My Journey on The Paleo Autoimmune Protocol

Without getting into too much detail about my health right now, I will share that I am waiting to see and Internist. If you’re scratching your head and wondering what that is, don’t worry, I had to look it up too. I see an Internist as an off-camera Canadian Dr. House, but here’s what Wikipedia says. I have been sick for over 4 weeks now, since before we went to Hawaii. It started as a cold, then developed into an ear and sinus infection, then bronchitis, then a throat infection and now is just a bad virus again. I have had 2 rounds of antibiotics, 1 round of oral steroids and a steroid inhaler and yet, I am achy, fatigued and still not well. It is exhausting. I blame it on turning 30. That MUST be it, my blood work however, says otherwise.

So what is the Paleo Autoimmune Protocol you ask? I’ll let my fellow blogger and expert through this process show you, The Paleo Mom. Basically, it is like regular Paleo, so no grains, dairy, legumes and starches, but ALSO, no nuts, seeds, cocoa, coffee, nightshades, eggs and alcohol. Yah. So what WILL I eat? All fruits and vegetables that are not nightshades, are okay, along with all sources of lean protein, coconut and honey, tea and herbs. This sounds insane you say? This is NOTHING! When R was only 12 weeks old, he had what 2 doctors and 1 midwives described as classic colic... BAD. I ended up resorting to the Dr Sears Total Elimination Diet for Breastfeeding Mothers. I started out with only SEVEN food items: turkey, pears, millet, rice, squash, potatoes and sweet potatoes/yams. I figure if I can do that to figure out which foods triggered my son’s health issues, I can take the time to eliminate all common allergens and inflammatory foods from my diet to figure out what sets off my health issues.

I plan to blog as I go, and hopefully share a bit more information about my specific condition as I get answers. I’m told by my employer that writing about personal issues on the world wide web can be a reckless endeavour, but to them I say this: if somebody else hadn’t done this already, I would have nothing to help me as I navigate our painfully slow medical system. I believe whole heartily about sharing information on both mental and physical health to help share and report out to others what helped ease my discomfort so that they, in turn, may find answers of their own.

Why I Eat Paleo

A lot of people are calling the Paleo or Primal Diets the new fad diets of the week. I’ve noticed that a lot of people get it confused with being gluten free. It seems that even family and friends don’t quite understand why I started eating this way, and why my husband is even jumping on board with some of these dietary changes.

I need to start this post by saying that I do not have Celiac’s Disease, nor did I ever claim to. I am medically confirmed as lactose intolerant and sensitive to yeast. I first started looking to a wheat-free/dairy free diet after seeing a naturopath  in 2006, followed by a medical Allergy Specialist in 2007. At the time, I was having repeat Urinary Tract Infections that could spread to my kidneys almost overnight. I noticed that once I reduced my sugar intake and avoided wheat and yeast, the problems seemed to go away. I also drastically reduced my dairy at this time and noticed that I was getting fewer stomach aches throughout the day. It wasn’t until I was pregnant with R that I was able to tolerate wheat and dairy again (and boy, 50 pounds and 9 months later, had I ever indulged).

After R, I began to slowly start trying to lose the remaining 30 extra pounds I took home from the hosipital. I noticed shortly after his first birthday that whenever I was eating dairy free, wheat free and processed food free, I felt better. I have been doing Wild Rose Cleanses for years, every 6 months or so, whenever I’m not pregnant or breastfeeding. On the cleanse, unlimited vegetables and low glycemic fruits are encouraged as well as nuts, seeds, fish and lean protein. I nearly always lose weight, I am not bloated and after the initial purge, I always have more energy.

This fall, it dawned on me, maybe I should endeavour to eat like this all the time? I know this is how my diabetic father eats, low glycemic foods, and how my mother with MS is told to eat, so why wait until I have to eat like this, and why not eat this way to STAY healthy and hopefully prevent or at least drastically delay any hereditary health issues. So, the short and long of it is, we try to eat raw, whole foods that are local and/or organic because we believe that it is best for our health, our community and our family.

