Guest Post by Angie Alt: Can I Paleo-ize You?

May 20, 2013 in Living with Autoimmune Disease

Angie AltAngie Alt is wife, mother, world traveler & blogger. She’s also a warrior in the autoimmunity war. Angie confronts three autoimmune disorders each day, including Celiac Disease, with powerful management techniques like AIPaleo & the Paleolithic lifestyle. She blogs regularly about the emotional side of tackling autoimmunity, adopting Paleo, and how it impacts her, her family, & their way of life. You can read more by Angela Alt at her blog and connect with her on Facebook.

I have a conundrum. For some, it may seem cut and dry, but I have been struggling with it for a year now. Well, maybe more accurately I’ve been struggling with it for about 11 months . . . like since the moment 30 days into AIP when I had the full-blown revelation, “Our food system is killing us.”  The next thought was, “Can I willing give the poison to others?”

No, right? No, I should not feed SAD food to others, if I know it is extremely detrimental to their health. The answer should be no, but I’ve had a hard time with it.

The first time I struggled with this was when we cleaned out our home of the SAD foods once and for all. Almost all the canned goods went, all the pasta (even the gluten-free stuff), all the bars, all the snack foods, and all the store-bought yogurt. All of it got packed up . . . and then sat there for a day, while I wrestled with what to do with it. I tried to talk it through with my husband.  Should we take it to the homeless shelter? Should we donate it to the food bank? At the time we were also moving across the country, so I asked, “Should we give it to the neighbors?”

Honestly, what I wanted to do was throw it in the trash, but I also have this deep aversion to waste, especially food waste. I used to live in West Africa.  After living there calling my feelings about food waste “aversion,” is actually a giant understatement.  Here’s the thing though, I knew the food was not healthy for just about anyone to consume, but I hadn’t quite started seeing it as NOT food. I didn’t want to waste food.

I ended up sheepishly approaching the neighbors and asking if they wanted any of it. They had little kids and were happy to receive nearly a week’s worth of groceries for free. I walked away feeling awful that they were going to feed it to the kids though. I even felt a little bit relieved that we were moving. Talk about a guilt complex. I didn’t want to participate in giving it to others, but I also didn’t want to throw it out.

We arrived at our new home and settled into a routine. My Paleo transformation really began to take off and my improvements on AIP were very noticeable and steady. My household went 100% gluten-free and my husband and daughter soon had health improvements. From there, they agreed to take everything 99% Paleo in the home too.  They started eating mainly AIP dinners with me. We started buying mostly grass-fed, organic meat; we found a local source of farm fresh eggs for them. Our health as a family bloomed. It was plain to me that SAD food was not food at all. I started to see it as food-like substances. A trick played by industry.

That’s when I started to think about Africa again. A large part of US foreign aid is food assistance. A great deal of it is grain. We ship our excess grain to them. It is needed. I’ve seen it first hand, in tiny, remote villages at the end of a long, long dry season.  Our food aid actually matters for them. But, they also need very serious nutritional interventions. Is it nutritionally undermining them further by giving assistance in the form of grains that we are now seeing more and more in the US as negative to overall health? In the last year, I’ve had three doctors, one being a highly respected GI specialist at a prestigious, big name medical school say to me, “Nobody should be consuming gluten.”  Does “nobody” include those that are facing severe food shortages? How do we resolve this dilemma on that scale?

I had struggled with it on the micro level, “What to do when I clean out my kitchen?” and I had tried to contemplate how to navigate it on the macro level, “What about foreign food aid?”  Then my nephew’s birthday came up. For his previous birthdays I’d done something awful, with a capital Auntie. I had sent him boxes of his favorite sugary cereals in the mail. One year on home leave from Africa, I took my other niece and nephew out to breakfast. I bought them the most over-the-top donut AND ice cream, of their choice. I have another niece, the most adorable two-year-old on the planet.  I used to sneak her ice cream and cookies too. I live far away and don’t see any of them often, when I do, I revel in being that special aunt, the one that spoils them rotten. I know now that it really is rotten, though. I can’t feed them poison, but should I be trying to “paleo-ize” them?

