Thriving on Paleo! After suffering for years from numerous symptoms of Hashimoto's Thyroiditis and Celiac autoimmune diseases, Michele Spring used the Autoimmune Paleo (AIP) Diet to put her diseases into remission and started feeling better in her 40's than she did in her 20's.
She’s now a Certified Health Coach and AIP Diet Coach, dedicated to helping you take the steps you need to feel relief from your own autoimmune disease symptoms through the Paleo and AIP diets. She blogs at Thriving On Paleo and has a Youtube channel that provides guidance, support, and inspiration to those using diet and lifestyle to feel better.
See all episode artwork, links and notes at:
https://blog.dirobi.com
This show is for informational purposes only.
None of the information in this podcast should be construed as dispensing medical advice.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Find episode links, notes and artwork at:
https://blog.dirobi.com
This show is for informational purposes only.
None of the information in this podcast should be construed as dispensing medical advice.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Thriving on Paleo! After suffering for years from numerous symptoms of Hashimoto's Thyroiditis and Celiac autoimmune diseases, Michele Spring used the Autoimmune Paleo (AIP) Diet to put her diseases into remission and started feeling better in her 40's than she did in her 20's.
She’s now a Certified Health Coach and AIP Diet Coach, dedicated to helping you take the steps you need to feel relief from your own autoimmune disease symptoms through the Paleo and AIP diets. She blogs at Thriving On Paleo and has a Youtube channel that provides guidance, support, and inspiration to those using diet and lifestyle to feel better.
See all episode artwork, links and notes at:
https://blog.dirobi.com
This show is for informational purposes only.
None of the information in this podcast should be construed as dispensing medical advice.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Find episode links, notes and artwork at:
https://blog.dirobi.com
This show is for informational purposes only.
None of the information in this podcast should be construed as dispensing medical advice.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
[inaudible].
Speaker 2:Hey, welcome to the show. Before we jump in, I want to do a quick experiment. Just reach down and touch your belly. If you feel rock hard rippling abs down there, you're probably 16 years old. Living off of good genes and real life hasn't hit you yet. Get off my show you punk. This show is for grownups. Now if you have a few miles on, you and your abs are a tad squishier than you wish they were, I have two resources for you to check out today. First of all, we created a simple mini course called fitness and nutrition for busy professionals. It's absolutely free, but it has a ton of great info and a downloadable PDF. Find it on the resources page at[inaudible] dot com while you're there, if you're ready to supercharge your nutrition, your workouts and your supplements, check out our transformation packages. Each one includes a supplement package, precision nutrition training and pro coach workouts delivered to your inbox daily. Learn more on the transformation packages page of our website and although the price on these are already stupidly cheap, save 15% with coupon code insider and now on with the show. Hello everybody. Welcome to this episode of the dire OB health show with the shell spring. We're going to be talking about thriving on paleo today, which is her expertise after years of suffering from numerous symptoms of Hashimoto's thyroiditis and celiac autoimmune diseases. Michelle used autoimmune paleo AIP to put her diseases into remission and start feeling better in her forties and she did in her twenties she's now a certified health coach and an AIP diet coach and she's dedicated to helping you take the steps you need to feel relief from your own auto immune diseases. A very important topic. Michelle, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you so much for having me. Really happy to be here. Glad you could make it and I've looked forward to this interview. I was introduced to paleo because I did CrossFit for a few years and and CrossFit kind of adopted paleo is like the diet, right? There's that, that marriage between those two. So I did learn about it there. To be honest, I never adopted paleo as a diet that I followed strictly, but I certainly learned enough about it to realize that the basic idea and the strengths of it and everything like that. But because I am no expert, why don't we just start with that? Why don't you start with giving us a, before we go into some autoimmune stuff, would you tell everyone what the paleo diet is?
