A Change in Plans

If you may recall, I'm supposed to be doing gettinstronger.org's Deconditioning Diet.  Well, guess what?  I have decided to discontinue it.  It was getting to time consuming and I think I was becoming a little to obsessed with food as a result of starting the craving log(which I haven't used in several weeks).  I just wasn't liking how this "diet" was making me feel and it took me away from one of the original reasons I went "Primal" in the first place; learning to really listen to and be in tune with my body and not always be obsessing over food.  Just eating when I'm hungry, stopping when I'm full, and what my body's supposed to eat.  What it's really telling me it wants.

I had better luck not being so hungry simply following the Primal Blueprint way of eating than with this Deconditioning Diet!  So, I think it's time to return to the basics of a Primal/Paleo lifestyle with a few tweeks (thanks to Healthy Skeptic's Chris Kresser to hopefully clear up my skin issues).

There's a blog post (more of a podcast, really) on his website about clearing up skin conditions by healing your gut.  It's a rather good post which talks at length about the brain-gut-skin axis and the importance of having a healthy gut lining and flora.  Did you know that the is considered by many scientists to be like a second brain?  80% of your serotonin receptors are in your gut, not your brai!

Anyways, back to the reason I brought this up in the first place, my eczema.  In this podcast, Kresser has what he calls his "Gut Healing Protocol".  It's basically a Paleo/Primal with no dairy, nightshades, FODMAP foods, minimal insoluble fiber, and lots of choline rich foods (bone broth in particular).  I think the Paleo part is pretty self-explanatory.  It's been well documented that eating grains with their anti-nutrients that attack the lining of the small intestine and lock onto nutrients making them harder to absorb, can not be good for one's digestive health.  Also, eating processed foods and too many unnatural simple sugars is also not good for ones health (diabetes, etc.),

No diary makes sense for me because of the lactose and casein issues I have.  The only exception on this rule is Ghee or clarified butter.  For those who don't know how wonderful or what ghee is, it's butter with all the lactose and casein removed.  I recently got some and have been using it to help my coconut oil last longer.  No nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and mushrooms) also make sense because of the small amounts of neurotoxins that can build up.

However, FODMAP was an acronym I'd never heard of until I listned to this podcast abd whose meaning escapes me at the moment.  But, apparently fruits and vegetables with excessive fructose, fructans (still don't really understand what those are), and polypols can cause gut problems for some.  We shall see if such is the case for me.

Another thing I've started to notice is that I'm being increasingly drawn to a more strict Paleo diet.  I'ver been following (for the most part) Mark Sisson's "Primal Blueprint", a less strict version of the Paleo diet, for almost a year and it has helped me out a lot with loosing 85 pounds and keeping it off.

However, some skin issues have come up, mainly ezcema that I'm wondering if a more strict Paleo diet will help cure.  I've gotten a steroid cream from the doc which I use twice a day and I also use a moisturizing lotion from Kiss My Face once a day.  My ezcema has improved quite a bit since using these, but I can't help but wonder if cruching down on my diet hasn't helped as well.  

I hope things continue to improve and clear up over the coming months and that I can move towards an even healthier lifestyle with this switch to a Paleo, as opposed to "Prima" diet.

Sayonara

Hormesis, Gettingstronger.org and The Deconditioning Diet

Hormesis, ever heard of it?  Probably not.  I'd never heard of it until I listened to the latest podcast at robbwolf.com.  For those who don't know, Robb Wolf is the renouned author of The Paleo Solution.

The guest of this podcast talked about a website called gettingstronger.org and it's philosophy of "hormesis".  Hormesis, as far as I understand it, is the idea that increasing one's exposuer to stressor's slowly over time, can in fact re-wire pathways in the brain and rest of the body to make us stronger.  Ironically enough, if you have read my last blog post, I was working on not being so reactive towards one of my bosses.  This website has the potential to provide me with a way to do that through applying the pricipals of hormesis.

This brings me to my next topic. gettingstronger.org's "Deconditioning Diet".  This diet is designed to help eliminate or control cravings and put a stop to so-called "emotional eating"- something I've learned I still do from time to time, usually during periods of high stress.  And yes, even after doing Primal Blueprint for as long as I have, I still get cravings.  What I crave has shifted from largely sweets to things like hard-boiled eggs or prime ribe, but that intense "need" for some sort of food is still there and I do not wish to be controlled by this.

So, as of today, I am doing a deconditioning diet.  Bye-bye cookies, fudge, and all the other crap foods from the holidays; welcome, wholsome real foods and freedom from cravings (at least I hope).

