Fits and Spurts

Sometimes I guess I just don't have much to say.  The suddenly I'll think of 10 things and write a bunch of posts.  Anyway!  I signed up for Wanderlust months ago.  Wanderlust is a big yoga festival that travels all over.  I am in the midst of it now.  In preparation I cut out lunch.  Seems odd, I know, but my Wanderlust schedule has me in classes from 8am to 3:30pm and so I wanted to acclimate my body to that before diving in.  I guess I didn't cut out lunch competely, I eat a packet of almond butter and have jasmine tea (not really what anyone in their right mind would consider a meal!).

And of course the festival doesn't come to my hometown so I had to pack up a CRAPTON of food to bring with me.  Today I didn't have leftovers in the refrigerator when I got back so I whipped up a smoothie.  I haven't tried one in a loooooong time.  I kept it low FODMAP (coconut milk, blueberries, strawberries, pineapple, carrot and spinach).  It immediately made me feel sick, thank goodness my body throws up major warning signals to keep me from downing the whole thing and suffering for it..  My body just isn't ready to handle the raw stuff yet.  I recently ate a banana successfully so I don't think it's the fructose.  All I can say is thank goodness for hot dogs :)

My first class tomorrow is a meditation class so I'll be able to eat a HUGE breakfast to sustain me better and I have all the veggies ready to be sauteed up when I get home.  This morning all I could choke down was an offal muffin and a hot chocolate.

While I am here I do plan on eating out and drinking a glass of wine here or there so I am taking all my Biocidin, Olivirex, Red Yeast Rice with Garlic, SerraGold and Oreganol for 10 days.  I took a break just before I came but wanted to be a little more lax with my diet (french fries) while here so decided to do another round.

Other than that, life has been same old thing.  Sticking with the diet (for the most part) and treating off and on.  Trying to get my hands on a breath test to see if this latest protocol has made a difference at all.

Oh, and after all the yoga craziness is done I will be adding back lunch again.  With my adrenals as taxed as they are it's not good to deprive your body of meals (and drink caffeine instead).

Dairy and Wheat

I don't eat these things but up until recently my husband and son ate them by the pound. We recently took our son off both and so my husband grudgingly went along.  After 2 weeks of having my son off it, we let him eat it for 3 days so we could do a blood test for celiacs (negative).  It was so fascinating to watch what it did to his body.  He went off gluten/dairy and his midsection leaned out, you could see little bits of definition.  We added it back in and his belly went soft again, we took it out and he leaned out.  Fascinating to see the inflammation appear and disappear.  My husband has also leaned out, inflammation or calorie change, who knows, but my guess is it's less inflammation.

I think I'm almost there....

Was it the Red Rice Yeast or the addition of a crapton of probiotics??? I'm not sure but my guess is it's a combination of both.  I have been taking Red Rice Yeast with the herbal biotics (Biocidin, Oliverix, garlic in some form and for 10 days oreganol) before every meal. I drink the juice from sauerkraut with breakfast, just a shot.  Between breakfast and lunch I am taking 1/3 tsp of Garden of Life Primal Defense in water (blech!).  I am taking a soil based probiotic (PrescriptAssist) or MegaSpore Biotic with lunch.  Then I lay off because in my experience if I do any probiotics after dinner I generally wake up in the middle of the night bloated.

I'm also being really good about not eating anything that I could be sensitive too which is really hard since we traveled over the weekend.  Does this mean my inflammation is down too?? Hopefully yes and it definitely seems so.

My gut has been happy.  My kid and I stopped at the Alberta cart Cultured Caveman in Portland, OR last weekend and there were 3 other food carts there that were either vegan or paleo, which means no dairy.  I'm pretty sure all the trucks were gluten free as well.  We ate like piggies - chicken strips, ice cream, donuts (2 orders), and a fudge bar. Not the healthiest but oh well.  The ice cream was strawberry-banana and the fruit chunks were a little big for his liking so I ate it. Bananas!  I ate banana with no reaction.  Everything did hit my stomach like a brick but I ate a ton of heavy, fatty food so that's reasonable :)  I have been eating cashew cheese too.  I was missing my cheezy kale chips.  No more.  And french fries!  Too many french fries over the weekend :)

My hormones have not been so good.  I had a lot of stress last week, PMS through the roof and my body temperatures have plummeted.  I know it will resolve as my gut heals but it's hard to ride the wave sometimes while waiting. I went online to schedule a follow up with Dr. Keller but she has increased her prices to $250 for 30 minutes of skype so that's just not going to happen.  AND, the new policy is you can't get breath test results without a consult with her.  In the past I was able to order tests and get results whenever I want.  Ah well, I have a local ND and I can get the tests through him, it's just more annoying because he travels and teaches a lot.  Anyway, I searched online and found both thyroid and adrenal support that is similar to what I was taking.

This webinar does really good at explaining how your gut can mess up your thyroid, adrenals, etc. etc.  I know nothing about the program and am not recommending you buy it but I did think the information was worth watching.  The link will expire on Monday, July 20th.

Next up.... adding in Lion's Mane (which seems to be on sale everywhere right now, which I took as a sign :) to help support rebuilding the nerves in the gut.