Speaker 3:So the paleo diet really kind of goes back to our roots and I think a lot of people think straight of cavemen, but it's not necessarily just cave men, it's, it's about taking out a lot of the processed foods, a lot of the frankenfoods, the food chemicals, a lot of the things that have been kind of put into our food stream within the last like hundred 150 years. So it's going back to having whole foods. We do remove grains because it does seem to be kind of problematic for a lot of people. And if you look at a timeline of people from like 10,000 years ago and on like agriculture and greens have kind of been added into our, our food stream relatively soon, like, uh, recently in our time. And so a lot of people have not been able to adapt properly. Um, and so it's like removing those, removing most dairy. A lot of times G and butter are still allowed on paleo, removing lagoons and beans. Um, a lot of the processed sugars, um, things like maple syrup and honey and a couple of the other sugar that are okay, but a lot of the white sugar and having a lot of it is taken out as well. And then a lot of inflammatory oils and processed foods and things are taken out as well. So it's just kind of a template of eating all foods that are nutrient dense that really kind of provide a lot of a feel for your body. Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it's interesting because there was a Ted talk by this young nutritionist who, who kind of gave a Ted talk as if she was debunking paleo. I remember this went around and, and I watched the video and I thought, wow, did you ever miss the point? And it was, it was so sad because it was a look at this everyone, this woman just totally destroys the paleo diet because what she was doing was she was saying, Oh, paleo is all about eating the way people ate 10,000 years plus ago. But look, this is what wild broccoli looks like. Ha, gotcha. Broccoli today looks like this. And I thought, okay, um, she just was off the Mark because the point is not to find 10,000 year old broccoli as it is in nature and walk through the forest looking for this stuff. And, and so to me the much stronger point was what you said about frankenfoods. It's the fact of what your eliminated, no, no one in paleo is saying, we've got to recreate our hippie gardens the way they were 20,000 years ago. It's not the point, right. We understand that carrots are different. There's been a lot of work in agriculture. There's a lot of botanists and people who are, who understand this stuff. There's a lot of crops have been designed to grow faster. Uh, a lot of them are designed, uh, with the tastiest type, whether it's an orchard or a garden. And so it's just that we even then don't even eat very much of those foods. Right? Like, we don't eat enough apples, we don't eat enough a tube, uh, vegetables, we don't eat enough of what we have. So we could compare it and say, well, it's not as good as it used to be, but that's really not the point. Is it? Do you, how much of it do you think is the elimination of all the frankenfoods or any processed food? The stuff in the boxes from the middle of the grocery store?
Speaker 3:I mean, I think that's a large part of it, but it's, it's what you're adding in, in replacement with that. So instead of like my usual diet when prior to going to paleo, put on a standard American diet and I would have breakfast cereal for breakfast, right? Just grains, wheat, that kind of thing. And then I would have the, I dunno, sandwich more bread and maybe peanut butter and jelly. I like that. And then pizza for dinner. So it was all kind of the same food groups. But when you're removing all of these foods, you're also adding in, like you said, apples and lots of different vegetables and a lot of different variety of things that actually have a lot of like different nutrients that are replacing the same thing over and over and over over again. Hopefully that makes sense. But
Speaker 2:yeah, absolutely. And so, and so go into your story. You talked about needing just a regular sad, a sad diet, standard American diet, but you developed autoimmune, autoimmune disease. So talk to us about that. What's your backstory and how did you get here?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Um, so yeah, I grew up on the standard American diet. I mean lucky charms were staple food and my diet. She knows that kind of stuff. Uh, when I was in college I gained some weight, so I started exercising like a lot of people do, trying to out exercise and be able to eat whatever I wanted to be able to do the exercise so I could eat whatever I wanted. And I got into marathons and Ironman triathlons and stuff. Um, and I started to eat better at that point in time, but it was still pretty bad. Uh, and one time after I got done my second Ironman, I just couldn't recover. Like I just felt so tired and no matter like what I was doing, I was just so, so tired. And after several months of this, like sleeping all the time and all that, I went to my doctor and, uh, got a battery of tests done and he realized, um, that I had what he called hypothyroidism. And, um, he told me just to go on a medication Leibow thyroxin, which is helping replace my