Healing Eczema Diet

After 3 days of consistently high blood sugars in the 300-400 mg/dL range (normal should be around 83 mg/dL so this is really high), taking 2-4x as much insulin as I normally do, and talking to my acupuncturist about my new vegan/pescatarian ways, I need to make a change.

He said I need to do a diet that is first and foremost good for my blood sugars.

So I am basically going to follow the advice of this lady and her healing eczema blog, which seemed to help me some before: http://www.eczema-natural-healing.com/eczema-and-diet.html

This diet basically follows the Paleo diet principles...

Breakfast (4am-12noon)

Make a fruit smoothie with:
1. Banana, strawberries, raspberries, apples, oranges, cherries, peaches, plums, and/or pears.
2. Golden flax seeds freshly ground (2 Tbsp), wild crafted blue green algae, green drink mix, organic unheated coconut oil, and probiotics.

Do not add melons, blueberries, or grapefruit to the smoothie – these must be eaten separately.

Lunch (12-4pm)

Have either:
1. Fish (salmon, halibut, or oysters) and vegetables
2. Ezekiel bread with either vegetable soup, or avocado/tomato/cilantro/olives
3. Miso soup, brown rice and steamed vegetables
4. Mashed potatoes using coconut milk and butter, with sautéed mushrooms in tamari sauce and a small salad

Dinner (4-8pm)

A 16-24 oz. glass of vegetable juice made with:
• 2 stalks celery,
• 1/2 bunch parsley,
• 2 carrots,
• 1/4 bunch cilantro,
• 3 leaves of kale,
• 1/2 cucumber,
• 1 green apple.

Add and alternate, in very moderate amounts: ¼ beet, cabbage, zucchini, bell pepper, bok choy, etc.
If still hungry after this drink, eat some raw, organic nuts and/or seeds: pine nuts, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, or soaked almonds.

Snacks:

• Fresh fruits
• Fresh vegetables (cucumbers, carrots)
• Unsalted nuts or seeds

Days 1-2 of less meat

YESTERDAY 3/3/15:
Of course the day I decide to stop eating beef and chicken, one of my friends texts me and asks if I'd like to come over for dinner - of gumbo.

Gumbo I learned is basically a lot of meat - especially beef and chicken - in a stew. Kinda the worst thing I should be having right now according to my new principles...

So I brought a salad over, ate a couple slices of homemade sourdough bread prior, and had just a couple bites of his gumbo.

PROS:

• Up until that point I was doing a pretty good job of staying away from meat. And interestingly enough, my body and digestive system felt lighter. Much better.

CONS:

• However, my blood sugar was sky high before bed that night. I chalked this up to my body not being used to eating so many carbs and so little protein. So I took a big shot of insulin to bring it down and woke up around 12:30am with a blood sugar of 43 - so I had to eat more carbs to get it back up. Definitely felt like a roller coaster.
• Also, I weighed myself and my weight was up a little bit from what it has been. I've been trying to lose weight and keeping track very closely, so this was a bummer to see.

TODAY 3/4/15:
Breakfast this morning consisted of homemade vegetable and bone broth with some added (heirloom wheat) ramen noodles, and cooked dark leafy greens.

I was feeling very hungry by 10am and ate 2 dates, some walnuts, and a bowl of oatmeal. I had to take an extra shot of insulin for this.

I definitely feel more hungry on this lower protein diet. But that could be because I have added grains instead of fruits/veggies as some of my main calories this morning. I've heard it said that your body sends hunger signals when it needs additional nutrients - of which grains don't have very many. When I eat a green smoothie for breakfast I don't feel as hungry as I did today. So that is what I will try tomorrow (today was really cold outside so I wanted something warm to eat).

Really, that is my main goal: to eat more fruits and vegetables, therefore crowding out my need to eat very many grains or much meat.

Farewell to Paleo?

For the past year, I have been dealing with this pesky (ugly and itchy!) eczema on my hands -- or, as I've learned my grandpa used to call it (referring to it on his own hands), "the creeping crud."

Here is a picture of it from today (it has morphed throughout the past year):

I've tried modifying my diet in a number of different ways to make it go away. It seemed that some of the most effective things to make it get smaller were to alkalize my body by doing things like stop drinking coffee, green smoothies for breakfast, juicing lots of green veggies for dinner, and eating less meat. This lady's website really helped me out: http://www.eczema-natural-healing.com/eczema-remedies.html

But I could never get my eczema to totally go away. Juicing every night in particular got to be a tough regimen to follow (and not very fun, as dinner is nice to share with family/friends).

So my interest was piqued when when I started reading a blog by a guy who has studied Eastern and Western medicine, used to have skin problems but now doesn't, and used to eat Paleo and now eats a whole foods, plant-based diet. Here is a link to his blog: http://donmatesz.blogspot.com/

He says that red meat and chicken aggravate eczema - and since he has switched to not eating meat his skin problems have gone away:

"In general, it is standard practice in Chinese medicine to recommend elimination of red meat and poultry from the diet of people with inflammatory skin conditions because long empirical experience as well as Chinese theory indicate that these foods create inflammation (we say that they create heat)."

Here is a link to his "Farewell to Paleo" blog post that got me re-considering my own diet: http://donmatesz.blogspot.com/2011/06/farewell-to-paleo.html

These are the things I am going to try over the next 1-2 month to see if they help clear up my eczema and overall health:

1. Become a "pescatarian": avoid meat (especially chicken and red meat), except for wild caught fish.
2. Keep my carbohydrate intake down by eating more vegetables than fruit or grains. I used to aim for 40 carbs or less per meal when I was Paleo. Now I may try for 60 carbs per meal.
3. Eat only gluten free grains (rice, corn), einkorn flour (which is low in gluten), or homemade sourdough bread (also low in gluten). 
4. Eat only fermented dairy (goat or sheep cheese/yogurt, no cows milk for me).

Also I need to think about sources of protein. Here will be some staples for me I think:

• Wild caught fish
• Hummus
• Tofu
• Peanut butter
• Almond butter
• Nuts
• Hemp
• Chia seeds
• Sesame, sunflower, and poppy seeds

Let me know if you have any other suggestions.