This past week a tik tok we posted went viral bringing 8,000 new people to our tik tok account. I had made a video about what I eat in a day to heal my Autoimmune diseases and I thought now would be a perfect time to explain why I landed on a paleo diet to heal my Autoimmune diseases.
I started with the Autoimmune Protocol diet (AIP) at the beginning of my Autoimmune disease healing journey. If you’re not familiar, the AIP diet is an elimination diet that can help reveal hidden food sensitivities, aid in healing leaky gut, and reduce inflammation. It’s a short-term diet to ultimately see what foods work with your body and which foods don’t.
After completing the AIP diet I already knew I wanted to try a Paleo diet. I grew up with my mom eating Paleo for the majority of my childhood and I was very familiar with everything Paleo. Both diets are actually pretty similar besides the elimination phases you do on AIP. Let’s look at what exactly the Paleo diet is, what foods are included on the diet, and what foods are excluded.
What is the Paleo diet?
The paleo diet is based on foods people ate during the Paleolithic era. The diet consists of meat, fish, fruits, and vegetables. You may have also heard the paleo diet referred to as the stone age diet, caveman diet, or hunter-gatherer diet.
So what foods can you eat on the paleo diet and what foods are you supposed to avoid?
The paleo diet includes:
Grass-fed meat: beef, chicken, pork, bacon, turkey
Vegetables: broccoli, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, carrots, peppers, brussel sprouts, zucchini, spinach, cabbage, asparagus, kale, etc.
Fruits: citrus fruits, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, grapes, apples, plums, bananas, peaches, melons
Fish/ seafood (Choose wild caught): salmon, tuna, cod, trout, shellfish
Eggs: organic cage-free eggs
Nuts: almonds, cashews, walnuts, pistachios, pecans, pine nuts, brazil nuts, macadamia nuts, hazelnuts, pumpkin seeds
Unprocessed fats and oils: avocado oil, flaxseed oil, olive oil, coconut oil, macadamia oil, and tahini
Seeds: chia, flax, pumpkin, sunflower
The Paleo diet excludes:
- Processed foods
- Refined sugars
- Refined vegetable oils: sunflower oil, grapeseed oil, soybean oil, canola oil, safflower oil
- Artificial sweeteners and sugars: soda, candy, juices, etc.
- Legumes: peanuts, lentils, tofu, beans, soy
- Grains: rice, pasta, wheat, cereal, barley, beer, oats, bread, rye, as well as similar grains
Foods sometimes ok on Paleo:
There is a lot of debate on dairy, high-sugar fruits, starchy vegetables( potatoes, beets, squash), and alcohol in the paleo community. Many argue all are ok in moderation and personally, I agree. I don’t eat potatoes unless I am having a cheat meal but as for dairy and the other starchy vegetables (squash and beets) I will occasionally incorporate both into my diet and that is what works for me! But keyword occasionally I don’t normally have any straight-up dairy. I will use grass-fed butter when cooking but dairy yogurt or a glass of kefir are few and far between in my diet. I tend to stick to coconut, almond, and cashew non-dairy alternatives. Like Cashew milk or coconut yogurt!
Why did I choose a paleo diet?
I wanted to focus on completely healing my leaky gut. Which I got a jumpstart with on the AIP diet. Check out our post on healing leaky gut to learn more about it. But after a little research, I went down a wormhole about the ecology of inflammation. Many researchers believe hunter-gathers that lived a traditional life did not have Autoimmune diseases.1 Bringing the role of diet and lifestyle into question for autoimmunity due to the dramatic increase in chronic conditions over the past decades. Which solidified my decision in choosing a paleo diet approach to healing my Autoimmune diseases.
Ultimately the paleo diet has made me physically healthier, stronger, and happier than I have ever been. It also fits in with my lifestyle needs the best. I think growing up around the paleo diet may have a role in why I wanted to try it initially but the benefits and research to back it are what made me stay.
Changing my diet was a piece of the puzzle of healing my autoimmune diseases. The top two triggers that control if I live a symptom-free life are diet and managing my emotions. Check out the post linked at the bottom of the article for more information on that.
Benefits I have noticed from paleo:
Since starting a paleo diet along with learning to healthily manage my emotions I have lived a symptom-free life. For example, symptoms that no longer rule my day-to-day life are:
- Raynauds
- Chronic Fatigue
- Dizziness
- Hot hands(burning, red hands)
- Hot knees (burning hot spots on my knees)
- Joint pain
- Back pain
- Brain fog
- Weakness
- Stomach pain
Benefits from paleo I notice day to day:
- Surplus of energy
- Pain-free life
- I no longer have stomach issues
- Reduced period pain to almost none ( extremely bearable periods now)
- No more bloating
- I haven’t experienced constipation
- Easily put on muscle
The results of changing to a paleo diet among other lifestyle changes have truly given me my life back. I was so young when I was first diagnosed. My life went from normal teenage issues like worrying if I would get asked to prom to not being able to get off the couch, open a water bottle by myself, or do any independent activity without my mom’s help. My health had regressed so quickly that my mom bought me a cane. Now I am healthier than I ever have been and I’ve been able to get into weight lifting, outdoor activities, etc.
Again diet is a piece of the puzzle for my healing. I could eat healthy, anti-inflammatory, whole foods and not manage my emotions and be just as sick as before. For me managing emotions and diet are just as equally important and they control the state of my health equally. I learned that the hard way. It has taken years of trial, error, and loads of research to learn what helps and heals my body.
Check the links at the bottom of the blog post for some of our other Autoimmune-related posts! If you’re from tik tok leave a comment letting us know and welcome to the family!
Blog post to check out:
“How to narrow down the root cause of your Autoimmune disease”
“Why I took a functional medicine approach to healing my Autoimmune diseases”
- T.W. McDade, Early environments and the ecology of inflammation., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. (2012) 17281–8. doi:10.1073/pnas.1202244109.
- Leech, Bradley & McEwen, Bradley & Sekyere, Eric. (2020). Diet, Digestive Health, and Autoimmunity: The Foundations to an Autoimmune Disease Food Pyramid—Part 1. Alternative and Complementary Therapies. 26. 112-118. 10.1089/act.2020.29278.ble.
- Karen H. Costenbader, Steffen Gay, Marta E. Alarcón-Riquelme, Luca Iaccarino, Andrea Doria, Genes, epigenetic regulation and environmental factors: Which is the most relevant in developing autoimmune diseases?, Autoimmunity Reviews, Volume 11, Issue 8, 2012, Pages 604-609, ISSN 1568-9972, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autrev.2011.10.022.
