Disclaimer: I wrote this in the second week of March, within my 3rd week of this diet. I am now (upon posting) in the end of my 7th week of this diet. Next, I’m posting an explanation on why it took me so long to post this one… Then, later I’ll update you on how I feel.
I’ve done a few diets and given myself a lot of food restrictions over the course of my autoimmune journey. I’ve done the Paddison Program, I’ve cut out dairy and gluten. I’ve gone vegan, I’ve cut out grains… I’ve done a lot of things, but definitely not all. I am currently in my 3rd week of the Autoimmune Protocol and I have to say that I think it is going really well.
Going on a diet of any kind is a challenge; especially for those of us that love food and for those of us that enjoy eating and drinking as a social activity. It is also a challenge for those of us that have eaten a SAD (Standard American Diet) for years. That is where I was several years ago before I started implementing diet changes. The SAD way of eating is really just anything that is put in front of us. This can include all the pasta and cheese (which I miss greatly), burgers, drive-through food, beer, processed foods, refined grains, etc. It’s a plethora of food that does not do our gut any good.
I grew up in the 80’s. My mom was mostly a single mom that lived paycheck to paycheck. This was the time, in our culture, where easy food was the thing to help our busy working parents. Households with both parents at home required this as well. Women had pushed to be part of the workforce in the generation before and they now were. The stay at home moms that spent the afternoon prepping a home-cooked meal were few and far between. This meant Kraft Mac N Cheese, Hamburger Helper, and TV dinners… cooked in the microwave… ugh.
When I moved out on my own for the first time (yes, there were two times of moving out…) I cooked processed chicken nuggets in the oven and Stove Top Stuffing. I actually sort of lived on the Stove Top stuffing in those days. I ate pasta like it was going out of style and I would bake my potatoes in the microwave. I didn’t know what the word organic meant.
Years later, as my body began speaking to me, I slowly and surely started thinking that food must have something to do with my diet. Without any experience, education or examples of good nutrition, I was lost on where to start. Then, my mom got sick. In her last months, she studied food and she made me promise that I’d learn from the education she was finally giving herself. She told me that meat and sugar feed cancer. She told me how important organic foods are. She made me promise to not use the microwave anymore.
I took all of this to heart. I began buying organic more often. Cutting meat out of my life wasn’t too hard. I never actually loved the stuff. It took me a while, but my family no longer uses the microwave at all. I have a hard time even standing near one if it’s running. It’s been almost seven and a half years since I lost her and I’ve been buying 90% organic food for the last at least two years (as you know, it’s not cheap). For us, however, it’s important, so we make that part of our budget. It’s IMPORTANT. I went back and forth with meat over those years and never cut out sugar completely. I never ate tons, but definitely have a sweet tooth and I love me some late night chocolate nibbles.
Through these years, as mentioned above, I’ve cut out different things. I’ve gone on one elimination diet. I’ve done a lot of diet work. This said, I knew that I had the will power to do this, but I wasn’t sure I had the will power to do it for a long time. I knew it would take some preparation.
As for meat, I’d just prefer to not eat it. There were times, however that my body craved it, especially during my pregnancies. I listened to my body and ate it lightly when I felt the need. In my experience and from what I’d heard, meat is an inflammatory food and so I was okay with skipping it in my diet anyway. I figured I was doing my body a favor.
Then, the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) was recommended to me. This was at a time that my husband even jumped on the vegetarian train with me (which I thought would absolutely never happen). I was told that without meat, I’d never get my body better. I did some research of my own and found that this may be true. The vitamins and proteins that are offered in meat products are just never going to be the same quality as the vitamins and proteins you get from a plant-based diet. And with the conditions that I’ve been suffering from, I need to make sure that I’m getting all the good stuff.
There is a lot more science and mumbo jumbo behind all of this, but I’m not here to explain science. I wanted to talk about my experience with food and with meat to explain my conundrum with the AIP. When I read about this protocol and how much meat is included, I kind of wanted to be sick. I had to do some real thinking about it. I had to meditate on it. More than one person told me that they were positive I’d feel better on this diet. Feeling desperate, I finally started preparing myself.
