Dad suffered from a number of health problems. He had GERD, minor psoriasis, mouth ulcers, fatigue and had an extremely hard time losing weight. He stopped eating desserts, went without sugar, and tried exercising. The worst health problem was severe depression. It seems to run in our family.
When I started figuring out my problems were caused by food, and my depression lifted, I convinced dad to go on the same diet. The first year he lost 50 pounds. No joke. He lost about a pound a week. I know this sounds extreme but he’s eating well. We eat a lot and we definitely don’t calorie count. All his minor health problems went away, and he seemed to age backward. No joke, check out his previous YouTube videos (2014 ish) compared to 2016-2017’s. The depression has been harder to get under control but it’s under control too. He doesn’t nap either. We’re going to make a video soon about it.
Anyways this is his diet:
Meats:
- turkey
- beef
- chicken
- lamb
- duck
- wild game is fine too, elk, moose, etc.
- wild salmon
- tuna – check the ingredients! Get stuff that’s just tuna and water and perhaps salt.
- organ meat – chicken liver tastes the best I find
- wild herring – check the ingredients!
- wild sardines – check the ingredients!
Veggies:
- lettuce
- arugula
- arugula microgreens (arugula sprouts)
- cucumber
- swiss chard
- seaweed –check the ingredients! this is hard to find without soy and other things. The brand I’ve linked to is safe and really tasty
- cilantro
- collard greens
- broccoli
- turnips
- cauliflower
- parsnips
- sweet potatoes
- spinach
Fruit:
- olives – check the ingredients! see my olive post. be super careful about which brands you buy here too, many have preservatives and flavours and dyes.
Vinegars:
- apple cider vinegar – try to get the organic stuff so there aren’t dyes and flavours added
Oils:
- coconut oil – get unrefined. And try to avoid the Nutiva brand. It’s everywhere but it doesn’t taste as good, and I’ve had ones that have gone bad before.
- olive oil – make sure your olive oil is pure olive oil. Sometimes it’s also soybean oil!
Spices/Seasonings
- salt
- pepper
- marjoram
- parsley
- oregano
- thyme
- rosemary
- peppermint
- turmeric
- basil
- bay leaf
Other:
- baking soda (probably won’t eat this but it’s good for toothpaste 🙂 )
- peppermint tea – check the ingredients. Buy loose leaf (David’s sells an organic peppermint which is lovely) or organic. We want to make sure there aren’t preservatives or flavours added. White tea bags or coffee filters are often bleached with sulfites. If you’re super sensitive (dad and I), you’ll react to these. So make sure you get organic tea bags as well!
- black tea
- bourbon
- vodka (unflavoured)
This makes it extremely difficult to eat out, and we’d be more relaxed about it if messing up didn’t result in a deep and miserable month long depression. We’re trying to branch out to more foods, but it seems like most of what we try and reintroduce goes badly. Next test is tomatoes!
UPDATE:
Are organic vegetables worth the extra cost? Watch out for baby tomatoes, they can cause mouth ulcers.
I’m pretty skeptical about tomatoes, haven’t reintroduced them yet. As for organic veggies.. It’s hard to say. I notice a difference taste wise, and sweet potatoes that aren’t organic upset my digestion. I think it depends on the vegetable.. and if the price is too much, it’s better to eat the right food nonorganic than to not eat the food right?
Dear Mikhaila
Thank you for your research on food and healing. I am from New Jersey and have a 17 year old daughter who has struggled with insomnia and constipation all her life and I am hoping to have her implement some of your dietary ideas. On a side note, she my is looking to attend Concordia University in Montreal next September. It is her number one school choice. If you can pass along any advice on her health woes or share any experiences at Concordia, it would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much!
Laura Ristovski
When I moved out, my health problems (especially fatigue) got a LOT worse. I ended up surviving mostly off of noodles, as university students do… I would highly highly recommend she cut dairy and gluten. That should help, it’s hard in university and when you first leave home but she could start now and see how she feels? As for Concordia, depends. If she’s in science, the campus is a bit far, if she’s in arts the campus is right downtown. Montreal was insanely fun to live in. Cold though. But just warn her about the change in diet when she leaves and try to switch her over now? Good luck!
