#Primal Okra

[code-gr3y]

Sketches

[beatasticband]

I was tagged by @artificial-courage-used

1. What color is your hairbrush? I dont have one, I have a comb, it’s pale blue

2. Name a food you never eat: okra is the worst thing I’ve ever had

3. Are you typically too warm or too cold? too cold

4. What were you doing 45 minutes ago? making breakfast

5. What’s your favorite candy bar? Lion maybe?

6. Have you ever been to a professional sports game? yes, twice, I saw Brighton-Coventry at the old stadium, it was dreadful and felt so unprofessional and last year I saw PSG-Reims and that was quite impressive but ultimately it felt really vapid and bling. Not my thing at all. Lots of people taking selfies instead of watching the match.

7. What’s the last thing you said out loud? okay

8. What’s your favorite ice cream? I think the best one I ever had fig on L’Ile De Re.

9. What was the last thing you had to drink? coffee

10. Do you like your wallet? my only criteria is that it fits in my pocket

11. What���s the last thing you ate? breakfast

12. Did you buy any new clothes last week? No, I rarely buy new anything

13. What’s the last sporting event you watched? I watched a bit of an FA cup game the other day, not out of interest but because I think I was waiting for something else

14. What is your favorite flavor of popcorn? I hate popcorn. Also it should be banned in cinemas as well as any other food because all you hear is rustling , slurping and crunching

15. Who’s the last person you sent a text to? I’ve probably texted about 5 times in my life =‘]  I just checked it was Shauna the PR person for Ride, Spiritualized, Primal Scream , Jesus and Mary Chain etc...

16. Ever go camping? not in ages, I only did it because I couldn’t afford to rent a place years ago.

17. Do you take vitamins? no

18. Do you go to church every Sunday? no, my mum made me go once a month as a child

19. Do you have a tan? yes, I tan easily

20. Do you prefer Chinese or pizza? Chinese

21. Do you drink soda through a straw? I prefer not to

22. What color socks do you usually wear? black, I only have black socks , I might have a few dark blue ones

23. Do you ever drive above the speed limit? yes, but within reason and in safe places

24. What terrifies you? long term illnesses

25. Look to your left, what do you see? wall mounted cd holders, 4 rows of it and a radiator

26. What chore do you hate most?  the pointless ones, like drying the dishes, they can dry themselves!

27. What do you think of when you hear an Australian accent? sports

28. What’s your favorite soda? you can’t find it here anymore , mojito 7UP

29. Do you go in fast food places or just hit the drive thru? neither , fast food doesn’t agree with me

30. What’s your favorite number? I don’t have one

31. Who’s the last person you talked to? My mom

32. Favorite cut of beef? I don’t know the names in english

33. Last song you listened to? something from the new Haim

34. Last book you read? I started a book before the end of the world and haven’t had time to read it since, It’s about the making of Dark Side Of The Moon

35. Favorite day of the week?saturday

36. Can you say the alphabet backwards? Not swiftly

37. How do you like your coffee? black with sugar

38. Favorite pair of shoes? my austrian army boots

39. Time you normally get up? atm 8h30, when it’s not the zombie apocalypse 6h30

40. Sunrise or sunsets? Sunsets 🧡

41. How many blankets are on your bed? I’ve had a duvet since the age of about 8

42. Describe your kitchen plates? they’re a mishmash tbh

43. Describe your kitchen at the moment? fairly clean

44. Do you have a favorite alcoholic drink? yeah, but I can’t find it anymore it was called Fire Eater

45. Do you play cards? not really

46. What color is your car? black

47. Can you change a tire? yes

48. Your favorite state/province/county etc? In America? I’ve only been to Tennessee.

49. Favorite job you’ve had? working in a school used to be pretty cool, it’s changed a lot for the worse

50. How did you get your biggest scar? when I was 4 my mum was about to wash me at the sink, I was standing on a stool, she went to get something and I decided to start myself,I slipped and cracked my head on the radiator

I tag: @louder-than-love @thedarkchimera @winterdryad @betterinthe90s @runnin-with-the--devil @alyzredbrocadeinnowhere @lafemmedemon @slpstxh @justmakesuresheeatsthemouse @macabremusings @poisoned-calla @productovhate

[judedeluca]

Now we have Rei in her most primal form. Rei, who we all know dreams of an INTERNATIONAL LIFE OF SUCCESS and sees this as her chance to have the wedding of her dreams. Don’t have a fiance? WHO GIVES A SHIT IT’S AN ALL EXPENSES PAID RECEPTION.

But it’s not JUST the glamour of it, it’s the cost. This is FREE. As in, think of how much money Rei can save by not having to worry about this. Rei, who we all know is a notorious skinflint whose favorite food is 99 cent microwavable crap or stuff like “Here! Curry.” This is literally everything Rei’s ever wanted in a wedding and it’s her’s for the taking. This is like Christmas.

