I have been following a pretty strictly regimented Paleo diet since March 24th. I had to get back on track... I had been so far off my path and not only was I breaking out regularly, I had one persistent and painful one under my right breast.
Now it is June 1 - 10 weeks - and two days ago I felt the beginnings of 6 new breakouts... two of which came to fruition yesterday and one that I woke up with today!
I am not sure what exactly to pin these on: I eat pretty much the same things day in, day out... because of the royal pain in the ass it is to cook for just one person, I cook about once a month - in bulk and I eat that throughout the month. That's lunch usually and sometimes dinner too. When I do cook dinner I usually cook enough for at least 2 to 3 meals... and I tend toward the same foods.
A Paleo diet should have diversity - actually, every diet should have diversity in the foods you eat because of the nutritional values of different foods. But my taste buds beg to differ! I like many things that I just can't eat because the Paleo diet doesn't support them or because my HS doesn't support them... and so I'm relegated to what I can buy that I know I like.
So my diet basically consists of: 3 eggs over easy with broccoli and either an avocado or a sweet potato for breakfast; a banana or berries with coconut milk cream for a morning snack (if I have one); baked chicken and broccoli or cauliflower for lunch - sometimes with a kale based salad; taco meat made with a mix of grass-fed beef and ground turkey on top of a kale or spinach based salad with homemade mayo.
I sometimes have sweet peppers (nightshade, I know) - damn! come to think of it I had sweet peppers in my chicken salad for dinner last night. I wonder if that is the reason for the big bruiser (not that big) on my left thigh this morning?
But, if so, what is the cause of the two I had yesterday? I haven't had a sweet pepper in a while.
I do keep a record of my menses. I started doing this when I realized I was peri-menopausal and I wanted to keep track of when I was and wasn't getting my period. I use an App called WomanLog. I like it well enough. Since I'm not worried about pregnancy and I just use it as a tracker for my symptoms and actual period start and duration, I just use the free version. I was entering symptoms yesterday (mild cramps and back pain plus libido lift!) when I realized I was in my "normal" cycle. I wonder how many of the three active sites I have right now are based on my hormones?
On Friday I had a cup of gluten-free creamy clam chowder. Yes, that is dairy and white potatoes. I just realized this morning that any part of that could be the culprit here too. On Friday I also bought a cashew butter from Aldi's that has sugar and oil in it... and a processed stevia with dextrose... even though it is organic, I wonder...
It is so hard when you have a breakout to find the true culprit. If you're anything like me, when you slip, you don't just do one thing, you do multiple "things" outside of your normal eating pattern. Now I have to go another 4-6 weeks CLEAN before I can try to truthfully introduce any one food back in and know that it is or isn't a trigger.
This is hard!
Sunday, June 1, 2014
Monday, February 3, 2014
Probiotics - pros and cons
After finishing Tara's book, The Hidden Plague, I immediately ordered probiotics because my brain finally made the connection (okay, with the push from Tara) that besides helping to heal my leaky gut, I had also removed the healthy (good) gut bacteria in my digestive system by taking antibiotics for close to 18 months straight.
Tara suggests that Saccharomyces boulardii is a good probiotic strain to take so that's what I bought. I got two bottles of 50 vegetarian capsules, NutriCology brand. The suggested use on this packaging is 1-3 capsules three times daily, preferably on an empty stomach, or as directed by a healthcare practitioner. These need to be refrigerated too, so since I work I could only take them before breakfast and before dinner.
I started taking these and almost from day one I found that my hunger was reduced significantly. After taking 3 of these pills while I was getting ready to leave for work I started finding myself not even hungry for breakfast. A couple of days I even did skip breakfast because I just couldn't muster up enough hunger to eat anything.
I couldn't take the pills before dinner because I couldn't swear that it was on an empty stomach because I still felt full from lunch... so I decided that I would only take them in the morning.
In a few days I started noticing that I had heartburn when I laid down in bed - this even persisted through until the morning. Imagine waking up with heartburn! Ick!