Mid-summer, before cleanse or Paleo

Remembrance Day, following a Wild Rose Cleanse and discovering Paleo

Apparently Dying 5.2 Meters of Wool is Very Different Than One Pair of Pants

Before pictures of the Natibaby 40% Wool 60% Cotten Grey Ispir.

1 large stainless steel pot, gloves, Dharma Acid Dye in Sapphire, citric acid, candy thermometer, wooden spoons.

Never ask a husband to take action shots...

The dying process took 30 minutes to get to temperature and then 30 mins at temperature... stirring constantly.

Followed by about 2 hours of washing and rinsing until the water ran clear.

Finished product wet.

Finished product dry and in natural light.

There are a lot of professional dyers out there in the woven wrap world and as my husband said when I was 3 hours in on the product, they EARN their money and are worth every penny. That being said, a lot of them don’t like to work with wool because it can felt so easily. Felted wool may be good in the world of cloth diapering, but for woven wraps, a felted wrap means that the wool fibres are brittle and not safe to carry the weight of a baby. I spoke with professionals in the wool business about how to properly dye the wool without felting it. The key is to pre-dissolve your dye in tepid water and the place the wool in the water and allow it to warm slowly up to the desired heat and then allow it to cool naturally. The wrap dried to be a beautiful, rich colour, soft and not brittle at all. I felt confident that it was not felted and completely happy to sell this wrap to a sweet mama as her first woven wrap. All in all, it was a challenging process, but a fun one nonetheless!!

Product Review: Metamorphosis Custom Wrap Conversion Mei Tai

I first contacted Shannon from Metamorphosis on February 1st of this year. Her reputation far proceeded her and, as always, I had a keen interest in using, reviewing and promoting Canadian products and businesses. Wrap conversions have become as big in the baby-wearing community as hybrid fitteds are in the cloth diapering community or, for my non-natural parenting friends, like yoga pants are to moms. With a wrap conversion, a customer will go purchase a woven wrap (ranging anywhere from $100 to $1000+ new) and then... wait for it... send that wrap to somebody to cut it up. That’s where Shannon and her company Metamorphosis come in. Shannon takes these beloved wraps and carefully lines up patterns, talks with the customers and designs custom baby carriers from the wraps.

Once Shannon had received my selected wrap, she maintained communication with me up until my spot approached. We then started discussing exactly what I wanted out of the wrap conversion, what size I needed and what size my child was. As I started making custom requests, I was informed that things that other businesses charge for, such as seat darts, padded legs, a hood, were included in the $125 cost of a Deluxe Conversion. I then selected butterfly padded shoulder straps and a padded ring waist at an additional cost of $20 each. Shannon helped me make these decisions based on my needs and my new diagnosis of arthritis in my low back. I wrote to her questioning whether or not I should even still be wearing my nearly thirty pound son, and she was supportive and re-assuring and took me from second guessing wearing my toddler at all, to being excited to have him in my custom carrier by her design. She also listened as I told her why I chose my wrap, a Natibaby Linen Blend Collabri, for the significance of the hummingbird to my mother and I and took care to make sure the birds could line up on the body and the hood AND the carrier is REVERSIBLE!!!

I was pretty excited when the carrier arrived on Friday. I tried it on quickly and took some standard selfies...

I then took it to a Cloth Diaper/Babywearing Meet Up and wore it for a while, showed it off, let other people try it on and just generally marvelled at its beauty. I waited patiently all weekend for the weather to clear so that I could take it for a walk, really test it out, and get some good action pictures. I waited... and waited... and waited... but THIS is all we got this weekend...

And so, Collabri Metamorphosis Custom Wrap Conversion Mei Tai got to go... TO THE GROCERY STORE!!

I found the shoulder straps to be exceptionally comfortable as I loaded the shopping cart.

R alternated between arms in and arms out, but fit this “in between” size very well at 34” tall.

R’s a sucker for the gossip at the check out...

With the ring waist, I was even able to get it on and off at the wagon without getting the straps wet!! SCORE!