Look into ghee: it’s non dairy and great for cooking or on veggies
Ghee seems to still have too much milk protein in it. I’m so allergic to casein and anything dairy related that ghee is still out unfortunately
Dear Mikhaila
Congratulations on figuring this out. I was wondering how your father was introduced to these ideas, now I know. In case you haven’t already you should check out Georgia Ede’s http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/ She’s a psychiatrist and came to the same conclusions as you did. I hope you will spread this message far and wide (especially with the traction your father has going). There are also a group of physicians in Canada, which want to change the dietary guidelines: http://www.changethefoodguide.ca/ You should team up and end some unnecessary suffering.
I will definitely look into her blog, and the food guide links. That’s great. The food guide in North America is ridiculous. Thanks for the kind words!
That could be a career in itself, a non-profit educational organization set to change policy in Canada and abroad with compiled scientific studies that seek to differentiate and debunk all the dietary habits showing up that prove to be benefiical without scientific backing as of yet like for Ketogenic diets, highcarb/lowfat diets, veganism, etc. and to debunk myths and push to have dietary education for more medical professionals on such topics at the academic level
(Perhaps an organization/site kind of like http://www.examine.com which breaks down supplement ingredients using publicly published studies from http://www.pubmed.gov (which is a simple form of https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/, the simple form will take you to the longer form of the address so it helps to just remember the simpler form)).
Videos on youtube like this that are information-dense, academically/scientifically proven, etc. would be a godsend out there with so much broscience and snakeoil floating around. And to make it an outreach arm of a legitimate non-profit organization could prove to make it a viable option for working from home. Don’t pass up this opportunity to leapfrog off of your father’s fame and popularity to draw other ills of society out of the shadows and into the light!
Hi! I have been following your dad’s amazing videos for a few months now and am just about to start the self-authoring program. I have two young children and my own business but have Fibromyalgia with a severe anxiety disorder as an obstacle to succeeding fully with either venture 🙂 I am currently taking very high dose SSRIs which have helped, as have the online lectures but have always ignored people advising me to try taking things out of my diet as I’ve denounced it a little as nonsense. After watching an old tv interview of you talking of your success with dietary changes my mind has been changed about its potential to improve lives. I look forward to following your blog! Thank you from the UK! 🙂
Good luck!! It seriously changed my life (I always ignored diet advice too… but a lot of it is “fix you diet and you’ll feel better” which is kind of condescending. Just because it’s diet related doesn’t mean it’s a simple fix.
Hi there, good stuff. I have a few questions though:
1. Is this the baseline, and then you’d introduce new foods after about a month or so?
2. Once you start introducing new foods, how long do you stay on that new food before you begin to introduce new ones?
3. What about sauces? I can’t imagine eating straight up chicken or ribs, that seems miserable. If you can’t do BBQ sauce at first, for example, then is something like chimichurri okay? Or what about spices in general? I see you’ve included a list of some spices and herbs, but my goodness that seems to exclude many that would otherwise make plain meats and veggies more palatable.
4. Would you recommend any of the popular elimination diet books found on Amazon, like Amy Myers’ or Patsy Catsos’ or Maggie Moon’s? I’m curious what inspired your particular solution. Was it a book like these, or was it just you figuring out which foods are most likely to cause an inflammatory reaction and other negative immune responses, and then sticking to the least likely groups?
Thanks in advance for your reply.
Aaron
1. This wasn’t baseline believe it or not, this was after some reintroductions but I think most people can start at this. Once the symptoms are alleviated (takes about a month for me unless I mess up), a new food can be added.
2. Sometimes symptoms don’t start until about a week after a new food is introduced, so I’d recommend trying the new food (very small amounts if it’s suspect), then waiting a week. If none of the old symptoms return, you’re probably good to keep that food and try a new food. If you don’t wait a week, sometimes you can reintroduce foods to quickly, get a flare, and then you won’t know what caused it. It’s very annoying.
3. Believe it or not, these foods are excellent without the sauces. (That being said, I believe we’re going to add back in coconut milk soon and that can make excellent sauces with curry powder – turmeric, coriander). Try out the chicken wing recipe and see for yourself. It’s shockingly good.
4. I figured it out by myself. That being said, there are a number of diets that pretty much follow the same pattern. The autoimmune protocol, paleo (to a degree), keto, GAPS, and SCD, all seem to cut out the most irritating foods. Unfortunately for me, a number of the foods that are deemed safe on those diets, still give me (and when I say me, the same thing happens to my father) a very nasty flare up. For someone who isn’t as sick, those diets would probably make a big difference too. If you’re really suffering I would recommend the most limiting diet and then reintroduction, just in case those other diets keep something that bothers you.
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