Phase 1 Reset: Complete!

Success! I completed my 30-day diet reset last week and I'm here to tell about it!  I began this whole journey to better health as a result of my Hashimoto's thyroiditis (hypothyroid). While my symptoms were fairly mild, I had been experiencing very cold hands & feet, dry skin, hair falling out, and low energy. After doing lots of research on healing Hashimoto's naturally, I came across Chris Kresser's book, Your Personal Paleo Code, and decided to give his plan a try. Lots of people wanted to know if I noticed changes, so now that I've completed the first 30 days, I thought I'd give an update on how it went and how I'm feeling.

First, like I mentioned, my symptoms were mild. I still have them to a degree but I feel like some of them are improving. I've definitely noticed an improvement in my sleep. I used to wake up periodically all night and now I'm sleeping soundly until morning {unless the kids wake me up, of course, ha!}. When I wake up in the morning I've also noticed that I feel rested and ready to get up. I used to always need like 15 minutes of "wake up time" before I felt ready to get out of the bed. That has been a really nice change and I'm sure a side-effect of better sleep in general. Another great positive change I've noticed is that I no longer crave sweets throughout the day, or really snacks at all. I used to keep chocolate in my fridge at all times because at some point during the day I'd have a serious craving and if there was no chocolate I'd end up eating a bunch of other crappy stuff. Now I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. Occasionally I munch on a few bites of something in between meals, but it's usually something like a banana or some almonds. I am never in need of a "sugar fix."

So, now that the 30 day reset is complete, I had the option to add some foods back to my diet. I knew I wanted to try dairy since I missed it the most and was quite confident it didn't cause me any problems. After a few careful trials, I've added it back completely with no negative effects! I don't eat it the way I used to {half a gallon of milk per week over cereal}, but I enjoy it within the context of my new eating habits. Mostly, I add some cheddar cheese to things like scrambled eggs or a salad. And I made "meatza" which was much better than I had anticipated! The other things I've added back on a very minimal basis are honey and maple syrup. If I do need a little something sweet, I use those instead of regular sugar. I even baked some cookies for father's day that were sweetened only with maple syrup. Beyond dairy and the occasional use of honey or maple syrup, I've had no desire at  all to reintroduce grains, beans, soy, processed sugar, or any other processed foods. That is possibly the most amazing part of this. In the beginning it seems like you're giving up all these foods you love, and by the end you can't even remember why you ever ate them. My personal theory is that it's a function of the sugar controlling your brain. Break free from the sugar and you truly can be happy on just whole, real, healthy food.

For anyone who's interested, here are some of the things I ate during the 30-day reset:
**Side note: I basically wing it when it comes to recipes. I make up my own stuff and change most of the recipes I find to suit our tastes/needs, so I apologize that there aren't more links to these.

Breakfasts: {I usually chose 1 breakfast and ate that for the week}
-Ground turkey, sweet potatoes & apples
-Smoothies {bananas + berries + peaches + any fruit/veg + coconut milk + chia seeds}
-Turkey meatloaf w/fried eggs

Lunches: {Same as breakfast, usually 1 lunch for the week intermixed with leftovers}
-Leftovers
-Hardboiled eggs w/salad
-Pulled chicken w/salad

Dinners:
-Pulled pork on a sweet potato half
-Asian turkey lettuce wraps {just ground turkey seasoned with coconut aminos, garlic, ginger, salt & pepper. Add some vegetables like carrots, red peppers, green onions and serve in lettuce wraps}
-Old Bay chicken w/sauteed summer squash
-Lemon/pepper chicken {literally just grilled chicken seasoned with lemon juice and pepper}
-Steak & green beans
-BLT's {bacon, tomatoes and any other veggies served in a lettuce wrap}
-Burgers, burgers, burgers {any kind, just serve in a lettuce wrap or over salad!}
-Salmon & sweet potato cakes {mix some salmon, sweet potato, Old Bay seasoning, and an egg. I dusted mine with a little coconut flour before pan-frying in coconut oil just for a little crust on the outside}

-"Chick-fil-a" nuggets

-Spaghetti squash & meat sauce {easy and surprisingly good}

There were more, of course, but I was bad about writing them down/remembering them. Sorry! I'd love to remember to do a post each week of the dinners we eat with the goal being to show everyone that this is not a deprived way of eating. We've enjoyed every meal and have tried a lot of new stuff we never would have before. I'll do my best to keep up with that!

