What diet do you follow?

[Jemima37]

What kind of diet do you follow? I’m just intrigued as I’ve heard many people recommend vegan, Keto, etc... it’s so confusing whether dairy is bad or not.

I don’t eat gluten due to having ibs and haven’t in about 5 years.

 

[Plum]

Due to having Eosinophilic Esophagitis the best way to describe my diet is Autoimmune Paleo with additional allergens excluded. I also eat low histamine due to MCAS.

 

[BeADocToGoTo1]

Primal, which is more of a lifestyle than diet. Temporary reset diets are great for checking sensitivities, microbiome, SIBO, and Candida rebalancing, acid reflux fixing, blood sugar control improvements, etc.

Dairy can be bad if you are sensitive to any of the proteins, e.g. casein or whey. Lactose intolerance can be an issue if you do not take lactase pills with every bite (even a bit of butter in the pan). Also the quality of the dairy is important. Organic, pasture raised, grass fed, full, non-sweetened is better. You want to avoid extra exposure to herbicides, pesticides, hormones, added sugars and chemicals.

Great to read you have success with IBS control!

 

[wabi-sabi]

The whatever tastes good diet! Lots of dairy, lots of grains, especially wheat, as many veggies as I can tolerate (too much cabbage can be problematic), and moderate amounts of meat, except for red meat. That's as much as a philosophical stance as much as a health stance.

I don't have IBS (thankfully), but I do have a touch of the gastroparesis. With experimentation I have found low carb or keto things to make me very sick so I avoid them. Too much fiber (like cabbage and beans) makes me quite uncomfortable, but nothing like the totally incapacitated crash of not enough carbs.

All in all, I've found dietary experimentation can make me much sicker, but a good diet only goes so far in making me feel better. I just don't think we can eat ourselves out of this disease. Hence, eat what tastes good, so I can get some pleasure out of life! Cooking is one of the few hobbies I can still do a bit.

 

[junkcrap50]

• gluten free always and dairy free 95% of time (for gut issues/ibs)
• usually Paleo (basically only healthy whole foods)
• But lately have been doing Keto + Intermittent Fasting 20:4 since August which has helped me lose 30 lbs. Keto did i think help me feel a bit better energy/mood wise.

 

[Timaca]

I eat whole food plant based gluten free.

 

[Tammy]

Gluten, eggs, dairy cause problems for me. If I cheat just now and then I am usually OK...........but if I go off my diet more than just once in awhile, I will notice the fatigue and pain (more than usual) creeping up again. I eat mostly fresh veggies, fruit, some nuts and seeds and some meat. (I eat meat maybe 3x a week give or take). There is no doubt in my mind now that a good diet is important for me. Whenever I start to stray............I pay.

 

[maybe some day]

What kind of diet do you follow? I’m just intrigued as I’ve heard many people recommend vegan, Keto, etc... it’s so confusing whether dairy is bad or not.

I don’t eat gluten due to having ibs and haven’t in about 5 years.

If I can't pronounce the ingredients I don't buy it. I eat a balanced meal. Changing foods really has not made any significant difference in my health

 

[Tammy]

If I can't pronounce the ingredients I don't buy it.

LOL.............I think that's a good rule of thumb.

 

[soulflower]

All in all, I've found dietary experimentation can make me much sicker, but a good diet only goes so far in making me feel better. I just don't think we can eat ourselves out of this disease. Hence, eat what tastes good, so I can get some pleasure out of life! Cooking is one of the few hobbies I can still do a bit.

I agree! I eat mostly a Whole food plant based diet, but this past weekend tried some vegan chili with fake meat and kidney beans.... so weak today I can barely sit up. I WISH diet was the answer. I also wish I could eat what I want and not pay for it so heavily.

 

[wabi-sabi]

@soulflower

I WISH diet was the answer.

Me too. It would make life so much simpler, wouldn't it? But if healthy eating were the answer I never would have gotten sick in the first place or stayed sick for so many years. I get frustrated with so much I see online promoting diets as the miracle cure for all diseases. (I know better now than to look at it, but it still gets to me.) Complicated diseases are, well... complicated and won't have simple explanations or easy answers.

It's hard to wait for the science to advance enough to help us and not grasp at straws in the meantime. Diet is one of the easiest things to change, (compared to finding allergy-free housing for example) so it's certainly the first straw I grabbed at.

 

[Frunobulax]

Ketogenic diet, after unsuccessful carnivore phase I'm back to a fairly moderate amount of meat. And it did make a big difference for me. I was pretty much bedridden over a year ago, after a year of low carb and later keto I'm able to work again, albeit only part time. (I also could stop taking some drugs, no more heartburn, blood pressure is better, dropped 30 pounds, some issues like psoriasis are gone.)