Yet why is it Rei loves this is free? Because we know her politician father is a complete bastard and Rei dreads ever having to ask him for anything. Think of what Rei can get out of screwing with her father’s expectations by going “SEE? SEE HOW MUCH I’VE NEVER NEEDED YOU? SEE THIS LAVISH, ALL-EXPENSES PAID WEDDING RECEPTION? SEE HOW I GOT IT ALL WITHOUT YOU, DADDY?” This is quite possible the ultimate chance to tell her dad to go suck himself off atop his piles of money she does not want or need, now or ever.

(As an aside, I keep imagining Rei getting caught in some “Graduate” type marriage deal only to be rescued by Usagi showing up at the church screaming “REI-CHANNNNN!” and the two running off in Haruka and Michiru’s convertible while Ami, Mako and Mina hold off the congregation)

In Memory of Tony McDade: https://www.gofundme.com/f/in-memory-of-tony-mcdade

Homeless Black Trans Women Fund: https://www.gofundme.com/f/homeless-black-trans-women-fund

The Okra Project: https://www.theokraproject.com/

Black Trans Travel Fund: https://www.blacktranstravelfund.com/donate

Trans Women of Color Survival Fund: https://www.twocc.us/donate/

You can find more links here: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7wnbb/tony-mcdade-nina-pop-how-to-help

And there’s still the Split Bail Fund: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/bailfunds

And Black Lives Matter: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ms_blm_homepage_2019

[plastiquefruit]

You're my body goals! I was wondering where to kinda start if I wanted to loose about 20-30 lbs?

Oh geeze. Okay, buckle up. I have intense opinions about this.

1. Start Small, but more importantly start something

A giant roadblock is analysis paralysis. There are THOUSANDS of websites and blog posts and books and viewpoints and about 85% of that is absolute bull designed to sell you something or so advanced and specific to be absolutely unhelpful if you’re just starting out.

So keep it simple, pick one thing and build off of that. Replace a high calorie snack with veggies(fresh or frozen, I eat a lot of frozen veggies, and pickles). Start doing more physical activity: Download a podcast and go for a walk, do youtube yoga, commit to building up your pushup skill.

Choose ONE thing and do it. Once you’re comfortable with that, choose something else. Maybe start jogging or keeping a food journal. Find a Youtube workout that’s a little more difficult. Go from Knee-push-ups to plank push ups.

Build on your choices. Reinforce your habits. And this next bit is probably the most important thing I will say:

2. BE KIND TO YOURSELF

Seriously, this was a turning point for me. You’re not gonna be perfect. AND THAT IS OKAY. You will miss a workout. You will eat an entire cake. You will get sick. Forgive yourself and move on. If you are focusing on your mistakes, you lose sight of what you’ve accomplished and what lies ahead. There’s a delicate balance to be struck here, because you also need to Hold yourself accountable. This isn’t forgive and forget, it’s forgive and remember.

You’re building mental signposts, signals, and warnings. Each time you fall, you learn a little bit more.

3. You are your only metric.

I’m HELLA guilty of violating this tenet. It’s easy to look online and measure yourself against what you see there, but you have no idea that person’s history. A person who has been athletically active since high school is always gonna have an advantage. Even if they “let themselves go” it’s always going to be easier to get back muscle and ability than it is to start from scratch.

I didn’t start working out til after college. I never participated in sports, and while I love musical theater, The only thing i got from that was a strong set of vocal cords.

but here’s the thing: Working out was MY CHOICE. I was (am) only competing against myself and my own expectations. I can look at others’ experiences, but my method is always going to be unique to me. It has to be.

So now I’m gonna get more specific.

Nutrition

No matter what, To lose weight you must be in a caloric deficit.

However, there are a billion ways to go about this. Such as:

Counting calories

Tracking Macros

Going Paleo/primal

Going Keto

Keeping your diet the same but exercising a lot more.

Now there’s a fitness adage: You can’t outrun a bad diet - This is actually incorrect. You can, it’s just hard.

But a good way to start is keeping a food journal. Not even calories. Just for a week, write down what you eat for meals, snacks, tea-times, elevensies. And write down EVERYTHING. There is no “it’s just a small cookie”

The point here is to be aware of what and when you’re eating. I’m a snacker and a grazer. I am quite literally the endless hunger (and one day i will devour the world). So if I’m not aware of what I’m eating it’s super easy to overeat. I get around that by eating a lot of frozen vegetables. They are inexpensive and mostly fiber. Also pickles.

Oh and when it comes to vegetables, I mostly stick to Broccoli, Cauliflower, Okra, Brussels Sprouts- Basically green(or white in cauliflower’s case) and fiberous. these veggies are what I consider “free”, meaning they don’t count toward my macros for the day. Also Lettuce and cucumbers(PICKLES) cause frankly they’re Basically water in solid form.

I consider potatoes(any type) a starch. Corn is a grain. Carrots are also a starch, though a lesser one. Tomatoes.. basically if it has sweetness, I count it as a carb. Pizza does not count as a vegetable, even in my wildest fantasy.

