Inflammation...You may just explode!!

When we talk about inflammation, most people think about acute inflammation.  You sprain your ankle and it swells.  Or you have an infected nail bed and it's swollen and full of pus.  In reference to eating paleolithic foods, we are not referencing acute inflammation.  Acute inflammation is typically a positive stimulus.  Your body is trying to heal itself.  We are talking about chronic inflammation.  Chronic, as in on-going.  Your body is no longer trying to heal itself, but rather trying to destroy itself.

Inflammation in general terms is part of the complex biological response of vascular tissues to harmful stimuli, such as pathogens, damaged cells, or irritants.  When the irritant is YOU then it becomes a problem.  Many conditions and diseases are a direct result of inflammation in various cells in your body.  Whereas acute inflammation is caused by things like infection or injury or an allergic reaction, chronic inflammation is often caused by what we put INTO our bodies, purposefully, like FOOD.

When we ingest certain foods, they react to cells in our body in different ways.  There are inflammatory foods and anti-inflammatory foods.  Grains, legumes, dairy, foods in the nightshade group and even some nuts & seeds are inflammatory.  I'm not a scientist, nor will I try to re-iterate what others have already said so much better than I.  I will point you in some good direction to read more about the inflammatory process of these foods if you want the real "why's" behind it.  Below is a chart that briefly explains chronic inflammation, the cells it effects, and the outcomes.

Chronic Inflammation:

• Causative agent:  Persistent acute inflammation due to non-degradable pathogens, viral infection, persistent foreign bodies, or autoimmune reactions
• Major cells involved:  Mononuclear cells (monocytes, macrophages, lymphocytes, plasma cells), fibroblasts
• Primary mediators:  IFN-γ and other cytokines, growth factors, reactive oxygen species, hydrolytic enzymes
• Onset:  Delayed
• Duration:  Up to many months, or years
• Outcomes Resolution:  Tissue destruction, fibrosis, necrosis

Inflammation is an underlying cause in many conditions and diseases.  All 140 known autoimmune diseases have inflammation as part of their conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes, infertility, multiple sclerosis, lupus, narcolepsy, schizophrenia, depression, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, hypothyroidism, IBS, Chron's disease, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, etc.  The list goes on.  It is also a known antagonist in cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, migraine headaches, acne and cancer.  

If all of these conditions and diseases (and a host of others) are directly linked to inflammation, it would behoove those of us with any one (or multiples) of them to reduce chronic inflammation as much as we can.  Thankfully, science has shown us that we can!  By removing grains and legumes and dairy from our diet, we can effectively decrease symptoms and possibly even reverse disease!!

I shared before what changing my everyday diet has done for me.  In the past few months I have seen joint pain and inflammation significantly decrease.  I have gone from chronic daily headaches and frequent migraines to only one or two headaches during that time.  I have seen gut healing from IBS symptoms.  My overall health is significantly better!  I chose to bring my family along for this ride because I know that many of the diseases/conditions also have a genetic component.  I see similar issues in my children already.  I cannot change their genes, but I can help them make better food choices now which will hopefully go with them throughout life.  Do they eat perfectly paleo?  No.  I don't expect them to.  But the meals I control will move them in the right direction.  As they get older they can own this for themselves as they learn how eating the wrong foods affects them physically.

Once again here are some places to read more about reversing disease via a paleo diet:

www.robbwolf.com

www.thepaleodiet.com

www.thepaleomom.com

I have books by these three scientists/authors and I haven't regretted one dime that I have spent in bettering my knowledge and my health.  :)

Cheating and Reacting

I do believe we have seen our first major reaction post-paleo.

I know my body pretty well and last week when I had some popcorn at the movie theater I had a headache within a few hours.  The next morning, I had lots of intestinal issues.  Now, it could have been the popcorn itself (grain) or the highly processed vegetable oils they cook it in (yuck).  Either way, I reacted.  But that's me...when it comes to my kids, totally a different story.