At this point I decided to change my probiotic. I started taking Ultimate Flora - the directions on this product says to take 1 pill daily preferably with a small meal. This is made from 10 strains of healthy bacteria - unfortunately it doesn't include the S. boulardii which Tara specifically mentions in her book. Since I have a bottle of the S. boulardii still in the fridge I am taking 3 of those before I leave the house in the morning (empty stomach) and then I take the 1 pill of the Ultimate Flora when I have breakfast at work.
Positive side: no more heartburn! I'm not exactly sure what was causing it - especially since I've only had heartburn about 10 times total in my almost 50 years of living. I know that specialists and "doctors" will say that just being overweight is an indicator for heartburn but if I'm proof, they're full of it!
Negative side: MONEY. These things are not cheap! The 50 caps of S. boulardii was almost $18 and the 60 caps of the Ultimate Flora was almost $34. I will not buy anymore of the S. boulardii because I can't afford them at 16 servings for $18!
The bottom line is that a healthy gut is the first step in healing your skin and your overall health so get on a regimen with a probiotic that works for you. A few months solid probiotics should help considerably and check with your healthcare provider to see how long you should continue.
UPDATE: 6/1/14 - I know it is months and months later now, but I neglected to come back and update this. After a few short days of taking the Ultimate Flora I started having heartburn again. Because I was still taking the S. boulardii I believed those to be the culprit and cut those out. Still heartburn. This was crazy. Went to the health food store again, bought another brand, same result. After a few days the heartburn persisted. Once I stopped it was about 4 days before the heartburn was relieved. That is just crazy!
Tara suggests that Saccharomyces boulardii is a good probiotic strain to take so that's what I bought. I got two bottles of 50 vegetarian capsules, NutriCology brand. The suggested use on this packaging is 1-3 capsules three times daily, preferably on an empty stomach, or as directed by a healthcare practitioner. These need to be refrigerated too, so since I work I could only take them before breakfast and before dinner.
I started taking these and almost from day one I found that my hunger was reduced significantly. After taking 3 of these pills while I was getting ready to leave for work I started finding myself not even hungry for breakfast. A couple of days I even did skip breakfast because I just couldn't muster up enough hunger to eat anything.
I couldn't take the pills before dinner because I couldn't swear that it was on an empty stomach because I still felt full from lunch... so I decided that I would only take them in the morning.
In a few days I started noticing that I had heartburn when I laid down in bed - this even persisted through until the morning. Imagine waking up with heartburn! Ick!
At this point I decided to change my probiotic. I started taking Ultimate Flora - the directions on this product says to take 1 pill daily preferably with a small meal. This is made from 10 strains of healthy bacteria - unfortunately it doesn't include the S. boulardii which Tara specifically mentions in her book. Since I have a bottle of the S. boulardii still in the fridge I am taking 3 of those before I leave the house in the morning (empty stomach) and then I take the 1 pill of the Ultimate Flora when I have breakfast at work.
Positive side: no more heartburn! I'm not exactly sure what was causing it - especially since I've only had heartburn about 10 times total in my almost 50 years of living. I know that specialists and "doctors" will say that just being overweight is an indicator for heartburn but if I'm proof, they're full of it!
Negative side: MONEY. These things are not cheap! The 50 caps of S. boulardii was almost $18 and the 60 caps of the Ultimate Flora was almost $34. I will not buy anymore of the S. boulardii because I can't afford them at 16 servings for $18!
The bottom line is that a healthy gut is the first step in healing your skin and your overall health so get on a regimen with a probiotic that works for you. A few months solid probiotics should help considerably and check with your healthcare provider to see how long you should continue.
UPDATE: 6/1/14 - I know it is months and months later now, but I neglected to come back and update this. After a few short days of taking the Ultimate Flora I started having heartburn again. Because I was still taking the S. boulardii I believed those to be the culprit and cut those out. Still heartburn. This was crazy. Went to the health food store again, bought another brand, same result. After a few days the heartburn persisted. Once I stopped it was about 4 days before the heartburn was relieved. That is just crazy!
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