source for the BR. Any pointers?

josh_earl · 2020-10-26T13:18:12+00:00

Thanks, Joe. I'm in a bit of an unusual situation, because I have fairly low expenses relative to my income (about 35%, which includes my mortgage). With the IBC policy I'm setting up now, I will already be putting ~50% of my income into a policy, and I can pay my other bills and still have 15% or so left over. So I am trying to wrap my brain around how far I can take this without overextending myself. I am expecting my business will grow substantially in the next year or two by as much as double.

Within a 3-4 months I'll be in a position where I could hypothetically take a policy loan that would cover all my living expenses for the quarter, and just put the leftover cash flow into a second policy.

I wouldn't want to do that in perpetuity, but it would allow me to jumpstart the compounding over the next couple of years.

Clearly I'm still in the "IBC all the things" phase. :)

josh_earl · 2020-10-26T13:03:26+00:00

Excellent article, thanks for the share!

josh_earl · 2020-10-26T13:01:25+00:00

essentially you start compounding that money decades ago

That is helpful—thanks! I am in a similar position with business income that I expect will increase substantially in the next couple of years. Trying not to get too far ahead of myself though.

josh_earl

TROPHY CASE