Diet that solved my problem for 20+ years - Do you eat a lot of red meat? If so, this is important info

 

DISCLAIMER:  I am not a doctor or medical professional of any kind, and nothing here is medical advice. 

INTRODUCTION: This is a copy of the post I made on the Reddit TMAU subreddit about the diet that solved my TMAU problem over 20 years ago. I am concerned that people may not be paying enough attention to the parts about who this is diet is likely and not likely to work for, as people are desperate for solutions. This diet is all about minimizing animal products. The key to seeing if this diet may work for you is whether or not you have an extremely powerful positive response to eating beef. 

This is what I have, and in this post I explain why I think this points to the abnormal processing of carnitine being the culprit. Red meat (and beef in particular) has massive amounts of carnitine in it. I experience very powerful euphoric feelings when I eat beef, and this is a key indicator that this diet may be worth trying. The diet will need to be followed for some number of months (3-5 in my case) for the body to be clear of all the problem things in order to solve the problem. If you try this diet, please go to the TMAU subreddit and report your results, whether they are good or you saw no change in your condition. This will help others decide whether they should try this diet as well. I do NOT know the percentage of people (with TMAU-like malodor conditions) that this diet will work for. Unless a number of people try this diet and report back their results, this percentage will remain unknown. There may only be a small percentage of people this will work for - or maybe not. This post has all the information available about who the diet is likely to work for. Please read the whole post and don't skim anything if you are actually interested in trying this diet. Please keep in mind that 'TMAU' is being used here simply to refer to a general malodor condition, and is not referring to the true form that concerns a fish odor, and is all about limiting intake of choline. This is simply the practice of most people with this type of condition to use the term TMAU to describe it. Remember that I am not a doctor or medical professional of any kind, and its completely up to you to decide whether or not you are interested in trying this diet.

Hi, I solved this problem for myself about 20 years ago using a diet I will be explaining in detail here. I am male and in the USA. If this is of serious interest to you, copy the text to a text editor on your computer, just in case this post vanishes for some reason. You have my permission to repost this anywhere you want, as long as it is unedited.

This issue started for me around the time of puberty, and seemed to get significantly worse around the start of my senior year of high school, based on the reactions of others. Looking back now, its actually unclear if the problem got worse, or if it was my ability to be comfortable around other people that fell apart, caused by one or two people I had to be around who did not react well to me. The problem was both in my sweat and breath, with the sweat being the larger problem. I started sweating more from fear, which in turn led to more fear, leading to more sweat and created a vicious cycle I could not control. There were numerous comments made in front of me, and sometimes directly towards me over the years, so the problem was definitely real and not in my head.

I realized I needed to research online what to do about this and came upon some pages from a book about natural health cures, written by a doctor I believe. (I have not been able to since locate this book through online searches, this was about 20 years ago). It said that this problem was caused by eating too much red meat, and that following a vegan diet for several months, followed by at least 2 vegan days a week (and no more red meat) would cure it. I did not know if it would work, but I ate beef up to 6 days a week for most of my life, so I decided to try the diet as it was my only option. After about 4-5 months of the vegan diet, the negative reactions stopped.

That summer I had an orientation for the college I would be attending where I was forced to constantly be in close contact with other people, often after sweating outside in the sun. I had no negative reactions at all and then realized I had beaten my problem, and would get to live a normal adult life. This post will have detailed information about the diet and everything related to it. It was a literal miracle that I managed to stumble upon the information I did, when I did. I don't want anyone else to need a miracle to find this information if it can be of use to them. I am hopeful that there is at least a handful of people reading this who can be be cured through the diet, and a larger number of people who will at least get something of value from this post.

I posted somewhere else a long time ago about my diet, but I had a hard time getting people to try out a restrictive diet that only might work. At that time I saw the diet as something that could benefit a large percentage of people with this problem. Now I see this as something that will likely work for a smaller percentage of people with this basic condition, based on reading about people who have not found success with a vegan diet, and thinking more about the people who have found success with it.

If you eat a large amount of red meat - than this diet is aimed at you. If your problem is that your apocrine sweat glands are too large/numerous/active, then this diet has a good chance of working, as the apocrine sweat glands will not have the animal products to put into sweat that they need to work. This is why vegans usually report not needing deodorant. Much of the information in this post will be of interest to anyone looking to solve this problem through dietary change. Nothing is guaranteed, and I am not a doctor, and nothing in this post constitutes medical advice. What you are basically risking is going on a vegan diet for six months that turns out not to work in the end.

