This is a blast from the past. Cassie and I have been on this Alkaline Paleo diet for at least five years and it's been amazing. Here's Cassie!
Yahoo! You have chosen the path to wellness and health excellence. Good on you!
Here are a few things I have learnt since being on the program from myself and others.
After following this program food choices will become so much easier!
It's a simple truth that our bodys biochemistry affects the brain and the gut (which is also a brain) and our biochemistry is affected by what we eat. If we change the bodies biochemistry first by eating the right nutrition then we will find is so much easier to have a change of mind around our food quantities and choices.
As a result of using this diet our minds will start to work a lot better and our emotions will be balanced. And because our digestion will improve enormously we can utilise this nutrient rich food that are so necessary for a healthy hormonal balance.
- I use lemon on practically everything I cook. My husband does too and we really enjoy the extra tang of the lemony flavour. It’s actually quite Italian! They like lemon on their food also! It also has an added benefit of aiding digestion.
And yes, it's also a great alkalizer.
If you find yourself getting hungry between the recommended 3 meals a day then remember to add more oil or fat to your meal. This helps you to remain satiated until your next meal.
Remember: You will never have the same feeling in your stomach as you feel when you eat a lot of carbs. The overfull feeling will never occur. Yes, some people think the overfull feeling is satiety.
It’s not, it is your tummy actually protesting and in distress.
- Testing your stomach acid with Betaine Hydrochloride
…with pepsin is very important as after having been on a high carb diet. With the ensuing leaky gut, the stomach acids will be very low.You will need to continue with this until all of your digestion has healed. Take Betaine Hydrochloride with Pepsin with each meal. Increase the dosage each day until you have a burning sensation in your stomach and then back off 1 pill. This will be your maintenance dosage with all 3 meals. The burning sensation is easily stopped with a little bi-carbonate of soda in water.
- For the first four weeks: NO dairy in any meal.
In order to know whether you have a sensitivity to dairy you need to go off it completely and then reintroduce it and carefully watch your reaction to it. First try Ghee for the first few days, next butter, then yoghurt or kefir. If you have any adverse reaction in any way, aches or pains, tiredness, mucus, constipation or diarrhoea then it’s not something you can eat at present. If you do, it will set back your healing by quite a few days even a week or two.
- Remember: Any cheat will slow your healing.
The cheat won’t just affect you for the day you have that your have eaten the cheat. Often after cheating you will see, once you get sensitive after being on the meal plan for a few months, the reactions last quite a while.
- People often ask, “How do I know the difference between a Healing Reaction and a Cheat Reaction. This is the simple answer; before you have a Healing Reaction you will start to feel really good. This means your body has enough energy to do some good healing work. If you cheat when you start feeling really good, then this will cloud your answer, so don’t cheat it makes everything so much easier.
- If you do cheat don’t give yourself a hard time. Just look at why you did it, and find a way to nurture yourself for next time, so you will know what to do when you get ‘that’ feeling.
- When you think you are hungry drink a glass of water first to see if it’s really hunger or it’s actually thirst.
- Nuts are a problem. They are hard to digest, but they are a low carb snack food. So if you must snack with them make sure they are soaked first for 24 hours. You can then dry then in a dehydrator or a very low (under 100 degrees C fan forced oven). Really it is better not to eat them until your gut is healed.
Check your stools if you want to know how the nuts digested!
- Licking the plate is totally acceptable!
- You may find you have lost you appetite for the foods you are allowed to eat or just lost your appetite. This is normal at the beginning. It won’t last and is the result of the carbohydrate addiction.
- If you experience cravings for high carb food really intense then eat more fat and more protein.
- A great snack food is eggs. Always keep a few boiled eggs handy in the refrigerator so it you go out in a hurry and might be away for a meal you can eat them on the go. Remember to take the Celtic salt.
- Remember in the first few weeks of being on this diet you will lose a lot of fluid and with it sodium and potassium. You will need to replenish stores by using plenty of Celtic salt. The Alkaline Paleo ketogenic diet is unlike the high carb diet which will retain salt in the kidneys. This is the reason why the mainstream medical directive is to not eat too much salt. I using suggest 1 ½ tsps a day.
- Eating plenty of salt will really help with the tiredness that comes with the changeover from being a glucose burning body to a fat burning body. The changeover time is called the Low Carb Flu.
- You may get cramps to begin with and so eating plenty of salt and having bone or fish broth is very important to to prevent them.
- Extra potassium can also be very important. So either use AlkaBalance or drink lots of green juices (recipe will come) or use a potassium powder. The bone broths are also very helpful for this important mineral.
- Take baths using Epsom salts. This is nurturing and is a great way to get Magnesium.
- You may have either lose stools or constipation. Don’t worry about the loose stools as this is the way your gut is healing.
- For constipation (dry stools) then try using ½ tsp ascorbic acid with ½ tsp potassium chloride first thing in the morning before any drink or food. Oil is also great for keeping the bowels regular.
- Make a list of everything that is wrong with you health wise in a diary before you start. I can guarantee you won’t remember you had these problems once they have gone away. With the diary you will be able to remember the things that were wrong and have vanished. When you see the progress it gives you great incentive to keep going!
- Write in your diary what’s going on with you right now in this moment especially if things are looking a bit bad. Try to write something every day. It’s great to get it all out on paper!
- Remember green juices are your friend. They are a great way of getting all the goodies out of green leafy vegetables, cucumbers and celery without as many carbohydrates! They are also alkalizing and antioxidant.
- Drink home made soda water using alkaline ionized water from our Ultrastream or San Pellegrino with a squirt of lemon juice. This drink will help with cravings for wine or alcohol. If you need a bit of sweet to begin with on this program you can use a little Stevia to sweeten this drink but I do suggest stop eating anything sweet as soon as possible as you will lose your sugar craving much quicker.
- Remember to write in your diary of all the foods you eat each day. This will help you to understand how certain foods make you feel.
