The Paleo Elimination Diet (That “Cured” Me Before the Lion Diet)

By Mikhaila

Hi!

My name is Mikhaila Peterson. I’m a 26 year old mother (and loving it!). I live in Toronto.

Short background on me:

I was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis when I was 7 years old. My parents think it started when I was around 2 noticing the way I walked. I was the first child in Canada to be put on injections of Enbrel, an immune suppressant. I was also put on injections of Methotrexate. In grade 5, when I was 12, I was diagnosed with severe depression/anxiety. I started taking Cipralex (Celexa), an SSRI. I was on a very high dose for a child, but if I tried to lower it, I couldn’t. That dose increased into my teenage years and early 20’s when my depression worsened. When I was 17 I had a hip and an ankle replacement from the arthritis (that diagnosis was changed from rheumatoid arthritis to idiopathic arthritis). I was prescribed Adderall to keep myself awake because I couldn’t stay awake. Diagnosed with idiopathic hypersomnia. My skin was itchy, I had mouth ulcers, floaters, and terrible skin problems starting in my early 20’s.

At the peak of my medicated times I was taking:
For Arthritis: Enbrel and Methotrexate, (immune suppressants). Folic acid because of the Methotrexate. Tylenol 3 so I could sleep at night without as much pain.
For depression: Cipralex and Wellbutrin
For fatigue: Adderall to keep me awake, Gravol and Lorazepam to put me to sleep from the Adderall.
For my skin: Minocycline (antibiotic), and later dapsone (antibiotic)
Other: Birth control (seasonique)

I’ve probably taken antibiotics 2-3 times a year since I was 2. That’s almost 40 rounds of antibiotics.

I’ve been on way more than that too. That was just at one point in time.
Anyways, all in all, I was very sick.

May 2015, I stopped eating gluten. I thought that my skin problems that had slowly been growing worse were probably Celiac related (dermatitis herpetiformis). I never had stomach pain so I had never looked at food before. Cutting out gluten maybe helped a bit… But not nearly enough.

September 2015, I went on an elimination diet. I went on it to see if I could control my arthritic symptoms. I could. 3 weeks into the diet my arthritis and skin issues went away. This was unheard of. I don’t have the type of arthritis that goes away.

3 months later my depression disappeared. My arthritis ate my hip and my ankle but I haven’t experienced anything more debilitating than depression.

A month after that my fatigue lifted.

Everything wrong with me was diet related. Arthritis, depression, anxiety, lower back pain, chronic fatigue, brain fog, itchy skin, acne, tiny blisters on my knuckles, floaters, mouth ulcers, twitching at night, night sweats, tooth sensitivity, and the list goes on, but everything was diet related. Every single thing wrong with me was fixable.

Then I got pregnant.

Things shifted in my body and the original diet I followed didn’t get rid of my symptoms anymore. My arthritis came back (albeit much less awful than before) and my depression came back (again, much less awful). I lost the ability to tolerate any carbs.

The following is a list of foods that I could originally eat without reacting. This is a good list of foods to start with for the elimination diet. In order to do this, you have to be very strict. If you have questions, please comment!  If the following list doesn’t work for you after a month, you can try even more strict, or you can go zero-carb/lion diet. If you’re suffering from an autoimmune disorder or you need to get better ASAP (as in you’re dying from what ails you), I’d recommend zero-carb. You can reintroduce vegetables after a month (if you want to).

If you can’t manage to do zero-carb, or the following list of foods, (it makes eating out almost impossible), at least cut-out gluten and dairy and sugar. If you’re a “healthy” person, cut out gluten and dairy. All of it. Gluten is hidden in soya sauce, twizzlers, malt vinegar. Cut it all out for 4 weeks and see how you feel. If you’re suffering from an autoimmune disorder or depression or another mental disorder than I would suggest doing the following diet or doing zero-carb. Cutting out gluten and dairy will help but it might not be enough. You may find that you’re able to reintroduce most foods after the elimination diet.

Meats:

  • turkey
  • beef
  • chicken
  • lamb
  • duck
  • wild game is fine too, elk, moose, etc.
  • wild salmon
  • tunacheck 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 sardinescheck 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:

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
  • coriander

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- check the ingredients. Buy loose leaf if possible
  • green tea- check the ingredients. Buy loose leaf if possible

Alcohol – not for the first month. I can kinda handle it, but lots of people can’t.