The basic theory behind any dietary change to deal with this condition is that your body is unable to properly process or metabolize something, it builds up in your system until you body can store no more, and then it must get rid of it anyway it can, largely through your sweat and/or breath. By going on a highly restrictive diet for a number of months you can clear out the buildup (if the dietary restrictions are correct) and then hopefully get away with a more moderately restrictive diet going forward. Three day water fasts can speed this process up in a major way. That is the basic theory of the diet described in this post. If you look up the MEBO (metabolic body odor) group, that seems to be basically the main idea they have, and they seem like a respectable organization.

The book I found online said this problem is caused by eating too much red meat, but I think the real story is that eating large amounts of red meat is the cause for some certain percentage of people with this problem, due to an unusual metabolic issue. In my case I get pleasurable, euphoric feelings from eating red meat (mostly beef) that I do not get from eating other foods, like chicken for example.

CARNITINE:

I recently concluded this may be due to abnormal processing of something called 'carnitine'. I was looking for something that existed in a large quantity in red meat, and a much smaller quantity in other animal products including chicken (which is animal flesh as well) and a much smaller quantity still in vegan foods. The only thing that met these requirements was carnitine.

I recently did a test where I took 500mg of carnitine supplements a day. This is the amount in 1.5 lbs of ground beef. I was surprised that after about 30min I experienced the same pleasurable, euphoric feelings I got from eating beef. On day two I got these same feelings after about the same amount of time, but I had a fast heartbeat this time. On day three I got the good feelings again, but now I had chest pains and started getting scared and threw out the rest of the bottle, and ended what was supposed to be a 7 day experiment. I strongly advise you NOT to experiment with carnitine supplements, based on the concerning results I had, with a fast heartbeat and then chest pains. I experienced a very salty taste in my saliva for the next few days, as my body was apparently trying to get rid of the carnitine.

So all this points to abnormal processing of carnitine being the culprit. If this is correct, it means that instead of feeling bad after consuming something I can't process normally, I actually feel much better than normal, explaining why I ate so much beef for so many years. I realized that normal people probably don't get the same kind of euphoric feelings I do from consuming red meat. There is not even a hint of people getting the good feelings of eating red meat from taking carnitine supplements either based on online reviews of the supplements (and I was taking just half the suggested daily dose). Carnitine is still not the only possible explanation here. It could still be some highly complex metabolic issue involving red meat, but it would be mystery why this is when it is not the case for chicken, which is also animal flesh. It is also not the case for other animal products that contain large amounts of saturated fat and cholesterol. I have read interesting things in a forum post on here about how carnitine is a precursor (building block) for TMA, but choline levels in my diet don't affect my problem, so I don't have TMAU. There are things allowed on the low choline diet I should avoid, and things that should be avoided on that diet that are fine for me.

Here are a couple quotes from health sources about carnitine:

“L-carnitine is a compound produced from amino acids. The body uses it to transport fats into our cells where the mitochondria (energy factories in our cells) oxidize these fats into energy.”

“Carnitine is present in almost every cell in the body. It plays a crucial role in energy production, as it is responsible for transporting fatty acids to the mitochondria”

 

Here is a list of carnitine levels in foods provided by the (US) National Institutes of Health:

Food and then milligrams
(mg) per
serving

Beef steak, cooked, 3 ounces

42–122

Ground beef, cooked, 3 ounces

65–74

Milk, whole, 1 cup

8

Codfish, cooked, 3 ounces

3–5

Chicken breast, cooked, 3 ounces

2–4

Ice cream, ½ cup

3

Cheese, cheddar, 2 ounces

2

Whole-wheat bread, 2 slices

0.2

Asparagus, cooked, ½ cup

0.1

 

DETAILS OF THE DIET:

Now on to more details of the diet: I followed a vegan diet for 4-5 months to fix the problem. I had one 'cheat meal' on friday night (usually some melted cheese over pasta), and I did one 2 or 3 day juice fast while on a break from school. After 4-5 months and seeing that the diet worked, I had to perfectly maintain the diet to avoid reactions (usually clear verbal ones) from others. At some point after this I was able to start adding in non vegan foods, while staying clear of red meat. During winter break in my second year of college I found I had not done enough vegan days, and I was able to smell myself for the first time. I can't compare it to anything to describe it, except that it was not good. Luckily I was home on a break at the time, and went back to a pretty strict vegan diet to keep things working properly. The ability to smell myself was key to being able to experiment with just how much non vegan food I could get away with. I found that my tolerance for non vegan food went up over the years, and that I can get away with eating red meat up to once a week (I have not done that for a while). If I ate red meat for probably 4-5 days in a row my problem would return, and I would have to go vegan for a few days to get back to normal. There is a clearly a huge difference in how I handle red meat vs. all other animal products.