This is a real question for me.  Big ethical arguments aside, how are you approaching it or have you resolved it?

Tags: , , , , ,
11 Comments »

The Best Things in Life are Worth Waiting For…

May 18, 2013 in 2013, The Paleo Approach Excerpts

The Paleo Approach by Sarah BallantyneWell, at least I hope so! I hope that my book is worth waiting for! I also hope that my book is a “best thing”!

By now, if you have pre-ordered my book (and thank you for doing so if you have!!!), you have probably already received an e-mail from amazon letting you know that the expected shipping date has changed. You may have also noticed that I changed the release date in the advertisement on my sidebar.  Yes, the book will be coming out a little later than originally planned–the new release date is October 22nd, 2013.

So, what happened?

No one knew when I started this project just how BIG it was going to be. When we set the release date and my deadlines for turning in the material, the book was only a 24-page outline. This is my first book. So,  I really had no way to gauge just how many words it would take to explain what I wanted to explain and cover all of the topics I wanted to cover. Okay, yes, starting with a 24-page outline should have been a big clue that this book was going to be encyclopedic in scope, but at no time did I anticipate having a conversation with my publisher about the physical limits of book binding.  And my publisher, Victory Belt, who has published most of the best-selling paleo books out there, had no way to anticipate that what I was talking about doing would actually turn into a book of this magnitude. If any of us had known, it probably would have been two books. Or it would have been bound in hardcover and the sticker price would have been double. And, you know what this means? It means that my book is a completely spectacular good deal!

So, what happened is that when we set deadlines and the release date way back when I started this adventure, we were anticipating a book literally a third the size. Victory Belt has never published a book this big with so many different components (or “moving parts” as my publisher likes to call them). We just need more time to edit this beast, pull together all the graphic elements, and make sure that the quality of this book is top notch. For all the time and effort and self sacrifice that I have invested into this book, it’s important to me that we don’t skimp on this process. I want this book to be perfect (yeah, yeah, I know it won’t be perfect and I know typos always get missed, but it’s still a worthy goal). I want this book to help people, to have a real and wide-spread positive impact (and I hope you do too!).

How big is this book? Gargantuan. Think The Paleo Solution, The Paleo Answer and Practical Paleo all in one book, but focused on autoimmune disease. Of course, don’t think this book is just for those with autoimmune diseases because I have gone into details about how foods interact with the gut and the immune system that are broadly applicable to everyone. And I am super proud of my recipes. And my photography, actually (especially given the much lower quality photos I published on the blog when I first started). This book will be useful to anyone who wants to understand how food impacts our health, how lifestyle factors impact our health, and who want a really inventive cookbook too.

Where am I at? I turned in Part 2 of the book and two of the appendices last week (Part 1 was turned in in early April and is already being edited and sent to the graphics design team to start in on the illustrations). AND I turned it in on time!  Woot!  Parts 1 and 2 together are about 187,000 words.  There’s something like 30,000 more words in the appendices and I’m still working on a glossary of terms (there are 1185 references, which comprise about 25,000 words just on their own). I have no way to predict how many words the recipes will add, but I think it’s typically for recipes to add 30-50,000 more words. Just to give you some comparison, Practical Paleo (my favorite paleo resource guide for anyone who is trying to figure out which of the many paleo books out there to buy before mine is available!) was about 90,000 words (including recipes).  I am not exaggerating when I use words like gargantuan. And I am not exaggerating when I say that we are still trying to figure out how to format this book so that we can physically bind it (and still be able to read it!). Maybe we should do a special edition next year in hardcover…

In fact, this book is so big that when I went back to edit Parts 1 and 2 before turning them in, I didn’t remember writing a large proportion of what I was editing (I did write it though! Promise!). It was very surreal, reading my own words but without really remembering writing them… like reading someone else’s book but with a déjà vu type feeling of familiarity (ever accidentally read a novel that you read years and years ago but forgot that you read?… feels kinda like that). The cool thing is that this distances me a little from the writing so I can be a little more objective about it (and while I am still clearly biased, I do have to say that what I am reading is pretty darned good!).

