The Medical History of a Life Coach – The Conclusion?
I had no intention whatsoever of posting a part 3 to The Medical History of a Life Coach so soon after part 2, but I had a real eureka moment yesterday that I wanted to share with you.
I know it seemed strange to some people that even though I felt dreadful during The Paleo Experiment and had to come off it, that I still believed so strongly in the science behind it.
I never for one moment thought that it was the Paleo approach that was wrong, just that the must be elements of it that were wrong for me.
A very brief re-cap. Both the Paleo and Primal approach involve cutting out all refined foods as well pasta, bread, rice, dairy products (largely), refined carbs and anything containing high levels of sugar.
The thought process is that we had over 200,000 years to evolve as human beings when we ate none of the above. We subsisted purely on foods that were in season or tasty animals that we could stalk, run after, catch and eat.
Then the agricultural revolution took place and all of a sudden we were eating foods our body wasn’t designed to deal with. For instance, we now know without any doubt that both gluten and cows milk are not good for human beings.
Unfortunately these products were established in every day life and thought of as being healthy a long time before the evidence to the contrary was discovered.
People ‘know’ milk is good for them because it is high in calcium and they’ve been told by successive generations that it’s a healthy part of the human diet.
Only it isn’t, it’s an urban myth. A persistent one, but a myth nevertheless.
I love toast for breakfast and I also love cereal, but unfortunately both of those were ruled out on the Paleo Diet. Therefore, when I started I had to be a bit creative, at least with breakfast, because my normal ‘go-to’ choices where gone.
Fortunately for me I also love eggs, and eggs are very Primal. I also really like sausages, bacon and mushrooms and they too can all be Primal. So whereas it was a bit of a pain in the ass to have to cook breakfast, at least I wasn’t struggling to find things I loved to eat.
You know the story if you have read part 1 and 2. I didn’t get better during the Primal Experiment, I got worse. Significantly worse.
Yesterday I got a call from Dr Lee’s office with the results from the blood tests they did to ascertain whether I had any food allergies.
I do.
A lot of them.
The results are grouped in 4 columns. Red is a severe intolerance, orange moderate intolerance, yellow mild intolerance and green is eat these suckers till the cows come home and then even eat the cow itself if you want.
I have 9 severe food allergies!
3 of which are irrelevant because I don’t like Dates, rarely eat Duck and can avoid Thyme.
Lobster was a disappointment because although I rarely eat it, I do love it when I get the chance. Similarly, although I rarely eat salmon these days because of the cost of wild salmon (Farm raised salmon is evil stuff btw, don’t eat it, it’s incredibly unhealthy) I do really enjoy it when I do.
Spinach is annoying because we eat it at least twice per week and we both love it. Green Peas is also annoying because even though I gave them up on the Paleo Diet, I do enjoy them.
Now we move from annoying into the:
“HOLY SHIT! NOOOOOOOOOO” section.
I have a severe allergy to mushrooms and eggs.
At one stage doing Primal I was eating 4 eggs PER DAY!
it is any wonder my stomach felt like it was being ripped apart at times?
The reason why I wanted to follow up the previous posts is to say this.
I’m disappointed that I have allergies to the foods above (especially eggs!), but trust me when I say, giving them up will be easy knowing that I’ll start to feel great again.
I speak with a lot of people that have chronic illnesses (usually syndromes which basically means we have no idea what it is that is wrong with you) and I wonder how many could be treated by this approach.
If you and a loved one suffers from fatigue, apathy, depression, fibromyalga, insomnia or any unexplained illness that you simply cannot get to the bottom of (and presuming you can afford it), get yourself tested!
It isn’t cheap by any means (about $450 for the blood tests alone), but this is your health we’re talking about. I have few regrets about my life, that’s not the kind of person I am, but I sure wish I’d done this 10 years ago.
If you are in the Orlando area I’d thoroughly recommend you getting in touch with the Institute for Hormonal Balance (by the way that is NOT an affiliate link, I stand to gain nothing from this) and if you’re not local to Central Florida research similar practices in your area.
16 Ways To De-Stress Your Life
You may have noticed that my free tab has gone and I now have a Store tab in its place. My latest ebook went out free to my subscribers yesterday and will remain free for about a week.