None of them are 100% paleo.  They have treats and goodies, especially from school parties, etc.  They are pretty good at home, but pretty not-so-good when they are visiting their fathers.  It is unfortunate that there isn't more attention paid to the chronic health conditions of children.  Even after asking to please respect this decision and offer alternatives for the kids so they are not on overload, it is ignored.  Well Justin is our first casualty of that ignorance.  Yesterday he spent most of the afternoon in his bed.  He then moved to the couch to attempt to be a part of the family, and slept.  He had what I would deem a migraine.  His head hurt so bad he could hardly move.  He felt awful, just wanted to sleep.  It was sad to see.  I treated with ibuprofen, hydration and tried to get some healthy food into his system.  He was finally feeling better by bedtime, but what a crappy way to spend your last day of spring break.

I do believe, that for some people, not all, they can handle small amounts of "cheating".   I don't really like the term "cheating" because this is not a fad diet, this is a lifestyle, but like most others in the paleo community, there just isn't another word that fits.  Even the gurus like Dr. Cordain and Robb Wolf put "cheats" into their programs to help people get started.  But ONE meal in a week is totally different that SIX in two days.  I do hope that this ends up being an exception and not the rule.  :(

Where did you start?

"Where did you start?" is a very frequent question.  There are lots of hints, tips and how-to's out there.  Some people say with anything you do, jump in with both feet, rip that band-aid off and go!  Some people say, make small changes over time, you'll stay committed long term if you slowly change.

I did neither. Or both.  Or...well you decide...

You must understand my motto...I've raised 7 of my own children, and added in 3 more...I am not a short order cook.  I refuse to make multiple meals.  You will eat what's served, within reason.  I also have children (and now a grandchild) with multiple food allergies.  No one is ever forced to eat something they are allergic to.  Actually, they aren't even forced to eat foods they hate.  We have a traditional "no thank you" bite that must be taken of any tolerable food, ie: no allergy to said food.  After that, it's up to you.  We always had PBJ or lunch meat sandwiches available, but I wasn't making them.  So until you were old enough to spread your own PB, you ate what mom made, period.  

When we started Advocare, I set forth the rule that everyone would eat the same thing for dinner.  Breakfast was on your own (had been for years), lunch you made yourself for school, but dinner, would remain the family meal and everyone would eat the same.  So that's where we started.  Dinner.

After about a week or so, I had stopped buying cereal and poptarts (staples in our home) so when those ran out, it was time to work on breakfast.  I was now sleeping at night, and getting up early in the morning without feeling like a Mac truck had hit me (another post), so I started making everyone's breakfast and that too was converted to paleolithic. 

It was a couple more weeks, I had quit buying bread, so I had to really work hard to figure out just how "lunch" was going to work.  Our traditional sack lunch for the kids had been a sandwich (lunch meat or PBJ), a bag of chips (I bought the individual bags by the case!), two processed snacks and a juice bag.  Everything they were eating on a daily basis had to go!!  But we did it!!  We are now 100% paleo, most of the time.  

Most advocates of the paleolithic lifestyle follow the 80/20 rule.  If you eat true paleo 80% of the time, you will still see 100% of the benefits.  (Unless you're AIP, autoimmune protocol, which is much stricter and a route I may be taking at some point.)  So when I say we are 100% paleo, it means that we eat on average 80% paleo 100% of the time.  

I did this whole transition in less than 4 weeks.  I would not say this was a "rip the band-aid off" type approach, but we certainly didn't take a lot of baby steps and get used to those before we did something else.  My biggest strategy was to just quit buying anything that didn't fit our new life.  In a family this large (6 of us here daily, 8 or more frequently...could be 14 on any given weekend!) we go through food pretty quickly so it disappeared fast.  My oldest son had also recently moved into his own place and I was pretty willing to "share" some of our "extras" with him.  I sent him home with grocery bags of staples, sugar, rice, flour, corn, bread, seasoning packets, canned goods, lentils, etc.  He shares an apartment with another 20 year old, I knew they could take care of it for me easily enough.  If you don't have a starving college student to feed, send extras to a food pantry.  I didn't want food to go bad, I had spent money on it!!  But I also knew that we were not going to eat it.  Once the cereal, bread and poptarts were gone, it was gone.  The things we used for "meals" was no longer needed.  During this time, I was already paleo for breakfast and lunch.  The challenge came about making sure we had enough food and staples for the whole crew to eat this way.  I spent a lot of time on-line, on Pinterest, reading and making lists. 