My vegan foods consist mostly of pasta for dinner and lots of grains. I need to avoid spicy and sulphur filled foods as well to get the benefits of the diet. I think this is because these things can not be metabolized by the body and must be eliminated, and this consumes some of the bodies capacity to eliminate the animal products that are the real problem. So avoid onions, garlic and all spices including pepper (and ground pepper) on this diet. Pasta with tomato sauce without spices would be fine. Pasta with just olive oil on top is fine, and very tasty. I realize that what a vegan diet will look like will vary based on what part of the world you are in (I am in the US). On this diet I can have sugar if I want and coffee seems to be fine, just not dairy milk based coffee drinks.

Here is something very important about this and any other restrictive diet: you must improve the quality of the food to make up for the other restrictions. So make a high quality pasta sauce yourself (without spices) rather than buying a cheap jar of something. Don't get a cheap can of vegetable soup - make one from scratch. A made from scratch vegetable soup will taste better than a can of a meat and cheese filled soup you got off a shelf at a convenience store. The idea of compensating for restrictions by improving the quality of the food is very important, and I never hear it mentioned in diet plans.

Highly processed foods are something to try and minimize on the diet, and I find that vegan cheese, and vegan meat and things like that are to be avoided as well, based on my experience. These things are not as bad as actually eating animal products though. Red meat is the real issue, but as expected, there is some crossover between the thing that is the issue with meat, and other animal products.

Everyone on a vegan diet is always advised to supplement with vitamin B12, which is important and is not obtained on a vegan diet.

WATER/DRY FASTING:

Here is what I would have done differently during the initial stage of my diet if I could go back in time: I would have done 3 day water fasts to dramatically speed up the process. A 3 day water fast forces your body to quickly break down everything built up, especially fat stores, which is where the things you can't process correctly may be stored. Research how to properly break the fast - you must avoid a large meal to break the fast, as that will make you sick. You need things like bone broth and soups to break the fast. Do NOT go longer than 3 days on a water fast without medical supervision, as breaking the fast becomes dangerous (refeeding syndrome) due to sudden electrolyte changes.

Make sure you get some electrolytes designed specifically for fasting (they must contain no calories) or else you may feel faint or unwell during the fast. As about 40% of water comes from food, you need to drink lots and lots of water during the fast to stay hydrated. Do not exercise, as this will significantly increase your electrolyte needs, but you won't know by how much. Be aware that your symptoms (smell) will likely dramatically worsen during the fast, as your body clears out the toxins very quickly. There is another fasting option called a dry fast, where you consume no food or liquid for 24 hours. Do NOT go beyond 24 hours with a dry fast to avoid serious dehydration. 24 hours really is the safe time limit with a dry fast. The idea is that your fat contains much of the water you store, so the dry fast forces your body to break down the fat very quickly to get access to it. A 24 hour dry fast is said to be equivalent to a 3 day water fast in terms of detox ability. Read online about how to properly break a dry fast. Starting a dry fast on a friday afternoon, ending saturday afternoon, and taking sunday to recover is an idea. You could take monday off to continue recovering if needed (if there is still a smell issue from the fast).

I did one juice fast as I said, during my initial detox diet phase, but I now see that juice fasts are not truly fasts, only water and dry fasts really are. This is because a significant number of calories are consumed on a juice 'fast', which is really a juice cleanse. If you have to try lots of different diets to fix your problem, water/dry fasts could -possibly- allow you to do 10 years of experimentation in 1 year. How many water/dry fasts will be required to clear built-up things is unclear, as just how much the body can store of something is unclear and the number of years that the buildup has accumulated will vary for everyone. I was 18 when I did the diet, and I had been eating lots of red meat since I was a young kid, as I was naturally drawn to it, because of how it made me feel. Realize that any weight loss will be temporary, as your metabolism will slow down during the fast, so you will regain lost weight when you go back to eating normally. Food cravings will go away after the first day of the fast, and while these fasts are a challenge, it is not any kind of outrageous challenge, based on my own experience. Your tolerance for fasting will likely increase with experience.

I had a lot of cravings for animal products during my initial, all vegan phase of my diet, as prior I was eating lots an animal products including lots of red meat. I found that over time, I stopped craving animal products, and now can comfortably go back and forth between vegan and non vegan days as I want. I enjoy animal products, but don't actually crave them on vegan days.