Here’s the thing, you gotta find the Nutritional choice that will work for your body and your situation. If that’s paleo, great, do that. If it’s weight watchers, awesome, do that. if it’s plant based/keto/FODMAP, fantastic, do it.

Don’t listen to anyone that tells you: _BLAHBLAH_ DIET IS THE ONLY WAY TO LOSE WEIGHT AND BE HEALTHY. It’s not true. Not everyone’s ancestor ate the same diet. Some people can have dairy just fine. Some people need to avoid cruciferous vegetables. some people are allergic to soy. Some people refuse to eat tofu (i.e. me).

And that’s not even Looking at the outside factors that might be affecting your nutrition: Food availability, Financial capability, chronic illnesses and mental Health. So I repeat: Find the Nutritional choice that will work for your body and your situation.

Exercise and Working Out - Have a goal/s

I started out with in home body weight exercises and running(couch to 5k). This was mainly because I could do it alone, and not have to worry about being the Fat Guy at the gym.

FYI, the only people who will give you grief at the gym are assholes in general. Most of us are just trying to get through the workout, just like you.

But i had goals. Run a 5k without stopping (except for crosswalks, i ain’t being so foolish as think i would win against a car). Learn How to do a proper push-up. And I built up from there. I wanted to be more flexible, so I started yoga. Took me a while to find a style and instructor I liked, but once i did, it clicked.

The advice for exercising is pretty much the same as for Nutrition: Find what works for you. The best training is the training you will do.

WILL not can. I can do a bunch of things. I only want to do some of them.

I may have put too much into this.

TL;DR Start Small, Be Kind, Do what works for you. Weight loss only occurs in a caloric deficit. Fuck anyone who tells you their way is the only way.

[eatcleancookclean]

Shrimp & Okra Gumbo . . #monday #dinner #october #autumn #inspiration #motivation #fitlife #paleo #primal #cleaneating #mealprep #exercise #run #hike #travel #lifecoach #fitness #yoga #strength #keto #lchf #healthychoices #colorado #inspired #success #believeinyourself #goals #youcandoit

[vervepreserver-blog]

Goodness Gracious Great Bawls of Guinea Hawgs | FREE access to today's full video, pics, links and other resources--tap the link in my profile (or use the link below): https://www.patreon.com/posts/24817388 @livinlowcarbman - let me know if your travels bring y'all to WNC - I have some fatback with your name on it! Pennies a day, keep the standard-of-care doctor away - search for me on Patreon @carnivorewithcondiments and #healthingyourself @joecohensh #carnivorediet #yes2meat #keto #paleo #ketodiet #lowcarb #lchf #lchp #menopause #primal #antiinflammatory #apoe4 #glutenfree #cbd #diabetes #alzheimers #carnivore #rootcausemedicine #meatheals #autoimmunedisease #ibs #celiac #crohnsdisease #carnivoreketo #pasturedpork #americanguineahog #sausageballs #okra #perennialvegetables https://www.instagram.com/p/BuMa9nzgSgs/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1yeggc50v6v4

[zeondax]

Beef Shank Coconut Stew with Bone Broth, Thai Chilies, Turnips, Green Curry Paste, Cabbage, Yellow Squash, Okra, Red Peppers, Black Fungus and Green Onions #healthychoices #keto #lchf #paleo #primal #glutenfree #lowcarblife (at Rochester, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtMuD4YHt8I/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=wredskuc1p5b

[ohsnapletseat]

I forgot @wholefoods was an option for lunch! Glad I randomly remembered! 😋 #lunch #wholefoods #paleo #realfood #eat #eatreal #eatclean #cleaneating #primal #eatpaleo #eatprimal #okra #brusselsprouts #turkey #chicken #greenbeans #butternutsquash #zucchini #cauliflower #food #foodie #foodporn #curry #gravy #yum #yummy #delish #delicious #jerkchicken #bbq (at Whole Foods Market) https://www.instagram.com/p/BrS-vhugnPr/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1lchworb2vrsu

[ecoliving101]

OKRA - HARVESTING SEEDS #okra #superfood #harvest #organic #permaculture #seeds #wellnesscoach #primalhealthcoach in training #nutritioncoach #healthcoach #growyourown #obtainayield #timfarriss #joerogan #loveyourself #nutrition #noexcuses #mindbodyspirit #primal #keto #paleo #wholefoods #knowyourfood #travelphotography #travel #mytinyatlas #womenwhofarm #edibles #realtor #foodporn

[twinkletoeslow]

We ate dinner on the porch cuz it’s officially too cold for mosquitoes. Steak 🥩 roasted okra and a salad. Kombucha in my coffee cup, and my honey by my side. It was a good night. #dinnerfortwo #mymancooks #keto #paleo #whole30 #primal #justgoodfuckingfood #cleaneating #homemadealwaystastesbetter https://www.instagram.com/p/BoQMs82HBkZ/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=ve2wz6um5ksw

[musclesandveggies-blog1]