thyroid hormone. And he said, that's all I could do. And I was shocked because I thought I was completely healthy. I was 29 years old, just did my second Ironman, you know, like all of this. And it was a very big shock, but there was nothing I could do apparently. And so I went on with this for about eight years and I kept like, I got a little bit better at first, but kept going back month after month after month, having to get my medication adjusted and like my hormone levels would go up and down and just, I kept on finally like having all these symptoms. I had a child in that point in time. I had preeclampsia during my pregnancy and I had a miscarriage and later on, a lot of these things I've been kind of tied back to autoimmune disease, but I'd never realized that there was anything I could do. Uh, and then my son, when he was about one, had a really, really bad winter and had four ear infections, like one right after another on bam, bam, bam, bam, and had, uh, antibiotics for each of those. And after that he was not able to tolerate cinnamon or all walnuts. It was the weirdest thing. So we brought him to an allergist, they did the standards, skin prick test, and he came back allergic to everything, which is the weirdest thing. And like the doctors and the nurses all stood there kind of scratching their heads. They had no idea what to do and they said, Oh, just let him come back in three years and just feed them nuts or anything like that. And I couldn't take that as an answer. Like it was just as a mom. That was just a weird like, come on, give me an actual answer, something I could do. And so luckily I had been reading some blogs at this time about grain-free diets and how they could help with food sensitivities. And so I was like, all right, we'll go ahead and take this leap and we'll try to do it. And so we went on a grain free diet called the gut and psychology syndrome by dr Natasha McBride, Campbell McBride, a gaps diet. And within like two weeks of going on that diet, I went on it with him too. Um, he was fine, listen, minimal. That's prior to the diet. He had just started to say, mama here, like putting words together. It was the first time you had done that. Two weeks into the diet. He said, momma try of the car really fast. And so like, wait, there must've been something going on in his brain with some inflammation. Wow. Six weeks into the diet I noticed that myself because I went outside and suddenly all the leaves on the trees were super, super clear. I could see like it was almost like standard definition television to high definition television where everything was just so much clear. The colors were so much vibrant, more vibrant. And then, uh, I was a computer programmer at the time and I would have to read specs for my job seven to eight times to really understand what I had to do because a brain fog and I went in that day and I read a spec like that and got it immediately. And same thing with questions from my coworkers and meetings and stuff. I was able to answer them and I realized, wow, I had a lot of stuff going on in my brain, inflammation or something. And I just started to feel so much better. But then I got pregnant. I went on to like nine months of white bread pizza and like French fries and stuff cause I just could not like hold anything in otherwise I'm just not this from all these things. And uh, when I came out of that, I realized I really just had to do something, I have to make a change. And paleo diet was really kinda coming into fashion at that time and it was very similar to the gaps that yet. And there's just a lot more like baking and things to make it more sustainable. So I went to that instead and went through a couple of years of that, but I was doing the 80 20 model of a paleo where you eat paleo 80% of the time and then just kinda, you know, eat gluten or whatever else you want on the weekends, that kind of thing. And I didn't realize that like gluten part of it was really starting to make me sick. And one day about two years after this, I was just like, I was so fed up because I was slowly starting to get worse and worse and worse in[inaudible]. One of those things where like it wasn't one day I could not read my specs again. One day I get like I couldn't, whatever. It was just a very, very slowly. So I didn't really notice it until I got so bad that I was like sitting on the couch every day after work, couldn't cook, couldn't take care of my kids, couldn't do anything. And it was, it was heartbreaking and I thought I was literally going to die because there are so many weird symptoms that I had and my mother had died of cancer several years prior to this and she had started off with a whole bunch of weird symptoms as well. So, you know, in my head I'm thinking, I'm, I'm dying, I'm not going to be around for my kids. Like this is just the end. Um, finally went to a functional medicine practitioner because my own doctor was just being like, he's like, I have no idea what it is. Like it's just in your head, like get more sleep, whatever. And he wasn't any help. So I went to a functional medicine practitioner. He diagnosed me with a celiac disease. And Hashimoto's after running a whole battery of