With any restrictive diet to fix this problem, it is important to keep things in perspective. Here is a video interview with a heroin addict to help show that going on a vegan, or other restrictive diet really isn't the end of the world, compared to the cravings and withdrawal symptoms that someone like this has to deal with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW5PSU5ap5c

HOW TO TEST HOW WELL YOU ARE DOING:

Let me talk about ways to measure how well the diet is working if you can not smell yourself. These tests are all based on my own experience: If your underarm sweat all sits right where it comes out, and if it clings to the hair, if you have underarm hair, that is not good. It means the sweat is thick (as opposed to watery) and is likely filled with things that bacteria will act on. You want the sweat to flow down significantly as that means it is watery. The more watery your sweat the better.

Another thing to test is the stickiness (not stinkiness) of your sweat. Hold your arms to your side and imitate flapping your arms like a chicken to measure the stickiness of your sweat (you have to be sweating for this to work). Some stickiness is normal, but the less sticky it is, the more watery it is, which is what you want. Another major test is how well your sweat cools you down in given conditions. More watery sweat cools you down better. You will have to learn to observe this through experience. In my case, if I was not following the diet, and my sweat was a problem, it would burn to some degree as it comes out, due to it being too thick and moving too slowly and irritating the nerve in the area. This is known as 'prickly heat'.

Another way of measuring how well you are doing is to see how long it takes the scent of your deodorant to fade. This does indeed largely vary based on the quality of your sweat, as the two scents are competing. If the scent of the deodorant quickly fades, this is something that I would interpret as being a negative sign. The longer the scent lasts, the better. This is based on my own experience. Be aware that the scent of a given deodorant may change naturally based on temperature (summer vs. winter for example). Once you find one you like, you want to stick with it if possible, so you will know what the proper baseline for its scent is. It will be harder to do this if you change the brand constantly.

If you can smell yourself, one test is to put your fingers into your underarm sweat and smell, with the goal of no scent other than any deodorant you put on. A better, and harder test to pass though, is to put your nose into a the sleeves of a t-shirt you have on and sniff. Test both arms, as they are often not equal.

 

OTHER INFORMATION:

Over the long term, you may find it is easier to do a number of vegan days in a row, rather than constantly going back and forth, as the part of your brain that likes animal products is easier to turn on than off. Also, I always do full vegan days for this reason. Its hard to turn off that part of the brain for just part of one day. I also lose my motivation to do a vegan day if I have had some animal products that day.

If the diet works, just tell people you can't eat something that they want you to because it 'hurts your stomach'. There is no need to reveal the real reason for your diet.

Your motivation for doing a diet like this should be based mainly around all the good things you will be able to do if it works, rather than the bad things you will be able to avoid, based on my experience.

I am hopeful that there are at least a handful of people who can solve their problem with this diet, as I did. I would not recommend following this diet for more than 6 months to a year if no results are seen. If a doctor put this in a book as the cure, there must be some percentage of people who this works for. I read at least one comment on youtube from someone you fixed their problem by getting red meat out of their diet. A little internet research reveals that traditional chinese medicine calls for fixing this problem based on avoiding red meat, so that is some additional evidence that there are people who this will work for.

I don't normally even visit forums like this, because it is very mentally painful and damaging for me, as it forces me to vividly confront the issue of what would have happened if my diet did not work. Its like watching the movie 'The Day After'. You can ask any questions you have, but I don't plan to hang out here long-term though. I will have another post with some important information about properly judging reactions from people, that should be of interest to anyone with this issue.

While the first several months of this diet involved lots of cravings for animal products, and the knowledge that it was just a possibility the diet would work, those cravings went away in time, and I got to have a completely normal college experience and adult life. None of that would have been possible without trying this diet, and it was worth it, many times over. If eat a vegan diet for a good number of days in a row, my sweat becomes so pure that it is just water, and while I would still use deodorant, there is really no need for it, it is just something extra. So I have the ability to get the very clean sweat that most people following a vegan diet report having, that is much cleaner than that of a normal person.

If you do not eat a lot of red meat, the basic idea of trying to fix this problem with major dietary change still holds. Most people who report fixing their problem did so through major dietary changes. Often things like sugar and coffee need to be avoided for them, unlike on the diet I have laid out here. I think there are likely countless ways that something can malfunction in the body leading to this condition, meaning a restrictive diet is the the most realistic path to a solution for most people, in our lifetimes.

If you are going to try this diet to fix your problem, I wish you the very best of luck. PLEASE report back here with the results of the diet, either good or bad, to help everyone else.

 

 

ADDITIONS TO MY MAIN POST:

*** This is the first of two replies that extend my original post. I added some important information to the second reply that discusses the issue of symptoms possibly getting worse while on this diet, and what to do about that.