In the mean time, we've made a HUGE decision around here {yes, bigger than going Paleo}. It's going to take a lot of our time and energy in the upcoming months, but I'm excited to blog about it. Stay tuned!!

How To Celebrate Your Birthday, Paleo-Style

Usually when people hear that you're eating a paleo diet, they ask what the heck you DO eat, since so many foods in the standard American diet are excluded. So imagine the questions when it comes to parties and celebrations. How DO you celebrate something without sugar and flour?! 

I'll tell you.

Over the weekend, I celebrated my birthday. If there's one occasion that you'd like to let yourself enjoy, it's your own dang birthday. But this year, I'm eating better and I wanted to be able to celebrate my birthday without going totally off track. So I did some Pinterest searching and believe it or not, there are TONS of desserts out there that are Paleo-compliant {i.e. made without wheat flour or sugar}. In fact, I'd venture to say that almost any food you love can be made Paleo-compliant. I easily found something that sounded birthday-worthy and within the limits of my cooking skills. The recipe was meant to replicate the taste of a Twix bar. Happily, it did not disappoint! The ingredients were simple. The process was multi-stage, but not complicated. And the final product was really, really good. You would never know that it contains no grains, no refined sugar, no refined oils and best of all- no guilt.

The full recipe can be found here, but this will give you the idea....

You start with a simple crust {the "cookie" layer} made of almond flour, coconut flour, honey, butter, and a pinch of salt. Combine those ingredients {I used a fork} and press the dough into the bottom of an 8x8 baking dish. Bake for about 15 minutes at 350 and then let it cool completely.

For the caramel layer, melt a stick of butter in a sauce pan, add a cup of maple syrup and bring that to a boil. Then slowly add a cup and a half of heavy cream while whisking and bring that to a boil. Whisk for about ten minutes or until it thickens a bit. Then pour the mixture over the cookie layer and place it in the refrigerator to harden.

Side note: if this step seems like too much of a pain, I'd bet your favorite nut-butter would be an awesome substitute and would only require spreading!

For the chocolate layer, simply melt some semi-sweet chocolate with a tablespoon of coconut oil. You can use a double boiler, a heat-safe bowl set over a pot of boiling water, or a microwave. Once it's melted and smooth, pour it over the caramel layer and return it to the fridge until the chocolate hardens.

That's it! Real food. Nothing refined. Plenty sweet and delicious. Zero deprivation. If you don't believe me, here's my 4-year-old eating a piece...

Of course you can't eat the whole pan. I actually had leftovers so I cut them up and froze them on a cookie sheet, then transferred them into freezer bags for later. I thought they'd be a perfect take-along option for parties and occasions when I want to enjoy dessert without wrecking my system.

So if anyone thinks a paleo diet wouldn't work because you just can't give up your sweets, or it would be impossible to enjoy a party... that excuse is now gone. You can have your health and celebrate, too!

Half-Way There!

At this point we're just over half-way through the Step 1 Diet Reset phase (very very much like the Whole30, if you're familiar with that). In some ways it feels like the first two weeks have gone quickly, and in other ways it feels like two more weeks seems reeeeally long. But alas, I have survived. I am on track, and I even weathered a holiday weekend mostly unscathed! I'll say it: I'm proud of myself. At the outset this seemed a lot harder than it has been. I'm not sure if that's because I'm only half-way through, or if it's a sign of my mental determination {really hoping it's the latter}, but I'm feeling confident that switches have been flipped... permanently.

My family really wants to know how I'm feeling. Do I notice any big changes? Is this whole thing even worthwhile?? After two weeks, I can't say I feel dramatically different. I still have the hypothyroid symptoms that set me off on this journey in the first place. But, I also don't think it's realistic to expect myself to be "healed" or "cured" after two weeks either. The point of sticking to a strict set of especially healthy foods for this 30 days is to get the other stuff out of my system. It takes time for the body to get rid of some of the things that were party of my previous diet. Once that 30 days has passed and my system has settled and begun to repair, then I will start paying close attention to see if my symptoms start to improve. At this very minute, I'm sitting under a fleece blanket, wearing a hoodie and my hands and feet are ice cold. Somewhere over the next few months, I'll be looking for them to warm up. Over the past week I've found 3 pieces of my own hair in one dish of food, and a piece in my glass of water that ice cubes had fused around {seriously gross, I know}. Six months from now, I'm hopeful that won't be such a common occurrence. We'll see. It's possible that this change in my diet will help me, but that I'll still need thyroid medication. It is what it is. But that doesn't mean that I've wasted my time eating better. Quite the contrary actually.

