Fasting vs. Elemental Diet

These are two very different things even though both involve no chewing.

Fasting is no calories, just water (and salt or trace minerals) for hours/days.  You can ease into fasting by drinking bone broth, which is what I tried but need to be somewhat careful as consuming too many calories can turn fasting into a low calorie diet of sorts.  Why does this matter?  When you fast, your body will burn through the energy stores in your liver in 2-3 days, with no other calorie options present it will turn to burning body fat for energy.  If/when you get into this magic zone, leptin, your hunger hormone decreases and your metabolism revs up because energy is required to convert body fat to energy.  That's the very, very simple way of explaining what I understand from listening to Jason Fung and reading The Complete Guide to Fasting.  If you are over 300 calories then your body will not switch into this magic zone, you will remain hungry and your metabolism will not rev up and go into body fat burning mode. It will just slow down because you are consuming both too many and not enough calories. This is the zone many dieters end up in after years of calorie counting, exercise and yo yo dieting.  According to the hosts of Fasting Talk this is also what happens to some people who only eat one meal a day.  Your body adapts to the low levels of calories and you do not lose weight.

The elemental diet on the other hand, if done correctly, keeps your calorie consumption up to your normal levels.  If you do the homemade version and keep the fats high and carbs low you will go into ketosis and much of the initial weight that comes off will be water.  It shouldn't slow your metabolism.  The problem comes in that many people with SIBO end up not digesting fat well so they rely more on carbs, which with the elemental means sugars. This is also the problem with many packaged elemental diet formulas, heavy on sugars and nutrients, not much fat.  Thankfully so far I am not one of these people, protein and carbs give me difficulty, fat not so much.  I sucked a tiny bit of honey out of my son's honey stick at the farmer's market today and have had a headache ever since.  I didn't used to be this sensitive but cutting sugars out has reduced my tolerance. It probably doesn't help that I seem to have some lingering insulin resistance issues as well.  Turns out my BS monitor is wildly inaccurate and needs to be replaced so I don't know this for sure.

Given that my body is not digesting well and I have a lot of lingering methane I am considering the homemade elemental.  First I need to finish eating the perishable food in the house that only I will eat, then I'll decide.

Contemplating Digestive Enzymes

And came across this article. Seems like a good basic description. For me I'm most interested in breaking down protein since I know I have difficulty there and with vegetable fibers since I have a hard time chewing them completely. Still on the hunt for what, I can't honestly say I've noticed a difference with any of them, except ox bile.  I'm currently using OrthoMolecular Products DigestzymeV. It's fairly comprehensive but expensive, especially if the whole family is taking it.

I heard Mike Mutzel say recently that you should avoid DPP-IV in your routine digestive enzyme because it doesn't something bad in your gut.  Of course I can't remember what he said exactly or whether it was on his podcast or in one of the online summits he's been involved in.  The only enzyme I've seen it in are those targeted to gluten/dairy specific digestion.

I've also recently heard that you shouldn't take a digestive enzyme with Cellulase in it because this is not an enzyme that humans actually have (ruminant animals like cows do). I have yet to come across a comprehensive enzyme that doesn't have it.

Two new podcasts I'm listening to:
Gut Guardians
Nourish Balance Thrive

Time to change things up - New Protocol

So I'm sticking with the Biocidin for now.  I think I like it.  It has tea tree oil in it which helps get into those pesky biofilms.  After looking at Bio-botanical Health's Comprehensive Cleanse program I decided to add Olivirex to the mix .  As much as I hate to, I'm keeping in the Allimed.  Everyone says you need it for methane but I wonder if it works is all.  I've taken sooooo much of it and it's so expensive.  I'm trying the tincture this time for kicks.  For those of you who dearly miss garlic, the tincture is super yummy.  After looking at all the various biofilm busters I decided to give Serrapeptase a try.  I really, really want to try Lactoferrin but the milk.  Dairy brings my digestion to a complete and utter halt.  Not helpful even if it is kicking the biofilm's butt.

So this is everything I take 20-30 minutes before meals:

• Digestive Bitters
• Iberogast - 20 drops
• Vital-zymes (2)
• Biocidin (working up to 20 drops)
• Olivirex (2 capsules)
• Allimed (15 drops)
• Serrapeptase (1)

I've also added Triphala between meals to help with my motility.  I need to do more research on this as I saw on a fb group that it can hinder T4 to T3 conversion.  That is mostly the liver's job.... hmm.  I'm still taking tumeric and fermented cod liver oil to help with inflammation.  And I am taking Betaine HCL with meals to help my body break down protein since it struggles with this.  I'm also taking LiverCare to help support the liver.  Both Biocidin and Olivirex have Milk Thistle so there is support there as well.  SIBO and the treatment of SIBO can be rough on the liver and I want to make sure I am supporting it.

At night I'm taking:

• LDN
• Iberogast
• 5-HTP

I seriously would not recommend jumping into the protocol I've outlined above.  I never experience anything resembling die off but many, many people do, not to mention I made this protocol up myself.   AND my ND at the SIBO Center pretty much told me I was crazy, especially when I said I was taking MegaSpore Biotic and eating fermented foods.  They really like to stick to things that have been researched and mostly formulas that contain few ingredients so they know what is working.  

I've been doing this protocol for approximately a week and things seem to be going well.  Feeling a bit tired but I'm losing weight which to me is a good sign.  The methane producing M. Smithii love to make you hold onto calories and therefore weight.  The fact that I'm losing little bits makes me think I'm making some headway in killing them off.  Now to decide when to test again!