The last few weeks have been a whirl wind of food journaling trial and error. In the last week we have cried, screamed, fussed, and generally became anxious about every food eaten. At the end of the week we came to a positive outcome but getting there was as stressful as ever.
So, let me back up two weeks. Two weeks ago I took my 8 month old into the doctor's office covered in hives an horrible skin boils. We were pretty much ignored and sent to another doctor to be her problem. I was sort of grateful since our doctor had been less than helpful anyway. I had been telling him for months that the large blister like things across our son resembled a gluten rash. He said that there was no way. I went home frustrated and decided to look for answers. After tons of research I found Histamine Intolerance. The next morning I woke with a purpose and started the zero histamine diet. First day was a resounding success. He was happy, healthy and sooo happy to be feeling well. Second day, repeated success. Third day, failure. Fourth day had limited success and so it went. I wasn't changing anything to much but I kept food journaling and the days rolled on.
More research later and I find out that some people are sensitive to corn. Apparently our son is one of those people. We had been doing a paleo type diet but since I am not a chef and haven't had a lot of time to research all the reasons why corn and rice were taboo in the diet, I kept using them. I also married a man from a corn growing family. We love to sit around with a big bowl of grandpa's popcorn and enjoy a little beer or two. Since I had cut out the beer (gluten) I had switched to gluten free beer. Well folks, that is full of crap, just not gluteny crap. High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) was in my beer! Ewwwwww.
So day one of histamine intolerance cooking was fantastic. Alton was healthy and no rash. He was energetic and seemed to be a normal kid. It was like he was miraculously healed. I barely ate all day because I was checking everything on that sheet of histamine levels. It worked out though because by bed time, no problems. Day two was the same. Day three, not so much. Day three was a disaster, so was day four. What happened? I double checked everything I ate with the print out of histamine levels in foods. I then realized that I had eaten corn. According to the histamine charts that was perfectly fine. His body said other wise. I then pulled out the food journal and went on a trip back in time...every single time he had reacted to food in our post gluten, dairy and soy days, he had had corn, HFCS or other corn derivative. The worst days were days that I had either fed him corn directly or let him have a bite of my corn chip or corn tortillas. I thought I was doing everything right. Now I have to reexamine if histamine intolerance was even real or if he did better because I had no processed food so that removed the chance of having a corn product in our food. Lots of checking and finger crossing later we decided to try a high histamine food. ...toe tapping, nail biting, etc later....no problemo! So corn is the missing ingredient.
Que cleaning the cupboards take 5!!! Good thing I didn't throw any food out from the last clean sweep. I got to put back some of the canned fruits and veggies and my rices. So, a few days of awesome baby later I then have spots showing up on our son. I have made everything from scratch so now what? Well, rice is what.
Que cleaning the cupboards take 6. So now we are officially the most Paleo family on the block. I could be sad that junk food is out but I am so ecstatic Every single night my husband tells me that our food tastes great because I am cooking real food now. Every single night we are members of the clean plate club. Every night I don't have to make baby food because our son eats what we eats and loves it. Our kid has the most adventurous palate and will eat anything you put on his tray. He loves veggies, fruits and meats in all shapes, colors, textures and sizes. To top everything off it was garbage time and it occurred to me that going paleo has not only changed our diet, it has changed our whole lives in the most beneficial way.