The first "phase" of the diet is involves just following a low-carb diet iwth three scheduled meals and no snacking for at least a week.  This is were I'll be starting since I did fall off the Primal wagon this weekend.  Even though, I'll be following Primal Blueprint again, I will be leaving out more foods than usual.  Eggs will be one of these food.  I know I've loved the eggs I make for breakfast, but the lictins in them may still be causing me digestive problems.

The last part of phase one is making a craving log where you note all your cravings: the time and date. nature of the craving (general hunger or a specific food) and speculate what could have caused the craving.  I've already used mine twice today.

That being said, let's get down to business!  Updates to come in the future.

Sayonara!

More Tweaking

I've been doing some tweaking with my diet as of late.  After doing some further research, I decided to add more "safe starches", as The Perfect Health Diet calls them.  Their blog/website has some really good resources and PHD is very similiar to the Primal Blueprint/Paleo way of eating, but with more starches.  These include, white potatoes (without the skin), sweet potatoes (for now), white rice, tapioca, and others that I can't remember at the moment.

One blog post of theirs talked the body's immune response to fungal infections being dependant on glucose levels, and how very-low or low carb dieters can be prone to them.  Having read this blog and that white potatoes digest into only glucose, while sweet potatoes digest into a combination of glucose and fructose (something we want to limit our consumption of), I decided to try adding one white potato a day to my meal plans to help fight the fungal infection on my legs.  I've also started putting coconut oil on the effected area twice a day as I've read coconut is a natural anti-fungal.  It seems to be helping, abate, at a slow pace.  The effected areas have not got worse or spread, but not getting better as quickly as I'd hoped. 

Now, this could be the safe starch I'm using.  Potatoes are also nightshades, plants that need shade to grow and have low levels of neurotoxins in them.  I've notices red spots on my right arm recently and am wondering if they might be a delayed allergic reaction to the increase in potato consumption.  I only have three left, so I will finish those off and switch to white rice for 30 days to see if the spots go away,

On another note, I've discovered that dark chocolate may be causing me indigestion.  I ate only half a bar of Trader Joes 72% Cocoa Dark Chocolate bar yesterday morning around 9:00 am,  A half an hour later, yep you guessed it- indigestion.  Looks like I'm going to have to cut out dark chocolate for awhile.  So much for that Pound Plus 72% Cocoa bar I bought!  Oh well, it's not that big a deal.  I needed to cut down on bother the amount and how often I eat it anyways.

That means I need to find other ways to manage my stress levels, particular the stress coming from one of my jobs and dark chocolate has become a bit of a "comfort" food for me since going Primal.  The owner of the store and I just don't quite see eye to eye and he seems to be one of those people who is always right and everyone else is wrong.  I know he's the owner and there's really nothing I can do about it, yet he always seems to get some sort of reaction out of me.

I'm working on not being so reactive to his craziness and finding another job.  One where I get the money I earn on time, a schedule more than a day or two in advance, and isn't nearly as stressful.  The stress from this job will often add to the temptation to eat thing that are not good for me or eat more than I need to or when I'm not even hungry.  This usually results in weight gain or stalled weight loss and feeling like shit/lower energy levels for the next day or two.  Not something I want since I've not reached my goal weight (I've got 20ish more lbs to loose) and I want to feel healthy with lots of energy to get through each day.

I hope to get through the holidays without consuming too much food.  We shall see how I do.

Sayonara

Stress Management

It has begun to consciously drawn on me, how stress can affect one's diet.  It was in the back of my mind, but hasn't really come to the surface until a week ago.  I had been 3 months into eating based on Mark Sisson's The Primal Blueprint, when I started to slip.  Gluten and refined sugar started to re-enter my diet.  Granted, I was choosing options that had the least amount of carbs in them (funny isn't?), but that's really not the point.  It has been little things so far: a packet of Little Debbie doughnut gems, a raised doughnut(or two), or a cream cheese croissant a day.  Not too bad considering I'm still losing weight. 

However, I'm going to quit this annoying little habit beginning to re-develope.  As of today, I'm cutting the grains and refined sugar out (again).  I've started making my own food again and bringing enough with me in case I need a snack etc.  All foods I've made today are primal (no grains, no refined sugar).  I'm re-setting my goals reguarding my eating habits.  Grains, sayonara!  Refined sugar, sayonara too!  Out of here.  Gone.

Another thing I need to work on is make sure I eat what I buy.  There are times where I'll buy something thinking I'm going to use it and then it just sits there in my frig, roiting away.  If I would just eat the damn thing, I'd waste so much less money.  And, I'd feel so much better if I just continued to eat primal foods.

Kinda of a bit off topic form the pervious entries, but you will all just have to deal with it.

Sayonara