Garden fried Okra, Cesar Ground beef, and Boiled Celery root with Butter. TIP FOR THE DAY: I tell my clients all the time "Your never more than 1 meal away from being back on track". Not feeling good makes me grab more junk that keeps me stuck in the cycle of not feeling good. STOP the cycle, eat some real food! That's what I have to do when I derail! 😝😂🍠🍳🥑🥩🙌🏋️‍♂️💣💥 #whole30 #wholefoods #nutrition>diet #nutrientdensity #Nourishyourself #nutritionbased #nutritionnotdiet #realfood #organicfood #gardentoplate #gardening #growandeat #nodiets #eatrealfood #earthsfood #primalpaleo #primal #primaldude #primalplate #primalfood (at Muscles and Veggies Fitness) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn4nLj0BHrb/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=ldljdlv24cm4

[watsonrodriquezie]

Is the Autoimmune Protocol Right For You?

If you think going Primal is restrictive, the autoimmune protocol is downright draconian. But this is by design. The entire point of an autoimmune Primal/paleo protocol is to eliminate all the foods with the potential to trigger any allergenic, autoimmune, or inflammatory responses. That leaves out a lot of delicious foods, many of your favorites—but it can be a powerful way to assess your sensitivities, target the root causes of mysterious health problems, and illuminate a path forward. It gets you back to square one. A fresh start, a wiped slate.

Okay, maybe not totally clean. This is biology we’re talking about. There are no clean slates. Vestiges of past consumption, behaviors, and decisions always remain and affect us into the future. Unless you clone yourself and rear the baby, you’ll always be left wondering “what might have been had I stayed pure…” But this protocol is about the cleanest you’re going to get.

After the elimination phase, after symptoms have improved, you enter the maintenance phase. You marinate in the diet. Allow it to seep into your pores, do its magic.

When everything has stabilized, you can try reintroducing foods. Go slowly. Do one at a time. A little nibble here, a teaspoon there. Allow two or three days before trying the next food. Note any symptoms.

What Do You Eliminate?

Here’s a complete list:

Grains

Legumes, such as beans, lentils and peanuts

Processed foods

Seed oils, such as vegetable and canola oil

Dairy products

Refined sugars

Eggs

Nuts and seeds

Herbs from seeds, like coriander, cumin and nutmeg

Coffee

Chocolate

Dried fruits

Food additives, like gums and emulsifiers

Nightshade vegetables, such as eggplant, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and okra.

Spices made from nightshades, like chili powder, paprika, cayenne, chipotle, red pepper.

Alternative sweeteners, like stevia, xylitol and mannitol

Alcohol

NSAIDs (not a food, but bad for your gut lining)

Much of the autoimmune protocol will sound familiar to you. Avoiding grains, legumes, seed oils, sugar, and processed stuff in general is easy. You already do that.

But then you start eliminating some other foods you assumed were innocuous, like, for example, dried fruits.

Dried fruits seems extreme—they’re fruits, after all—but who really needs to eat a bunch of apricots, prunes, and dates? They’re so high in sugar and add up real quick. No problem there.

Emulsifiers and gums? Sure, who needs ‘em. I can emulsify and thicken just fine with a trusty egg yolk.

Wait, what? No eggs? How am I going to do breakfast? I guess I’ll have to eat some paleo granola…

Oh, nuts and seeds are out too. Never mind.

That’s cool. I’ll just pour a little extra cream in my coffee.

Shoot. Dairy’s out, too. Black coffee it is!

Why are you making that face? Don’t even—I can’t have coffee, can I?

Hey, that’s fine. I’ve been meaning to get into tea. A big steaming mug of jasmine green tea will be just fine. I might even nibble on a square of dark chocolate while I’m at it. Antioxidant explosion, here I come!

Wait. Damnit. Chocolate is a legume, and legumes are out. No chocolate either.

Like I said, this isn’t easy. After eliminating all the potentially allergenic foods, you’re left with the basics:

Meat, fish, and poultry.

Fruits and vegetables, except for the nightshades.

Coconut.

Fruit oils (avocado, olive, coconut, palm) and animal fats.

Herbs.

Bone broth (or gelatin/collagen).

Tea.

Vinegar.

You’re removing foods with the potential to irritate the gut and increase inflammation. You’re focusing on “safe” foods that allow the gut to heal (and foods that actively increase gut health).

Why Is This Important?

Some leading autoimmune researchers have proposed that the primary cause of autoimmune pathogenesis is impaired intestinal permeability—or leaky gut. A leaky gut allows proteins, toxins, and other compounds into circulation that aren’t supposed to be there. The body mounts an immune response to the invaders. If the gut stays open, the inflammatory response stays elevated. And if the immune system gets its signals crossed and starts targeting your own tissues that resemble the invading particles, you have the beginnings of an autoimmune disease.

Who’s It For?

