J
jjanes
Guest
Something I wrote durring my last tune-up...
I'm sitting on the couch against the window in my hospital room. The room is cluttered with all sorts of medical equipment – respiratory gadgets, nebulizers, IV poles, and empty medication containers. For anyone like myself with Cystic Fibrosis, this might sound familiar. I have been coming here once a year for my "tune-up" since I was a toddler. This is my attempt to regain the lung function I lost since my last tune-up. Unfortunately, most of the time, I don't quite get there. Everything in the hospital can be very routine, even borderline monotonous, but this year something was very different. For the first time ever, my lung function coming into the hospital was actually higher than it was when I left my last tune-up. Now this is the part of the story that starts to get a little crazy. While I continually make efforts to be more diligent about my respiratory therapy, I'll be the first to admit that the few improvements I have made over the last year don't seem to explain this drastic change in my health. Instead, I attribute most of it to my diet.
Food can be a touchy subject, questioning what someone eats seems to be as dangerous as questioning their faith. So before I get into the specifics of the diet, let me give you the details on how different my life is after altering my diet.
My Stomach – It turns out that there is such thing as a zero on the stomach discomfort scale. It’s too bad it took me 23 years to find out. I must say that I'm enjoying the drastic shift from constant, moderate to high, stomach pain to complete comfort. Oh, and it turns out that after a few weeks of eating well my stomach just didn't need as much pancreatic enzyme medication – I've halved my dose.
My Blood – My whole life I have heavily supplemented vitamins to keep my levels in a good place. I have since stopped them all, except vitamin D – mainly because the sun, unlike my computer screen is the only natural source. As for blood sugar, I haven't had many problems in my life, but my sugars are still better now then they ever were before.
My Body – Aside from having energy for miles and never having those 2:00 PM battles to stay awake after lunch, I haven't had a single cold in the two years I have been eating healthy. To put that into perspective, two to three colds per year was usually par for the course. Not having the congestion and lowered immune system that comes with these colds is what I attribute to the drastic lung function increase.
So by now you might be feeling like your watching a 3:00 AM infomercial and everything I'm saying is to good to be true. I totally understand, and here is the catch. First off, this diet goes against a lot of what your doctors and dietitians have been telling you all your life. Secondly, it’s a damn hard diet to follow, especially after a life with your only dietary rule being "high calories!" Now lets get down to the details.
I call my diet the "CF modified Paleo diet." In the spirit of brevity, I'll give you the summarized details. A Paleo diet means no grains, no processed sugars, no legumes, and no dairy. Modifying this for CF just involves carrying over the one dietary rule we all know – "high calories!" They just happen to be different types of calories - healthy fats, proteins, veggies, nuts, and fruits. The majority of your calories should be from your fats/proteins and veggies. Now, obviously this is drastically simplified, so I encourage you to do more research before diving into the Paleo pool.
If you decide you’re interested and want to learn more, I recommend checking out robbwolf.com and picking up his book "The Paleo Solution." The book and blog are filled with all the info you could ever want on the diet. Also, they have meal plans to follow, but remember to follow the plan for athletes, because it has a higher calorie count. Now, if you’re still skeptical, much like I was when first contemplated trying this diet. You might want to do what I did. For 2 weeks, I cut out all bread and pasta and replaced the calories with meats, and veggies. While it’s far from full Paleo, this initial test had a real positive effect on my stomach, and convinced me to read the book, and put the diet to the true test. As you can tell, it passed with flying colors.
I never could have imagined just how positive this diet turned out for me and I wouldn't be writing this if I didn't think it could do the same for other CF'ers. If you have any questions, I would be more than happy to answer them, just send me an email (jaredjanes@me.com). Well, I’ve got to pack up my stuff to head home, and for the first time in my life, I think there's a good chance I won't be back too soon. Cheers.
- Jared
I'm sitting on the couch against the window in my hospital room. The room is cluttered with all sorts of medical equipment – respiratory gadgets, nebulizers, IV poles, and empty medication containers. For anyone like myself with Cystic Fibrosis, this might sound familiar. I have been coming here once a year for my "tune-up" since I was a toddler. This is my attempt to regain the lung function I lost since my last tune-up. Unfortunately, most of the time, I don't quite get there. Everything in the hospital can be very routine, even borderline monotonous, but this year something was very different. For the first time ever, my lung function coming into the hospital was actually higher than it was when I left my last tune-up. Now this is the part of the story that starts to get a little crazy. While I continually make efforts to be more diligent about my respiratory therapy, I'll be the first to admit that the few improvements I have made over the last year don't seem to explain this drastic change in my health. Instead, I attribute most of it to my diet.
Food can be a touchy subject, questioning what someone eats seems to be as dangerous as questioning their faith. So before I get into the specifics of the diet, let me give you the details on how different my life is after altering my diet.
My Stomach – It turns out that there is such thing as a zero on the stomach discomfort scale. It’s too bad it took me 23 years to find out. I must say that I'm enjoying the drastic shift from constant, moderate to high, stomach pain to complete comfort. Oh, and it turns out that after a few weeks of eating well my stomach just didn't need as much pancreatic enzyme medication – I've halved my dose.
My Blood – My whole life I have heavily supplemented vitamins to keep my levels in a good place. I have since stopped them all, except vitamin D – mainly because the sun, unlike my computer screen is the only natural source. As for blood sugar, I haven't had many problems in my life, but my sugars are still better now then they ever were before.
My Body – Aside from having energy for miles and never having those 2:00 PM battles to stay awake after lunch, I haven't had a single cold in the two years I have been eating healthy. To put that into perspective, two to three colds per year was usually par for the course. Not having the congestion and lowered immune system that comes with these colds is what I attribute to the drastic lung function increase.
So by now you might be feeling like your watching a 3:00 AM infomercial and everything I'm saying is to good to be true. I totally understand, and here is the catch. First off, this diet goes against a lot of what your doctors and dietitians have been telling you all your life. Secondly, it’s a damn hard diet to follow, especially after a life with your only dietary rule being "high calories!" Now lets get down to the details.
I call my diet the "CF modified Paleo diet." In the spirit of brevity, I'll give you the summarized details. A Paleo diet means no grains, no processed sugars, no legumes, and no dairy. Modifying this for CF just involves carrying over the one dietary rule we all know – "high calories!" They just happen to be different types of calories - healthy fats, proteins, veggies, nuts, and fruits. The majority of your calories should be from your fats/proteins and veggies. Now, obviously this is drastically simplified, so I encourage you to do more research before diving into the Paleo pool.
If you decide you’re interested and want to learn more, I recommend checking out robbwolf.com and picking up his book "The Paleo Solution." The book and blog are filled with all the info you could ever want on the diet. Also, they have meal plans to follow, but remember to follow the plan for athletes, because it has a higher calorie count. Now, if you’re still skeptical, much like I was when first contemplated trying this diet. You might want to do what I did. For 2 weeks, I cut out all bread and pasta and replaced the calories with meats, and veggies. While it’s far from full Paleo, this initial test had a real positive effect on my stomach, and convinced me to read the book, and put the diet to the true test. As you can tell, it passed with flying colors.
I never could have imagined just how positive this diet turned out for me and I wouldn't be writing this if I didn't think it could do the same for other CF'ers. If you have any questions, I would be more than happy to answer them, just send me an email (jaredjanes@me.com). Well, I’ve got to pack up my stuff to head home, and for the first time in my life, I think there's a good chance I won't be back too soon. Cheers.
- Jared