lets talk diet..again? lol

Morning everyone!!

So ive been trying so so hard to follow a diet but man do i fail miserably...like i start off doing so good then by the end of the night i lose it....

and seriously ever since halloween, ive been eating tons of my kids candy!! candy, cookies, chips...everything thats not lyme friendly, i eat lol but the crazy part is... i dont feel awful if i eat it... does that even mean anything?

i pulse my abx 2 weeks on 2 weeks off... and i do feel awful on my on weeks (especially the cyst and biofilm days) but on my off weeks i feel pretty good... not like completely normal but definately not awful and more functional..

so i guess my question is, does it mean anything that i can eat whatever i want and it doesnt affect me?

It's so highly variable. I do think cutting out refined sugars/processed foods helps increase margins and improves foundation for recovery. I also think it depends on the severity of illness, the sicker you are from this stuff the more important it is you do every little thing you can to increase your chances of recovery and making sure it sticks.

Before I was properly diagnosed I'd eat full bars of chocolate and it made me feel great, gave me a burst of energy and a reprieve from feeling awful. But the sugar/caffeine merely masked the underlying issues. In the longrun I found that cutting out those foods helped reduce my symptoms even though I missed the energy bursts...

One thing that helped me was not having any candy/snacks in the house and only having healthy snacks like nuts/fruits/etc.

It could also be that because you are at a stronger point with your health the sugar foods don't affect you as much. But even if one is in great health I think avoiding that stuff is the best bet. Those foods cause metabolic dysregulation and cause a lot of ancillary issues.

I try to avoid sugar because I don't want to feed the Lyme and candida. After almost 18 months of treatment, I think candida is becoming an issue. I assume it would for anyone on abx long-term. So maybe that's an incentive? Don't give those bugs a head start.

physedgirl09 said...
Thanx for the response guys...

astroman,
what kind of testing should i have done and where? like do i go to an allergist and ask for like a gluten test or a food allergy test?

I dabbled in this for years, every time I got more specific about it.

Its confusing, so guessing is a great first step, and like mentioned above Ialso did the antii candida diet to when candida was raging. So thats not a anti-inflamitory, its an anti -"feeding the yeast" diet.

As far as inflammatory foods: there are three levels of food reactions: allergy (alergist Dr), antibody forming (regular Dr) and cytokine releasing foods (Leap MRT test). All three are different tests.

I have no food allergies, and have no milk or gluten antibody formation but do have cytokine release from both and a few more, that's what food sensitivity really is..

I first tested skin prick food allergies, then gluten and milk antibodies (blood test), then years later (now) the Leap MRT that cost $350 online or a dietitian. My health plan pays for the dietitian time, not the test. Sugar (cane) is my highest cytokine releasing food item. Corn is second.Turkey is third. Gluten? - surprised its NOT on top, its a little lower. My thyroid labs improved two month leaving out these foods, it should have other positive effects too. I wrote a few posts on this - might find under search.

This takes money and time, I'm committed not 95, but 100% to this. As in athletics, commitment pays back in some form.
Half arse trials will return half arse results- been there done that and learned.

Thanx Astroman,

so i can order the mrt test online and do it at home?

i cant seem to find the test online... i found websites but nothing to order

Post Edited (physedgirl09) : 11/15/2018 10:28:10 AM (GMT-7)

PeppermintTea:

You said you’ve been on Babesia treatment since January.
I was only on it 5 months - how are they determining you still have Babesia? Just by palpitating your abdomen to check for liver swelling?
I’m wondering if mine was sufficient,
Maybe they did take into consideration the 7/8 months of Babesia treatment I was on previously .

Ah diet, I wonder the same types of things, that one day or week I get asthma attacks from eating red meat (i think the non-organic stuff with animal abx causes this) or weirdly positive off-label effects of acetaminophen on anxiety (that i just learned acetaminophen is anti-anxiety)-- there are all sorts of weird anomalies that can happen, enzymes, organic chemical reactions...

Well few things are certain: but if anything, trying to alleviate the oft-times debilitating symptoms of this awful disease, I know certain things I'm more aware of, more sensitive tempered with the knowledge that diet affects just about everything.

I know that during days of eating only salad kits and good meats, (basically a freestyle poorman's paleo/keto) I feel much better.

Whereas a can of soda with a whopping 40 grams of sugar is just creating feeding frenzy of cytokines and inflammation and keeping infections thriving, I still try to enjoy junk foods, yes last month I ordered a #9 mcdonalds meal, 2 cheeseburgers w/diet coke and fries: I enjoyed that somewhat rare, few and far between fast food meal, but I'm more mindful of what it is, what it does to my body, that it is what I will allow...occasionally, not like when I was younger and ate or drank anything, and had little knowledge of how essential diet really is.