1. Folks with autoimmune diseases.

Until recently, the autoimmune protocol was based on biological plausibility, educated conjecture, and a convincing stream of anecdata. It hadn’t been demonstrated in a legitimate study. It did seem to work for many of the people trying it, but it hadn’t been demonstrated in a legitimate study. That changed in 2017 when a study found the autoimmune protocol to be effective against inflammatory bowel disease. 15 patients with either Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis were enrolled in the study. On average, the subjects had been ealing with their disease for 19 years. These were IBD lifers.

They spent 6 weeks phasing out all the foods, using Sarah Ballantyne’s great book on the autoimmune protocol as a guide. Experienced Primal eaters could probably phase out the foods more quickly, though the 6 week phase out might be an important part of the total effect.

They spent 5 weeks maintaining the protocol once everything was eliminated and symptoms had stabilized.

11 of 15 patients had total remission. They’d spent an average of 19 years having to map out the nearest toilets whenever they left the house, and all of a sudden they were basically normal. That’s huge. That’s better than any IBD drug.

There are limitations here. 15 subjects is quite low; I’d like to see ten times that many. There was no control group; this wasn’t a randomized trial (which the authors acknowledge). But it’s quite impressive and bodes well for other autoimmune conditions.

Although this was the only study to examine the entire autoimmune protocol, we know that specific foods play roles in certain autoimmune conditions. Gluten-containing grains are a major, perhaps the major offender, since gluten has the tendency to wrench open the tight junctions in our guts (leaky gut) and allow passage of food particles and endotoxins into our bodies where they can trigger inflammatory and autoimmune processes. Gluten-free diets have been shown to help with:

Autoimmune hepatitis.

Type 1 diabetes (an autoimmune disease).

Rheumatoid arthritis.

Multiple sclerosis.

Coffee has a perplexing relationship to autoimmune disease. For instance, it’s well-known to be protective against type 2 diabetes, but appears to increase the risk of autoimmune type 1 diabetes.

Legumes, other grains, seeds, and nuts are all potential triggers of further gut irritation. While I’ve softened my general stance on some of these foods in recent years, they remain problematic for people with avowed food sensitivities or autoimmune conditions.

2. Folks who suspect they have sensitivities to foods.

We eat a lot of food throughout the course of a given day or week. It’s hard to keep track. It’s impossible to keep track, unless you, well, keep track in an explicit manner. And many of us experience odd symptoms we suspect are linked to food—rashes, stuffy noses, itchiness, grogginess—but without the written logs we flail around in the dark. Maybe we’re lucky for awhile. Maybe we nix the right food. But if we don’t know what we’re doing, we’re just as likely to eat the wrong thing, or eliminate too many things.

The AIP lights our way. It provides a baseline. Eat the foods you know are non-reactive and avoid all the foods that have the potential to cause problems. Once the symptoms improve or go away, maintain the protocol for several weeks, then begin adding foods back in one at a time. When the symptoms return, match it with the food you’ve just reintroduced.

3. Curious folks.

As a reader of MDA, you are probably a nutrition geek. You enjoy needing out on dietary minutiae. You like experimenting on yourself. You’re curious about how certain foods interact with your health, and an autoimmune protocol can reveal that. It’s just good information to have, mostly.

Who Isn’t It For?

Most people. Most people don’t have an autoimmune disease and don’t need to go on an autoimmune protocol.

If you’re happy with your diet and how you respond to foods, don’t bother. It will only create unnecessary headaches. Recall that extended dairy restriction may even induce lactose intolerance. Some claim that you were always sensitive to dairy, that your body had learned to deaden you to the subjective experience of the damage being done. I say dairy is a healthy food if you can tolerate it. Inducing lactose intolerance isn’t in anyone’s best interest, if they can avoid it. 

If you’re the type to obsess over food, and you know your sensitivity is a psychological hang-up rather than a true autoimmune response, skip the protocol. It will only feed your obsession and leave you unable to think about anything else but your diet for the duration.

This isn’t for life (probably).

You can certainly eat well and enjoy what you eat on an autoimmune protocol. But the point is not to stay on the diet indefinitely. It’s to wield it as an effective tool, a broad brush that isolates all the likely suspects for questioning. Then you use the scalpel of inquiry to determine which foods—if any—are truly problematic. If you have to keep milk or peanuts or chocolate out forever, so be it. But make sure that’s what your n=1 data is actually saying.

The protocol isn’t a magic bullet. It isn’t a cure. Many other factors contribute to impaired gut health, chronic inflammation, and likely therefore autoimmunity, like poor sleep, stress, lack of exercise, poor relationships, nature deprivation, sun deprivation, and circadian dysregulation. You need to address those too. But diet is a big one, and it’s an obvious target with an established protocol.

Have you ever tried an autoimmune protocol? Are you going to try it after reading today’s post? I’d love to hear your experiences.

[cristinajourdanqp]

Is the Autoimmune Protocol Right For You?