Here is where I have seen change: The more I read of Your Personal Paleo Code, the more convinced I am to commit to a Paleo-style diet for life. There is so much information and evidence indicating which foods are the most healthful and which foods are lacking {not to mention potentially harmful}. I've also learned so much about how the health of our digestive system affects so many other conditions and areas of the body. I mentioned before that I'm someone who has always been opposed to "diets." This is genuinely not a diet. The bottom line purpose of this information is health and healing. That you will not find from Atkins, South Beach, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig or any of the other common diet plans out there. The goal among them is simply weight-loss, and maybe better health as a side effect. This is something different. Something bigger. Definitely something better. For a while now, despite a handful of people I know endorsing it and encouraging me to try it, I avoided a Paleo diet because I felt like it was unsustainable for me. I thought it was too strict and I just wasn't willing to commit to that for the rest of my life. I could find other ways to maintain my health. Thankfully, circumstances in my own health shoved me toward it to a point where I had to look into it out of curiosity if nothing else. Now that I've learned more and given it a try, I don't see myself going back. Don't get me wrong, I don't intend to stick to the strict guidelines that are used for this first 30 day phase forever, but I don't plan to stray too far from it either. It will remain the basis of my diet. I'll reintroduce some things, like dairy which I've really missed, but I'll probably eat less of it than I did before. And everything else will be an occasional treat. Nothing is banned for life, and for me personally, that helps immensely with my resolve.

So that's where I am at the halfway point: hanging in there better than I thought I could, learning more every day, more convinced than ever that this was a smart choice, and committed. Let's see what the next 2 weeks brings!

Personal Paleo Code: 1 Week In

We've been at this 30-day diet reset thing for a little over a week now {closer to 2 weeks, these posts take me a few days to compose & edit!}, so I figured I'd post an update on what we're eating and how we're doing. First, to give you a framework of what we're eating, the "reset" phase of the Personal Paleo Code consists of: meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, and healthy fats. No dairy, grains, legumes, sugar/sweeteners, industrial oils like canola, or artificial ingredients. Sound tough to live off of? It's really not that bad.

For breakfast I've been eating ground turkey with sweet potatoes and apples, berry smoothies made with coconut milk and chia seeds, and of course the incredible edible egg with some combination of salsa/avocado/tomatoes. Who needs cereal {i.e. sugar} to start the day? I will admit that I struggled a little with black coffee. I was used to a little sugar and some half-and-half, and black coffee was just not as exciting for me. I drank it for a few days, then gradually blended it down to half-caff, and finally to none at all. I prefer not to be reliant on a cup of coffee in the morning anyway. I really drank it because I love the taste, and once that aspect was gone there was no point. 

For lunch I stuck to my usual salads, though I switched to olive oil & balsamic vinegar instead of the honey-mustard dressing {homemade} I had been using before. I also had to omit cheese or black beans which I often included before. Instead I added avocado and/or boiled eggs. Sadly that has proven to just not cut it for a lunch meal. I've experienced more than one episode of extremely low blood sugar in the evenings where I start feeling dizzy, light-headed and like I need to eat something, anything immediately. It makes sense since I'm consuming significantly less sugar and carbs than I used to. Hopefully it's just my body adjusting to it's new fuel type. I did some quick online research and some advice was to eat more carbs {fruit or sweet potatoes} and other advice was to stay away from carbs {which could be causing a blood sugar crash} and eat more protein and fat instead. For today's lunch, I decided to skip the salad and go for something heavier.

Two salmon/sweet potato cakes, steamed carrots, and two boiled eggs. I also had an apple after that. 

It did not disappoint! My evening was much better. So, note to self: salad on the side, good dose of protein for the main component.

