Karen's AI Paleo and FODMAP diary

[karend]

I thought I would start a diary on the forum in case any of my experience with the diet can help others. I have had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for 13 years. It started with a bout of the flu which I never fully recovered from, probably due to work stress at the time.

I have been on a low FODMAP diet for the last 6 weeks. For the last week I have also cut out nightshades and dairy. My plan is to transition in stages to AI Paleo but still cut out FODMAPs. The low-FODMAP had helped a lot with my digestive system symptoms but it feels like I am still reacting to some foods. Today, for example, I reacted after eating a meal of tinned salmon (just salt added), quinoa, seaweed, lettuce, radish and homemade sauerkraut - although I think it was probably the sauerkraut. For the last 2 weeks I have also been taking stomach acid and digestive enzymes as I know that historically I have been deficient in both.

My goal is to cut out all remaining grains this coming weekend and then cutout chocolate, seeds and eggs the following weekend so that I am fully AI Paleo and low FODMAP in 2 weeks time. I am concerned that my potential reaction to sauerkraut may mean that I am also histamine intolerant but tackling that as well would leave me with an even more restricted diet , so I'm going to put that on hold for now and see how the full AI Paleo affects me.

[karend]

I'm now on day 4 of being grain-free and it's not been too bad so far. I have been very tired the last few days but that could also be because I went to a wedding on Friday. Easing myself into the diet in stages has really worked for me and has allowed to to slowly adapt to the new way of preparing food and finding new recipes. Just keeping my fingers crossed that this really helps and I start to feel improved energy soon.

[karend]

I've now been off chocolate for 4 days and grains for a week and a half. I am now fully following the AI Paleo protocol apart from still eating eggs. I feel quite hopeful. My energy levels are still very low - though not as low as they were last week - but my head does feel a bit clearer which is a good sign. Even though I transitioned to AI Paleo and low FODMAP step by step, I still wish I had done more pre-planning and tried out more recipes in advance. My life has been totally consumed by buying food, researching recipes, cooking and eating - when I'm not doing any of that I'm resting, but in the long run I really am starting to believe it may be the answer.

Were I to start all over again, I would plan more how I was going to tackle the three problems areas I have come across which are:

1. snacks - this has been really difficult as most of my snacks previously were either grain or chocolate based. It has taken me a while to get into a bit of a rhythm with it and now my snacks are: plantain flatbread, plantain crackers with olive tapenade, taro crisps, olives, banana, shredded chicken when I have it available and salad which I try to keep plenty of in the fridge. I am also considering having a go at making beef jerky.

2. breakfast - I'm struggling with the idea of routinely having meat for breakfast and so for the time being I'm having egg on plantain flatbread with green veg. I hope to cut out the egg next week.

3. batch cooking for the freezer. Having chronic fatigue syndrome I want to make sure that I always have meals in the freezer for those days when I feel too exhausted to cook at all. This is still an area I'm experimenting with, finding recipes that are easy to cook in bulk with minimal effort. So far I have made 2 big shepherds pies that are big enough to last 3 meals each. I feel that if I have a day when I am very low in energy and I don't have anything preprepared, then that is when I will fall off the wagon. Hopefully soon my energy will improve and that will become less of an issue.

[karend]

So today is my first day not eating eggs. I am now fully low FODMAP AI Paleo.

Last week ended up being a bit of a right off. I caught a cold and was totally out of action for 5 days. Luckily I had enough ready-prepared food to get me through the 5 days - so the last couple of days have been spent catching up and preparing dishes to fill my now empty freezer.

With the diet now in place, I feel like I really need to focus on getting into a good sleep pattern. On a good night I sleep 7-8 hours but I think it is disrupted sleep. On a bad night I wake up at 3am feeling really wired and can't get back to sleep until about 6am if at all. Last night was a case in point. I woke up at 3am and by 6am I was fed up with just lying in bed so I got up to listen to a Paleo podcast. I noticed Sarah Ballantyne had a podcast episode on sleep, so I listened to that which was so fascinating. She had a question from a pregnant woman who always woke up at 2am and couldn't get back to sleep until 5am which just sounded so like my situation. One of the recommendations (as I remember it) was to make sure that you have a big meal that is rich in carbs 3-5 hours before bed and to make sure that you don't eat in the 2 hours before bed. So, last night I had eaten a meal of fish, kale and a small amount of squash - which for me is quite a low-carb meal. I then ate a couple of small plantain pancakes 30 minutes before bed. So my eating totally went against the recommendation. I am going to try following their recommendations this week and see if my sleep improves. Other recommendations that I will put in place are: taking a magnesium supplement, getting blackout curtains, going to bed earlier, making sure I have enough physical activity during the day and doing relaxation in the evening.

Another thing that happened this week is that I spoke to my dietician who had put me on the FODMAP diet and she suggested that I now try to reintroduce some of the low-FODMAP foods. I'm undecided about this as initially I had wanted to wait until I felt a lot better before reintroducing any foods and I am yet to see any improvement in energy. The dietician said though that the FODMAP foods are important as they help feed the beneficial bacteria in the gut and to keep them out en masse is not advisable. So now I'm thinking I may try to reintroduce a handful of FODMAP foods - mainly for variety. I'm particularly keen on reintroducing avocado, cauliflower, beetroot, celery and coconut milk (I've been dreaming daily of coconut milk ice cream since I saw a recipe in a Paleo book). I will see how it goes with reintroducing those over the next 2-3 weeks and then decide whether to continue reintroducing other low FODMAPs that are not excluded on the AI Paleo.