If you think going Primal is restrictive, the autoimmune protocol is downright draconian. But this is by design. The entire point of an autoimmune Primal/paleo protocol is to eliminate all the foods with the potential to trigger any allergenic, autoimmune, or inflammatory responses. That leaves out a lot of delicious foods, many of your favorites—but it can be a powerful way to assess your sensitivities, target the root causes of mysterious health problems, and illuminate a path forward. It gets you back to square one. A fresh start, a wiped slate.

Okay, maybe not totally clean. This is biology we’re talking about. There are no clean slates. Vestiges of past consumption, behaviors, and decisions always remain and affect us into the future. Unless you clone yourself and rear the baby, you’ll always be left wondering “what might have been had I stayed pure…” But this protocol is about the cleanest you’re going to get.

After the elimination phase, after symptoms have improved, you enter the maintenance phase. You marinate in the diet. Allow it to seep into your pores, do its magic.

When everything has stabilized, you can try reintroducing foods. Go slowly. Do one at a time. A little nibble here, a teaspoon there. Allow two or three days before trying the next food. Note any symptoms.

What Do You Eliminate?

Here’s a complete list:

Grains

Legumes, such as beans, lentils and peanuts

Processed foods

Seed oils, such as vegetable and canola oil

Dairy products

Refined sugars

Eggs

Nuts and seeds

Herbs from seeds, like coriander, cumin and nutmeg

Coffee

Chocolate

Dried fruits

Food additives, like gums and emulsifiers

Nightshade vegetables, such as eggplant, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and okra.

Spices made from nightshades, like chili powder, paprika, cayenne, chipotle, red pepper.

Alternative sweeteners, like stevia, xylitol and mannitol

Alcohol

NSAIDs (not a food, but bad for your gut lining)

Much of the autoimmune protocol will sound familiar to you. Avoiding grains, legumes, seed oils, sugar, and processed stuff in general is easy. You already do that.

But then you start eliminating some other foods you assumed were innocuous, like, for example, dried fruits.

Dried fruits seems extreme—they’re fruits, after all—but who really needs to eat a bunch of apricots, prunes, and dates? They’re so high in sugar and add up real quick. No problem there.

Emulsifiers and gums? Sure, who needs ‘em. I can emulsify and thicken just fine with a trusty egg yolk.

Wait, what? No eggs? How am I going to do breakfast? I guess I’ll have to eat some paleo granola…

Oh, nuts and seeds are out too. Never mind.

That’s cool. I’ll just pour a little extra cream in my coffee.

Shoot. Dairy’s out, too. Black coffee it is!

Why are you making that face? Don’t even—I can’t have coffee, can I?

Hey, that’s fine. I’ve been meaning to get into tea. A big steaming mug of jasmine green tea will be just fine. I might even nibble on a square of dark chocolate while I’m at it. Antioxidant explosion, here I come!

Wait. Damnit. Chocolate is a legume, and legumes are out. No chocolate either.

Like I said, this isn’t easy. After eliminating all the potentially allergenic foods, you’re left with the basics:

Meat, fish, and poultry.

Fruits and vegetables, except for the nightshades.

Coconut.

Fruit oils (avocado, olive, coconut, palm) and animal fats.

Herbs.

Bone broth (or gelatin/collagen).

Tea.

Vinegar.

You’re removing foods with the potential to irritate the gut and increase inflammation. You’re focusing on “safe” foods that allow the gut to heal (and foods that actively increase gut health).

Why Is This Important?

Some leading autoimmune researchers have proposed that the primary cause of autoimmune pathogenesis is impaired intestinal permeability—or leaky gut. A leaky gut allows proteins, toxins, and other compounds into circulation that aren’t supposed to be there. The body mounts an immune response to the invaders. If the gut stays open, the inflammatory response stays elevated. And if the immune system gets its signals crossed and starts targeting your own tissues that resemble the invading particles, you have the beginnings of an autoimmune disease.

Who’s It For?

1. Folks with autoimmune diseases.

Until recently, the autoimmune protocol was based on biological plausibility, educated conjecture, and a convincing stream of anecdata. It hadn’t been demonstrated in a legitimate study. It did seem to work for many of the people trying it, but it hadn’t been demonstrated in a legitimate study. That changed in 2017 when a study found the autoimmune protocol to be effective against inflammatory bowel disease. 15 patients with either Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis were enrolled in the study. On average, the subjects had been ealing with their disease for 19 years. These were IBD lifers.

They spent 6 weeks phasing out all the foods, using Sarah Ballantyne’s great book on the autoimmune protocol as a guide. Experienced Primal eaters could probably phase out the foods more quickly, though the 6 week phase out might be an important part of the total effect.

They spent 5 weeks maintaining the protocol once everything was eliminated and symptoms had stabilized.

11 of 15 patients had total remission. They’d spent an average of 19 years having to map out the nearest toilets whenever they left the house, and all of a sudden they were basically normal. That’s huge. That’s better than any IBD drug.

There are limitations here. 15 subjects is quite low; I’d like to see ten times that many. There was no control group; this wasn’t a randomized trial (which the authors acknowledge). But it’s quite impressive and bodes well for other autoimmune conditions.