Bugger. I thought I could resist to ramble, but I can't... Sorry for that. Continue reading at your own peril. Controversial views ahead

Dietary advise is confusing because most of it is based on faith and simple assumptions. Only a very small fraction of nutritional advise is based on actual science.

If you're ready to invest the time and check out the science that we have, you'll be introduced to a fascinating world where things start to make sense. (Watching or reading Gary Taubes is a good start. Check out Gary Fettke and Paul Mason on youtube if you want the connection to autoimmune diseases and possibly ME/CFS.) The carbohydrate insulin model explains so many macroscopic trends that contradict the lipid hypothesis, and it explains why we develop chronic diseases including systemic inflammation. But you'll have to learn some fundamentals and make up your own mind, because if you listen to 5 random nutritionists then you'll end up with 5 incompatible, often diametrically opposed opinions. But then, the science involved is not that difficult. In fact, I'd argue that we should learn the basics in high school.


One problem is that a lot of the observations that we see there are paradoxical. For example you can actually gain weight if you eat less (more precisely: you will lose weight at first, but gain it back and you may weigh more after 2 years or so) , and you might lose weight if you replace carbs with fat (and eat a lot more calories). The womens health study had one group of women cut their calories by roughly 15%. After 8 years, they lost indeed weight - a bit less than 2 pounds on average, to be precise. (300 less calories a day, or ~30g fat less. If you believe in "a calorie is a calorie", the difference in weight should have been 170 pounds.) Or you could say it made almost no difference.

Many people think that eating vegan is healthy, but there is not a single study that backs this. Oh, there are studies that vegan diet beats western crap diet (salad+whole grain bread is healthier than fries and candy bars), but there isn't a single long term study (5+ years) that a "clean" vegan diet is better than a "clean" meat containing high-fat diet (that is, salad, veggies and whole grain bread vs. salad, veggies and good quality meat/eggs/dairy), or even a "clean" vegan diet vs. a "clean" western diet (vegan vs. a diet based on the usual nutritional recommendations). And "better" means lower mortality or lower incidence of diseases or less obesity or something like that. There simply isn't any evidence. But we should be VERY concerned because a vegan diet is lacking in some important nutrients (omega-3, vitamin D, several amino acids). We can go a few years without them, but at some point we see inflammation and chronic diseases as result. We should also be concerned that ALL plants have chemical defenses against insects, called lectins, oxalates, isoflavones and so on. We can tolerate them in limited amounts, but there isn't a single study that shows that it's safe to eat a lot more, as we do with a vegan diet. (There are animal studies that show that animals get very sick if they eat too much lectins. But we still have no trouble recommending a diet high in lectins for humans?)

Should we have faith that for some reason a vegan diet that is completely different from what our ancestors ate (as hunters and gatherers we got 65% of our calories from meat and pretty much 0% from grains) is healthy for us? Don't you think that we should have least a tiny bit of scientific evidence before we change our diet? Don't you think that the fact that we started to get sick at an astonishing rate roughly 50 years ago has something to do with the fact that we fundamentally changed our diet, starting, well, pretty much 50 years ago?

Get this: Everybody things that lowering cholesterol is good, and vegan diets lower cholesterol. That has to be good, or? Well, in one big cholesterol lowering study, the MRFIT study, the intervention group managed to lower their cholesterol. They received counselling for nutrition, fitness, many gave up smoking and everything ended up with a -- higher mortality. Get this: Replace all the presumably bad saturated fat with vegetable oils or carbs, quit smoking, cut junk food, you end up with lower cholesterol, and - you're dying earlier! But funnily enough, not a single major nutritionist questioned if the shift to low-fat may be responsible for the higher mortality, or if lowering cholesterol really is a good thing. One of the most expensive nutritional studies ever done, set out to prove the lipid hypothesis (sat fat -> high cholesterol -> instant death), actually proved that the lipid hypothesis is wrong, and so all mainstream nutritionists simply agreed to never mention the study again.


Ah, science is a beautiful thing.

 

[BeADocToGoTo1]

@soulflower
...But if healthy eating were the answer I never would have gotten sick in the first place or stayed sick for so many years. I get frustrated with so much I see online promoting diets as the miracle cure for all diseases. (I know better now than to look at it, but it still gets to me.) Complicated diseases are, well... complicated and won't have simple explanations or easy answers.
Diet is one of the easiest things to change, (compared to finding allergy-free housing for example) so it's certainly the first straw I grabbed at...

I always thought I ate healthily, but little did I know until many years of slow creeping damage ended with my pancreas damaged beyond repair, SIBO and Candida overgrowth, acid reflux, gastritis, systemic inflammation, nutrient deficiencies, and an endless list of symptoms.

It is indeed one of the few things you have complete control over, yet it is very difficult to navigate through the noise, marketing power, pseudo medical organization messages, pseudo research news, blatant misinformation, lack of affordable access, chemical, herbicide, hormone, pesticide exposure, poor nutrition education (that includes doctors b.t.w.) starting from the food pyramid (tainted by the food industry) taught to children onwards, and just sheer lack of knowledge. Add to that your own personal sensitivities (which can take a while to determine) and preferences, and it turns out it is not that easy.

 

[BeADocToGoTo1]

Copied from another post, but perhaps helpful here:

Primal Food

I like to think of it as "real food". These days you have to almost be a dietician to eat healthily. So many pitfalls and marketing bs. We have gone so far from what is normal for our DNA. We have lost common sense on what is a healthy amount of carbs per meal and per day. And even soil and vegetables are losing nutrient density, not to mention all the herbicides and pesticides. That is why I like the primal lifestyle that Mark Sisson brought to mainstream and was key in my healing. I dedicated a whole chapter to it because it was so crucial. It is what my grandparents would have just called food. A few elements include:

• As little processed, refined, packaged, canned, non-organic as possible
• Avoid toxins where possible: preservatives, additives, coloring, food glue, flavoring, chemicals, herbicides, pesticides, plastic chemical leaching, etc.
• As many types and colors of vegetables as you can handle or tolerate, preferably local organic
• Healthy proteins: organic happy pastured chickens and eggs, grass fed beef, non-farmed fish, hemp, etc.
• Healthy fats: nuts, olive oil, seeds, grass fed butter, fish, avocado, etc.. High fat dairy in moderation with grass fed and full fat preferred, unsweetened of course, aged and fermented also good options.
• Avoid unhealthy, highly processed, partially hydrogenated GMO oils (canola, corn, soy, etc.) and trans-fats. This is used almost everywhere these days: restaurants, cafes, processed food, condiments, etc.
• I do not drink any calories (just unsweetened tea, coffee and water), except the occasional bone broth.
• Regarding starches, potato, rice, legumes, pasta, grains, cereals, bread, the quality is extremely important and in very limited amounts. Some should be avoided completely. Organic (to avoid more glyphosate exposure), whole grain (the germ has micronutrients, the husk has fiber) wheat only, and only if you do not have any gluten sensitivity issues.
• Real fresh fruit limited and more seen as a treat, but never liquid, dried, processed, preserved, canned. It was a seasonal thing even when I grew up. Some berries, perhaps a kiwi or 1/2 banana, but not every day. Avocado may be an exception as it is low sugar and high healthy fat.

And when you are not well, I would avoid restaurant and cafe food. And check the quality of your water.

 

[Rufous McKinney]

But if healthy eating were the answer I never would have gotten sick in the first place or stayed sick for so many years. I get frustrated with so much I see online promoting diets as the miracle cure for all diseases.

I started eating only organic foods- 50 years ago. Of course not everything all the time. But I don't eat out much, don't buy crap, hardly ever took an antibiotic....

Don't take pharmaceuticals that generate side effects.

Yet still, I just didn't eat enough brocollii belief, persists.

 

[Timaca]

Many people think that eating vegan is healthy, but there is not a single study that backs this. Oh, there are studies that vegan diet beats western crap diet (salad+whole grain bread is healthier than fries and candy bars), but there isn't a single long term study (5+ years) that a "clean" vegan diet is better than a "clean" meat containing high-fat diet (that is, salad, veggies and whole grain bread vs. salad, veggies and good quality meat/eggs/dairy), or even a "clean" vegan diet vs. a "clean" western diet (vegan vs. a diet based on the usual nutritional recommendations). And "better" means lower mortality or lower incidence of diseases or less obesity or something like that. There simply isn't any evidence. But we should be VERY concerned because a vegan diet is lacking in some important nutrients (omega-3, vitamin D, several amino acids). We can go a few years without them, but at some point we see inflammation and chronic diseases as result. We should also be concerned that ALL plants have chemical defenses against insects, called lectins, oxalates, isoflavones and so on. We can tolerate them in limited amounts, but there isn't a single study that shows that it's safe to eat a lot more, as we do with a vegan diet. (There are animal studies that show that animals get very sick if they eat too much lectins. But we still have no trouble recommending a diet high in lectins for humans?)

Hi~ I suggest you listen to some videos by Dr. Kim Williams and Brenda Davis. These are two of my favorite speakers. Dr. Kim Williams is past president of the American College of Cardiology and current chief of cardiology at Rush University Medical Center. He knows his stuff about diet and the cardiovascular system. Everything he says is backed up by research studies and of course he sees the results in his medical practice. Everything Brenda Davis says is also backed up by research and her own experience (she is a dietitian). Here is a video featuring Dr. Williams. Here is a video featuring Brenda Davis. I hope you enjoy watching the videos and come to realize that plant based diets are indeed healthy....better for us, better for the environment and of course, better for the animals.

Best,

 

[Jemima37]

Love your responses.
I’ve never really eaten red meat or pork, just chicken and tuna but I’m not one who it’s it more than once or twice a week. I eat sauté but since I had a cholesterol level of 6.9 a few years ago I was frightened to eat cheese etc and my gp tried to push statins on me. I was only about 36 and refused them. I then cut all dairy out for a year and gluten for the IBS issues, and my cholesterol dropped to 4.6. My gp was astonished. I’ve since eaten dairy again so I don’t know what it’ll be like now but my GP was obsessed I had diabetes and high cholesterol even though I had a normal hba1c every time. I was also not overweight at 8 stone 10lbs and 5ft tall.

He tested the hba1c (3x a year) it was always 34, which was perfect and in normal range but he was obsessed my fatigue was diabetes because I once had a high random glucose blood test at 8.9. I’d had a major panic attack for hours before the blood test as I’d developed a huge phobia of them and I’d eaten a cereal bar 30 minutes before the test. He was obsessed my random glucose meant I had diabetes despite the hba1c taken the same day being fine. Anyway this man hounded me with phone calls every few weeks to re test diabetes, cholesterol, sodium because I once had a sodium if 129 which then went back to normal range, ... he never wanted to diagnose CfS so he drove me to an anxious mess. Then then said he was leaving so I was given a new GP, she was lovely, read my history and rang me to apologise for all I’d been through. She didn’t want to put me through more tests as she could tell it had all been very traumatic and upsetting that year with the old GP. She assured me cholesterol was fine and I’d not need statins, my random high glucose was under 11 so not diabetes diagnosis level and purely high due to panic and a cereal bad and 1 lower sodium result was normal if I’d been on the toilet a hundred times before the blood test due to nerves and drinking gallons of chamomile tea

Anyway, going away from that ramble, I’ve just never trusted doctors since and have a huge phobia of them and needles and blood thanks to him. He confused me on healthy eating, made me fear I’d develop diabetes or high cholesterol so I’m always anxious if I’m eating ok or not. I worry daily my diets awful and my cholesterol could be high again or if I eat a cake or piece of dark choc I worry I will be adding to high glucose if I do have it. My husband said after 3 years I’m sure that by now you’d have major signs you had diabetes, other than the CfS symptoms. I find it hard to not worry about the conditions he panicked me about, and it makes me worry a lot about how I eat now.

 

[BeADocToGoTo1]

Hi @Jemima37
Sorry about all your struggles. Statins and cholesterol levels are another one of these sad elements where business profits get in the way of proper medical practice. It is interesting to see that "healthy" cholesterol levels are quite different in different countries, and have changed quite a bit since statins started being pushed. The vilification of cholesterol, which is crucial for our health, is another sad impact of profits over health. And yet when we ask for detailed blood tests on particle sizes, and more specific lipid numbers broken down by particle types, the insurance companies will not reimburse for those more important tests. Of course statins can be great and have saved many, many lives, but both my wife and I were told in our thirties to take statins. She tried and became ill from them within days. My cardiologist was talking to me about a pacemaker, cardiac ablation and statins in my early forties when in the end it was nutrient deficiencies that were the issue. It still makes me fume thinking about it.

Often, just the stress of diet is enough to raise blood pressure and stress hormones! Nothing wrong with having an ocassional treat.

For a while I ate (and exercised) by the glucose meter to understand how my body reacts to different foods and e.g. weight lifting. Once I knew the impacts and had brought the A1c levels (roughly a 6-8 week average of blood glucose) back under control, it was time to stop worrying but stick with what works (for me). What works for your body might be a different amount of carbs or exercise, but once dialed in it is time to worry less.

 

[Seven7]

keto+rotation week 1 to 3.
HIgher in crab and high estrogen raising foods week4 (oranges, sweet potatos, potatos....)

 

[wabi-sabi]

@Jemima37
Oh, what a terrible time you've had with scary testing! So sorry. I say enjoy the chocolate and don't worry.