[karend]

It's been 10 days since I last posted and things aren't going so well. I'm feeling quite weak now. I'm not doing low carb - so I'm pretty sure I'm getting enough calories - although I'm not totally sure. It's so frustrating to be feeling worse from the diet. I'm hoping that this is an adaptation phase. I've been grain free for 4 weeks now. Gluten and legume free for 2 and a half months. The final foods I cut out were eggs 2 weeks ago and cocoa and seeds 3 weeks ago.

I tried a stoneage diet 10 years ago but gave up on it because I started to feel so weak and got scared. I know that when I reintroduced all my usual foods at that time I felt really sick though. So now I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. I'm feeling really weak from the AI Paleo but I'm concerned that if I tried reintroducing any grains I would feel even sicker.

My sleep is also still quite disrupted. I've been trying lots of different things for it and it's a bit better than 10 days ago but still far from what feels like a refreshing night's sleep.

I feel like I'm at a point where I'm just trying to get through each day one day at a time. The cooking is taking a lot of my energy. I want to stick with it for at least another month and see what happens.

On a positive note, I think things are changing in my system. I'm feeling less craving for snacks than I used to.

[space]

hi karen

i was delighted to find your posts.

CONGRATULATIONS on your efforts....and you have really helped to encourage me!! i do hope your energy is beginning to pick up. karen i was wondering...have you had a full thyroid panel? just wondering if, like me, you might have a low thyroid?

i gave up gluten and all grains about a year ago, since then i've quit dairy, more recently i put eggs aside and haven't been eating nuts but would like to re-introduce brazils for their selenium. am trying to go without thyroid meds ..mostly as they contain milk...wondering about how to get hold of T3 AND T4 compounded meds instead as am getting rather puffy around my face.

how are you getting micro nutrients? do you take supplements?

love space xxxxxxxxxx

[space]

karen

how's your cortisol?
i'm guessing mine is rather flat. but i'm trying alan christensens carb cycling with protein in the am...i have an organic raw vegan pea protein 'sunwheel' (but is pea ok. or, a prohibited legume?) ...in a shake so i don't have to worry about meat in the morning since i agree with you it seems a bit much...then adding small carbs to lunch...if i eat any lunch that is ...as this tends to get overlooked....and think i should prob be trying the eating less, but more often, approach but can't face that just yet...will look for more encouragement on how to organise such a regime however. ...with more carbs in the eve...on same basis as you that they help with sleep. xx
speak soon hopefully

[karend]

Hi Space

Great to hear from you. Like you I do have low thyroid. I only recently found out that that raw cruciferous vegetables are goitrogenic - that's put a stop to all my kale juices .

I take several supplements - vit C, magnesium, selenium, zinc, a multi high in B vitamins, rhodiola, turmeric, prescriptassist and seacure. I also take a teaspoon of maca in hot water in the morning which gives me a real energy boost and I believe it's nourishing for the adrenals - unlike tea or coffee.

Are you a member of UK Paleo & AIP for Autoimmune Disease group on Facebook?

I am probably low cortisol - I've just been reading James Wilson's book on adrenal fatigue and am planning to do the 3 self-tests in the book this week and see. I might also do the 24 hour salive test but I'll wait and see the outcome of the self tests first.

I also have neurotoxins and think I am going to have to incorporate more oils into my diet to help with that. I have difficulty with looking at a computer screen, TV, cinema screen or flourescent lights as a result - though installing f.lux on my computer has helped a lot with the computer screen (I have set it to the maximum orangeness that it allows).

As for my energy - I've had a better couple of days. All-in-all I do feel that deep down somewhere my old well self is returning but it just hasn't got to the surface yet. I feel so much clearer headed than I used to. But on the downside I feel weirdly shakey and shivery a lot of the time which may be a part of some sort of detox reaction. I am also having to eat very regularly - every 2-3 hours - or I get a real energy crash (although weirdly my blood sugar is still in the normal range).

I was really interested in what you said about Alan Christianson's carb cycling. Does he say to have just protein at breakfast? I have been having protein and carbs for each meal and may consider changing that if so. I am just making one change at a time because it is quite a lot to take in. Over the next three days I am trying reintroducing leeks which is a FODMAP. What with AIP and low-FODMAP my diet has become so restrictive.

With regards to eating more regularly, it can be very challenging. I have consistently struggled with what to snack on between meals but I know that I feel better if I eat regularly. I have just reintroduced seeds and that seems to be going OK at the moment. I am interested though in the Nourishing Traditions approach of soaking seeds prior to using them to make them easier to digest. I make seed bars and I also have plantain flatbread with tahini. I felt I really needed to reintroduce seeds because I found I had started to snack on fruit quite a bit which I don't think is ideal for blood sugar regulation. Prior to that I was snacking on taro crisps which is also very high carb. I'm going to get some beef jerky this week and see if I can stomach that as a snack - I don't want to be consuming seeds too much.

Karen

[karend]

Well, I feel like I might have turned a bit of a corner this week but it's still a bit too early to say for sure, as my health goes up and down. I read somewhere that cutting out grains can lower your blood pressure and as a result I've started drinking hot water with 0.25 teaspoon salt in it 1-3 times a day and that really seems to have helped. I'm not feeling anywhere near as shakey and shivery as I was. I am now trying to do a few simple exercises to build up my muscles. After 13 years of being ill my muscles have become very weak. Anyway, I'm interested to find out if this brief better few days is the start of an improvement or just a temporary better spell.