Pain, Pain, Go Away!

It's a bummer when bad things happen to good dieters: weight gain, acne, need for naps, and indigestion in my case. You can go bananas trying to figure what you ate to make things go wrong. I recently had all the things I just mentioned, and I know it wasn't diet. The same diet I normally feel good on hasn't changed recently (except for subtracting dairy). The only thing that has been different over the past month is that my TMJ was acting up from my taking my big, strong, sled-dog wannabe for walks every night. I think the continual muscle strain led to systemic inflammation. Inflammation indicates a mobilization of your immune system; it's a call to arms. Whether the damaged tissue is a result of infection from bacterial invaders, overuse, or physical trauma, the purpose of the inflammation that ensues is to prevent additional damage and repair the damage already done. But what starts out as a healthy response can have adverse effects if it persists for too lo

We know that foods you can't tolerate can cause inflammation in parts of the body outside the GI tract. But can inflammation in other parts of the body cause inflammation in the GI tract? I'm starting to think it's possible. This morning, I was walking my dog when the cause of my recent TMJ problems and headaches struck me: it was from walking my dog. Molly's so strong that she pulled my mother around in a wheelchair when Mom was in rehab a few years ago. I've tried to get her to walk without pulling, to no avail. When she pulls, I have to pull back and it makes me tense my neck and jaw. Molly has her own treadmill, which I bought when I had this problem before, and henceforth she'll just have to stay on it if she wants to walk. Molly on her treadmill, not the Iditarod. She could have been a contender. What does this have to do with stomach aches? Lately, my stomach has hurt and nothing seems to digest well. I haven't tried any new foods lately; in

How about almond-crusted liver and gathered greens & veg with refreshing paleo ranch dressing . Home-grown lettuce (along with a little from the farmer's market), nasturtium, lamb's quarters and borage flowers along with cucumber and bell peppers make for an interesting salad. To make the liver, have a beaten egg and some almond meal ready. (I take a handful of almonds and put them in the food processor with the S blade for a few minutes.) Cut the film off the liver and cut the liver into pieces about 1.5" square. Roll the pieces in the egg, then in the almond meal and fry in lard over medium heat.

Everyone loves a good mystery, but in real life, we all love a good solution even more. The book Why Isn't my Brain Working? by Datis Kharrazian is the latter. Even if your brain is working (and I think mine works pretty well), it's worth reading for the insights into the gut-brain connection, cross-reactivity of foods, and what you can do if you get glutened. In my younger days, I read self-help books and went to counseling to be happier. It didn't help much--all they talked about was attitude. Relying on attitude to solve a biological problem is like trying to smile your way out of an infection of H. pylori. I guess I was lucky that I didn't go in for drugs and didn't think doctors could help me. Good thing. I now know my problem was largely hypoglycemia. The management of [certain patients with poor blood sugar control] is so fundamentally basic and easy....[Yet] It is not uncommon for [them] to be put on psychotropic drugs, sleep medications, or labeled

My mom is back to normal, able to walk a little with a walker and doing a little cooking. Perhaps because her recent infection is gone and she isn't eating any more hospital food, her blood sugars have gotten low enough that she's decided to reduce her insulin dose. My TMJ pain has been acting up. But last weekend, a friend invited me to her restorative yoga class, and the next day, for the first time in weeks, I didn't need any aspirin. I'm planning to take her class on a regular basis. I had some anxiety that's now gone. I've always been good on the phone, and good on the Internet, but tended to get kind of freaky in person. I was the weird girl in The Breakfast Club. The anxiety defied all reason and most experience. And yet it just evaporated over the past couple weeks. Why? I quit all dairy except butter around two months ago and I'm finally finished healing from my bike wreck. Those are the only things I can think of that happened recently. There

If I'm ever in a trench defending my homeland from barbarians, I want Linda Wells, Editor-in-Chief of Allure magazine, next to me. She's spent her last couple of vacations at a boot camp eating vegan food, sans booze, caffeine, gluten and sugar and going on five-hour hikes, getting blisters along the way. She doesn't feel (or sound) self-righteous. She's lost eight pounds, but says she's ready to "re-tox." The same issue of the magazine describes the program of a weight loss clinic called Medi-Weightloss: 500 to 800 calories a day of protein (around 125g to 200g), supplements, laxatives, and a prescription appetite suppressant called phendimetrazine. Jesus wept. Starvation diets--and this diet is well into starvation territory--have been well studied. They're known to cause weakness, fatigue, loss of libido and psychosis . Low-fat diets can cause depression, among other problems . And what's with the heaping helping of protein? Plugging in th

Re: the movie Cereal Killers , a documentary about a man who starts researching heart disease and puts his own hypothesis to the test, has reached a milestone. This just in: We are delighted to report that Cereal Killers has reached the 100% funding milestone on kickstarter folks! To each and every one of the 183 persons who have carried us over the line and into new terrain - THANK YOU! SO...What happens next? Well for us, we just take a deep breath and we keep going.... The momentum, awareness and goodwill generated by a successful kickstarter campaign is only bettered by a super successful kickstarter campaign. Sometimes projects REALLY catch fire and that's where we're aiming next. Kickstarter promotes projects that look like they're gonna take off, and they do that based on the number of pledges and the hype a project is creating on the internet. Now that we have reached our target, every £1 pledge or tweet or facebook share adds weight to our visibil