Step 1: Find a diet plan and plan it:
I want to thank Michelle Hoover from Unbound Wellness for her book 30 Day Autoimmune Protocol Makeover Meal Plan & Guide. This website was shared with me and I came across her book there. I was stoked. Michelle has done the work for me and I couldn’t be more grateful. This was $29 well spent. I bought the online version of this book and I went to work. There are 4 weeks worth of recipes and meal plans and even tips on how to ease yourself into this new lifestyle leading up to your start date. Being that I already ate fairly healthy and have cut a lot of these things out previously (dairy and grains) I wasn’t nervous about the lifestyle change. For me, the recipes and the meal plan were exactly what I needed.
I looked through the weekly meal plans and I went to work on creating my own. Knowing that I wouldn’t eat/cook certain things and I would others, I created 2 weeks worth of meal plans and shopping lists. I created a list of things I could pre-make and freeze. I talked with my husband about the dinners I’d be preparing and he said they sounded fantastic. I went on Michelle’s website and found a plethora of additional recipes and started printing more AIP friendly meals that I knew would fit with my life and my family. I set a realistic start date and I went to work.
Step 2: Prep your food and your mind:
Michelle offers a bunch of yummy popper recipes as well as some sausage and fritters recipes that I decided to make ahead of time to freeze. Knowing how I live my days, I knew that it’d be tough for me to make a whole fresh salad or a breakfast hash for myself. But, to pop a frozen sausage and fritter on a pan or in the oven and top it with some sauerkraut or avocado is totally doable.
So, I set out to my local indoor farmers market to find some grass-fed and local meats. If I’m going to eat meat, I decided that this was the way to go. I bought pork and turkey and beef and chicken. Yikes! Who am I?
I made about 80 each of some Mexican Chicken Poppers, Spinach Artichoke Chicken Poppers (subbed turkey in both because that’s what I could find ground), some pork sausage and some blueberry turkey sausage. I also made about 45 of what’s turned out to be my favorite snack throughout the day; Carrot Bacon Breakfast Fritters. Later in the week, I went on a produce shopping spree. I found that Costco actually has a fantastic selection of organic fruits and veggies in large portions (duh, it’s Costco).
I bought some Chicory root to replace my coffee and I grabbed Spindrift and GT’s Kombucha for my drinks throughout the day. Bubly and La Croix both have “natural flavors” whereas Spindrift has real fruit juice. On this diet, you don’t want to have any unknown ingredients or processed crud. For the Kombucha, I found two flavors of the GT’s brand that do not have added Cane Sugar in the ingredients list. This is important as well because you cut out sugar with the AIP.
I felt ready to go and guess what, I was! So, I may have drunk too much wine on Saturday before my diet began and then too much coffee on Sunday before, but once I hit Monday, I was ready.
That was 2 weeks and 5 days ago as I type this and I have stuck with this guys. What’s more, is that I’m learning new ways to cook. I’ve flowed away from having to strictly plan my menu, because, in this short time, I’ve learned how to shop this way and cook this way. I still have over a hundred or a hundred and fifty sausage and poppers in my freezer because I actually am roasting veggies and cooking up steak strips and making myself meals throughout the day. I actually am chopping up stuff for a salad or blending up a smoothie during the day. I’m learning how to feed my body real and whole food.
My symptoms:
For the month or so before starting the AIP, I ate all the things. I ate cheese and I ate pasta. I ate bread and I ate rice. I ate it all. I loved it. I did this on purpose, knowing I was going to do this protocol. Just before starting this, I went and had my labs done. They were bad. They were very bad. I wanted to do this to have a view of how my labs looked eating a SAD diet (Is it redundant to say SAD diet?). Anyway, I figure when I’m about 6 weeks or so into this, I’ll get my labs done again and we’ll see what happens. I’ll share those details in another post.
Needless to say, my symptoms were bad as well. I could hardly bend my right index finger. I limped every morning and my feet made me wonder how long I could keep walking. My ankles hurt terribly and I knew I couldn’t keep eating this way for much longer.
Then I started the Autoimmune Protocol. Guys, literally 3 days into this protocol, I was able to get up in the morning and walk. A week in, I didn’t’ even think about how much pain I’d be in upon waking. I trusted that I was getting better and I’d stand up and I’d still just walk. I was able to bend my index finger, almost fully. Things were changing and I was (and am) ecstatic.