I am now in full cookbook mode, which is Part 3 of The Paleo Approach (okay, the glossary is still science mode, but other than that it’s cookbook time). I am writing shopping lists and meal plans, frantically trying to finish a few recipes I really want to include, rephotograph recipes that I developed early on and that the photography is just not up to par, going through thousands of photos, and typing up the 105 plus recipes that are scribbled in three different notebooks (at this point, I am anticipating about 120 recipes in the book).  And, I’ve got two weeks to finish.

So, I hope you can be patient with me while I continue to focus most of my energy on finishing this book (the rest goes toward being a wife and mom) rather than creating new content for the blog. And I hope that waiting an extra month for my book won’t seem like too much of a hardship.  I am working extremely hard to make sure that it will be worth the wait.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
8 Comments »

TPV Episode 39 Show Notes: Gut Health

May 17, 2013 in Podcast, Show Notes

Our thirty-ninth show!
Ep. 39: Gut Health

In this episode, Stacy and Sarah discuss gut health, food allergies vs. intolerances, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth treatment, the various forms of elimination dieting to aid in gut recovery, and H. pylori.

On Sunday, May 12. The Paleo View launched their first ever bonus episode – The Mother’s Day show! Download the first bonus show by clicking here! And be on the lookout for our monthly, pay bonus podcast!

Click the picture above to be taken to iTunes

or download and listen by clicking the PodBean player below

We’re now on Stitcher!


If you enjoy the show, please review it in iTunes!

 

The Paleo View (TPV), Episode 39: Gut Health

 

  • 0:00 – Introduction
  • 1:19 – News & Views
    • Coming off the Beyond Bacon chaos, Stacy returned to Crossfit and is overall working towards recovery from the stress load
    • Stacy had a great Mother’s Day, complete with Urban Poser’s Samoa Donuts – experienced a refreshing awareness where her sweet tooth was easily satisfied and she didn’t feel the need to go over board
    • Sarah had a great couple of days and is very close to being done with part two of the book and then she will work on the cookbook section, which she is really excited to shift gears to
    • The Paleo Approach is roughly 210,000 words right now, the book is an information dense book and people are getting a tremendous deal
    • Sarah has made the science in the book incredibly approachable, just like it is on her blog, and it is truly a complete guide
    • Part two of the book is all about the practical implementation – what lifestyle factors to focus on
    • The book is a beast, with the nickname the encyclopedia – Sarah feels like she is racing for the finish line, but feels like she is going to make it and is looking forward to her three days off before editing work comes
    • On Mother’s Day Sarah and her family hung out at home and played outside – it was a nice day
    • The special bonus episode went live on Mother’s Day (May 12) and is available on iTunes, but you have to look for it under a song and not a podcast