All in all, of the four different brands I have tried, our new custom Metamorphosis wrap conversion mei tai is by far my favourite. The craftsmanship is superior, as is the attention to detail. The padding in the waist and shoulders makes my 30 pound boy feel weightless, despite my condition and, it is absolutely stunning. To top it all off, Shannon offers very competitive pricing and amazing customer service and, did I mention SHE’S CANADIAN??!! For more information, please visit the Metamorphosis Website or Facebook Page.

So this is 30...

This is me at the beginning of my 20s. I had long blond hair and weighed 135lbs at 5 foot 8 inches. I was attending Simon Fraser University, pursuing a Bachelor of Education and I was in such a rush to get on with adult life in my career. I had set some loose goals, originally to achieve by the age of 25 and then as my mid-twenties approached, I decided to revise. I decided I wanted to achieve the following before I turned 30. 

1. Complete my Bachelor of Education (well it certainly wasn’t with honours... CHECK).
2. Get a permanent teaching contract (well, I’m currently 40% of the way there with an additional 50% temporary... one day... one day...).
3. Own a home ( I have actually owned 2 condos and a house).
4. Get married and have a baby (initially I had hoped for this sequence, but I found that having the baby and then getting married still achieved this goal).
5. Complete my Masters degree before having children (accomplished with 2 weeks to spare).
6. Be as fit as I was at 20 when I turned 30 (sigh... still working... very hard...).
7. Travel (this became a goal a bit late in life and while I managed a tour of the UK and Portugal and a quick trip to Mexico to watch my sister get married in 2008, lived in Quebec in 2009 and Oregon in 2010 and visited Hawaii a few times, I still have a few trips on my list transferring over to my Before I Turn 40 List ;-)
8. Find myself. 

The last goal is a big one and I truly believed it when somebody once told me that your 20s are for finding yourself and your 30s are for your family. I’m not sure if the person I found in my 29th year is the person I’m going to be in my 39th or even my 49th year, but I definitely feel, that at least for now, I pretty much know who I am. 

That being said, I guess it’s time for a new list, because, that is WHO I AM. I am an overachiever and I do not like NOT having goals to attain. I am learning to find balance between sitting back and enjoying life AND achieve goals in a non-obsessive manner, but I still feel the want to have some goals. So here they are. Before I turn 40 I would like to achieve the following:

1. Have a happy marriage and two children (please do not ask me if I’m knocked up, I’m not).
2. Advance my carrier (I’m not sure what direction yet, but my Masters Degree says Administration and Leadership and my heart says Counselling... time will tell).
3. Purchase, build and mould our family home. Sadly, when I met my husband, I was already a home owner who had bought at peak time. It is our 4-6 year goal to purchase a house together to be able to build a home together, for our family, from scratch. This means a lot to him.
4. Travel. My remaining dream trips are to Portugal and then follow the Mediterranean to Turkey, a trip involving Australia, New Zealand and Fiji and Alaska. We would also like to do trips every 1-2 years to Hawaii as a family... perhaps one or more of those above trips will be without ALL our family... just sayin’.
5. LEARN TO BE HAPPY WITH MY BODY IN THE HEALTHIEST FORM I CAN ACHIEVE, NO MATTER WHAT THE SCALE OR THE TAPE MEASURE SAY (man is this a stinkin’ toughie!!!).
6. On that note, learn to really manage and be in control of my health issues, primarily my arthritis and my anxiety, but also my weight and eating habits.
7. Have a raging party for my 40th and not be out of the country when it takes place because turning 30 was also kind of one of the most anti-climactic events of my life.

Here’s a few more random pics (that I feel safe sharing on the world wide interwebs) from throughout my last decade!

White girl with braided extensions alert circa 2002

Sooo my GPA for my BEd was a full 1.0 lower than my MSc, but I still made this LOOK GOOD!!

My one and only motorcycle, a Suzuki GS 500 - The Yellow Hornet

Cancun, November 2008.

Quebec Parliament Buildings, July 2009.

University of Oregon, July 2010.