Although this was the only study to examine the entire autoimmune protocol, we know that specific foods play roles in certain autoimmune conditions. Gluten-containing grains are a major, perhaps the major offender, since gluten has the tendency to wrench open the tight junctions in our guts (leaky gut) and allow passage of food particles and endotoxins into our bodies where they can trigger inflammatory and autoimmune processes. Gluten-free diets have been shown to help with:

Autoimmune hepatitis.

Type 1 diabetes (an autoimmune disease).

Rheumatoid arthritis.

Multiple sclerosis.

Coffee has a perplexing relationship to autoimmune disease. For instance, it’s well-known to be protective against type 2 diabetes, but appears to increase the risk of autoimmune type 1 diabetes.

Legumes, other grains, seeds, and nuts are all potential triggers of further gut irritation. While I’ve softened my general stance on some of these foods in recent years, they remain problematic for people with avowed food sensitivities or autoimmune conditions.

2. Folks who suspect they have sensitivities to foods.

We eat a lot of food throughout the course of a given day or week. It’s hard to keep track. It’s impossible to keep track, unless you, well, keep track in an explicit manner. And many of us experience odd symptoms we suspect are linked to food—rashes, stuffy noses, itchiness, grogginess—but without the written logs we flail around in the dark. Maybe we’re lucky for awhile. Maybe we nix the right food. But if we don’t know what we’re doing, we’re just as likely to eat the wrong thing, or eliminate too many things.

The AIP lights our way. It provides a baseline. Eat the foods you know are non-reactive and avoid all the foods that have the potential to cause problems. Once the symptoms improve or go away, maintain the protocol for several weeks, then begin adding foods back in one at a time. When the symptoms return, match it with the food you’ve just reintroduced.

3. Curious folks.

As a reader of MDA, you are probably a nutrition geek. You enjoy needing out on dietary minutiae. You like experimenting on yourself. You’re curious about how certain foods interact with your health, and an autoimmune protocol can reveal that. It’s just good information to have, mostly.

Who Isn’t It For?

Most people. Most people don’t have an autoimmune disease and don’t need to go on an autoimmune protocol.

If you’re happy with your diet and how you respond to foods, don’t bother. It will only create unnecessary headaches. Recall that extended dairy restriction may even induce lactose intolerance. Some claim that you were always sensitive to dairy, that your body had learned to deaden you to the subjective experience of the damage being done. I say dairy is a healthy food if you can tolerate it. Inducing lactose intolerance isn’t in anyone’s best interest, if they can avoid it. 

If you’re the type to obsess over food, and you know your sensitivity is a psychological hang-up rather than a true autoimmune response, skip the protocol. It will only feed your obsession and leave you unable to think about anything else but your diet for the duration.

This isn’t for life (probably).

You can certainly eat well and enjoy what you eat on an autoimmune protocol. But the point is not to stay on the diet indefinitely. It’s to wield it as an effective tool, a broad brush that isolates all the likely suspects for questioning. Then you use the scalpel of inquiry to determine which foods—if any—are truly problematic. If you have to keep milk or peanuts or chocolate out forever, so be it. But make sure that’s what your n=1 data is actually saying.

The protocol isn’t a magic bullet. It isn’t a cure. Many other factors contribute to impaired gut health, chronic inflammation, and likely therefore autoimmunity, like poor sleep, stress, lack of exercise, poor relationships, nature deprivation, sun deprivation, and circadian dysregulation. You need to address those too. But diet is a big one, and it’s an obvious target with an established protocol.

Have you ever tried an autoimmune protocol? Are you going to try it after reading today’s post? I’d love to hear your experiences.

[healthfoodlab]

Ortorkor market again☺️ Today’s lunch for Noa was steamed blue crab and okra, grilled plantain, steamed sweet potato, grilled mackerel... and mango!!! Where does all the food go??? - #babyweaning #babyfoodrecipes #babynoa #9monthsold #bulletproofbaby #healthyeating #cleaneating #lchf #realfood #bulletproofdiet #biohack #healthyfats #primal #healthfoodlab #paleo #whole30 #jerf #sugarfreebae #nosugar🙅🏻 #nutrientdense (at Or Tor Kor Market)

[fishermariawo]

Weekend Link Love — Edition 472

Research of the Week

Women who exercise before breakfast burn more fat throughout the day.

Whole eggs beat egg whites for gains.

Taking alpha-linolenic acid (ALA, an omega-3 fatty acid found in flax and canola oil) prevents exercise-induced metabolic improvements in obese rats.

LSD promotes freudian slips.

Vitamin K2 supplementation may support weight loss.

Both gluten/casein-free diets and modified Atkins keto diets improve autistic symptoms in children.

A low meat intake during pregnancy may increase the offspring’s risk of substance abuse.

New Primal Blueprint Podcasts

Episode 189: Mark Sisson: Elle Russ and I chat about my new book, the Keto Reset Diet.

