Thanks for being patient with me as I navigate the land of the computer-less. I’m still on the hunt for a new Surface Pro.

Meanwhile, I finished my anti-inflammatory diet on Monday. I was telling my husband that this has to be in the top two for the most enjoyable eating style I’ve tried (tied with carb counting). You can still eat most anything, and it truly makes a difference for me to mentally focus on getting in good stuff rather than cutting out “forbidden” foods (like when I was on Paleo).

I can’t say that I felt much different necessarily, with the exception of one noticeable thing. Plug your ears if it weirds you out guys, but when the natural disaster occurred this month, my normally 4-6 level cramps were easily only 1-3. I’ve noticed before that there is a connection between my hydration/diet and my cramps, but this was pretty dang sweet.

Eating an anti-inflammatory diet was mildly restrictive, but largely enjoyable. I didn’t mind adding chia seeds and avocado to stuff and including lots of spices – they add tons of flavor and keep food interesting! Overall, anti-inflammatory is one of my favorite eating styles to date. I will blog more soon about the specific types of conditions/people that can benefit from eating this way. In the meantime, enjoy your Father’s Day weekend!

Today marks the end of my first week following an anti-inflammatory lifestyle. I haven’t posted much this week because we were busy (or actually, quite un-busy) camping and relaxing with family this weekend! So far, anti-inflammatory is going pretty well and I’m enjoying the food I’m eating. It’s not really any more expensive than our food usually is.

What’s working well: Activity has been so easy with the beautiful weather! We spent the weekend (besides lounging and reading in hammocks and lawn chairs) kayaking and playing volleyball, badminton, and croquet. The other big key to easing anti-inflammatory eating is keeping my mindset focused on two things: 1) I focus on the importance of getting in anti-inflammatory foods – it’s not just about limitations and restrictions, and 2) thinking about the effect that all of the anti-inflammatory foods have on my body. It helped me to think about those consequences, then I still might decide the food was worth it to me to eat, but I had a balanced perspective and it was typically easier to avoid treats I really didn’t care about as much and limit my portions of those I did. Here are some photos of foods I ate throughout the week:

Some struggles I’ve had: Choosing food this weekend was definitely tough! We assigned meals to different family members for camping so I didn’t have a ton of control over what was available at each meal. I chose as best I could by loading up on the veggie and fruit and limiting any entrees, sides, or desserts that were particularly high in sugar or saturated fat. Thankfully, my family is relatively health-conscious so there tended to be plenty of fruit or veggies available. My aunt made some lavender lemonade that was TO DIE FOR and we had a birthday party during the weekend as well, so I had tiny bits of treats spread out throughout the four days. I scraped the frosting off of a small piece of cake and chose only bites of the superb homemade ice cream my brother and sister-in-law made. The holiday weekend was definitely more “pro-inflammatory” than the rest of my week, but hey, that’s life! Check out the photos below to see some of the meals and snacks I ate this weekend.

In honor of National Nutrition Month, I thought I’d give you a few thoughts on how to put your best fork forward this month (and every month)!

• Try a new recipe – some of my favorite recipe websites are from the American Heart Association or the American Diabetes Association. Trying out something new can add variety and keep eating from being boring!
• Work on enjoying natural flavors – Make a goal to decrease “extra flavors” like sugar, salt, and artificial flavors in order to really enjoy the full flavors of the foods, herbs, and spices you’re eating. Check out this post for more tips on flavor!
• Explore fresh new cuisines – most of us are familiar with Chinese, Italian, and Mexican foods, but how about Salvadoran, Ethiopian, Indian, or Vietnamese? There are over 190 countries in the world, each with amazing, flavorful, and unique dishes. Plus, different countries’ diets have different health benefits. You might discover a new favorite and expand the variety of foods you love! Bonus tip: make a quick Google search about the type of cuisine you’re trying before you go to a restaurant. That way, you can have some ideas of any unique customs (did you know that at most Ethiopian restaurants, patrons eat with their hands?) and what to order in case you can’t read the menu!
• Get rid of the “good” and the “bad” labels – We have a tendency to label foods as though they are good or bad, as if food and nourishment were totally black and white! All foods can belong in a healthful diet, and bodies are so, so individual! What may make one person feel terrible may be a great choice for someone else, and it is fairly rare that there is a reason to completely cut anything out entirely. Research has shown that this kind of labeling is detrimental to healthful diets and healthy relationships with food.¹ Learn to love and moderate all kinds of foods, and avoid villifying anything.

As a special bonus for National Nutrition Month, I’m offering 10% off an initial appointment! If you’ve been thinking about getting started with an empowered, healthful lifestyle, this is a great month to start! Click here to schedule an appointment!

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3779532/

Picture from againsthighcholesterol.com

Normally I love to use legumes (beans, peas, lentils, peanuts) as fiber and protein sources in my diet, so I got to wondering why it is that legumes are not allowed on the paleo diet. Honestly, I have no clue how they were introduced into our diets in the first place and thus no clue whether the hunter-gatherers would have had any or not. So I set off to do some research and found an article entitled “Why No Grains and Legumes?” on a paleo blog (eureka!).

So the author was claiming that legumes are out on paleo for a variety of reasons, one of them being their lectin content. I had never heard tell of such thing so of course, further research ensued. Come to find out lectins are proteins that hang out on the outside of plant and animal cells and bind carbohydrates. They just so happen to be found on legumes, particularly beans, as well as wheat, potatoes, and some other foods. It seems that one of their purposes is to prevent insects and critters from eating the plants. The lectins are actually toxic and they cause hemagglutination – which is a fancy word for “they make blood cells stick together.” When animals are fed raw bean diets, they develop lesions, fatty livers, and digestive/absorptive problems among other appetizing maladies. Other researchers have suggested possible (though not proven, as far as I can tell) links between lectins and diseases such as diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. Now I’m thinking, “What the heck? Why have I never heard about this before?”

Well most likely that is because according to the Cornell University agricultural website, wet cooking methods including soaking coupled with adequate boiling are sufficient to eliminate the toxicity of most of the lectins and render them safe for human consumption. Several paleo blogs I found, however, disagree that cooking eliminates all of the harmful potential of these little proteins.

What I find interesting (aside from all the disagreement) is that it seems these foods are not being eliminated from the paleo diet because the hunter-gatherers didn’t eat them, but rather because of these lectins. Since that is what I understand to be the premise of the paleo diet in the first place, the elimination of foods such as beans and potatoes seems beyond the scope of the diet itself. In fact, according to the Wikipedia page “Bean” (I know, we’re using big-time science here), beans have been around since 7th millenium BC. On top of that, the “Paleolithic” Wikipedia page says that we suspect humans in the Paleolithic era ate a substantial amount of tubers. Potatoes are tubers. So, I’m not exactly sure how the “paleo diet” crew latched on to the elimination of potatoes and legumes, but nonetheless, lectins have proven to be an interesting topic of research. I tend to agree with the following statement, courtesy of my fiance: “I’m pretty sure the cavemen ate whatever they could get their hands on. If they found some good eats they probably didn’t pass them up because of their lectin content.”

I gotta tell ya, this is the kind of stuff that makes being in the health field so difficult. Everybody is always saying something different from the next and unfortunately even well-done research is not perfect. We have to do the best we can with what we have and press on to the next topic. If you know anything more about lectins that you’d like to share, be sure to let me know in the comments!

References:

http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/plants/toxicagents/lectins.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22545/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1115436/

Crock Pot Honey Mustard Spare Ribs

This was by far the best paleo meal I ate in all of my three weeks on Paleo. Get the recipe here. I added cubed yams to the crock pot too, which was an excellent decision. I would (and will!) eat these any day of the week!

Fudgy Paleo Ice Cream

I adapted this one from a Vanilla Bean Paleo Ice Cream recipe I found here. And then I ate it. Lots of it. For days. This ice cream was so good!

Ingredients:

2 cans full fat coconut milk

1/2 cup raw honey

2 egg yolks

1/4 cup baking cocoa

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1. Freeze bowl of ice cream maker for up to 12 hours.
2. Whisk together all ingredients in a medium saucepan. Turn on burner to medium-low heat.
3. Whisk occasionally until mixture lightly simmers. Do not allow to boil.
4. Remove from heat and pour into a bowl. Refrigerate for about 2 hours until cool.
5. Once cool, process according to ice cream maker instructions.

If you visited a few days ago you may have read my lamentations about the social struggles I have been facing on my journey with paleo. I have realized how much of a social eater I am, and the way that eating paleo affects that part of my life.

I then asked myself a question I never thought to ask before: is it worth it? Say hypothetically that paleo or any other “diet” for that matter is the absolute perfect, most healthful way to eat (I don’t endorse this to be true for reasons I’ll talk about in future posts, but just go with me for a minute). If I knew for a fact that eating this way was ideal for my body but that it would bring forth this separation from social activities that I love and experiences I want to have, would it be worth it? Would I still do it?

The answer to that question had to come after some introspection about even broader and more philosophical issues: why did I become a dietitian in the first place? Am I on the search for identifying the perfect way to eat? Do I want to help people live as long as humanly possible? Do I want to help the healthy continue without disease? My answer was tough to identify, but eventually it came to be that I want to help people live their best possible lives.

I want to help people live lives of quality that are meaningful and enjoyable to them. For most people that involves being healthy. For some people, that means living to 100 years old or avoiding every possible chronic disease. For others, it means going to bed every night without a growling stomach. Others want to lose extra weight so they can play outside with their children. For me, it means participating in the full experience of preparing, sharing, and discovering all of the foods I enjoy.

So the answer to my first question is no, for me it isn’t worth it to eat this way forever. I personally would rather live 70 years of my “full meal deal” than 100 years on paleo or any other diet that leaves me feeling so restricted. And that’s my best possible life.

I brought the issue to my former classmate and friend Nick, who also happens to be a dietitian (check out his website here). Now, there is something unique about Nick that you all should know. He eats basically only meat and vegetables and will encourage his clients to do the same. I came to him during the peak of my misery in my first week of paleo and basically scolded him for ever recommending this miserable existence to anyone (if you know me at all, you know I have a tendency to be just a tad dramatic). He found my frustration with the restrictions of the diet interesting because he said he finds eating that way liberating. I couldn’t believe it. Nothing but meat and veggies is liberating?!?

As we talked more, the pieces fell into place. In his past, Nick had spent some time in the bodybuilding community and was introduced to a world of disordered eating behaviors. From what I understand (correct me if I’m wrong, here Nick), he felt controlled by his body’s desire to eat certain foods – namely, carbohydrates. Over time he began to research the part that carbohydrates play in the body and decided to start eliminating carbohydrates from his diet bit by bit (probably a better strategy than the cold-turkey one I used) until his body no longer craved them. Carbohydrate addiction is a real thing – and there is definitely science to prove it. To beat any addiction, most people have to eliminate the offending substance entirely. For Nick, he is now essentially carb-free, healthy, and doesn’t have to fight his own body to eat the way he knows is best for him. He works with clients who are obese and carbohydrate-addicted and has been majorly successful because he understands their battle, what they need, and the science behind it. Carb-free is his best possible life.

Though the cliche is not new, I am realizing how it applies to my profession: different strokes for different folks. There may be one “perfect” way to eat. Maybe someday scientists will identify it, but even if they do it won’t really be perfect for everyone. People have different needs, desires, and priorities in regard to their food. As a dietitian, it is my responsibility to encourage clients toward their own best possible life and understand that it doesn’t look the same for everyone. What do you all think? What’s your best nutritional life?

Aside from evaluating the health ramifications of paleo eating, I am also considering its real-life applications for my patients and clients. During my trek through the paleo diet, my main question has been, “is this realistic?” Is a diet like paleo truly something that I feel is so undeniably important that I could, in good conscience, recommend it to the people that I see every day and expect it to improve their lives? Thus far, based on my experience, the answer has been “no.”

There are definitely stories out there about people who start eating paleo who feel so much better. And I have no doubt that that is the case for them. Paleo eating is a drastically healthful change from the way that an “average” American eats. It entirely eliminates “empty calories” in the sense that nearly every single thing that goes in your mouth on a paleo diet contributes something beneficial to your body. Anyone who consumed copious amounts of foods that contribute nothing nutritionally besides calories (I’m talking about you, donuts, soda, and candy) is bound to feel exceptionally better after cutting out these harmful foods and replacing them with foods that actually nourish his or her body. What’s more, the paleo diet eliminates some key underlying allergens that can wreak inflammatory and digestive havoc on their undiagnosed victims. For those people, the paleo diet is sure to improve the way they feel.

Personally, my body feels exactly the way it always has, which is pretty great. Honestly, it would be hard for me to say that I felt better unless I suddenly had Roadrunner energy or Superwoman strength pop out of nowhere. And trust me, that’s not because I am the model of perfect eating (that is a common misconception about dietitians) or exercise, but because I am healthy and still rather young. I have no aches and pains, no digestive issues, no allergies (that I know of), no chronic diseases, and plenty of energy if I get enough sleep. So I really struggle to see how this restrictive eating plan makes my life any better.

In fact, following paleo is kind of a drag for me. I haven’t had any crazy sugar cravings or desperate desires to raid my fiance’s bagel supply, but my dietary quality of life is pretty lame. You see, normally Charlie and I love to go out to eat and cook together, and I would venture that it is safe to say we are novice foodies. We love to try new dishes from all kinds of restaurants and cultures and savor all the delectable flavors we can get our hands on. Since I started on paleo we have only eaten out twice, one of which I chose to be one of my non-paleo meals so that I could actually enjoy it. The other time I was able to order a meal that fit the paleo restrictions, and honestly it was pretty gross. Really all I can order out most places is some version of a hunk of meat or eggs with vegetables, and I’ll be frank – that eating pattern started turning my stomach at day 3. Other than that, my fiance and I rarely end up eating the same food when I visit because mine is so expensive (and doesn’t taste that great) that he usually makes something different for himself. I don’t blame him – though I have found a couple winners, the best thing I can say about most of the recipes I try is “well, it’s better than a hunk of meat and a pile of veggies.” I’m also getting pretty tired of all my food tasting like coconut (which if you know me you know I do not like) because nearly everything involves either coconut milk or coconut oil, but I digress.

I couldn’t really eat much at the places that my friends and I like to go to hang out, so I sat awkwardly and drink my water or tea (or occasionally eat my fruit plate) while everyone else chows down. It is also particularly difficult to anticipate following these diet restrictions when eating at others’ houses (which I do semi-often), and I feel that briefing my poor hostess with “well, I can eat anything except dairy, grains, peas, beans, peanuts, vegetable oil, salt, and sugar” is a pretty rotten thing to do. Together, these issues have placed me on an island of dietary isolation that has definitely impacted my life in an unfavorable way. Imagining a lifetime of eating this way is completely out of the question for me – making, eating, sharing, and discovering good food and drink is far too much a part of my life to amputate it like this.

Wow…I have a lot more to say about where this experience led me and how I discovered that paleo most certainly has a place and an importance for people I meet every day, but this post has grown beyond my expectations rather quickly. I’ll have to make this a “To Be Continued”…Come back next time for part 2!