This awareness about carbs, breads, sugars, refined flours I think I'm figuring out that this is my body's infections' favorite foods, like giving the bad microbes more energy to destroy you from within lol and build their colonies inside your organs and systems.

And the uncanny feeling that any caffeine or alcohol is, true to medical doctor advice, going to be inflammatory for the most part, though can't be beat for easy quick and dirty mood and mind altering legal drugs ...well they are drugs, in fact.

And someone said "everything in moderation" (Benjamin Franklin?)... but moderation when you have Lyme n Cos is a stricter definition.

I'm still liberal in my approach to diet in that I allow myself to eat and drink very poorly at times, but more often I make better choices for my overall health. Or put another way, rather moving away from eating and drinking oneself to death, and more so trying to eat right ...most of the time... to still have the energy to live with chronic illness.

Oh and I want to get that fancy food allergies test at some point when I have (extra! lol yea right) money.

I almost have too much energy now. This is weird. Left over brain fog is all gone. I think I need to lower thyroid med for 1st time ever in 20 years - doc appt soon.

All the above from leaving out certain food and absolutely zero added cane sugar. Zero.

I was already athletically built, but in my early 50's now, so time is not on my side. Body fat ( what body fat?) still went from 13 (low) to 8. (ripped old guy now lol). Average for male my age is around 19-22 % body fat. This part was not my intention, it just happened.

What I do when I feel like something sweet is I eat something that has carbs or sugar but still is healthy, like fruit or just plain cooked rice or something. Eating sweet things might be okay, but candy probably isn't the best option.

Candy and sugary things, cheese, and fatty fried foods are things I feel like interfere with my immune system, so I try to avoid at all costs (though sometimes I do eat chicken fried in a pan). I've heard that most kinds of chocolate have heavy metals in them-if you do your research on the ingredients in candy, you might not want to eat it anymore.

One thing about allergies is that a lot of them change over time. Somehow in the past couple years I developed a horrible allergy to blue dye, and it didn't even shown up on my test results from 8 years ago

I have too much energy now sometimes too. The healthier I eat, the worse it gets..

I started my problems with an allergic reaction 5 years ago and had to carry an EpiPen and avoid some foods.
Later I got a lot of stomach problems and had to avoid fodmaps.

Avoiding fodmaps helped a lot and earlier this year I decreased sugar and removed grains and started eating a cooked meal 3 times a day and way more vegetables. Feel a lot better after that.
I eat some more sugar on weekends now and drink some red wine.

I think eating well and as much organic as possible is very important.
My girlfriend with cfs/me have been eating autoimmune paleo for 2 years and have been testing carnivore now for almost 4 weeks.
I guess that have made it easier for me to eat more strict.

You can make up for a worse diet by doing better at sleep, stress etc but I still think having a very good diet most of the days is very important.

Its going up and down for her. A bit less stomach pain but she has days where she is feeling very bad. Her body seems to release a lot of toxins so she likely feels a lot worse from that. Wouldn't be surprised if she also have lyme.

I hope its a short term diet as its a bit boring to so different food.

Paleo with some cheat meals is what Im aiming for in the future.

I think overdosing on one food can help get rid of a craving but mine always come back. Every two weeks I have a day where I just binge on nuts (still healthy since I can't have any fun food). I always look forward to it though, and have yet to get tired of them, but I guess there are worse things.

Dude I have read Matt Stone's work and don't really agree with it. I think the best diet recovery is just eating as you please within reason. He seems to have a set minimum calorie intake from what I recall and advocates sugar. I read his forums a long time ago.

The Dude Abides said...

Personally, I'm not a fan of diets or restriction. People only have a finite amount of willpower and the body always gets what it wants. The question is: Why does it want certain things?

But .....we all should be fans of leaving out foods that create cytokine release. Can hurt to try. Inflammation is everything. Anyone with food addictions should not ignore it, get help, as we live only once.

Outa site ....out a mind , I don't buy it in the first place. But since live alone, this is easier than with others. If I had a family, I'd get them somewhat on board too - at least at home.

In some ways I look at my diet as a science experiment, but in this case no ones paying me and I'm the subject matter.

One of the satisfying aspects in improving a "non-standard" health condition besides feeling the gains is something thats also provable by lab results when conventional medicine believes its impossible.

That said, there is a time and place for it, easing into it, doing the homework and learning at the same time is best.

I believe anyone can have will power if the desire or a reachable goal is there. I'm living proof. Other things in life have taught me this in the past.

Post Edited (astroman) : 11/15/2018 7:48:20 PM (GMT-7)