Pre-Paleo. Before we were a normal family. We ate from the food pyramid, the drive-through and had a small back yard garden. My husband complained about all the nasty veggies like onions, brussel sprouts and asparagus that I tried to sneak in food to up the healthy quotient. When we went on trips we got up early to make it to a breakfast drive through for a delicious egg sandwich. We assumed they were healthy because you could see that the whole egg was there, not some lab creation. We assumed that our weight issues were a calorie issue. I assumed that my chronic headaches were just because I get headaches like every other female I know. I assumed that we got lucky getting pregnant because the doctor was sure my polycystic ovaries were faulty and that I might need them removed. I was waiting for them to officially diagnose me with MS because I had all the signs. I kept refusing the spinal tap because I refused to believe that I had MS. I had my thyroid checked every single year because I has symptoms of both hypo and hyper hyperthyroidism My numbers were never that off so eventually I was just sent to a psychiatrist. I had chronically achy joints from childhood and assumed that I would be on medication for joint inflammation for the rest of my life. I had asthma that no matter how many inhalers I had prescribed never seemed to get better. I couldn't run without a terrible pounding in my chest and no matter how much I ran I couldn't seem to get good at it. Everyone said that you have to practice to make your body respond to working out but I could never work out without having the need to stop the burning in my chest and sleep off the fatigue later. Oh, and don't get me started on sleep. I needed lots of sleep. I could sleep all day and never feel rested. It took me forever to fall asleep and I woke up groggy and cranky. Coffee was necessary and I would have sold a kidney for an IV of french roast right into my main line. Should I go on? I could go on forever with all the problems that my body was having. I had seen doctors and they just answered each item as individual problems that were "mostly in my head" or a by-product of not eating enough grains and other "healthy foods" mixed with not enough exercise (in spite of my working out). Oh, an I nearly forgot the brain fog. The horrible feeling like my brain wasn't functioning like it should be. I had myself tested by a doctor for a learning disability at one point because I was in a constant state of brain fogginess. I couldn't find the words, couldn't remember things and generally suffered from a case of the dumbs.
The Paleo solution. Since switching our lifestyle to a more paleolithic friendly one, our lives have improved greatly. Not only is every single one of the problems I just listed gone, they are long gone. I fall asleep and wake up with ease. I don't have any caffeine and I feel great. I don't need naps to survive the day and take on with my little man sometimes just for fun. (I never used to be able to nap so this is great.) I stopped snacking because I feel satisfied with my diet. I make an omelette for breakfast that fills me up until I have a light lunch. I have a mid afternoon piece of fruit then a delicious dinner. I don't have that evening sweet tooth but occasionally indulge in a bite of fruit sorbet or some dairy and soy-free chocolate chips from the freezer. I have rekindled my love of teas and my husband is actually asking for more veggies in our food. The first time he said that the only thing the dinner needed was more kinds of veggies my jaw hit the floor. We noticed something interesting which has permanently shaped our opinion of food. We both used to be very specific about which foods we did and did not like. Once we removed the junk form our diet and reset our taste buds and receptors, our bodies responded with a genuine love of plant foods. While my husband still treats brussel sprouts like pod creatures come to steal his soul, he loves all the other foods on his plate. A trip to the grocery store is an adventure in finding new foods to eat. We used to go to the store with our list of what we though was food and stop in the produce section to buy fruit and salad. Now we are googling recipes for every kind of produce on the shelves.
The second biggest change is the family day-to-day tweaks. Our weekly garbage can used to be full. Nothing crazy, just the normal stuff. Now it has a bag, two tops of trash. What is there to throw out? Maybe a meat wrapper or two but other than that, our food is made out of food now. We have a nice compost pile starting and our garden is going to love the extra boost in nutrients. Family time has gone up because we now eat together and go out less. A trip to a restaurant was a regular thing and now we eat in. With all the great recipes to try, who wants to eat the same old crap at the restaurants? Exercise has become a joy. I have started jogging and I feel great. I feel better than great. My joints function like those of a 20 year old, not a 90 year old. Not only do we feel better but our bodies function better. No headaches and more importantly, more blood sugar regulation. I had been diagnosed with hypoglycemia and had to watch my blood sugar to keep from passing out between meals or getting serious vertigo. Dizzy spells were blamed on something different every year. My energy level stays even all day now and that helps me keep up with out little man. We switched off the t.v. and spend more time being a family which is making us better parents to our little man. Bed time still gets pushed past when it should be but I don't get that awful feeling of exhaustion first thing the next day. I hear that setting an alarm clock for bed works. Maybe we will try that.
Now that we all feel better family activity time is here to stay. I am actually looking forward to bike riding to the grocery store or just going for runs around the lake. I never used to like the summer humidity but I am not dreading the mist now. I feel hopeful for the future which is strange since I never realized how depressing bad food had made our lives.
