Paleo Granny: Day 23

My goodness time flies when you are having fun - or the older you get the faster time goes - one of those. Speaking of older, my ~~older~~ younger brother is 62 today - Happy Birthday, Bob!

Day 23 of the Whole30 and, while we are enjoying the good food, I am noticing a distinct drop in energy from how I felt in the first couple of weeks. Research on the Whole30 says that this is not unusual for some people, that it can take someone whose immune system is compromised a lot longer to get the full effect from the program. Stomach aches for as far back as I can remember - which, as I get older is not that far back - lead me to believe that I may have a leaky gut. Paleo Grandad says he is feeling good and has a lot more energy.

Once you start looking you can find many sites on the Paleo Autoimmune Protocol with recipes and tips for focusing your Paleo diet even more by eliminating foods that are bad for healing a leaky gut.

The Paleo Mom (who has dealt with her own autoimmune disease) has the following definition of autoimmune disease: "Autoimmune disease is caused by the immune system losing the ability to differentiate [between] proteins belonging to your own body with proteins belonging to a foreign invader (like a bacteria, virus or parasite). What causes the symptoms is the build up of damage to cells, tissues and/or organs in the body-damage caused by your own immune system attacking those cells. Genetic predisposition to autoimmunity makes up about one third of your risk of developing an autoimmune disease. The other two thirds of your risk comes from environmental factors which include: diet, lifestyle, infections, exposures to toxins, hormones weight, etc."

If you are following a clean Whole30 (as I have been for the past three weeks) and are not seeing the results you thought you would, stick with it, and you might also want to read read up on the autoimmune protocol. Here are some other autoimmune protocol sites I found that make interesting reading:

Feed Me Rachel
Little Fig
Autoimmune Paleo
And Love it Too

The foods they all recommend you avoid to help heal your gut (besides grains, legumes, dairy, sugar and processed food) are:

Nightshades (tomatoes, white potatoes, peppers, eggplant, cayenne pepper, chili pepper, paprika)
Nuts
Seeds
Some also recommend eliminating coffee

I have eliminated all of those things for the past week (except coffee) and the drop in energy maybe my body dealing with the results - not that I ate a lot of those foods in the first place as they have always bothered me - along with onions and garlic.

Elana Amsterdam, in her new Paleo Cookbook, Paleo Cooking from Elana's Pantry, has also dealt with autoimmune problems and a lot of recipe eliminate the trigger foods. I made one recipe from the book to go with tonight's roast chicken dinner - Balsamic Rosemary beets - easy and super delicious.

Some of the highlights of meals for the past few days: