Category Archives: Paleo

Getting fit again after SIBO

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NP9A2836-X3In one of my recent posts I talked a bit about exercise in relation to the Primary Foods concept and a bit about how I slowly got back in shape as I healed up from SIBO.  I thought this topic deserved a bit more discussion since it is an important part of my life and I know many people who are currently struggling with how to get back in shape after being ill for a year or longer.

Before SIBO I was in the best shape of my life.  I had come off a solid year with a  personal trainer, I had run several trail marathons and an ultra marathon and was pretty much doing  13+ mile trail run every Saturday.   When I got sick all that fitness went out the door. I lost a lot of weight, down a total of 35-40 lbs and with that weight went a lot of muscle mass.   With Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV)( coursing through my system I was exhausted and seriously unable to get up and do much of anything so all my cardio conditioning went out the door too.   After a year of this I went from being in great shape to being in the worst shape I’d probably been in for most of my adult life.

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My stand-up desk experiment

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IMG_0105With the disc issues in my neck I began noticing that sitting was the worst thing I could do.  If I was on the move all day then my leg rarely started burning but if I sat down for more than about 45 minutes the burn would come on and once it came on it rarely went away for the rest of the day.  The most time I would spend sitting was at the computer which is where my worst bad habits of leaning forward and slouching come into play.  So I decided to change up my workstation a month ago and bought a stand-up desk unit.   With my old school 27″ iMac I was rather limited by weight as to what would work but the Ergotron Single HD unit would hold my system.   I opted for the one with the extra shelf so I’d have room for my collection of input devices since I’ve gotten oddly used to using a pen tablet, touch pad and mouse.

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Going a bit outside Paleo

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Jasmine_1Ever since I started my serious attempt to gain weight I had added back in some white jasmine rice as a carb source to try and put on some pounds, especially as my running mileage is increasing.   I really hated the thought of eating white rice but jasmine has the lowest fermentation potential and gets absorbed quickly in the upper part of the small intestine.  Still, it never sat well with me since I always felt brown rice was much healthier option.   There are plusses and minuses on both sides of this and many Paleo followers won’t even go there at all just totally avoiding grains.    The argument for white jasmine rice is that it has no anti-nutrients at all since the bran has been stripped away but what you are left with is a pretty high glycemic carb source.    The best case for white rice in Paleo I’ve found is at Paleo Leap.  They argue for white jasmine rice and against brown rice since it does contain anti-nutrients.

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2015 was way better than 2014

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end_of_yearI was looking back on my 2014 year end summary and that was one rough year to say the least, 2015 turned out to be much better in every way.   The amazing thing is that my prediction in my #1 goal of “Get Healthy” actually was pretty accurate.  I expected to be over SIBO and healing my gut but didn’t expect to be feeling really good until 2016 but really I ended up feeling pretty good by mid-2015.  I stopped taking anti-microbials in May and declared myself cured of SIBO in June and since then have been getting better and better each month with no relapse in almost eight months now.   On top of eradicating my SIBO the last round of treatment I did got rid of my blastocystisis hominis too which was excellent news – SIBO and parasite free finally.  I also got good news that I do not have the auto-immune condition that is a major cause of SIBO which is why I think I’ve avoided relapse for so long.

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What I do when everything is flooding

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The weather has gone to hell rapidly this fall and today we are on the third big storm and flood of the last few weeks, kind of crazy.   Not much fishing opportunities around here at the moment so what is a fisherman to do?  Well, over the last month I’ve managed to get in some great fishing off Catalina Island in SoCal and several good hunts to gather food as well as fly tying material.

Cooke Canyon Pheasant Hunting

IMG_9353In mid-October Chris and I went over to Cooke Canyon to go on the first bird hunting trip of the season.  We had pretty much perfect conditions, sunny and calm in Ellensburg with short-sleeve weather.  We started the morning doing a bit of trap shooting and I SUCKED to say the least, I think I hit 3 clays in about 30 shots, not a good percentage.  Chris, on the other hand, was spot on hitting about 95% accuracy so between the two of us we stood a chance.   We hit the field and did indeed find birds and get some, we ended up with five of the seven birds that day, not bad for a first trip out of the year.  I vowed to hit the trap field.