My only complaint....well, it is a big one. No one told me that I would need to go shopping after making the switch. Both my husband and I lost weight. I tipped the scales at 198 the day I gave birth. One 10 1/2 pound baby later, I had 187 pounds to work with. My pre-baby weight was 155 and I was struggling to keep it that low. Now I am 130 and feel amazing. I went from size 14 to size 2 in six months after having a baby. I could fit in a 0 if I wanted to but spray on jeans is not a sexy look for me. Even my husband has lost weight and he is only eating 1 meal a day paleo plus weekends. We are literally going through our closet this weekend to consign the vast majority of our clothes. He is shopping for men's slim cut shirts now. So did I have to do a ton of working out to loose all that body weight post pregnancy? Did I have to cut my calories? Nope. I pretty much do't work out except for 10 minutes a day of push ups and other household exercises. I actually almost doubled my calories and I feel so amazing. Some people might argue that nursing takes extra calories away and that is why I lost weight post baby. I would argue that is not true. I know plenty of people that breastfeed and the weight just sticks to them. I have had to get over the public guilt of saying I am a size 2. People are flat out rude now. Being thin in America is something that you either "have good genes", are European or must starve your self to achieve. I don't understand how being thin is supposed to be a bad thing. People get upset if you tell them that you are losing weight and need smaller clothes. Like being healthy and having my body respond well to real food is something that I should be ashamed of. Like because I didn't count my calories or order my food from a high priced food company I should be quiet. Like having a great post baby body is something to consider lucky about and not normal about. Well, I feel great, look great and have tons of energy so watch out! I love being able to do pull ups and push ups and my kid loved being my bar bell. He giggles while I do a few sets of baby lifts. I am not starved and eat better than anyone I know so no regrets here. I will happily shop in the skinny bitch section and let my vegan and vegetarian friends complain about how I am eating too much meat and I need to cut back to stay healthy. I have had my levels checked and I am better than ever. On top of that, my eco-footprint is better than ever. I shop local, grow most everything I need, don't make enough garbage to even justify half of the size of container we have and support our local communities with our free cash and time. For those people that think that you must cut calories to drop weight..read this article from Shape. A study showed that American's have lowered their caloric intake and are still getting fatter.
Going paleo has made me a better members of our community. Seriously. We used to purchase our meat at the grocery store. I couldn't tell you where our meat came from if my life depended on it. I assume it was raised and slaughtered regionally and with good practices I know better. Most likely the poor animals were fed a steady supply of genetically modified corn and other grains mixed with the leftovers of their friends who have gone before them. Then they were taken from their horrible living conditions into a room with a truck on the other end. At some point, once the pink slime, antibiotics and hormones had their way later, I bought it at my local store. No thank you! Now we buy our meat from the guy at the farmer's market. He has a name and a family. He is a really nice guy. He raises an older breed of cattle and hogs and they live on wild grasses and soak up the sun. They are humanely slaughtered and are frozen immediately or sold fresh. I am also growing more veggies than ever in our garden so pretty soon we wont be buying anything at the store. What about the cost? Well, all we eat is good food which is worth paying for. We also save a ton of money because we don't eat out and we aren't buying pain medicines, headache medicine, spending our time generally crabby and otherwise disengaged in our lives. Our eggs come from a friend who is glad to have someone who enjoys farm fresh eggs. My son can tell the difference too. It is amazing how having grain free eggs can make a big difference for a Celiac person.
After I am no longer nursing my little man will I be returning for the Little Debbies of my past? Not a chance in Hades. This is it for us. Does that mean that I don't indulge in a little treat one in a while? Nope. I love a glass of wine and a small scoop of Haagen Daz. I am satisfied easier now and don't need a huge bowl of ice cream to make me happy.
I asked my hubs if he felt any different physically and he said that not really. But then he realized that he does in fact feel better in little ways. I have noticed it but he is convinced that he always felt great. I am pretty sure that the difference between how we feel can be attributed to gluten intolerance. I certainly had it and his is just waiting for the gene to activate. I know it is there. Our son didn't get two copies from just me.
So, let me back up two weeks. Two weeks ago I took my 8 month old into the doctor's office covered in hives an horrible skin boils. We were pretty much ignored and sent to another doctor to be her problem. I was sort of grateful since our doctor had been less than helpful anyway. I had been telling him for months that the large blister like things across our son resembled a gluten rash. He said that there was no way. I went home frustrated and decided to look for answers. After tons of research I found Histamine Intolerance. The next morning I woke with a purpose and started the zero histamine diet. First day was a resounding success. He was happy, healthy and sooo happy to be feeling well. Second day, repeated success. Third day, failure. Fourth day had limited success and so it went. I wasn't changing anything to much but I kept food journaling and the days rolled on.