I had originally planned to just offer it to my newsletter readers, but today is my 15th wedding anniversary and I’m feeling pumped about life.
So if you want a FREE copy, you can click this link and go and download it now, but be aware this offer will only be available until Sunday 17th April, so if you are reading after then, tough you’ll have to cough up the cash! ;-)
Stars of Wellbeing
And finally, my good friend Carl Harvey who has guest posted for me a couple of times has just started a new venture called Stars of Wellbeing.
He has snagged some self development heavyweights and each week he’ll be sending out an e-mail with self development tips and access to exclusive offers and free material.
It looks really interesting and just for signing up you’ll get a few free gifts, including a 2 hour MP3 from one of my heroes, Jamie Smart, called “Uncovering Your Highest Quality of Mind”, which is well worth a listen.
It literally only launches this month so I can’t really tell you any more than that, but Carl is usually great value for money and I have no reason to believe that this will be anything different, so if you want to subscribe, or just know more click here. (AL)
Hey Tim. I really feel for you, having such chronic and debilitating symptoms. My wife had ME when she was a teen and she still gets bouts of severe tiredness which destroy her for days at a time.
I totally understand why you’re willing to take increasingly extreme/unusual steps in order to get to the bottom of this, but I worry that this makes you vulnerable to snake oil salesmen. Please be careful!
I have to wonder about any test that tells you that you have a ‘severe allergy’, because in standard medical terminology, surely this would mean that you were suffering acute and life-threatening reactions. For example, those people that nearly die from anaphylaxis when they get stung by a bee or eat peanuts. There’s no way that your alleged allergy to eggs can be classed in the same bracket (sorry if this sounds harsh).
Having said that, I really do hope you find a cure for your symptoms soon, no matter if it means standing one-legged in a bucket of custard for 4 hours per day.
I’m curious about what you say about gluten and dairy products. Can you point me towards evidence that they are not good for humans? I turned vegan just over a month ago (for animal welfare reasons) so I don’t need to worry about
milk. And I know some people have Celiac’s disease, and even those that feel a bit bloated if they eat too much bread, but surely it’s OK for the vast majority of people, provided it’s consumed in moderation? Isn’t it overstating the case to say that gluten and dairy aren’t good for (all) humans?
Take care mate.
Rob
Shit, I just blew 2 grand on the custard one and it didn’t help at all!
Were you in our home last night when my medically trained wife told me to “Stop calling it an allergy!” and then went on to explaining the difference between an IeG allergy and what I have which is a severe long-term intolerance?
The doctor I’m seeing is an respected endocrinologist and had his writing published in some fancy schmancy ‘trade’ book on endocrinology. I cannot say for sure this will work, but I can say that the way he tied my initial symptoms together at the initial consult (something no other doctor had done in 25 years) was pretty impressive.
And yes, you can say that gluten and milk products are unhealthy. There is mounds and mounds of hard scientific data, it just rarely sees the light of day because of whose interest is it in to do expose it?
You may say the Government’s to help the population become healthier, but we know they don’t give a shit about that. Imagine Obama saying “Wow, hold on there people we know eating grains isn’t good for us and neither is dairy, so can we shut the two of the largest food manufacturing industries down and all start eating apples please?
It would be electoral suicide.
Now I agree it would be overstating the case to say it actually causes harm to every person, but that’s not saying it’s good for them.
You could smoke for a few years and then quit and never know any negative side effects, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t something that wasn’t bad for you.
There are some races (I think Oriental) where milk is almost universally bad. IOW, 100% of people have an intolerance to it. I believe with Caucasian people it’s nearer 70%, but I’m going from memory and could be wrong.
BTW, gluten and milk were on my “mild intolerance’ list and they are foods I can eat occasionally.
G’day Tim,
Thanks for the update. Congrats on your medical breakthrough. Trust things health wise will show improvement quickly. Congrats also on your 15th Wedding Anniversary. I just reached 30 on 4 April.
Be good tp yourself
David
Wow, congrats to you too David!
