Back in April I was sick and I went to a Naturopath for help. I’ve been seeing the Naturopath ever since. When I originally went in they weren’t sure whether to treat me for a illness or adrenal fatigue, and supplied me with a custom tincture to try and treat both. After a few weeks with that I definitely felt better. At that point they told me I could either leave, or I could continue seeing them to get help in dealing with my allergies. I chose to continue going in. They gave me a food diary to fill out over the next couple of weeks before my next visit. I didn’t know it at the time, but they were seeking to find out what I was really eating, and how those foods were effecting me.
Let me say at this point that I ate a pretty healthy diet. At least I thought I did. My typical food intake was something like this:
- Breakfast was oatmeal with nonfat milk, blueberries and a banana mixed in, and a couple of scrambled eggs. And coffee of course!
- Mid-morning snack was an apple, sometimes with peanut butter.
- Lunch was a salad with lots of fresh veggies topped with Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Usually I’d have some lunch meat or cheese with this, and chase it down with an orange.
- Afternoon snack was almonds mixed into cottage cheese.
- Dinner was usually pasta or rice with some kind of meat and veggies.
At my next doctor appointment I showed up with my food diary, and some of the ‘sports drink’ mixes I often used while running or riding. I had known for a long time that I was allergic to soy. Whenever I drank soy milk my tongue and mouth would get very itchy. I didn’t think this was a big deal, but I thought the doctor could test me to see if I really was allergic to soy. My doctor (actually, the NCNM student who is primarily treating me) uses muscle testing, which is part of applied kinesiology (AK). The theory as I understand it is that certain muscles have connections to certain organs, and if you eat something that distubs the function of that organ the corresponding muscle will test weak. When I brought up soy the doctor got excited because soy has connections with muscles that are important to running, something I obviously do a lot. To test me, he had me stand up against a wall with my arms straight down, palms touching the wall, and raise my right leg as if it was at the top of a run stride. He tried to push my knee to the outside, and I could lock him out – he couldn’t move my leg. Then he had me raise my left arm, again as if I was running. In that position he was able to push my knee out, which he said was supposed to happen. Then he redid the original test, this time after putting some of the sport drink onto my tounge. After that I couldn’t lock him out any more. Then I rinsed the sport drink out of my mouth, and I was once again able to lock him out. AK/muscle testing is not without its detractors, but this and several other experiences with the doctor has really convinced me that it works.
After reviewing my food diary the doctor tested me for dairy and wheat allergies. I responded negatively to both. I also discussed with him my reactions to certain fruits and vegetables. My mouth gets itchy when I eat any sort of melon, carrots, celery, and to a certain extent with apples and bananas. I had also recently noticed nectarines were causing my problems, primarily my lips cracking in the corners of my mouth. He advised me to avoid soy, dairy, and wheat, and anything else that seemed to cause a reaction. My first response was, what am I supposed to eat? Almost every meal I ate, and all my snacks, were now off limits. “Plenty” he said. Lots of vegatables, protiens, and healthy fats like “olive oil, butter, and lard.”
Yes, he included lard. I was very surprised. Apparently all this fear we have in society of fat in our diet is really misguided. “Fuel is a much cleaner fuel” than carbohydrates he told me. He sent me home with instructions to read Phil Maffetone’s In Fitness and In Health (which I’ve now read, and suggest you do as well), and to dramatically change my diet. I immediately cut out all dairy and wheat..which was a real struggle! Cutting out dairy and wheat pretty much meant every single thing I normally ate in a day had to change. After some struggle and frustrating moments, here is what my diet looks like today:
- Breakfast is a pile of veggies (usually squash, onion, pepper, mushrooms, and spinach) sauted in EVOO with three scrambled eggs. Occasionally I’ll throw a pat of butter in for some more flavor. Oh and coffee!
- Morning snack is almonds (alhtough I just found out today that the almonds I’ve been eating have wheat and soy ingredients…and raw ones seem to cause a reaction).
- Lunch is still a salad, but now I’m a lot more careful to include a good helping of protein, usually tuna fish mixed with canola oil-based mayo, or lunch meat, or left over protein from dinner the night before.
- Afternoon snack is usually an orange, although sometimes I’ll eat a whole-food bar, and/or more lunch meat.
- Dinner is usually just meat and veggies, although I sometimes eat rice.
When I first started eating this way I quickly lost around 4 pounds, which was concerning. It didn’t take long eating this way for me to realize that this was basically the Atkins Diet. Wasn’t I deplting my glycogen stores? I thought the weight loss was a sure sign of this. Also since I had started eating this way I was noticing increased sensitivity to foods like apples. Was I being overly sensitive, or was there something to this? I called my doctor with these concerns. As far as the new sensitivities I was experiencing were concerned he gave me his “dirty water” analogy: if you have a glass of water filled with dirt and you put a little more dirt in you don’t notice it; if you have a clean glass of water, and put the same amount of dirt in, you notice it. As for the glycogen, he told me that I’d be perfectly fine if I never ate another carbohydrate again. Through the process of gluconeogenesis our bodies can manufacture all the glycogen we need. “Give the new diet a chance” the doctor said, “and you will start to feel much better.”
Even before this phone call, I was already starting to feel much better. My energy levels were way up, and my mood had dramatically improved. I was also no longer constantly hungry, and despite eating very little carbohydrate, especially considering what I normally consumed, I was still able to complete all my workouts, even the most intense intervals, with no issues. There seemed to be something to this new diet.
Since then, I’ve really become aware of how certain foods effect me. Mostly I’m discovering allergies or sensitivities to foods I never thought I had an issue with – most recently black pepper. The problems are always characterized by itching in my mouth after I eat them, but I suspect that there are other less noticable effects, such as what the muscle testing showed for soy, wheat, and dairy. The most interesting reactions though have to do with eating carbs. A week or so ago I decided to have some oatmeal at breakfast with my now normal egg/veggie scramble. The entire rest of the day I was hungry and craving additional carbs, and having a hard time fighting those urges. No matter what I ate I never felt satisfied. All during this past week I was getting really tired in the evening after dinner, my mood wasn’t generally good, and I felt very irritable. It wasn’t until Thursday night that I realized I had been having a couple of peanut butter cookies (one of the few I can find that doesn’t have anything I seem to be allergic to) after dinner each night. Based on these experiences I’m pretty convinced that carbs don’t generally sit well with me. Over the next few weeks my plan is to keep these types of carbs out of my diet. I’ll still have a piece of fruit and some other carbs in the evening, like rice with dinner, or possibly rice milk with my homemade “high protein” granola (which, of course, has carbs as well). But I’m definitely staying away from carbs early in the day, and definitely will stay away from anything that has lots of sugar in it.
This experiment is still in progress, but so far I am amazed at what has changed by cutting carbs out of my diet like this. I’ll keep this up over the next few weeks, and hopefully continue feeling great! I still have a lot of questions, and really want to go through some muscle testing and find that I don’t have a reaction to something! It seems like I’m sensitive to so much that it might be impossible to get it all out of my diet, but just cleaning up what I already have has had a night and day difference in how I feel.