A day or three after I hit the two-week mark of this diet, I began having a bit of joint pain again. Not as serious, but I could feel it creeping back. I’ll explain more about that below. But not before being honest about my cheat…
Coffee:
Okay, so I’ve failed at the coffee portion. Day 1 and 2 I had zero coffee. I was unexpectedly a grump ball. I’d cut out coffee in the past and had done it well. For some reason, this time, I was hit hard with this part. And, the chicory root that I’d planned on drinking just wasn’t doing the trick for me. So, to avoid being the worst mom of the year and continue to huff and puff at my kiddos throughout the day, I decided to allow myself about 4 ounces of coffee on day 3. I did that for about 6 days, slowly going down to about 2 ounces.
On the sixth day of coffee, I got serious and came up with a concoction that I LOVE. I do a pour-over of the ground chicory root and add a few tablespoons of coconut cream. Important note: this is not coconut creamer with all the added preservatives and flavors. This is straight-up coconut cream that gets all hard and weird chunky in the fridge. I love it. I also add one stick of Nutrihoney from Natural Shilajit. Shilajit has a nice earthy and toasty flavor. With the bit of honey that the Nutrihoney sticks include there is just enough sweetness for me to really enjoy this mixture.
So, the next day, I went back to no coffee and was successful for a full week until I hit the Die-off.
The Die-off:
What the heck does this mean? The person (which I will talk about in another post) that recommended the AIP to me mentioned that around two weeks into this, I’d perhaps get some flu-like symptoms. And, it’s pretty much true. I’ll explain (in a very condensed way) what the Die-off is and then my experience.
So, as we eat the SAD diet we consume quite a bit of sugar and carbs and most of us enjoy alcohol. These all equate to sugar in our bodies and sugar feeds the bacteria and yeast in our gut. With the SAD way of eating, most of us have more bacteria and yeast than our bodies need. When a person reduces (or pretty much stops in my case) eating sugar and carbs, this unnecessary bacteria and yeast are starved and begin to “Die-off”. As this happens, they release acetaldehyde. This is a neurotoxin and can irritate your brain and possibly cause neurologic symptoms. There are more symptoms that I’ll list below.
I knew that I’d experience some sort of symptoms going into this. I didn’t know why, but had a rough idea of when. So, I waited for symptoms around the two week time and just 2 days past that two-week mark I got one of the worst headaches I’ve experienced in a long time. It lasted all day long. On AIP you’re also not to take any NSAIDs because they mess with your gut and the purpose of this is to heal your gut. I went through the day with this headache and it just wouldn’t go away. I had it all through the night and I swear that it gave me the weirdest dreams. I woke up with this headache and I just couldn’t go through it again. Also, that morning my kids chose to wake up at 5:30 (a bit too early for me). So, I poured myself my 4 ounces of coffee and savored those moments with that little warm cup in my hands. Low and behold, my headache went away shortly after.
That night, it was back. I slept with the pain again and again woke up with it. I chose to have some coffee again to help the headache, at least for the bulk of the day. It worked! But again, that night the headache returned worse than the two days prior. So this morning I had coffee again. Coffee is apparently my one weakness in this process. The cool thing is that it’s now 11 pm and I’m awake and I have no headache and I feel no sign of it coming. I have hopes that tomorrow I’ll be able to get back to my yummy concoction and kick the coffee again!
Last night, as I laid on the couch with an excruciating headache and a little joint pain, I wondered if I did something wrong and why this seemed to be going backward. I remembered the warning of flu-like symptoms and I started Googling. That’s when I found Amy Myers MD website https://www.amymyersmd.com/2019/01/die-off-and-how-to-avoid-it/ and learned this information about the Die-off. Other symptoms I read about are: possibly feeling drunk, brain fog, headaches, fatigue, moodiness, bloating, diarrhea or constipation, joint pain, nausea, skin issues, and flu-like symptoms. I was SO happy to read this information. I was actually excited about my headache and joint pain. I felt like it meant I was in fact doing something right!
So, here I am feeling a little achy and less headachy. I am eager to experience the next few weeks. I’m confident that this joint pain will subside again. It did before and I believe that once this Die-off phase of the process is over, it will again.
I will write more about my AIP experience in a week or two and until then, I’m sure I’ll think of some more fun things to tell you about.