That brings me to dinner. Dinners have been the easiest and most fun. Some of our dinners have been steaks, burgers with pineapple slices and sweet potato chips, tacos in romaine leaves, pork roast and sweet potatoes, those salmon cakes I mentioned above, and a roasted chicken... all with a variety of vegetables. It's really simple - chose a meat, prepare however you want {within the parameters of the diet, e.g. no cheese}, chose a complementary vegetable.

I've even made ice cream out of frozen bananas using my food processor. Just slice and freeze a banana, place in the bowl of a food processor with other fruit, cinnamon, cocoa powder, nuts, etc. and process until creamy. I'm not sure I'll ever need to buy dairy ice cream again. I also love that it only makes a small amount so it's not just sitting in the freezer waiting to be eaten.

As for how we're feeling- I don't think either of us have noticed anything dramatic at this point. The first 2-3 days were a little rough for me in terms of energy, but I've definitely bounced back from that. I mentioned my couple of episodes of dizziness. Hoping that's just an adjustment to consuming significantly less sugar/carbs than before. I do not find myself hungry or experiencing cravings, which is wonderful and way beyond my expectations going into this. I thought for sure I'd be craving all the things I couldn't have. I used to always eat a bowl of cereal before bed also {a habit from childhood}, and I haven't been eating anything past dinner except the two times we made ice cream. I'm not ready to say that I see or feel my thyroid symptoms vanishing either, but hopefully I'll start to see improvements by the time the 30 day reset phase is ending {which will be June 10}. Without blood tests before and after I won't know definitively if the changes I've made are positively affecting my thyroid function. I do plan to follow up with my endocrinologist to check on my levels. They were only "slightly" off normal before, so it'll still be difficult to say whether any positive change is attributed to my eating habits or not. What I do know is that I've eliminated potential threats. By not eating foods that are known to be problematic both for my immune system and my thyroid, at least I feel confident that I'm not doing harm to myself. 

In addition, eating healthier is... well, healthier. I'm only helping myself in a variety of ways by changing my habits for the better now. My motivation originally came from having an auto-immune thyroid disorder, but the more I learn the more I believe that this change is just a smart thing to do for my long-term overall health. I'm sure there will be occasions and instances where I consume refined sugar or an artificial ingredient, but knowing that I'm careful 95% of the time will make those isolated instances much less of an issue. Therefore, I get to indulge when it's absolutely worth it and still maintain all the benefits of a clean diet. I'd say that's the best of both worlds!

My Personal Paleo Code

Ahhh, I can't believe I'm writing this... So. As I mentioned a few posts ago we recently went gluten-free due to my under-active thyroid. What I thought was an experiment to help my thyroid also proved to highlight the cause of the eczema issues that Carsen had been dealing with. After eliminating gluten from our diet {around mid-February}, I've continued doing research on thyroid disorders- Hashimoto's Thyroiditis {an autoimmune hypothyroid disorder or AITD} in particular. I've read articles, blogs, meta-research, e-books, and watched an online seminar. I have learned A LOT about how the thyroid functions, and perhaps more importantly- what it means to have hypothyroid/Hashimoto's. And I have to say, you can barely read a word on Hashimoto's or AITD without mention of the dreaded Paleo diet in some form. I say dreaded because it's something I've been avoiding for a long time, but in the back of my mind have known was probably a good idea. Anyway, everything I came across was written by a Paleo enthusiast, included testimonials by autoimmune sufferers who had great success on the diet, or included recommendations for it. I imagine the same is true for a lot of autoimmune disorders since that seems to be the connection between Paleo and Hashimoto's. In short, eating a Paleo diet seems to heal/reverse a variety of autoimmune disorders at best, and provide some relief of symptoms at worst.

Since I am most interested in managing my condition with an integrative/functional medicine approach {treating the cause of the problem instead of just suppressing symptoms}, I was rather intrigued by all the positive Paleo talk I encountered, so I went to the library to pick up this bad boy....

Only 394 pages of history, science, encouragement, testimonials, recipes, meal plans, and resources.

In general I'm opposed to "diets," especially ones that eliminate entire categories of food. They just seem really difficult to maintain over the long-term and if I can't maintain it for life then it's not really worth it to me. If you know anything about the Paleo diet, it's pretty restrictive: no grains, no dairy, no sugar, no legumes, no soy, no refined oils, no artificial ingredients. Boiled down, it's basically meat, eggs, fish, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds. Pretty rough, right? People do it though. And you can't deny that it's a very nutritious way of eating. I personally just have a hard time with things being totally "off limits." That only serves to make me crave those exact foods like never before. Thus, I have been opposed to the Paleo diet {for myself} from the first I learned of it, mostly on the basis that I felt like there's no way I could maintain it. That is, until I ran into a guy named Chris Kresser along my thyroid research journey.

Chris Kresser has written extensively about thyroid health and Hashimoto's, and even more about autoimmune disorders, and more still about health in general. After reading the articles and e-books on his web site and hearing his talk in the online seminar I watched, I headed to the library in search of his newest book. I figured it was worth reading for free :) At this point, I'm still in the first section and ready to dive into the plan! I can't really believe I'm saying that myself, but I am so ready to see if it can make a difference for me. 

So, how was I so easily convinced after being so totally opposed??

First- From what I've learned about hypothyroid, the vast majority {some sources say up to 90%!} of cases are an autoimmune condition {Hashimoto's Thyroiditis}. I'm kind of terrified that I likely have an autoimmune disease. I don't like that one bit and this is something I can personally do about it.

Second- As such a large portion of our immune system is housed in our digestive tract, autoimmune conditions can be a result of problems like a "leaky gut" {when the lining of the digestive tract becomes irritated and allows tiny particles of what we eat to enter our bodies outside the intestines}. The way to repair a leaky gut is to stop eating foods that irritate it, and to eat foods that are gut healing instead. This is the basic premise of the Paleo diet.

Third- The book, Your Personal Paleo Code, outlines a 3-step plan that makes the Paleo diet much more manageable and customizable than the super-restricted list of foods I described above. It starts out with a very bare-bones diet of foods known not to irritate the gut. After 30 days of gut healing {longer if you want}, the second step is to begin adding some foods back in like dairy or legumes. Dairy will probably be most sorely missed by me, so I'll definitely want to try that one. Some of those "off limits" foods are just plain bad for you though and you probably shouldn't bother adding them back anyway. I mean, going right back to eating refined flour, sugar and oils is just going to put you back where you were when you started. Adding things gradually on a trial basis helps you to identify which foods are well-tolerated and which ones trigger your symptoms or make you just not feel well. The third step is fine-tuning what you learn from the second step: macronutrient ratios, adjusting for your personal activity level, figuring how much and how often you need to eat, and how you can further optimize your health with things like super-foods and supplements. 

Fourth- There's a lot of credible evidence in the book pointing to the benefits of eating a Paleo-style diet. These include not just longevity, but decreased risk for so many of the awful ailments that have become the common causes of death for Americans like cancer, heart disease, stroke, and Alzheimer's. Honestly, what happened to dying of plain old age? That's what I'm going for- really old and fairly healthy right to the end. Of course, nothing guarantees long life, or even health. But if there are simple things I can control, like eating better, that can reduce my risks for some of the nasty diseases that could cause me suffering as I age, then why not? Not to mention the benefit of better health, strength, and energy now while I'm young and raising my children. 

Ok, so that's the long and short of it. A journey is about to commence! I'm nervous about sticking with it, but I'm really really looking forward to seeing how I feel and how my body responds to this new healthier way of eating. I think it's going to be a long 30+ days, but hopefully somewhere in there I'll start to see or feel changes that motivate me to hang in there. It seems especially intimidating when I think of the things I won't be able to eat {during the first step, after that he really does encourage you to enjoy anything you want on occasion, and I love that}. But if I stop and think about it in terms of just eating new things it really doesn't seem that bad. I was pinning some recipe ideas on Pinterest this afternoon, and I'll admit to being kind of excited to try some of them. Happily, Josh has agreed to join me on this journey. He has no reason not to, and I do the grocery shopping/cooking anyway so he'd probably be doing it even if he didn't know it! I know that having him on board will be a lot of motivation and will just make it easier for me. I also connected with a Facebook group that's planning to start this plan on Monday, so it will be nice to have a group of people who are at the same point in the process to commiserate share thoughts and ideas with! :D

I'll keep you posted on what we're eating and how we're feeling! Here goes nothing ;)