More research later and I find out that some people are sensitive to corn. Apparently our son is one of those people. We had been doing a paleo type diet but since I am not a chef and haven't had a lot of time to research all the reasons why corn and rice were taboo in the diet, I kept using them. I also married a man from a corn growing family. We love to sit around with a big bowl of grandpa's popcorn and enjoy a little beer or two. Since I had cut out the beer (gluten) I had switched to gluten free beer. Well folks, that is full of crap, just not gluteny crap. High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) was in my beer! Ewwwwww.
So day one of histamine intolerance cooking was fantastic. Alton was healthy and no rash. He was energetic and seemed to be a normal kid. It was like he was miraculously healed. I barely ate all day because I was checking everything on that sheet of histamine levels. It worked out though because by bed time, no problems. Day two was the same. Day three, not so much. Day three was a disaster, so was day four. What happened? I double checked everything I ate with the print out of histamine levels in foods. I then realized that I had eaten corn. According to the histamine charts that was perfectly fine. His body said other wise. I then pulled out the food journal and went on a trip back in time...every single time he had reacted to food in our post gluten, dairy and soy days, he had had corn, HFCS or other corn derivative. The worst days were days that I had either fed him corn directly or let him have a bite of my corn chip or corn tortillas. I thought I was doing everything right. Now I have to reexamine if histamine intolerance was even real or if he did better because I had no processed food so that removed the chance of having a corn product in our food. Lots of checking and finger crossing later we decided to try a high histamine food. ...toe tapping, nail biting, etc later....no problemo! So corn is the missing ingredient.
Que cleaning the cupboards take 5!!! Good thing I didn't throw any food out from the last clean sweep. I got to put back some of the canned fruits and veggies and my rices. So, a few days of awesome baby later I then have spots showing up on our son. I have made everything from scratch so now what? Well, rice is what.
Que cleaning the cupboards take 6. So now we are officially the most Paleo family on the block. I could be sad that junk food is out but I am so ecstatic Every single night my husband tells me that our food tastes great because I am cooking real food now. Every single night we are members of the clean plate club. Every night I don't have to make baby food because our son eats what we eats and loves it. Our kid has the most adventurous palate and will eat anything you put on his tray. He loves veggies, fruits and meats in all shapes, colors, textures and sizes. To top everything off it was garbage time and it occurred to me that going paleo has not only changed our diet, it has changed our whole lives in the most beneficial way.
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| Don't I look tired? That is the OMG I just pushed out a 10 and a half pound ginger giant. Someone please get me an ice pack and let me sleep for a decade. |
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| The two of us rooting for our Niners. Better luck next year. |
The Paleo solution. Since switching our lifestyle to a more paleolithic friendly one, our lives have improved greatly. Not only is every single one of the problems I just listed gone, they are long gone. I fall asleep and wake up with ease. I don't have any caffeine and I feel great. I don't need naps to survive the day and take on with my little man sometimes just for fun. (I never used to be able to nap so this is great.) I stopped snacking because I feel satisfied with my diet. I make an omelette for breakfast that fills me up until I have a light lunch. I have a mid afternoon piece of fruit then a delicious dinner. I don't have that evening sweet tooth but occasionally indulge in a bite of fruit sorbet or some dairy and soy-free chocolate chips from the freezer. I have rekindled my love of teas and my husband is actually asking for more veggies in our food. The first time he said that the only thing the dinner needed was more kinds of veggies my jaw hit the floor. We noticed something interesting which has permanently shaped our opinion of food. We both used to be very specific about which foods we did and did not like. Once we removed the junk form our diet and reset our taste buds and receptors, our bodies responded with a genuine love of plant foods. While my husband still treats brussel sprouts like pod creatures come to steal his soul, he loves all the other foods on his plate. A trip to the grocery store is an adventure in finding new foods to eat. We used to go to the store with our list of what we though was food and stop in the produce section to buy fruit and salad. Now we are googling recipes for every kind of produce on the shelves.