      • The Paleo View will be offered for free, but the The Paleo View Bonus Shows are offered at a minimal cost to recoup some of the costs that have gone into the show
      • It is $0.99 per episode on the CD Baby site, but we don’t know what iTunes will charge.
      • The show is an expanded ‘News and Views’ format of The Paleo View and is a personal, intimate discussion
      • Despite what Sarah and Stacy anticipated, we are experiencing technical difficulties getting iTunes set-up for the bonus show, please use CD Baby until we resolve these issues
    • Sarah hasn’t yet had a chance to listen to the Bonus Show because of book work
    • Stacy was kind of taken back by the level of intimacy that the discussion took, and feels like mothers and daughters will in particular take a lot away on relationship development
    • Stacy’s treadmill desk broke, so is now working from a standing desk
    • Sarah spends a decent amount of time standing at her treadmill desk, especially when reading fine print or after eating a meal – is overall feeling so much better sitting less
    • Stacy wants a standing desk for work, but is worried about being the weird one and how to handle the days where she doesn’t wear flats
    • Stacy tells the world to go check out whatshouldwecallpaleolife.tumblr.com – it is great when you need a laugh!
    • Reminder, please leave your reviews on both The Paleo View and Bonus Show on iTunes!
    • Welcome new listeners! Happy belated Mother’s Day!
    • Episode 38 is a science-y show about gut health, h pylori, small intestinal bacteria overgrowth, and gut repair
  • 24:53 – Science with Sarah: Why do people react more violently to a food after eliminating it? When you stop reacting to food, is that an indicator that your gut has healed?
    • In every gut there are cells that sample the environment inside the gut and present what they find to the immune system, essentially patrolling
    • If you have a leaky gut, a lot more of what is in the gut leaks out and is presented to the immune system
    • Food intolerances and food allergies are both different kinds of antibodies
    • The cells that produce these antibodies are part of the immune system and are there to develop immunity towards certain things
    • There are a number of cells in the immune system – protectors, therapists to calm, directors
    • When you get to the end of an infection it is the director cells that divide and conquer and makes sure that the immune system doesn’t attack the wrong things and that it deactivates once the threat is gone
    • With a food intolerance and food allergy, the middle management cells are directing antibodies
    • In a normal person you achieve immune tolerance towards the food, which is an equal balance between the middle management cells and the suppressing cells – thus having no symptoms
    • If you have a food allergy or intolerance the system is out of balance
    • When you start any elimination diet you can experience exaggerated responses to small exposures for a number of reasons
    • As your immune system regulates and your body heals, eventually you will end up at a point where both the cells that respond to food are at low levels
    • You could eventually reach the point where exposures to food intolerances will not cause dramatic responses – it is a sign that your system has regulated
    • How long it takes to get there is dependent on a number of factors, including genetics, stress level, sleep quality, nutrient density in diet, hormone regulation
    • During the Cavekids PaleoFX panel, Chris Kresser mentioned that health isn’t having a violent reaction to bad food, that is the process to healing – health is when your body knows how to recover from the exposure to bad food (The Paleo View episode where gut health recovery was discussed with Diane Sanfilippo)
    • Stacy notes that people on a paleo diet will heal their gut in time, that there is another side to the intense negative reactions to an exposure where you body will better handle the minor exposures
    • Thanks to Russ from The Domestic Man for chatting about this topic with Stacy, which sparked the suggestion for this podcast topic
  • 36:57 – Q&A
    • Brittany: Our current Functional Medicine Doctor thinks my family has SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth) and wants us on FODMAP free diet. With all our other food issues, I am concerned that we won’t get the nutrition needed, that my breastmilk will suffer along with my children’s sleep. What is the difference between FODMAPS, GAPS and SCD?
      • Stacy recommends that they look into a GAPS diet and a very structured approach to healing their gut
      • It can be difficult to put kids on a limited diet, but Stacy has seen and heard amazing success stories from people who take a serious approach to healing their gut
      • Sarah notes that GAPS and SCD are very similar
      • GAPS is more of an inclusive system and includes some detoxification elements
      • The general concept behind both GAPS and SCD is that you starve the bacteria in the gut
      • GAPS places an emphasis on gut healing foods, and both highlight digestive enzyme supplements
      • FODMAPS are fermentable sugars, and are sugars and fibers that are rich in fructose, but also includes sugar alcohols and long fiber chains rich in fructose – they are difficult for the body to digest and absorb, and ferment easy – making it easy for the bacteria to eat
      • These are known as the gassy foods, and in someone with FODMAP sensitivity this is called fructose malabsorption, which means your body is having a hard time digesting and absorbing these sugars so there is more to feed the bacteria
      • The autoimmune protocol combines some of those things, but focuses on the inclusion of foods that normalize gut bacteria
      • Omega 3 fatty acids and fiber are the two foods known to have the most profound impact on the composition of your gut
      • Even though there is a large amount of evidence, there are no scientific studies to back up the impact of a GAPS and SCD diet, the low FODMAP diet has a high amount of scientific research to back it up
      • One of the issues that people face when they adopt a GAPS or SCD diet is that eventually the low crab intake starves the overgrowth, but also starves the good bacteria and you need to introduce prebiotics
      • Which means eating more vegetables, starchy vegetables, fruit
      • Stacy notes that if you are new to a paleo diet, focus on cutting out the junk first, and as you get further into it find ways to maximize the nutrient density of the foods you eat and to ultimately improve your gut health
      • Sometimes you have to eat the things you eat because your body needs it (bone broth, organ meat, sardines, etc.)
      • No matter which of these paths you select, autoimmune, GAPS, SCD, etc. take the nutrient dense road and focus on the foods you can eat, not on the foods you can’t eat, and what lifestyle factors you can change to heal your body
    • (55:45) Heather: Looking for help on how to manage a severe case of small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO).
      • Stacy notes that there is a time and a place for antibiotics, because sometimes food alone cannot solve problems
      • In this case, Stacy suggests probiotic foods to help with the re-balancing of her gut
      • Sarah suggests combining the antibiotics with a nutrient dense, gut friendly diet like what was outlined in question 1
      • There have been case reports of SIBO where doctors have combined two or three different kinds of antibiotics, or even pair with anti-fungals, to manage the bacteria
      • Here are other drugs that have shown effectiveness: rifaximin (brand name is Xifaxan), vancomycin, neomycin, tetracycline, metronidazole, levofloxacin and fluconazole
      • Clinical trials where they have combined antibiotic therapy with probiotics and/or prebiotics have shown even better outcomes
      • (Note, consult a doctor first) The common prebiotic typically used in these studies is VSL-3
      • (Note, consult a doctor first) There are also some good studies on treating with prescript assist, which is soil based organisms, but specifically with irritable bowel syndrome
      • (Note, consult a doctor first) There are also a variety of herbs that can be used as antimicrobials: monolaurin, cat’s claw, wormwood, goldenseal (caution: goldenseal stimulates immune system), pau d’arco, olive leaf extract, garlic, barberry, Oregon grape, oregano oil, extra virgin coconut oil, lactoferrin, DGL
      • A b-vitamin complex is a good idea
      • Digestive support supplements can also go a long way to help restore the gut
      • Turn to primaldocs.com and paleophysiciansnetwork.com
    • (1:08:51) Dana: When an infection is not active, should I still be treating it, beyond what I already do for leaky gut?
      • The standard treatment for h. pylori is the same as the base treatment for SIBO, including herbal supplements, under the supervision of a qualified professional
      • H. pylori is a gram negative bacteria that lives in the upper gastro track and is in 50% of the world’s population, prominent in developing countries
      • 80% of cases are asystematic
      • When they are systematic people experience chronic inflammation of the stomach and small intestine, which causes a lot of misleading symptoms
      • H. pylori causes ulcers, and increases your risk of stomach cancer
      • If you get H. pylori early in life it can protect you from immune related conditions, if you get it later in life it can cause immune related conditions
      • One of the best treatments is a nutrient rich diet – the AIP is a great place to start
      • Talk to your doctor about whether or not you need to treat it and what your options and preferences are
    • Don’t forget to check out the bonus show, leave reviews on iTunes, and we will be back next week!
  • 1:22:54 – Outro