  • vodka
  • bourbon and American Whiskey labeled “straight” whiskey

Good luck! If you try this for 4 weeks you should be able to see a huge difference. Then reintroduce foods by having a bite of it. I do not recommend reintroducing dairy and gluten ever but do so if need be. It took me 8 months to realize how sensitive I was, it doesn’t seem possible, but I react strongly to half bite of food. Have a bite or two of the new food and then wait 4 days before reintroducing something else. Most of my reactions (but definitely not all) take about 4 days to hit peak terrible – particularly arthritis and definitely the depression. Skin issues take about 7 days to come up after eating an offending food.

Things to try and reintroduce first after the first month:

  • avocados
  • other leafy greens
  • macademia nuts
  • foods that are listed as okay by the AIP or SCD diets

Foods to always be wary of:

  • grains
  • dairy
  • sugar
  • soy

Foods that I had major issues with when I tried to reintroduce

  • almonds
  • rice
  • sulphites
  • dairy – ouchhhh that was not fun to experience
  • gluten
  • kelp noodles
  • white cabbage
  • bananas – terrible for the arthritis
  • cane sugar
  • food dyes
  • citrus
  • melons
  • grapes
  • onions
  • zucchini
  • soy
  • probiotics – I can’t handle them, but that doesn’t mean they’re bad. Hopefully, after some healing, I’ll be able to handle them too.

My father and my husband have the same sensitivities, and I’ve been contacted by people who also have extremely similar reactions to the same foods. This is widespread. These are terrible reactions that most people don’t realize until they’re gone. What’s the point of realistically thinking about everything bodily that’s bugging you? Muscle pain, fatigue, digestive issues, minor skin problems, the occasional mouth ulcer – all things people ignore. Don’t. These are signs. Good luck!!

To find out exactly how to go about doing an elimination diet please read this (especially if you suffer from depression/anxiety, there are some things you should know before going on an elimination diet).

UPDATE: Zero-carb – for when going down to meat and greens isn’t good enough. Or if you’ve already been on a keto diet or paleo diet and you’re still not better

Join the Conversation

444 Comments

  1. You have the best energy. Really amazing to listen to. All your suffering has most definitely not been in vain. I am just doing a few trial days of only good quality fatty meat, cream in coffee, eggs, and herbal tea. I’m curious if I’m possibly consuming too much meat. I craved lots past two days. Might’ve been psychological. Time will tell I’m sure. Looking for less inflammation and some bloat to go down. I have Hashimotos.
    Maybe I’ll purchase a consultation with ya.
    Thanks.

    1. Cravings go down but they’re pretty bad in the beginning. I’d cut out the cream for sure and possibly the eggs until you can figure out if they’re bothering you. They were hard on me. Thanks for the kind words!

  2. Hi Mikhaila. How were you able to get enough calcium during you’re pregnancy if you weren’t eating any dairy? Thank you

    1. My calcium levels were fine throughout the pregnancy. There are many cultures that don’t eat dairy and don’t have depleted calcium, I think it’s just something we’ve been told we need, but don’t.

  3. Hi Mikhaila! 🙂 I have a question. What is your (and your father’s, husband’s,..) blood type? I want to improve my mom’s health. She is 48, overweight, has a high blood pressure and some heart condition. She had a stroke at 45. When I told her about you and your father, she made a comment about a blood type. She has a type A and says that eating meat doesn’t work for her. I need some sort of evidence that this diet works even for a type A. Thank you.

  4. Saw the Joe Rogan interview.

    Joe Rogan Experience #1164 – Mikhaila Peterson

    Some comments are never forwarded to the “patient” so that positive actions can be taken to remedy trouble.

    1. Prolotherapy is a nonsurgical treatment which stimulates healing. Short for “proliferation therapy,” Prolotherapy is also known as nonsurgical ligament and tendon reconstruction, or regenerative injection therapy. A mild saline or sugar solution is injected to cause very mild irritation at a wound site on an ongoing basis to trigger the wound mending ability of the human body via the usual chemical and electrical signaling to regrow tissues destroyed by injury or disease. 30 years ago this therapy was non-mainstream and considered “alternative medicine.”

    2. Cellular proliferation can be stimulated when bone marrow is exposed to (principle component South polarity) pulsed magnetic fields to create adult stem cells. You do the math…

    Why does not everyone know this?

    This was proven during the Vietnam war by Charles Andrew Bassett M.D. of the VA hospital system.