That made me smile Tim,you might not remember but mushrooms and eggs are the only two foods i can’t eat, they both make me sick, not from the taste but more from the texture, i’ve said they are poison for years. Give it a couple of months and you’ll be sleeping for many hours at a time.
Hopefully mate and maybe the fact that mushrooms love growing in shit should have been a clue?
We had to go without eggs for about a year when my youngest was showing signs of an allergy to them. It was a bit of a pain in the butt, especially before he weaned and I had to look for trace amounts of eggs in everything, but all in all it wasn’t bad at all. There are lots of good substitutes for baking and cooking that aren’t all weird & chemically.
I hope it won’t take very long to get these things out of your system so you can feel better! And at least you didn’t have to go on a complete elimination diet, those can be grueling!
The biggest thing I’ll miss on the egg front is mayo based sauces, I love ’em :-(
I’m just glad the eggs didn’t kill you with a severe allergic reaction. I grew up with serious allergies to……. to every food. I had to get allergy shots for the 49 things I could eat. I got used to eating the same meals everyday… it was life. I don’t think I’m even going to attempt this diet. I’m more of a raw food person like Anthony Robbins.
See my comment to Rob below Jason, but I agree it aint everybody’s cup of tea and we all have to do what we think is best for us.
I’m so glad your “medical history conclusion” in your title didn’t really mean the “CONCLUSION”–you scared me there for a moment.
Yeh, that would have been a bummer, but I intend quitting blogging when I’m dead.
“I speak with a lot of people that have chronic illnesses (usually syndromes which basically means we have no idea what it is that is wrong with you) and I wonder how many could be treated by this approach.”
Most, IMO.
It is sickening how easy it is when the light bulb finally goes on. All those years lost but the bright side is you have the opportunity to turn it around. Yay!
Now I’m off to eat my eggs and black forest bacon.
I agree, I think it’s most too.
And I hope you didn’t choke on your eggs ;-)
Dogfood, maybe? LOL.
The dogs are good with that and thank you profusely.
Well, shit at least you still have bacon.
Many people would look at this in terms of what they have to give up. I’m glad to see you look at it as “finally I can feel better.” Ah, the power of reframing!
On my list of moderate allergies was tuna. I bought a 4 pack of albercore tuna the other day and I’m struggling to reframe this one.
Paperweights maybe?
Glad you enjoyed them Matthew, thanks!
Eggs are actually on the cusp with some people thinking they are un-Paleo and others not.
From a purely health perspective, it’s the lactose in milk that is so bad for (most) humans as we cannot break it down in our system.
Primal allows for some milk products if they are raw whereas Paleo tends to say no to all dairy.
I think you have a book in this entire idea/series of posts. Seriously. Bulk it out with other stories from other people and it’s a best seller. The less medical doctors know the more they try to convince us they’re experts. I would love to know what’s happening with me. I’ve tried diets, avoiding food, exercise, supplements – the whole nine yards and nothing. I’m going to make a special trip to Florida this summer just to get checked out by your doctor and the institute and hopefully get off this fatigue merry-go-round. Thank you for taking time to post it all. It’s been very enlightening!
I have another book to promote first ;-) But I do agree that this kind of story deserves to be told.
The reason why diets that withdraw food are so apt to fail is that there are simply too many foods to test that way.
If I’d have stopped eating eggs and got no better because I was still eating mushrooms or spinach, then I’d have presumed eggs weren’t the culprit and reintroduced them into my diet and started moving further away from the cause.
Also with delayed allergies you are highly unlikely to find the real culprits, especially if you have more than 1 allergy.
This test is state of the art and really nails it down pat.
Tim, can you name the test so I can ask my Doctor about it?
It’s called the ALCT test, but that is a trade name Mary, so I’m not sure what other companies call it other than it’s a delayed foof allergy test.
IOW, it doesn’t look for immediate reactions, like for example with a peanut allergy, it only looks for foods that have long-term negative effects on the body.
Check out alcat.com
Tim, have really enjoyed this series of posts, thank you.
I don’t know the first thing about the Paleo diet, but am curious why eggs are in and milk is out?
Some communities with more primitive diets get a lot of sustenance from cows’ blood and milk with nary a chicken to be seen …
Not a challenge. My ignorance in this area is depthless … just curious …