I want to add a couple more things to my post (reddit wont let me edit it directly since the post is over 10K characters): The first is that I recently found out that one possible cause of a malodor issue is an inability to properly synthesize the amino acid Methionine. According to medical sources, this results in a rotten egg smell, and can be controlled/limited by limiting the amount of Methionine consumed. I was surprised to learn this, since I thought all amino acid synthesis disorders were deadly, and were either identified and dealt with shortly after birth, or else resulted in death.

A few things about the benefits of the diet, other than treating the condition: a vegan diet will make you feel light rather than stuffed, and I realized that I prefer this feeling, and this causes me to lose weight, which is good. I realized that most animal products are really eaten because of how they make you feel, rather than hunger. You would be surprised to learn how much less you need to eat when food becomes more about calories than making you feel good. At the same time, the flavors on a vegan diet are unique and good, and different than those found in a non vegan diet.

One more thing is that you can tell how your breath is by taking a glob of saliva in your fingers and smelling it - there should be no smell at all. Any kind of funny taste in your mouth that is not from something you ate or drank is a concerning sign, as far as your breath goes.

Be careful about eggs that are found in what you may think are vegan foods. Any kind of muffins or pastry probably has eggs in it, and eggs are not vegan of course.

If you do a non-vegan day, realize that you may only need minimal amounts of animal products to get the feelings that come from eating them. So get a burrito with sour cream and maybe a bit of cheese perhaps, instead of eating a whole block of cheese.

Also on the issue of the quality of food, any kind of bread or dough you make yourself will be far superior to any store bought product. It is a lot of fun to make bread/dough from scratch by the way. You need to view it as an enjoyable experience rather than a burden. Soups and tomato sauces made from scratch are very good, and enjoyable to make as well.

I want to emphasize that it took about 4-5 months to see any results from the diet. The reactions I was dealing with were mostly verbal, and so while they were mean, they were also clear and easy to interpret. I got some positive verbal reactions from people I had been having problems with (after 4-5 months), which is how I knew the diet was working. The basic idea of the diet is that you need to clear a large buildup of something within you, and so changing what you eat for a day or a week will only make minor, if any changes.

If this diet does not work, here is a link to a large number of diets that people reported as working for them:

https://www.curezone.org/forums/s.asp?f=326&c=14&ob=v#google_vignette

 

A few more things I remembered and want to add: society says that bread and grains are terrible things to eat that will make you gain lots of weight, but this is simply not my experience. With animal products, you are mostly eating them because of how they make you feel, rather than because of hunger, which I find leads to a lot more weight gain than what happens on grain heavy, vegan diet. Also, my doctor was very impressed by how low my bad cholesterol numbers were, after I had done the initial several month all vegan phase of the diet.

Another area to watch for is your feet, the amount of smell from them and your socks and shoes will vary based on how pure your sweat is. Just remove your shoes after you have been sweating or exposed to heat for a while, and smell the inside of them. Give your feet a bit of extra attention in the shower, with a jet of water from your shower head. There is a certain percentage of people with this problem where the source is foot odor, and there are steps you can research to deal with that.

On vegan days, it may be OK to try getting away with adding a small amount of butter to a bagel for example, or having a vegan day that is not quite 100% vegan. You have to be careful and learn from trial and error in regards to this. Adding a small amount of butter or maybe cream to something is about as far as you would want to take this. Avoid actual cheese, chicken, fish ect. in any quantity on what are supposed to be vegan days.

The diet I followed said to go all vegan for several months, followed by 2 vegan days a week from then on. Its not actually clear just how many vegan days a week will actually be needed to prevent anything from building up again though, in my opinion. You will need to experiment and be conservative about this. Just be aware that if you do not have enough vegan days you will probably have the experience I had.

I did not have enough vegan days at one point, and I gained the ability to smell myself as I realized I needed to go back to a more vegan diet. This is nothing to panic about, and gaining the ability to smell yourself is key to learning just how much non vegan food you can get away with eating. My tolerance for animal products went up over time (except for red meat, which really is a problem to eat). I have found that if I eat the same type of food repeatedly, my body does better at dealing with it than if I suddenly change the food type. For example, if I suddenly change the type of cheese I put on pasta for dinner, my body has a harder time dealing with that then if I did not change the cheese type.

Another important thing I should add: I developed some IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) symptoms after completing the initial, all vegan phase of the diet when I started going back to eating some non vegan foods. What happened was that I found myself strongly drawn to dairy milk based coffee drinks, specifcally Starbucks Frappucino ones (in the small glass bottles). I think that the carnitine in the milk hits my bloodstream faster than when getting it from solid food, and so I was naturally drawn towards this. I say this because drinking dairy milk, or dairy milk based drinks affects the way my sweat feels much faster than solid food does. The effects are almost instant, as opposed to happening mostly the next day, as with solid food. I think it was something about the stimulation from a liquid as opposed to solids that caused this problem.