    Google >pubmed CA Bassett (pulsed magnetic fields) OR pemf bone fracture non-unions<

    He was successfully treating war time injuries where parts of limbs were blown up making part of the bone so fragmented that normal limb fracture treatment would result in "non-unions" of the broken bone(s).

    Pulsed magnetic fields were used successfully IN THE NINETEEN SIXTIES–duh?

    I've talked to an online gaming friend who is a surgeon and he has never been exposed to that literature and believed it to be "unproven." Yet, bone fracture non-unions require regrowing of new bone to bridge the possibly large gap between shattered fragmented bone parts. The actual type of cells for bone repair are osteoblast cells–in some ways a kind of non-differentiated cell called in by electrical and chemical wound signals in the body to do wound repair. A stem cell is known as a general non-differentiated cell.

    Fringe science is shunned if it is not controlled or monopolized by organized medicine. The use of non-pharmaceutical medical cures or treatments (such as pulsed magnetic fields or electrical currents) routinely are discarded without good reasons due to inability to purchase the patent rights, nor control the delivery of the means of treatment, nor charge thousands of dollars for medical doctor supervised / administered treatments. Prior art of these schemes are linked to the 1800s prior to the 1910 Flexner report that reorganized medical teaching and thereby the subsequent Western medical system.

    Another VA Hospital system doctor during the Vietnam war also treated these war wounds of bone fracture non-unions with pulsed electric currents. His name was Robert O. Becker M.D. He was a radical thinker who tried to buck the medical system by avoiding publishing his study results in peer reviewed medical journals like his fellow physician CA Bassett, so as a result, Becker's fringe science was never accepted in the slightest by the medical community.

    Robert O. Becker published a book called The Body Electric:
    https://www.amazon.ca/Body-Electric-Robert-Becker/dp/0688069711

    You can examine the book by using file sharing methods such as bit torrent on a web site database of such links known as thepiratebay. The web site for thepiratebay can be found via, what else, Google.

    As the search parameter on thepiratebay de-select "All" and instead select "other" then enter Robert Becker as the keyword search item.

    Sharing or downloading such file shared torrent copy is a violation of US and Canadian copyright laws so I strongly advise against purloining a copy and thereby breaking the law. I think that in China, there are no such restrictions or at least no enforcement?

    Some of these scanned PDF files remain in image only sequence of pages and thereby are non-searchable. Abbyy Fine Reader OCR pro level software can be used on similar such image only sequences of pages to convert these into a pdf of formatted text that is searchable or text to speech audio book converted via the Microsoft Edge web browser when opening the text pdf file then selecting Read Aloud menu option (if your personal computer has audio output capability).

    According to his book, Robert O. Becker was able to regrow completely severed limbs on experimental animals. YOU DO THE MATH. Duh?

    A physics doctor of science disclosed that Becker conducted off the books (illegal / unsanctioned) medical studies with a number of human subjects–a strictly taboo activity, and REPLICATED HIS LIMB REGROWING method. The method involved a specific waveform harmonic of possibly several pulsed frequencies.

    The unrelated DSc physics guy disclosing these details was Dr. Bob Beck who invented a fringe science protocol to successfully treat HIV AIDS and cancer and some infectious diseases using non-pharmaceutical methods that included 1. pulsed electric currents at the micro ampere level, 2. pulsed kilo Gauss magnetic fields, 3. nano particle silver colloids in distilled water, and 4. freshly ozonated near frozen water. Beck volunteered that one of the principle frequencies was a particular one between about 2750 – 2900 Hertz. The reference to this is in an unscripted old audio or video recording for either a conference or radio interview where Beck was a speaker or interview subject.

    Bob Beck also experimented with FRINGE science applied to medical treatment of humans after these HIV AIDS patients were declared too far gone for conventional medical treatment. He used live test subjects from University of Southern California associated hospital system. He accumulated a large number of HIV AIDS polymerase chain reaction test results to show the progression of the treatment of several hundred HIV AIDS patients some of whom gave him permission to show the test results to medical professionals during Beck's lecture tours. The viral loads for HIV went down to levels where no virus particles could be detected on the measurement apparatus. YOU DO THE MATH.

    All of these scientists have long died years ago.

  5. I have recently experienced consequences from eating a varied and ‘normal’ diet. Every time I eat bread, biscuits, cereals and related products I have a reaction which involves a restriction in the throat, coughing and reflux. Things have not been good. I have decided to eliminate all these products from our meals so that I can see whether my views concerning them are true or not. I am considering whether I should go further and adopt the diet which you are promoting. The results for you seem to be quite amazing……….

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