test. Wow. And what I learned from the Hashimoto's that it was different than the hypothyroidism, is that you get both symptoms of hypothyroidism and hyper where your, your thyroid either work slowly or too fast and that it's actually an autoimmune condition that I can do something about. It wasn't just take this pill and shut up. It was, Hey, like you tried, you know, take some of these supplements, like kind of replenish your immune system and do all those kinds of things. And then also go onto this a paleo diet subset called the auto immune pellet protocol or AIP diet, which really kind of helps settle the inflammation and make you a little bit, uh, make your immune system work better and everything like that. And so I went on this and I felt fantastic. Better than I had felt in 20 years. And like, I mean, I, it's an elimination diet, so you remove a whole bunch of more things from paleo, like nuts and feeds and coffee and chocolate and the night shades and all these different things. But it really gives your body a chance to reset and to calm down your immune system to start working properly, all of that kind of stuff. And then you start one by one, reintroducing foods to see which ones you may react to and that kind of thing. And I eventually got back to paleo and I've had some bumps along the way. But other than that, I mean I've been fantastic. Like the person who I was when I was before I got diagnosed and the person I am now is completely different person. Wow. It's crazy. And your, your story, there's a lot to unpack there. The story about finding the right professional, the story about taking matters into your own hands, not just trusting your doctor who sounds like was pretty much just a kind of uh, diagnosing and drug. Um, type. Um, you did mention some supplements. I'm a supplement guy so I'm interested in that. What were the supplements you took? So because of the celiac disease you don't absorb a lot of different vitamins and minerals in everything. So I was like vitamin T, a lot of iron. Um, cause I mean I obviously got tested for all of these to make sure that I was deficient or not deficient on these vitaminK i nvited like the, all of the different vitamin[ inaudible] supplements as well o r some of the big ones that I had to do. And then magnesium, m agnesium i s one I still take to this day, every day. J ust help.
Speaker 2:I do too. And I don't, I don't eat it. I spray it. Yeah. I spray it on my thighs and uh, rub it in so it bugs my stomach. Um, we didn't put it in our Mimi's miracle multi. We have a multivitamin, muse and miracle multi and it's not in there on purpose. Everything else you said we have in Mimi's miracle we've got D, K, B iron, zinc, a, you didn't say zinc, but I'm just giving you a handful of what's in there. Um, so none of those things surprise me. Those are things we have found that almost all Americans were deficient in. And that's why we formulated, um, that product. So thank you for a nice and natural plug for my own product. Right in the middle of the[inaudible]. That's true. But back to you, um, your story is really compelling. You're now helping other people. Uh, you've had your own journey. You, you've climbed the mountain top and, uh, although you're not representing your perfect health specimen that you've overcome a lot and, and are living and now are a certified health coach. So what are you finding out there? Let's talk generally in the United States autoimmune diseases. What's the situation in the country for most grownups out there? Um, with autoimmune diseases? Do you have any idea on percentages and what the most common autoimmune disease diseases are? Just give us your gut reaction.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm not, I think Hashi motos is one of the most, um, and Sjogren's where you get dry eyes and some of the drier things. I think those are two of the bigger ones. I know there's another one, and I'm not thinking of it right now, but, um,
Speaker 2:there was a thyroid, thyroid qual, thyroid thyroiditis is another big one. And that's something you dealt with, right? A lot of people have thyroid problems.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, yeah, for sure. Um, yeah, grays, graves' and Hashimoto's, both are thyroid issues. Um, but there was a statistic I saw recently from, I was like American association for research of autoimmune diseases and they said 50 million Americans, just Americans. This is not worldwide. Americans have autoimmune disease and have been like suspected or have actually been diagnosed. And you put that in perspective, that's a three times the amount of people with cancer. There's only 16.1 million Americans with cancer. Wow. And so it's, it's a very pervasive, it's a very, very common thing. However, a lot of people don't even realize that they have it because they're, the symptoms can be so ambiguous or the doctors have not diagnosed them because things like, again, they can be so ambiguous and you have this like weird mixture of symptoms and doctors are kind of like a, I don't know, like a lot of tests haven't been developed. It's one of those things, it's not cut and dry. Like you have cancer. It's a lot more ambiguous than that.