This created some issues where my intestines contract/spasm in a sometimes aggressive and continuous way. It does not cause either constipation or diarrhea though, which is good, and lucky. This went down significantly over time, I have to consciously think about it most of the time to notice it. So be careful about dairy milk, and dairy milk based coffee drinks after completing the initial, all vegan phase of this diet. Don't consume tons of that stuff to try and make up for the lack of red meat in your diet.

I want to add that in my case, I don't think my symptoms actually increased during the initial all-vegan phase of the diet, but I can't say this definitively. I just had bad (mostly verbal) reactions right before starting the diet, and these continued until it really worked, 4-5 months later. There is a possibility that symptoms could increase during this, or any other detox diet, but remember that it is a sign the diet actually is working at clearing out built up toxins.

Also, I want to add that it was a great thing for the first couple years after the diet worked. I really appreciated that it worked, but after that I started shifting my focus from that to the concerns of a normal person, which is the long term result of solving this problem. Many of the problems and concerns of normal people are overridden by this condition, so you don't even think about them.

When the condition is resolved, you have to deal with those things, just like normal people do. So the long term result of successfully resolving this condition is not that you will feel like you are in heaven forever, but rather that you become a normal person with normal concerns. This is a good thing, because if you were permanently in a state of joy about beating this problem, you would have no ambitions to do anything greater than sitting next to a stranger on the bus without anxiety. So while I had this condition, I had a great deal of fear as a result, and when the diet worked there were some really good feelings about that, and after a couple years I stopped having really intense feelings about not having this problem, which is exactly as it should be.

 

 

ADDITIONS TO MAIN POST - CONTINUED:

As I said in my main post, spicy and sulfur filled foods are to by avoided, likely because the body has to get rid of them, and this consumes some of the bodies capacity to remove the built up things you are focused on removing. Spicy foods are not good to have, but they usually are not as bad as actually consuming animal products though. Just in case anyone does not know, vegan means no animal products at all. Cheese, butter, cream (any dairy) are all animal products. I should have mentioned this in my main post.

I mentioned that vegan cheese and meat substitutes are something to try and avoid, but on a non-vegan day, 'Impossible' brand vegan 'beef' is surprisingly good. Its not as good as the real thing of course, but because it has a similar amount of fat in it, it is very surprising how good it is. I personally find 'Beyond' brand vegan beef to be terrible. I take the vegan beef and add it to tomato sauce and make a vegan meat sauce to put over pasta.

Another thing to add is that when it comes to eggs in things like types of breads, cookies and pastries, there is a difference in the potency of the eggs based on whether the item is truly fresh made or dry, with fresh made things having more potent eggs. By potent, I mean they are more of a problem for the diet.

Another thing to know if the diet works and you are putting animal products back in your diet: if you can detect a little bit of a smell, it is key to do some vegan days right away because if the smell increases, it will increase exponentially rather than linearly. So the faint smell will very quickly increase in an out of control way if you keep eating animal products without doing some vegan days. The smell will not increase in a smooth, linear way, in my experience.

I mentioned how putting your fingers in your underarm sweat and smelling is one test, and sniffing in the sleeve of a t-shirt you are wearing is another test. I want to add that another test is sniffing inside the collar of the shirt you are wearing. This is an easier test to 'pass' than sniffing in the sleeve of a t-shirt you are wearing. It gives a good idea of how you are doing, and is the least awkward way of testing yourself in public. If you can smell the fabric of the shirt itself, that is good. Familiarize yourself with this smell by smelling the shirt before you put it on - it will vary from shirt to shirt.

One more thing to add: There was one way that I was able to smell myself to at least some degree during the initial phase of my diet - by taking a hot bath. My underarms were likely above the water most of the time, and the heat and humidity would have amplified the smell so that I could detect it. This might be something to try. Heat is the thing that amplifies the smell of everything.

An idea I have never tried would be to put some of your underarm sweat in a small saucepan (get a real cheap one to use just for this) and carefully heat it up on a stovetop, to see if that amplifies the smell so you can smell it yourself.

I wanted to add that in the long term, the thing that is great about overcoming this condition are the things that I did that never could have happened otherwise, because they required me to be comfortable being around other people. In the long term, things like being comfortable standing in a line or sitting next to a stranger on the bus feel mundane, as they are meant to be.