Then maybe in a few months I can start adding in resistant starch.  YIKES!

My Refrigerator

I get so sick of all the anti-Paleo talk. Like we're all just sitting around eating huge steaks, overconsuming meat and killing the planet.  I used to love Jillian Michaels but it's getting really hard to listen to her podcasts.  She sounds more and more out of touch with every podcast, especially since Janice left, but I digress.  

This is my refrigerator.  It's not stocked wall to wall with meat, it's veggies and fruit.  My guys love their fruit.  When you eat like us (if you're eating low FODMAP that is), you have to consume a variety of veggies in order to get enough food and nutrition in a day.  This day I had gone to Costco and the farmer's market.  There were way too may delicious things to pass up.  And I always buy organic fruit in season at Costco because it's so much less expensive.  My husband hates this.  He can't find anything.  Two days from now it will be mostly gone, even though there are only 3 of us.  In just a few hours it's already got a huge dent in it :)

The large reddish purple jars are a plum puree that is now happily in our dehydrator becoming fruit leather.  The kale will be in the dehydrator becoming chips as soon as it is freed up.  Makes it portable and it's so much easier for me to chew.

Mixing It Up - Adding to the Current Protocol

I'm really kicking it up a notch with the probiotics.

After breakfast I added in 1/3 tsp of Primal Defense HSO Probiotic Formula, it's supposed to be taken on an empty stomach.  It is hard to get down, like drinking gritty, dirty water.  With lunch I am still taking the somewhat controversial MegaSpore Biotic and added in Lactoprime Plus. I've had the Lactoprime a while and I really don't think it's live anymore. I tried to make yogurt out of it and it did nothing so I figured might as well use it up.  I'm trying to drink my Probiotic Tonic from the Classic Kraut with breakfast and lunch, but I don't enjoy it nearly as much as the tonic from the Firefly Kimchi (yum!).  Alas, the Firefly Kimchi drink has spicy peppers in it and they came up positive on the Array 10 so I'm trying to be good and refrain (although the rice, beans and carne asada from the taco truck today was quite spicy ;).  Just drawing the bugs out so I can kill them.  I do this on occasion.  If I had it to do all over again I'm not sure I would have restricted my diet until the bugs were gone.  I can't be sure, but I wonder if the whole SIBO diet just slowed the killing.

It's fascinating because the M. Smithii archaea are a mechanism for retaining energy (calories).  Research has shown that the archaea is very common in starving populations like anorexics and in Sub-saharn Africa.  Makes me wonder if starving the buggers with diet and even the elemental diet does a bit of good.  They seem to be quite unstarvable!  Which leads to how to get through their biofilm and get them.

After listening to Dr. Ruscio's wrap up of the SIBO Symposium I decided to add in Red Rice 
Yeast. He said that statins appear to inhibit their cell wall formation. I picked up a blend from Solaray Garlicare with Red Rice Yeast.  This yeast is a natural statin. I'm going to try this blend while I do more research since it's inexpensive.  Hoping I don't react to the garlic but if anything it will draw the archaea and bacteria out while I pummel it with Biocidin, Olivirex, and the newly added Oreganol (which should arrive tomorrow).  My stomach has stopped bloating in the middle of the night so I figured it's time to stir things up. Ha!

So about 1/2 hour before meals I am now doing:

• Biocidin 20 drops
• Oliverix - 2 capsules
• Serrapeptase - 2 capsules (I won't be buying this again).
• Alli-C - 2 capsules (almost out)
• Garlicare - 1-2 capsules*
• Oreganol - 1-2 capsules*
• Iberogast - approx 40 drops
• Bitters - 1/2 -1 tsp (depending on how heavy my protein is going to be)

* I'll likely start with one capsule and work up to two.

If you haven't checked this cookbook out yet, do it!  I picked it up from the library today and it looks AMAZING.  It seems like a lot of the recipe's can easily be modified to be low FODMAP.

Oh, and my son's ND gave him some RepairVite-SE and I have been taking a bit of it but I think the luo han guo fruit extract may have made me bloaty yesterday.  I can't think of anything else it could have been.  RepairVite-SE is pretty much the same as Endozin except way more potent and with some digestive enzymes.

I've slept more this past week than I have in ages and I'm finally feeling rested (another reason to turn the heat up!).  I'm also doing better with hydration since I started squeezing in a lime and an orange into my quart of water.  That is probably helping with the feeling of exhaustion as well. 

Enough for now!  I'll let you know in a couple of days how things are going.  Could get exciting :)  Have a fun and safe 4th of July!  I don't know about where you live but it's dry as can be around here in Washington.  No real rain in months!

Triphala

In John Herron's book The Gut Health Protocol he sings the praises of Triphala.  I had used it way back when but it was no match for the methane.  I decided to give it another try.  I'd heard rumors that it hindered T4 to T3 conversion but I couldn't find any research of any kind to back it up.  Well, my temperatures TANKED.  Even with my medication I could barely keep it above 98.0.  And worse than that it made me constipated.  WTF!  It's supposed to have the OPPOSITE effect.  No such luck with me.  So, if anyone wants to try some Triphala, let me know.  It's in my supplement graveyard.