Autoimmune Paleo (AIP): My 2 Year Review and What I’ve Learned

Anyone who has decided to try autoimmune paleo (AIP) will have lots of advice to give. First of all if you walk into any social media group asking about how fast you will lose weight you are told that this isn’t about weight. Sure, most of us lose weight but it’s not about that. At it’s core autoimmune paleo is about restoring the health of our gut because a leaky gut precedes autoimmune disease. In the book The Paleo Approach, Sarah Ballantyne explains in great detail how the various foods eliminated have the potential to cross the gut barrier to trigger an autoimmune response. Will autoimmune paleo cure autoimmune disease once a disease has developed? No. However, it does reverse the symptoms with time. I began autoimmune paleo in January of 2015 and I have belonged to a number of social media groups since then. This is what I know: Everyone is different.

While it isn’t meant to last a lifetime,  there are variables in how quickly people can reintroduce foods that they didn’t tolerate initially. This usually depends on how long a person has suffered from autoimmune disease, the number of autoimmune diseases they suffer from, and how well they adhere to the elimination diet.

The Biggest AIP Challenge: Friends and Family

If you decide to break away from mainstream conventional wisdom and try autoimmune paleo there is a likelihood that the people in your life won’t “get it”. This is why I HIGHLY recommend an AIP group on social media. Your family who has watched you eat for years will likely be your toughest critics. “But you used to eat this all the time.” “I made it special just for you.” “You didn’t have these problems when you ate regular food.” “I think that diet is making you sick.” “One bite won’t hurt.”

AIP is a strict version of paleo because it eliminates all the top allergens in addition to the regular things eliminated on paleo. Here is the list of foods to avoid:

The Second Challenge: What’s For Breakfast?

I remember when I first saw the list wondering what I would eat. No coffee, chocolate, or eggs? What am I going to eat for breakfast? When it comes to breakfast don’t worry about whether you’d find your food on a restaurant breakfast menu. Just eat. Eat whatever sounds good. Leftover roasted vegetables are one of my favorites. I also make a grain free apple cinnamon n’oatmeal using grated apple, spaghetti squash, cinnamon, coconut oil, and a bit of maple syrup or honey.

There are a number of things that you can make but for most of them I’ve found that you’re simply trying to make something into something it isn’t. In my experience “the creation” usually doesn’t satisfy your craving for whatever you were wanting in the first place. When you first begin AIP it’s tough because you’ve always eaten without much thought or effort and now you’ll have to think and plan. Is it impossible? No. It’s daunting at first because it isn’t “normal” but you will eventually find your new normal and you’ll wonder what the big deal was.

Giving up the foods is the easy part. It’s when you try to reintroduce something you’ve eliminated and you have a bad reaction that really wears you out. This is where your family will say that the diet is “making you sick” which isn’t true. Your food sensitivities are there now, they’re just not being detected.

The best way I can explain it: imagine if I tapped you on the arm in the same spot repeatedly. Initially you’d feel it but if I did it for 15, 30, or 60 minutes that spot on your arm would eventually go numb. The nervous system can only process so much information before it becomes overloaded. So when you eliminate all the inflammatory and allergenic foods from your system for awhile and then reintroduce them you will find things that don’t agree with you. Things I’ve eaten my entire life I no longer eat. After nearly 2 years of trying to reintroduce some things you simply give up trying because there is nothing like a bad reaction to a food to keep you on the straight and narrow.

Breathe and Have Patience: It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Maybe I would have had better success if I had followed AIP more strictly for a longer time period. Maybe I would have had more success if I truly eliminated coffee or I didn’t rush reintroductions. Who knows? Realizing that AIP is a marathon and not a sprint I knew that these things were a possibility but I decided to focus on the big picture and realize that I wasn’t going to unravel years of damage anytime soon. In that statement is where the good and bad lies.

I am fortunate in that my first Whole 30 led me to discover that my joint pain was autoimmune in nature because I couldn’t add back any of the foods I had eliminated. The good is that I have discovered many foods that simply do not work for me now but the foods on that list have changed with time. The general rule of thumb is to follow autoimmune paleo until your autoimmune symptoms subside, 30 days minimum, and then begin reintroductions. I was strict for 30 days with an exception of 1 cup of coffee a day before I began reintroductions.

My symptoms disappeared within the first few days of AIP whereas others follow the protocol for months before seeing improvement. I envy those people in a way because they’ve suffered from an autoimmune disease for years. They’ve seen every specialist and taken every pill out there without much success. So when they find AIP and it works it is very easy for them to stick to it without much complaint. When you finally feel great you don’t want to give it up.

