microbiome diet – Personal Euphoria: Pilates & Fitness Classes in CT

Did the Microbiome Diet Help Me?

Playing with my food.

My naturopath wanted me to do the microbiome diet for three months. The book by Raphael Kellman suggested six weeks. I was committed for five and half weeks, until Matt and I went on vacation and then I slowly descended into dairy. Though, I didn’t make my three month goal, the real question is did the microbiome diet help me?

I don’t know the answer. It’s why research on humans is so hard. There are so many variables. As I approached six weeks on the diet, the sun was coming out. We were reaching the longest day of the year. Maybe that made all the difference. My workload is less in summer, maybe that helped.

I always feel better when I eat better, so in a general sense I felt better, but never better enough to give up all that I felt I was restricting. I didn’t sleep any better. My gut felt no better. I lost some weight. I experienced some bowel trouble I didn’t have prior. You wanted to know that, right? My psoriasis did improve, but my gut actually tells me that […]

Did the Microbiome Diet Help Me?Maggie Downie2017-12-29T20:38:26-05:00

The Saga of the Microbiome Diet

I’m three weeks, two days, fourteen hours and fifty-three minutes (as of writing this) into my three month Microbiome Diet challenge. When this blog posts, I’ll be further along in case you just felt as bad for me as I did writing that.

Our obsession and need for food is fascinating. Obviously we need to eat to live, though I have always been someone who lives to eat. I love food. This may be the first time in my life I’m eating to live. I’ve cut gluten (which I’ve done for the past five years anyway), dairy, and sugar (including maple syrup and honey, but excluding fruit). Whole foods do taste good, but on this diet I never overeat, and I find I’m not actually that inclined to eat.

Here’s my problem. I love carbs and cheese. And apparently if I can’t eat them I don’t really want anything else. I would never have told you that I didn’t like meat, but I find myself having to force feed myself meat. I’ve discovered I don’t like chicken. I’ll eat it. Sometimes it even tastes good, like when it’s wrapped in bacon, but I could happily pass on the stuff. When I was […]

The Saga of the Microbiome DietMaggie Downie2018-01-13T16:18:32-05:00

Purging: The Microbiome Diet & the Minimalism Game

The Food Part: Gut-friendly food

I’m amazed. Giving up dairy, sugar and most grains last Monday hasn’t been as hard as it normally is. The only thing I can think of that accounts for the difference is that I felt really ready and motivated to try this experiment.

Normally when I give up sugar for a month, I think about sweets—ice cream, muffins, and chocolate in any form—hourly. I’m truly in awe that I’ve been okay…that is until last Thursday—four days in—when I drove by Starbucks. Now, I’m not a big coffee drinker. In fact I don’t like it. Still a couple years ago, I started needing a little caffeine fix on Thursday afternoons. I get a mocha to mask the taste of coffee and very often I only drink half. I found myself pining as I drove past the green goddess. And the urge didn’t dissipate until Sunday. It didn’t help that I was visiting a friend in New York where Portland’s Stumptown Coffee was in nearly every shop. Stumptown is my favorite, and I longed to go inside a small coffee house with a good conversation […]

Purging: The Microbiome Diet & the Minimalism GameMaggie Downie2017-12-29T21:17:52-05:00

Come Purge with Me

Over the weekend I was in central Pennsylvania, which is known for the best potato chip. The secret ingredient is lard, which makes everything better. I know this because my Grandma’s pie crust has lard and it is delicious. Pie crust aside, I know this because I love food. I love it too much. So much that trying one bag of potato chips seemed insufficient, so my friends and I decided to have a chip taste test. Kay and Ray’s was the winner, but we got to go through multiple bags and multiple brands. I’m pretty sure I still feel the grease dripping out of my pores.

With this as just one example of how poorly I’ve been eating, I’ve decided it has to stop. I need to make a change for my waistline, but more importantly for how I feel. And even more importantly for the parts of me that I don’t feel—arteries, kidneys, liver—but that I want to fuel in a better and healthier way.

Starting Monday, May 9th I’m going back to my December Detox. See the link for full details. I’m making a few tweaks. I’ll be eating sweet potatoes, quinoa, some rice, and legumes if […]

Come Purge with MeMaggie Downie2018-01-13T16:22:55-05:00

Do a December Detox

Do you want to join me on a 10-day detox this December? Please keep reading.

This holiday season I will not bite the head off of any more chocolate Turkeys.

This is not a detox where you don’t eat. That has never appealed to me. I’m way too active to skip meals and drink only tea, and I get really crabby when I don’t eat. My desire to do this detox comes from a couple of areas. One, I always like a good food experiment, and, two, I’d been eating so terribly that on Halloween I looked at a bowl of Reese’s and thought the idea of sweets were disgusting. That was perhaps a first in my entire life I was repulsed by food. But it’s been working in my favor. Since then I have been eating better. December is really hard month to stay on track, so a couple friends and I are trying this little challenge. Here’s the info (if you’re still reading):

A friend and I got together to combine forces from the most recent books […]

Do a December DetoxMaggie Downie2017-09-12T19:31:10-04:00