My suggestion is if you are doing this for yourself, start NOW.  Don't wait.  If you are doing it for your family, give them warning, wait for the meltdowns and then move forward.  From this day forward, don't buy anymore processed junk, no more sugar, no flour, no rice, no corn, no legumes, nothing packed in soy (it's in everything!).  Your next trip to the grocery store should stay to the perimeter of the store:  

• Produce (lots of it)
• Meat (lots of that too)
• Nuts or seeds (minimal)
• Eggs (I buy 6 dozen at a time.)
• Olive oil
• Coconut oil
• Spices (A variety, if you don't have a decent collection start adding to it.  Clean out your spices....HOW old is that tumeric??

When it's not in your home, you don't use it, cook with it, eat it.  This goes for the JUNK as well as the MEAT and VEGGIES!  If it isn't there you won't eat it.  So put the good stuff in the cabinets and leave the junk on the store shelves!

A warning about the grocery store while I'm here:  Don't get sucked into the "organic", "gluten free" and "healthy" labeling!!  Almost always they are marketing ploys!!  Check all ingredient labels of anything you buy that is not right out of the ground or off the tree.  This includes any kind of packaged meat products.  Sausage, bacon, ham, turkey, lunch meat, etc.  Bacon and other meats should be nitrate and nitrite free.  Uncured bacon is more expensive but worth it to not have the fillers (and sugar!) in your body. 

If possible, and your budget allows, look for grass-fed beef, free range chicken (and eggs) and turkey.  We cannot afford to buy those products all the time.  We have a lot of mouths to feed!  But when we can, we do.  I'm still looking for a local grass-fed beef source that I can buy half a cow at a time.  I'd also love a local egg source, but we eat a LOT of eggs (see above) and I'm not sure anyone could keep us in eggs!  But these are plans for the future.  

You eat WHAT???

Paleolithic Diet:  The original human diet.  Think hunter/gatherer.  What can you grow, pick, eat?  What can you kill, cook, eat?  It's not a "diet", it's a way of life, it's HOW you eat on a regular basis.  It is not short-term.  It becomes who you are.

The basics, and I mean basics:

• No grains.
• No legumes.
• No refined sugar.
• No dairy.
• No processed foods.

What it means for us:

• No grains in our everyday diet.
• No legumes in our everyday diet.
• No refined sugar, except on very, very limited special occasions.
• Extremely limited processed foods.
• Full-fat dairy in moderation.

What do we eat?

•  Meat: beef, pork, chicken, turkey, etc. And it's a lot of meat.  Do you know how much meat it takes to feed all these kids???  
• Vegetables, fresh and frozen.
• Fruit, fresh and frozen.
• Nuts and seeds. (For those able to.)
• Paleo baked goods, because if I didn't they'd all revolt!! 

There are many places to find more details on what a paleo diet looks like, how to implement it and the WHY's behind it.  I have been learning a lot over the past few weeks and I will share that with you.  If you are interested in learning more or reading some of the material I have read, let me point you in that direction:

www.thepaleomom.com  (Dr. Sarah Ballantyne is a WEALTH of information.  I'm currently reading here book, The Paleo Approach. This is a MUST for anyone dealing with autoimmune issues.)
robbwolf.com (Robb traded his lab coat in to help people get healthy.  I enjoyed his book The Paleo Solution very much. His humor is great!)
thepaleodiet.com (Dr. Loren Cordain, the founder of the paleo movement, Robb's mentor, the KING of paleo.  His studies are incredible!! The first book I read was The Paleo Diet and I don't regret it!)

I will be creating a resource list as this blog goes on.