Each week, select Mark’s Daily Apple blog posts are prepared as Primal Blueprint Podcasts. Need to catch up on reading, but don’t have the time? Prefer to listen to articles while on the go? Check out the new blog post podcasts below, and subscribe to the Primal Blueprint Podcast here so you never miss an episode.

Where I Part Ways with the Popular Keto Movement

Interesting Blog Posts

Big Data is making baseball a big bore.

Dogs and carbs shouldn’t mix.

Media, Schmedia

The stone tools that weren’t.

As KFC expands across Ghana, so do the inhabitants’ waistlines.

Everything Else

Tattoos that monitor your blood glucose.

Three Americans just received the Nobel Prize in Physiology for their work on circadian clock responses to light and darkness.

Tim Noakes on why you should eat more meat to save the environment.

Things I’m Up to and Interested In

Thrills of my week: Being on Good Morning America to share about The Keto Reset Diet and watching it hit #1 on Amazon. I am humbled and so grateful for the support of this community, which has been an incredible seedbed for this—and all my Primal projects.

Interview I enjoyed: The one I did with Chris Armstrong at Re-Find Health about what and where I eat.

Stat I found alarming: Only 1 in 10 Americans loves to cook.

I’ve never seen a study retracted for this reason: The co-authors couldn’t agree on whose name would go first.

I think the man in this video exaggerates the technique but the point is well-made: How people walked before hard-soled shoes hit the scene.

Phenomenon I find fascinating: When the Silicon Valley engineers who helped create the “attention economy” fear they’ve set us on course for a smartphone dystopia. 

Recipe Corner

Maple bacon coffee deviled eggs. Better than they sound.

Ever make okra? Now you can.

Time Capsule

One year ago (Oct 8 – Oct 14)

The Definitive Guide to Wine – How and what to drink.

How Expressing Your Emotions—or Not—Affects Your Health – What’s the cost of bottling it all up?

Comment of the Week

“I’m all for learning but I would never eat a broad. Or a gent. Bugs yes, people no. Sorry, Mark, that’s where I draw the line with meat.”

– You’re missing out, TomB-D (is that Tom Bombadil?).

[milenasanchezmk]

Weekend Link Love — Edition 472

Research of the Week

Women who exercise before breakfast burn more fat throughout the day.

Whole eggs beat egg whites for gains.

Taking alpha-linolenic acid (ALA, an omega-3 fatty acid found in flax and canola oil) prevents exercise-induced metabolic improvements in obese rats.

LSD promotes freudian slips.

Vitamin K2 supplementation may support weight loss.

Both gluten/casein-free diets and modified Atkins keto diets improve autistic symptoms in children.

A low meat intake during pregnancy may increase the offspring’s risk of substance abuse.

New Primal Blueprint Podcasts

Episode 189: Mark Sisson: Elle Russ and I chat about my new book, the Keto Reset Diet.

Each week, select Mark’s Daily Apple blog posts are prepared as Primal Blueprint Podcasts. Need to catch up on reading, but don’t have the time? Prefer to listen to articles while on the go? Check out the new blog post podcasts below, and subscribe to the Primal Blueprint Podcast here so you never miss an episode.

Where I Part Ways with the Popular Keto Movement

Interesting Blog Posts

Big Data is making baseball a big bore.

Dogs and carbs shouldn’t mix.

Media, Schmedia

The stone tools that weren’t.

As KFC expands across Ghana, so do the inhabitants’ waistlines.

Everything Else

Tattoos that monitor your blood glucose.

Three Americans just received the Nobel Prize in Physiology for their work on circadian clock responses to light and darkness.

Tim Noakes on why you should eat more meat to save the environment.

Things I’m Up to and Interested In

Thrills of my week: Being on Good Morning America to share about The Keto Reset Diet and watching it hit #1 on Amazon. I am humbled and so grateful for the support of this community, which has been an incredible seedbed for this—and all my Primal projects.

Interview I enjoyed: The one I did with Chris Armstrong at Re-Find Health about what and where I eat.

Stat I found alarming: Only 1 in 10 Americans loves to cook.

I’ve never seen a study retracted for this reason: The co-authors couldn’t agree on whose name would go first.

I think the man in this video exaggerates the technique but the point is well-made: How people walked before hard-soled shoes hit the scene.

Phenomenon I find fascinating: When the Silicon Valley engineers who helped create the “attention economy” fear they’ve set us on course for a smartphone dystopia. 

Recipe Corner

Maple bacon coffee deviled eggs. Better than they sound.

Ever make okra? Now you can.

Time Capsule

One year ago (Oct 8 – Oct 14)

The Definitive Guide to Wine – How and what to drink.

How Expressing Your Emotions—or Not—Affects Your Health – What’s the cost of bottling it all up?

Comment of the Week

“I’m all for learning but I would never eat a broad. Or a gent. Bugs yes, people no. Sorry, Mark, that’s where I draw the line with meat.”

– You’re missing out, TomB-D (is that Tom Bombadil?).