Support us by shopping on Amazon (below) or Donating through Paypal (below) or shopping through links on our sidebars, please!

Amazon.com Widgets

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
6 Comments »

Real People, Real Paleo: Evan Brand of Not Just Paleo

May 16, 2013 in Real People, Real Paleo

 “Real People, Real Paleo” is a series of posts written by real people who were inspired to share their paleo story with you.  There is such diversity in the challenges that bring us to a paleo diet and lifestyle and in what we hope to achieve by adopting them.  These stories are intended to be a place of inspiration, written by real people, showing the diversity of our needs and our approaches to this way of eating and living, and explaining how each individual’s implementation of paleo meets their needs.  By sharing these people’s stories with you on my blog, I hope to redefine what paleo success is.  I do not believe that eating paleo is purely about losing weight, gaining muscle, and having 6-pack abs.  I believe that paleo is about being healthy enough to thoroughly enjoy life, whatever that means for you, and about sustainability for our entire lives.  If you are interested in writing up your story, email me at thepaleomommy@gmail.com

My Path to Paleo

Hi! My name is Evan Brand. Before I begin my story, I want to give you a quote to remember and keep close to you at all times.

Don’t wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get you’ve got to make yourself.
-Alice Walker

That quote sums up the past four years of my life. I began my journey to Paleo and towards a deeper sense of what life is about in 2009. I was observing an increasingly insane society. People running around with coffee and a child in each hand. This couldn’t be the way we are supposed to live.