Speaker 2:Got it. So basically your story can, contains the seeds of that problem that um, the first time you tried to get a diagnosis you didn't get it. And so, so basically people listening who have, they know something's wrong and their doctor can't figure it out. That sounds like it's a pretty big sign that they need to carry on. And potentially you could have an autoimmune disease. What are the, what are the, uh, the, the most typical symptoms that would help someone understand they may have an autoimmune disease.
Speaker 3:So a lot of the ones that I typically hear, and this is definitely a Hashimoto's symptoms, um, extreme exhaustion that you can't seem to shake even though no matter how much you sleep or anything like that, brain fog where you just feel like you're kind of climbing through clouds all day or big marshmallow like marshmallow head, like, you know, mess if you have like a cold, but you just can't seem to shake that as well. Um, you're cold a lot, maybe colder than most people or you have cold hands and feet. You have dry skin, your hair is falling out, you have joint pain. See how all of these can be. So I mean, my teeth hurt when I have autoimmune flares. Okay. Yeah. Like I said, dry eyes, it was just pretty much any seem like symptom you can think of can get tied back to it. I had anxiety, like terrible anxiety for my whole life and I had no idea whatsoever that that may have been tied to food or an autoimmune disease. And as soon as I went on an AIP diet, it went away completely. So there's just a lot of, pretty much all of the weird ills that a lot of Americans or people attribute to getting older can be tied to an autoimmune disease. It's not necessarily that it is, but it's something to look at.
Speaker 2:And to make it clear, you and I are health coaches and we are not doctors and we're not diagnosing here and we're not treating. And so for those people listening, we're trying to give you directions and, and how to find the right help. Right? So I just gonna throw that in there. And we're talking about medical conditions here and people should not listen to this and go, Oh great, Oh, I think I have that. And so I'm just going to go out and do this. Right? So make sure and do what Michelle did and go out and find someone, whether it's a functional, um, what do you call it? A functional nutritionist, functional medicine practitioner, functional medicine practitioner. They look for the root cause of what's going on with you. Excellent. Okay. So that being said, you have found success. You have been helping people with this, with this. And um, what are some of the things you do you, you've got found some things that give people immediate relief, right? So what are some of those things?
Speaker 3:So one of them sleep a lot of times is a big thing. And again, like I said, I was sleeping 14 hours a day when I was before I got diagnosed. So sometimes sleep cannot help necessarily all the way, but most people these days don't get enough sleep. If you're getting, if you're, if you think you're getting a badge of honor, if you're getting four to six hours of sleep, you're not, you're, you're doing yourself a disservice. So if you can get at least eight to nine hours of sleep, that may be one of the biggest things that you can do to kind of give your body a rest and help. Uh, another one is to try going on a gluten free diet for at least 30 days, if not longer. Um, because a lot of, uh, autoimmune diseases have been tied back to gluten sensitivity, um, and just, uh, gluten, the way that it acts in our body can exacerbate any of these symptoms or, uh, the pathways that the autoimmune disease kind of works and attacks your own tissue. So, uh, gluten, dairy is also another big one. A lot of times that I've found with a lot of people. And, um, I think those really are the two big ones. But then also stress-relief, uh, stress is one of those things like I think it's pervasive with everybody and it's with like I think any health goats in any sort of like modality, no matter what diet you work with or anything like that would agree that stress is one of the worst things that's going on with us these days. But it doesn't allow your body or your immune system to calm down ever. And so it's kinda like you're F you have a firefighter or a fire departments that's fighting like wildfire and you need to do maintenance on the trucks, but there's nobody to do maintenance on the trucks because it's completely like doing the wild fire the whole time. So you need to stop the fires and then help your body to like do the maintenance on your body. And if you're constantly being stressed or you're constantly eating these foods that are making it stress your body stress, then you're not going to give your body that chance to work optimally repair itself and then stop attacking itself.