I have rheumatoid that I haven’t suffered with for very long. I’m not quite 42 and most autoimmune diseases begin somewhere around 40. For nearly a decade I worked as a massage therapist so I always attributed my achy hands to the work I had done. Since I wear an 11 or 11.5 narrow shoe I always attributed achy feet to my super thin and bony feet supporting a 6′ frame. But I’ve since learned that food plays a huge role in so many things for me.

The greatest likelihood is that you are not the same and you will not have the same reactions. Most of us in the AIP groups all tolerate different things, within reason, even though we may have the same autoimmune disease. It’s interesting stuff for sure but it is something where you have to be your own judge and jury to figure out what is and what isn’t working for you. What I am about to share is pretty personal stuff. While most of it is pretty G rated I will talk about some digestion issues so if that makes you squeamish I’d bow out now. Honestly, if you decide to join a group online where people are discussing health topics people are very open about their situations. This isn’t medical advice but rather I hope that it prompts you to begin paying attention to your food and how you feel.

My Most Unexpected Reaction – Chicken

As you’ll see from the list above Chicken is not eliminated yet I discovered that we are no longer friends. These incidents began right after my Whole 30 in August of 14′. The first incident occurred when I bought a Simple Truth rotisserie chicken that was pre-cooked. Chicken, water, and salt were the ingredients…I think. I put some chicken on a salad and later I felt a little nauseous. Initially, I suspected the chicken wasn’t handled or cooked properly so I threw it out.

A few weeks pass by and I cooked up a bunch of organic chicken breasts from Whole Foods. I ate 3 breasts in a 12-hour time frame and I felt nauseous. My husband and I were supposed to go on a date that night but I had to cancel because I thought I had caught a stomach bug. I felt nauseous for about 2 days although I never vomited or had any lower intestinal issues. Then I was fine.

A few more weeks go by and after our son’s Taekwondo practice I opted to take him to Johnny Carino’s, one of his favorite places. An Italian joint isn’t the best choice for someone following paleo and after adopting autoimmune paleo it really isn’t a choice at all. Hmmmm….what to order? I ordered the rosemary chicken with a double side of vegetables. Then later that night I felt nauseous once again and that is when it finally hit me that it was the chicken.

Since then I have tried chicken here and there, maybe a handful of times, and it gives me a weird burning sensation in my stomach, I feel slightly nauseous, and I end up with diarrhea. It’s a bummer too because chicken tastes so much better on a salad than beef.

Many conversations online discuss whether it matters what an animal eats because even organic chickens are fed organic corn and soy which on their own don’t agree with me. So I went to the local farmers market and sought out the best local chicken I could find that wasn’t fed corn or soy. This chicken was supplemented with peas and barley (still not paleo) but it would work for my purposes of testing the corn and soy theory.

I went home with my $40 chicken and I roasted it. I ate a little, definitely not a whole chicken breast worth, and I didn’t have any reaction. So I thought maybe there was something to this whole corn and soy theory. Since I wanted to get my money’s worth I used the bones to make a broth. Bone broth is a superfood and it has many gut healing properties. That night I decided to have a mug of bone broth and for the next 4 hours I doubled over with abdominal pain. It felt like I had swallowed a million microscopic razor blades. I also have this same razor bade reaction to guar gum and xanthan gum.

Things That Cause Joint Pain

Grains and Sugar: They’re everywhere and they are my nemesis. It is guaranteed that if I eat grains that my joints will hurt without fail. Although white rice at or below room temperature is a beneficial resistant starch for gut health it is not something I tolerate either. Not only do I wake up with stiff and achy joints but I also wake up with a super puffy face. I no longer look for eye creams to reduce puffiness; I simply don’t eat grains. The other upside is that grains on their own are bland. Can you name any grain that you would eat plain without sugar, salt, or fat added to it? Would you enjoy it? Grains are a starchy, bland canvas and without them, I now enjoy food much more because everything has flavor.

Chocolate: This is the worst offender and it creates the most joint pain. The day after I eat chocolate it feels like someone has rubbed icy-hot or tiger balm in between my joint surfaces. Chocolate was difficult to give up at first. We had a nightly thing for a while where I’d eat a few squares. But when you figure out what is making your hands hurt so badly it becomes easy to part ways. Chocolate is one of those foods that are high in histamine and I’ve learned that there is a correlation between rheumatoid arthritis and histamine. [1] [2]

Things That Disrupt My Sleep

Things That Affect My Digestion

Originally posted on January 28, 2017 @ 04:27

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