It is possible for your symptoms to increase while on any detox diet to deal with this condition. There is a good chance that this is a sign that your body is clearing out toxins, which is what you want. However, it is possible that it means the diet is the wrong one for you. You will have to use your judgement about this. I really wish there was a clearer answer about this issue. One idea is to make the diet more restrictive, removing any foods you think could be problems. If your diet is restrictive to the point where you think there are no problem foods, but symptoms still increase, that is a good sign that it is because your body is aggressively removing the build up toxins, which is what you want.

This issue is just one more reason to use 3 day water fasts to dramatically speed this process up, and you remove the issue of possibly introducing foods into the diet that actually make things worse, since you are just consuming water. Another possibility here are dry fasts. The main advantage of dry fasts is that you can time them so that you can go through them and recover on the weekend, taking care of the issue of symptoms going up dramatically during them.

Another thing to add is that your scalp is another area than can be affected by this condition, smell wise, so simply be sure to wash your hair every single day. Many people (normal people) don't do this, but it is really a good idea if you have this condition. The amount of scalp itchiness you feel will vary based on your symptoms in general. So with cleaner sweat your scalp may itch less, based on my own experience.

I was not concerned about this with my diet, because I basically just removed things that could be problems (red meat and all animal products) from my diet without really adding in too many new items. I suggest doing the same, where you focus on removing foods from your normal diet, without adding in too many new ones, in case those new ones cause problems. If this diet fails, the next step is to look at other diets to try. If all diets fail, then you will likely need to focus on either accepting people reacting to you, or look at living a largely remote work/activity based life.

The ability to work and go to school remotely is a remarkably positive development for people with this condition, that was not generally available until very recently. Covid is largely to thank for this. By the way, its also remarkable that the whole world (and myself) spent the past 2-3 years living like someone with this condition due to fear of contracting covid.

One more thing about why it is so important that people report back here on how the diet either worked or did not work for them: If people report that the diet works, this will inspire other people who are hesitant to try this diet because of the uncertainty of it working, to try it. Look at the theory of a riot: the theory is that in the early stages of a riot, only a few people are willing to start rioting. As more people riot, the more hesitant people get motivated to get involved, which in turn motivates the even more hesitant people until finally even the most hesitant people join in. The more people who see success on this (or any other) diet, the more people who will try the diet themselves - but only if people actually report back here with their results.

 

------------ QUICK SUMMARY OF THE BASIC THEORY OF THIS DIET -----------------

The basic theory is that this condition is most often the result of the body not being able to properly process something. This thing builds up in the body until the body can not store any more, and then it must get rid of it anyway that it can, through sweat/breath (and sometimes other ways, like through the pores in the skin directly, depending on exactly what the thing being eliminated is).

By going on a detox/elimination diet for several months, this buildup can be removed, and a more moderate diet can be followed thereafter. Simply looking for trigger foods and avoiding them will not create the same results, because of the accumulated buildup of things that your body is trying to get rid of, that must be dealt with. The initial, months long detox phase of the diet allows your body to get rid of the buildup, by not burdening it with more new material it can't handle.

3 day water fasts force the body to quickly burn through accumulated material for energy, and can dramatically speed up the process. The foods that should be eaten on the detox diet may vary for people depending on what exactly it is that is causing the problem in the first place. It is possible for symptoms to increase during the initial detox phase of the diet, as the body may be more aggressively removing material than it normally does.

Given that there are likely countless underlying causes of this condition (since there are countless body processes that could malfunction), this is the main way of actually overcoming it. It is not that this is guaranteed to work for everyone, but rather that this seems to be the only plausible path to really fixing this problem. What other path is there to getting more than small improvements to this condition? The day when medical science reaches a point where they can identify the underlying cause of this for a person AND actually create a custom cure for them without difficulty could be centuries away, assuming that indeed there are countless underlying causes, most of which are not actually TMAU, as it is strictly defined.

 

 

ADDITIONS TO MY MAIN POST - PART 3:

I wanted to add a few more things: the first is that honestly, I find it silly now when I think back to how hard I found my initial vegan diet to be. Over time my cravings for animal products went away (I still enjoy them though, I just don't crave them like I was addicted to them anymore), and a vegan diet is now easy for me to sustain, if that is what I want/need to do.

If you are struggling with cravings on the diet, I really do recommend you spend some time on the 'soft white underbelly' youtube channel, and listen to the stories of serious drug addicts to put your cravings for animal products (or other foods) in perspective. People report that the withdrawal symptoms from hard drugs feel like every cell in your body is dying, every single second, 24/7. You can't compare the cravings for a pizza or ham sandwich to this.

