Sorry for the delay - exams and all the celebrating that came after dragged me away from blogging, but I'm back!
As some of you who follow me on Twitter might know, I suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, and despite the steroids and hydrocholorquine I've been put on to ease the pain, nothing is really working. I'm beginning to get to the end of my tether, so decided that the only logical next step was to examine my diet. In general I eat very healthily - lots of fruit, veg, only wholegrain and wholewheat carbs, and no dairy. As I begun to do some research, however, I read many testimonials about how the 'Paleolithic' diet had greatly helped a lot of arthritis sufferers. The idea behind the Paleo diet is to eat as our caveman ancestors would have - only meat, fish, fruit, veg and nuts & seeds. The idea is that our digestive systems cannot handle a lot of the grains, carbs and dairy that we eat nowadays. This inability to properly digest these foods can illicit an inflammatory reaction in the body as our immune and digestive systems struggle to digest these items. Or at least that is the basic version that I understood and am trying to convey to you (you can google the real science behind it).
I decided that it was worth a shot, and for the past 2 weeks I have been living a virtuous paleo lifestyle. And you know something? After such a short time I think it's already working. My knees have definitely ached a lot less, and the swelling has been significantly reduced. This supports the view of certain health experts who claim that a lot of us have mild lactose and gluten intolerances, which causes myriad health problems, but we ignore it as it doesn't make us 'sick' as such, instead looking for another cause of our ailments. I'm not saying that following this diet has been easy - I missed carbs a ridiculous amount, and I realised just how much I ate on a daily basis! To give you an idea, here's an example of the changes that occurred to my diet:
Before Paleo
Breakfast - Apple, kiwi, bowl of cereal
Lunch - Sandwich and salad
Afternoon snack - Rye cracker and yoghurt
Dinner - Brown rice/pasta with meat and veg
During Paleo
Breakfast - Apple, kiwi, scrambled eggs and smoked salmon
Lunch - Salad and grilled chicken
Afternoon snack - Yoghurt with fruit and nuts
Dinner - Meat and veg
As you can see, before paleo all my meals contained carbs of some kind, whereas during the diet it was mainly fruit, veg and protein. It's now week 3, and having already got bored of so much veg and fruit (typical 20-something-year-old), I'm trying a different tactic - eating gluten and wheat-free carbs. They are a lot lighter and easy to digest, and I've even found wheat, gluten, egg and dairy free pasta, which is amazing! I know that I should have enough willpower to stick to the paleo diet if it's helping, but if even gluten and wheat-free carbs affect my joints then I will certainly go back onto it. I'm going back to California in 2 weeks for a month and I don't think I'll be able to stick to my paleo diet out there, so it will be interesting to see how going back to carbs will affect my arthritis. It will be good to have the two experiences to compare - paleo and post-paleo! It would be a massive lifestyle change to decide to be forever without carbs, but if it truly turns out to work, it's much better than relying on medication for the rest of my life when I'm still only in my 20s.
I hope you found this interesting, and if you're suffering from arthritis, or are simply interested in the Paleo diet, I urge you to do some research and there is a ton of information out there for you to read and consider. I will of course keep you informed on how my various eating plans are going, and if they're helping me at all! Expect a blog entry from California too, of course :)
Nati xXx
No comments:
Post a Comment