I can’t accept the fact that 70% of the U.S. is obese and that depression is the leading cause of disability in the U.S. for people ages 15-44 (source).  This isn’t the way we are supposed to live. Are all healthy people happy?

This is where Not Just Paleo began. I came from the opposite side of Paleo than most. I started my transformation when I was 5’10” and 120 pounds. I felt fragile, lethargic and desperate for a positive change. I then followed my incredibly fit friend around the gym for a couple years and started to figure things out.

I was taught to eat plenty of whole grains, pasta and anything else that had high carbs in it. Because, carbs equal energy and health right!? Not at all.

I had the meats, veggies and fruit nailed down, but I was still off track. For some reason, I never made the connection between grains, wheat and bowel issues. I ignored diarrhea no matter how often it occurred. I didn’t discover until 2011 that gluten was the issue for many of my problems.

As a young man, you wouldn’t think any joint problems would be possible. I had knee pain, back aches, fatigue, poor sleep and was pretty irritable most days.

Into my life came the book Wheat Belly by Dr. Davis. So, pasta and bread could be the problem behind brain fog, fatigue and body aches? I experimented by eliminating these foods, just as I did with many other supplements at this time.

As soon as I eliminated bread, bagels, pasta and became more aware of wheat on ingredient labels, my problems were gone.

No more diarrhea, no more back aches and no more joint pain. This was the AHA moment! I had figured it out. I had to help others realize how great they can feel with just a few simple changes. But is diet the answer for health and happiness?

I still struggled with mild depression and irritability, maybe it was just my job, so I changed jobs. No, still felt the same. In came meditation. I read so many articles on meditation that month you could’ve called me Buddha himself.

Who would’ve thought looking internally for happiness was the answer? Not anyone who paid attention to all of the shiny car and cell phone commercials.

After learning how to breathe, my life was transformed. It sounds simple right? I discovered that a large percentage of people take shallow, tense breaths, including myself. This directly affects digestion, stress levels and overall happiness.

You can learn to separate yourself from stress and let the problems work themselves out by following this technique.

Lets do a simple breathing exercise together. It’s really simple.

  • First, turn off any sounds. Your TV, radio, iPod, or anything else making noise right now, silence it.
  • Now, the breathing routine takes place with your eyes closed. Put your focus on your chest and stomach. Allow them to expand.
  • Breathe in through your nose counting to 3, hold it for 1 second and exhale through your mouth counting to 4. Repeat 4 times and whenever necessary.
  • Add a little force to your exhale and visualize all your problems escaping.

If you took the time to slow down and try that, you’re that much closer to everyday contentment.

Fast forward to now. I host a podcast in the top 100 of the fitness & nutrition section on iTunes where we discuss..Not Just Paleo (pun intended).

After you check out the podcast, be sure to sign up for my newsletter and receive my eight week course on health and hapiness.

Interview Pic

Sarah was actually a guest on the show on this episode!

The goal of the show is to change the way you look at every moment in life. I want everyone to realize that health and happiness doesn’t have to be so difficult. Also, I encourage everyone to slow down a little bit and listen to some great conversations. Life seems to be speeding up faster everyday.

I believe success and health takes three things. The courage to make change even when it’s uncomfortable, the willpower to push through even when you want to binge or give up, and the reminder that you are in control of your health and your life. No one is coming to save us, it’s up to us to make these positive changes and we can do it!

I didn’t mean to turn my story into an advice column, but I just get so excited when I know that others are always searching for a better life. “I want more time, I want better sleep and I just want to know where to start”. You can do all of those with the Paleo and Primal lifestyle.

We should all be proud of ourselves for getting this far down the road to health. There weren’t flashing lights to lead us here, but hopefully we can be the lights for those around us that need help too.

P.S. Now I’m at a comfortable 160 pounds, sleep great since I reduced the lights in my room at night, and have great digestion. I thank the Paleo diet and everyone in this community. I look forward to growing this movement each day.

Me

Tags: , , , , ,
2 Comments »