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Paleo OC

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We just got back from our bi-annual trip to Orange County.  This time, as usual, we mostly prepared our own foods but we did make it out to a couple of restaurants.   OC isn’t nearly as Paleo as Portland but there are options out there and still quite a bit to explore on our next visit.

Provisions

Paleo section at Whole Foods

Paleo section at Whole Foods

Finding Paleo groceries is pretty easy, the Whole Foods in Newport Beach is better stocked in Paleo goods than any of the ones in Seattle and the Laguna Beach location is also good though smaller.  They have most products by Paleo Chef, Julian Bakery and others plus locally made grass-fed Paleo jerky.    Add to that a complete seafood and meat department where we got wild salmon, organic chicken, bison steaks and grass fed ground beef.   Of course we also stocked up on organic fruits and vegetables.  The only thing missing was guar-gum free coconut milk.  I made up for that by making my own from Nutiva Coconut Manna and a blender.    I was excited to see the Julian Bakery Coconut Flakes, I’d been craving cereal lately and most Paleo cereals have almonds or almond flour which is one of my few allergies.  The Coconut Flakes are nothing but coconut so are OK for me and were great with strawberries and coconut milk.

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Paleo now, no longer low FODMAP AIP

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In the last few months my diet has expanded quite a bit to where I no longer consider myself eating AIP (Autoimmune Protocol) but instead am eating a pretty full Paleo diet.   I added in eggs first about six months ago and have been slowly expanding with some nuts and seeds.  I’ve also stopped the low FODMAP portion of my diet and have added in many fairly high FODMAP foods.  This week I even went a little crazy and had a bunch of garlic and mushrooms with several meals with no real effects, I was kind of surprised.  I’m finally able to eat apples and stone fruit which are my favorites. I also ate a lot of raw food on my trip to the Deschutes with no issues so salads are back.  I eat a TON of sweet potato these days which are pretty hard to handle for most SIBO sufferers but I eat several a day now.

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Quad Cities Paleo

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I finally went back to Iowa to visit the family and was pretty worried about the food situation.   In advance I had ordered some staples on Amazon and had them shipped out – ghee, coconut oil, matcha, coconut milk, … and I figured that the fall-back plan was to drive to Iowa City to visit the Whole Foods there and load up on meats.   Boy was I in for a pleasant surprise.

The local Hy-Vee grocery chain has a huge Health Food section complete with a dietician on staff and a notebook full of their Gluten-Free products.  That section had things like Julian’s Paleo Bread, GT’s Kombucha, local farm-raised eggs, Bubbies kraut & pickles, uncured bacon, good dark chocolate and a host of GF products I’d never go near anyway.   Still, impressive, almost as good as PCC.  A huge organic produce section rounded this out, no problems getting good broccoli, chard, berries, bananas, avocados and sweet potatoes.

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Rachel & Rampart Lakes trip

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Rachel Lake from Rampart Ridge

Rachel Lake from Rampart Ridge

Second backpack trip in June done!  This time we decided to do a shorter but steeper route to Rachel Lakes, Rampart Ridge and Rampart Lakes.   There were some early morning thunderstorms happening up at Snoqualmie Pass yesterday so we waited until about 8:30 to leave and drove up I-90 to Exit 60 and finally up along Kachess Lake to Box Canyon Road and the trailhead.    We got our packs on and headed to the trailhead.

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Portland Paleo II

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I just cannot stay away from Portland, it is the only town where I can go out and eat without any worry about my crazy diet.   This last weekend I was down for the SIBO Symposium with my doctor and some SIBO friends and got to check out a new restaurant and a few old favorites from our last visit.

Departure Re-dux

IMG_6985On Friday night three of us walked downtown to go to Departure since it was a beautiful day and sitting out on the terrace just seemed like the thing to do. It was either that or go wait in line at Ox and hope we got in before we starved.    We ordered a LOT of food, tables full of food.  We ate for 2 hours non-stop.  It was great.  I think, if I remember correctly we ended up ordering:

 

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