Monday, June 16, 2014

Low Inflammatory food resources (Paleo & Primal) for people who ask

When a person who is close to me (good friend, co-worker, or family member) wants to know more info on low inflammatory foods, I do four things.

1. Ask if they are working with or seeing their own doctor first. Who knows what meds they are on, etc.

2. I assess what education medium best fits the person
  • printed materials
  • books
  • electronic books
  • real live books (imagine that!)
  • audiobooks
  • websites
  • podcasts
  • websites
  • Pinterest boards
  • Youtube videos

3. Then I provide my 2 cents on some starting materials. 

A recent request : "What  low inflammatory foods can I buy and eat?"

This particular person is not much of a book reader, but loves computer print outs that she can make notes and take with her to the grocery, and to show her friends.  Cool. I chose 3 guides (Paleo) and one guide (Primal) for starters.

Here's the link I used to access the guides to print: (Balanced Bites- Practical Paleo)
Balanced Bites and Diane Sanfilipo's down loadable, and printable guides  fit this person to a tee. It also gave myself a chance to tell my loved one that: 

Here's the link I used to access Primal guides to print: (Mark's Daily Apple)

Some talking points: 
1. I don't eat all the foods on the list (pumpkin and yellow squash give me a bloated belly) or that I eventually worked into some of the foods- think liver and heart. I would never have touched liver or heart early on. Nooo way! Now, they are tasty once and a while.

2. That she could make her own food template out of her favorites and in season choices.

3. No food template is the same for each person. The foods we eat are meant to be customized to our own genetic make up and responses and long term health. Even if we are related. 

That's the best way  I know to spread my good health forward is to provide some starting materials that someone can learn in their favorite learning medium. The people who ask me are often the ones who have seen me yo-yo diet for 40 years. Glad to pay it forward. I applaud anyone wanting to take more processed foods out of their diet. Good stuff!

What works for me:

1. Using UPDATED resources that met my health goals to help support my new normal life style.
2. Keeping an open dialog and an open mind.
3. Using educational sources that best match the person's learning style

What did not work in the past:

1. Using a one size approach in counting things that did not really matter (the points in a Skinny Cow ice cream... this did not lead me to a sustainable, healthy outcome for me),The use of updated resources cannot be emphasized  enough! So many food lists still name Canola Oil as "healthy". I don't believe that is true. It will take a while for the literature to catch up.
2. Thinking one way of eating was the "Best way"- low fat, high carbs from whole grains. Some of my friends and family may benefit from a lower animal protein diet. Some may eat grains. Good for them! Trying to fit my own needs into a higher inflammatory template had a terrible outcome for my health.
3.Lending my friends & family  books if a persons learning style was more of an audio visual style of learning.They will not read them...

7 comments:

  1. Great resource links! Thanks
    I think everyone has to find out exactly what works for them. Right no absolutely no grain/sugar and a bit of full fat dairy is working for me. I did decided to lower my carbs a bit and it's working out great.

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    1. Good stuff , Suzanne. I miss full fat dairy sometimes. Enjoy. :)

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  2. Canola - not good. I even fry eggs in a little olive oil. :)

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    1. Katie, I'm telling you, I feel so ill when I get exposed to canola oil. It pains me to see it at the top of major dietary recommendations. Canola getting off those lists will be like turning the Titanic around. Long, slow, can't avoid the canola iceburg

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  3. A mind must be open to think about what will/may work for them.

    We all learn and discover what suits us best. We are different some prefer quiet reading others prefer group support.

    We owe it to ourselves to discover a healthier lifestyle - life is for living to the full.

    Good luck, good health to all.

    All the best Jan

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    1. Yes, Jan. The more I learn about personal genetics ( APOE 4, MTHFR, etc) the more I'm convinced that some food templates work better for certain gene rearrangements. I look forward to more insights from molecular science. Until then ,noticing what makes us feel good is a great way to navigate.

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  4. Saying hello - I just found your blog because of Tess posting it for Wordsilk's comment on Authority Nutrition " Does anyone know of a lchf or paleo blog targeted at fat, middle-aged ladies?"

    (I laughed because that's ME)

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