Pain, Pain, Go Away!

To make it easy to stay on track with Molly's diet, I've created a meal planning spreadsheet. I've listed the foods and amounts she commonly eats along with calories, carbs, fat, and protein. I just enter how many servings of various foods I'm thinking about feeding her on a given day, and the total nutrients show up. You can download the spreadsheet here: http://www.slideshare.net/lorimiller/nutrient-counter Of course, you can insert rows for other foods if you want to do a little bit of research on nutrient content (like, Nutritiondata.com or copying data from a food package), copy and paste the formulas from the orange (or gray) part of the spreadsheet, and re-do the Total row if needed. Needless to say, you can use this for your own diet if you wish.

It just goes to show that we all react differently to the same diet. My dog, Molly, and I eat pretty much the same thing: a lacto-paleo, nutrient rich diet that I hope will heal our minor cavities. I've lost one to two pounds, but Molly has gained weight: she's 73 pounds and I had to loosen her collar. Of course, it may be that her owner is simply feeding her too much; even on a low-carb diet, some people and dogs gain weight with too much food. It could also be a thyroid problem, which the vet is checking. Looking around the web, it seems a 60-pound dog (which I'd like Molly to be) should eat around 1100 to 1200 calories per day. Molly may be eating a little more than that, but she probably needs fewer calories on the diet we follow. Another site recommended about 1.25 pounds of meat per day for a 60-pound dog. (The vet recommended diet dog food to get the calories just right. I didn't ask him if he weighed out his own food and counted calories to avoid going over.) In...

Just over a month ago, I (along with my dog) set out on a cavity healing diet : low in carb, grain-free, high in vitamins A and D, and high in calcium and phosphorus. I've made some changes along the way and listed what Molly and I are now eating at the end of this post. Potassium Power The potassium pills seem to have put the pep back in my step. This weekend, I worked both days helping the tax secretary, whipped my house back into shape, and I'm ready to go out and tear up the dance floor tonight. The Dry Skin Epidemic Since starting this diet, after I stopped eating raw eggs (since I seemed to be allergic to them), my skin has looked better than it ever has. My skin improved last year after I started a low-carb, high-fat diet (more resilient, less callousing, and lot less dry), but now I'm cautiously optimistic that my niggling adult acne is completely gone. A diet's effect on skin was brought home to me while I read an article in People magazine (no jokes, please) t...

A couple of unexpected consequences have occurred with my new, (mostly) lacto-paleo, high-nutrient diet. My TMJ has almost disappeared. Let me tell you how my case of TMJ came about. It was a Sunday night in November 2006. I was on my way to a dance when an SUV came flying out of the Walgreens parking lot and broadsided my car on the driver's side. Once I stopped my car (which was totaled), the teeth on the right side of my mouth felt like they'd shifted from being clenched so hard. A few months later, the pain in my jaw was so bad that it kept me up nights. I couldn't fall asleep on my right side. Splint therapy helped, but as recently as last October after a dance workshop weekend , my jaw was painful for weeks afterward. So, why didn't I just stop clenching my jaw? When I realized I was doing it, I did, as far as I was able. But it's kind of like telling someone to stop having a tension headache. Things like relaxation, pain relievers, massage and a...

Readers know I'm on a mission to heal my cavities without the help of a drill. As part of that goal, I took a vitamin D test. The results are in: Vitamin D3 is within the range which many experts consider normal (>32 ng/ml), but not optimal for health (50-80 ng/ml). Vitamin D deficiency has been closely associated with a wide range of conditions and diseases, which include cardiovascular disease, stroke, osteoporosis, osteomalacia, cancer, and autoimmune diseases such as multiple schlerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and diabetes (types 1 and 2) (for review see: Holick MF, NEJM 357: 266-281, 2007). Research by Weston A. Price and the Drs. Mellanby showed that a diet high in vitamin D (among other nutrients) and low in cereals healed cavities in children and dogs. The next step: determine a dose. The official recommended daily intake is 400 IU, but Dr. William Davis, a cardiologist, has often pointed out the folly of recommending one dose for everyone. The Food...

I keep hearing that fiber is filling. I can just picture it: my father (in his younger days) coming in from a day of baling hay or elk hunting or welding and saying, "Betty, can you fix me some broccoli?" I don't exert myself nearly that much (I work in an office) and I could eat salad all day without getting full. Why? Because fiber is more or less indigestible. That's why low-carb plans like Protein Power allow you to subtract fiber from total carbs, resulting in net carbs, which is the thing you're supposed to limit on a low-carb diet. Probably, people who say that fiber is filling are speaking in relative terms. Sugar and starch--which are very digestible--can cause your blood sugar to spike and then drop one to three hours later, making you hungry. (Starch is the old fashioned name for those wonderful complex carbohydrates we're constantly told are good for us. It's the same thing that in bygone days, people avoided, along with sugar, to lose weight.)...

Tired of being looked at like you have two heads when you tell people you limit your carbs? Hate going to a restaurant and seeing little or nothing on the menu you can eat? So am I! I've started a low carb meetup group here in the Denver area to get together with other low carbers. I'm thinking we can get together at a low-carb friendly restaurant or have a picnic. Here's the website for Denver Low Carb Enthusiasts: http://www.meetup.com/Denver-Low-Carb-Enthusiasts/ UPDATE: It's been less than a week since the meetup group started and there are already 13 members. This is encouraging. Our first meetup is scheduled for Sunday.