A more broad theory based on my response to carnitine would be the idea of a 'reverse food allergy'. The idea is that instead of feeling bad after eating something your body can't deal with properly, you actually feel better than you are supposed to, causing you to consume large amounts of it over a long period of time, possibly leading to things building up in your system. In my case I get euphoric feelings from eating beef that I don't think normal people experience, and that is probably from the carnitine, based on my experiments with carnitine supplements.

I want to emphasize that even after the results of experimenting with carnitine supplements, it still is ultimately speculation that this is the root of the problem. The main alternative explanation would be that eating too much red meat for too long overwhelmed something in my body that processed it, and permanently damaged my ability to process it. I think the carnitine explanation is the most likely one though, and would explain why I ate so much beef in the first place, as opposed to the idea that eating lots of beef overwhelmed and damaged my bodies ability to process it correctly.

Another point to add is that during a water fast, you actually WANT your symptoms (smell) to increase in a major way because this is a clear indication that the fast is indeed removing built up things from your body.

Some more additions: on this vegan diet sugar is allowed. Often junk food contains animal products (milk in milk chocolate, and eggs in cookies, ect.) but in fairly minimal quantities. The processed nature of the food is a concern as highly processed food is to be minimized (probably because parts of it can't be metabolized and the body must eliminate it), but you should be able to have some junk food on this diet. Taking white sugar and putting it on blueberries or strawberries for example is fine on this diet.

Many diets for dealing with this basic condition say to avoid sugar, but it is not an issue for me. Drinking a red bull, or orange soda may help to make up for food cravings. The quantities of non-problem foods on this diet you can eat are not limited. That should simply be based on avoiding unwanted weight gain.

When I did the initial, all vegan phase of the diet, I had one cheat meal per week on friday night. It is better not to do this, but it can make food cravings tolerable. Just make sure it is a cheat meal, and NOT a cheat day, where you eat whatever you want for an entire day. Do NOT eat any red meat. That needs to be prohibited until after you have really solved your problem, and should then only be eaten on rare occasions. Remember that red meat (we are going by the scientific definition, which can be different than culinary definitions) means any meat from four legged animals. Pork is red meat, in spite of its white color.

My motivation for wanting people to try this diet, or a similar diet, is not that it will work for everyone, but rather that everyone should at least try solving their problem this way, as it is the only viable path for most people to beat their problem.

As I have said, I think there are likely countless underlying causes of this, as countless things/processes in the body could potentially malfunction. This means that an actual cure for the underlying problem is unlikely to happen in our lifetimes. When it comes to true TMAU, as it is precisely defined, there could actually be a cure since people are researching that, but that requires a different (low choline) diet than this one.

I have thought a bit about what to do if all diets fail. I think the key is to be as cold-hearted as possible about the issue of other people reacting to you. The interests of people with this condition, and people dealing with them clash. You need to aggressively seek your own interests so that you can live a life where you are not isolated, and cut off from normal human activities. If someone is actually making nasty comments to/about you, you should not care about their interests in the slightest. I realize that trying to ignore reactions is often easier said than done though.

Imagine looking at this issue from the perspective of someone who neither has this condition nor is dealing with someone with it, but is a true outsider looking in. I think that CLEARLY the right conclusion would be that people with this condition should be able to live normal, full lives like everyone else, and everyone else must simply endure them for a little while.

Another thing is that during the covid lockdowns, I found a lot of enjoyable, solo, outdoor activities. I wish I had done more of those sorts of things back when I was dealing with this condition, so that is something to think about.

I wanted to add that I looked at a chart of carnitine levels in different foods, and I see that beef has 2-5 times the carnitine level of pork. This is interesting because I am far more drawn to eating beef than pork. This is one more bit of evidence in favor of carnitine being the issue. I also saw on the chart that turkey has a fairly high level of carnitine, and so should probably be avoided.

Another thing is that I bet that people who mistreat people with this condition later on start feeling terrible and guilty about it (at least for some of them). During the heat of the moment, when they are on the receiving end of the symptoms of this condition, they don't care about what they are doing. I bet that years after the fact, they think back to what they did, and now they feel terrible about it.

I wanted to add that I mentioned I eat a lot of pasta, especially on vegan days. This is dry pasta, not fresh pasta. Fresh pasta is egg pasta, and is to be avoided. Egg pasta will be found refrigerated (or maybe frozen) in the grocery store, and is sold already soft and only takes a couple minutes to cook. Avoid it, as it contains large amounts of eggs.

UPDATE: I don't remember if I posted this information earlier, but there are recognized carnitine metabolism disorders out there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemic_primary_carnitine_deficiency