Healing Journey

(Samantha Eisner) #1

Hi all,

I have been on a bit of a healing journey that has now transitioned me to starting Keto.
I have been fighting for the last three months to get my health back! I finally gave up after being sent to specialist after specialist for the last 10 years and took a different path outside of conventional medicine. I went to an integrative doc and found out that I am severely nutritionally deficient and was suffering from a case leaky gut. My vitamin D levels were at an 8, my magnesium was only a 1.8 and my C reactive protein was up to a 13! No wonder I felt horrible! I was not absorbing anything I was putting into my body.

So I had to go on a full elimination diet and have cut out all inflammatory foods for 3 months and it worked! With some IV therapy, injections, and completely changing my diet my C reactive is now down to a 1 (under 1 is normal) and my D is up to an 88! This means I can back off on the IVs and now focus on healing my gut even more and losing weight through a Keto approach. They also will be digging deeper to see if there is more going on with my body that may need healing.

Dairy however will not be an option for me on the journey since it is so inflammatory for me, but I can tolerate almost all meats as long as they are grass-fed or organic! Occasionally I can slip in a little grass fed butter, but prefer coconut butter and avocado oil.

I just picked up the Made Whole cookbook and will be starting their as a jumping off point. Any recommendations for dairy replacements would be great! I eat avocados and coconut milk with pretty much everything now so I am hopefully just cutting back on my carbs and taking in more fat will put me into Ketosis rather quickly.

Also my nutritionist recommended carb cycling, does anyone around here do that? Would love to know some info on your results and any issues you may have with it.

Any suggestions or support are much appreciated!

Thanks!

#2

Have you tried kefir? You may find that is actually an option as it is a fermented milk product and full of probiotics. Many people who cannot tollerate normal dairy can drink kefir so that may be an option to try.
Almond milk is also a good one (unsweetend obviously) as a milk replacement and I like it just to drink straight for hydration.
Having previously been vegan for many years I can advuse you to avoid most non dairy cheeses as they are generally awful (and probably not keto friendly anyway I would guess) but there are some decent tasting non dairy soft cheeses ie philadelphia style cheeses that are palatable (again you would need to check macros as I have not had any since being keto).

#3

I personally don’t eat much dairy anyway now, other than halloumi which I adore and get cravings for occassionally and sometimes double cream in the odd coffee. Cheeses are (and wwre for me to begin with) a great and easy quick keto fix if you need to add some calories and fats quickly but they are not necessary. I have not missed yoghurt at all since losing my sweet tooth so I do not try to replace that with anything anyway.

(Katie the Quiche Scoffing Stick Ninja ) #4

I’d get a new nutritionist lol, but that’s just me.
There is absolutely no need to carb cycle on a Ketogenic diet. Not in my opinion anyway. You will do more to lose weight without it and it’s not really required unless you’re a high performance athlete and even then they are keto adapted and fuel via ketones and not carbohydrates.