The second biggest change is the family day-to-day tweaks. Our weekly garbage can used to be full. Nothing crazy, just the normal stuff. Now it has a bag, two tops of trash. What is there to throw out? Maybe a meat wrapper or two but other than that, our food is made out of food now. We have a nice compost pile starting and our garden is going to love the extra boost in nutrients. Family time has gone up because we now eat together and go out less. A trip to a restaurant was a regular thing and now we eat in. With all the great recipes to try, who wants to eat the same old crap at the restaurants? Exercise has become a joy. I have started jogging and I feel great. I feel better than great. My joints function like those of a 20 year old, not a 90 year old. Not only do we feel better but our bodies function better. No headaches and more importantly, more blood sugar regulation. I had been diagnosed with hypoglycemia and had to watch my blood sugar to keep from passing out between meals or getting serious vertigo. Dizzy spells were blamed on something different every year. My energy level stays even all day now and that helps me keep up with out little man. We switched off the t.v. and spend more time being a family which is making us better parents to our little man. Bed time still gets pushed past when it should be but I don't get that awful feeling of exhaustion first thing the next day. I hear that setting an alarm clock for bed works. Maybe we will try that.
Now that we all feel better family activity time is here to stay. I am actually looking forward to bike riding to the grocery store or just going for runs around the lake. I never used to like the summer humidity but I am not dreading the mist now. I feel hopeful for the future which is strange since I never realized how depressing bad food had made our lives.
My only complaint....well, it is a big one. No one told me that I would need to go shopping after making the switch. Both my husband and I lost weight. I tipped the scales at 198 the day I gave birth. One 10 1/2 pound baby later, I had 187 pounds to work with. My pre-baby weight was 155 and I was struggling to keep it that low. Now I am 130 and feel amazing. I went from size 14 to size 2 in six months after having a baby. I could fit in a 0 if I wanted to but spray on jeans is not a sexy look for me. Even my husband has lost weight and he is only eating 1 meal a day paleo plus weekends. We are literally going through our closet this weekend to consign the vast majority of our clothes. He is shopping for men's slim cut shirts now. So did I have to do a ton of working out to loose all that body weight post pregnancy? Did I have to cut my calories? Nope. I pretty much do't work out except for 10 minutes a day of push ups and other household exercises. I actually almost doubled my calories and I feel so amazing. Some people might argue that nursing takes extra calories away and that is why I lost weight post baby. I would argue that is not true. I know plenty of people that breastfeed and the weight just sticks to them. I have had to get over the public guilt of saying I am a size 2. People are flat out rude now. Being thin in America is something that you either "have good genes", are European or must starve your self to achieve. I don't understand how being thin is supposed to be a bad thing. People get upset if you tell them that you are losing weight and need smaller clothes. Like being healthy and having my body respond well to real food is something that I should be ashamed of. Like because I didn't count my calories or order my food from a high priced food company I should be quiet. Like having a great post baby body is something to consider lucky about and not normal about. Well, I feel great, look great and have tons of energy so watch out! I love being able to do pull ups and push ups and my kid loved being my bar bell. He giggles while I do a few sets of baby lifts. I am not starved and eat better than anyone I know so no regrets here. I will happily shop in the skinny bitch section and let my vegan and vegetarian friends complain about how I am eating too much meat and I need to cut back to stay healthy. I have had my levels checked and I am better than ever. On top of that, my eco-footprint is better than ever. I shop local, grow most everything I need, don't make enough garbage to even justify half of the size of container we have and support our local communities with our free cash and time. For those people that think that you must cut calories to drop weight..read this article from Shape. A study showed that American's have lowered their caloric intake and are still getting fatter.
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| This is me about 5 months into our paleo diet. I feel AMAZING! |
After I am no longer nursing my little man will I be returning for the Little Debbies of my past? Not a chance in Hades. This is it for us. Does that mean that I don't indulge in a little treat one in a while? Nope. I love a glass of wine and a small scoop of Haagen Daz. I am satisfied easier now and don't need a huge bowl of ice cream to make me happy.
I asked my hubs if he felt any different physically and he said that not really. But then he realized that he does in fact feel better in little ways. I have noticed it but he is convinced that he always felt great. I am pretty sure that the difference between how we feel can be attributed to gluten intolerance. I certainly had it and his is just waiting for the gene to activate. I know it is there. Our son didn't get two copies from just me.
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