My Diet
My goal in sharing how I eat is to take what has been and still continues to be a challenging health journey for me and use what I’ve learned to help others.
I’ve had Lyme disease (including Babesia and two species of Bartonella) since I was about 15 years old and mold illness since I was about 43 (I’m currently 49). I still have both of these conditions, but through the years I’ve used diet to manage my symptoms. I used diet because I didn’t have diagnoses until a few years ago. Diet has been really helpful and I’ve learned a lot from trying different things over the years.
What I’m going to share with you is the way I currently eat. I change my diet a lot to try different things, so I will likely tweak it in the future. I encourage you to take from the information here the things that work for you and leave what doesn’t work.
When I follow the diet I’m about to share, many of my mold and Lyme symptoms are much reduced. I would estimate that I currently experience 70 - 90 percent improvement in the following things by following my diet:
Joint inflammation
Energy level
Immune system function
I’m curious to know if the way I eat can help other people who have these types of illnesses. If you try my diet, even partially, and it works or doesn’t work for you, please let me know.
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My Current Diet
My current diet incorporates six ways of eating that seem to work really well together. I’ll list them here and then explain a bit about each one.
A whole food plant-based diet (WFPB for short)
Hyper-nourishing
Intermittent fasting
Slow eating
Gluten-free
Sugar-free
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WFPB is a vegan diet centered around minimally processed foods. You don’t add any kind of oil to your food but you can still eat fats in the form of nuts, seeds, and avocados.
Hyper-nourishing is a protocol created by Dr. Brooke Goldner and her husband Thomas Tadlock in which you consume three things every day:
At least 1 pound of raw cruciferous and/or leafy dark green vegetables.
At least 3 ounces of flax and/or chia seeds, freshly ground, which is 1/2 cup before grinding.
3/4 gallon to 1 gallon (3 to 4 liters) of water
To learn how to do hyper-nourishing, go to http://www.smoothieshred.com and join the Smoothie Shred Facebook group. The group is a great community to learn about how to do this.
Intermittent fasting is where you have certain time periods in which you consume water but don’t eat food. The type of intermittent fasting I currently do is called “time-restricted eating.” I wait until mid-morning or noon before eating and try not to eat too late at night. By doing this, I restrict my eating to a window of about 8 to 10 hours a day.
Slow eating is where you eat more slowly than most people in modern society normally do. I try to use slow eating for any foods that are not part of hyper-nourishing and are not raw vegetables or salads.
Gluten-free -- I generally don’t eat gluten-containing foods like wheat bread, wheat pasta, oats, barley, rye, spelt or farro. I eat gluten-free bread and pasta when I feel like it and make my own gluten-free baked goods.
Sugar-free -- I generally stay away from foods containing sugar, processed sweeteners or syrups. I consider honey, maple syrup, molasses, barley malt, and agave nectar to be syrups, so I generally avoid them. I make my own desserts using dates and overripe bananas as sweeteners.
I post my recipes, including my hyper-nourishing smoothies and salads and my gluten-free, fruit-sweetened desserts on my Facebook page, Tracy's Easy Eats. Feel free to join the group and get the recipes.
I hope this gives you a bit of information and inspiration that you can use.
Best of luck on your health journey!