Speaker 2:Okay. There's a couple things I want to jump into on that. Let's put the the stress relief on hold for a minute. And first of all have you just flesh out a little bit more on the paleo. You've already mentioned a couple of big ones which had to do with elimination, getting rid of gluten for example, being a big one. And I know a lot of people who have limited gluten and had major health improvements from that one thing. So that's a real thing. I think almost all of us are aware of. What else. Give us just a few key points for someone who, uh, let's just put it this way. Someone who doesn't necessarily want to become a paleo evangelist, but who just thinks, ah, there's some cool ideas here. I'm mean, I'm going to implement three or four things of what Michelle said to improve my diet. What would those top three or four things be?
Speaker 3:So definitely gluten's the one like the main one, I would say dairy and then a corn also seems to be a huge one if you can somehow get corn out. A lot of even celiacs. Uh, gluten is the big thing that everybody always hears about with celiac disease. I like you have to be gluten free, but a lot of celiacs do tend to have issues with dairy and corn because the protein that they're comprised of is so similar. So try and remove those. Um, and then if you have any sort of pain like rheumatoid arthritis or any of those kinds of things, nightshades seem to be the big one for them. Um, so there was like tomatoes, eggplants, even white potatoes, chili powder, paprika, all of those different kinds of things. If you can try to remove those for awhile and see if that helps from removing those.
Speaker 2:Okay, excellent. Now let's get into the stress reduction. What are you advising people to do for stress management?
Speaker 3:So, I mean there's so many different things that you can do, but meditation or guided meditation, even if it's for 10 minutes a day can make such a difference because not only you're giving your body a chance to rest, but you're also giving your mind a chance to just kind of blank out and stop thinking about that constant to do list that you have. Um, so I think that one is a huge one, but like it's even just making sure you follow a hobby or take some time for yourself, like read or spend some time with your kids or something and not constantly doing stuff. Cause I think that's one of the things that everybody seems to be in overwhelm these days. They are over-scheduled their to do list is always so long. I mean I'm guilty of it too and it just, but just making sure you take some time for yourself and really prioritizing what matters to you and not necessarily all these little things that really, it's more noise than anything. It doesn't have to be done. Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay. Excellent. The next thing I want to drill down on is you've not only had success in improving your own health, but you, your children were struggling. You mentioned at least one anyway that had had some issues. How many children do you have now? I have two. Yeah, the two. Okay. And um, how old is your boy? That was one when you've, you discovered those problems don't jobs now he's 10. Okay. And so, um, you were raised on a, what was it? Lucky charms. I don't remember the exact cereal, but he's not being raised on lucky charms and yet he is being raised in a society where every party he goes to and uh, every event and even school lunches are pretty much the sad diet and he's gotta live in that world. And so as a mother, how are you dealing with that in a sane way? Talk to the moms out there for a minute about what you're doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, when we first started, I was definitely neurotic. I mean, I would make his own Halloween candy and he would get Halloween candy. I'd have to dump it all out and I would not let him have any of it these days. It's about balance and moderation. So like Halloween for example, he gets to have a couple pieces of candy. Um, we do believe that both of our kids are celiac because both my husband and I have been diagnosed with it. So we just go, we assume that because they've had issues. Uh, my younger son actually had really bad eczema until we, um, had him completely gluten-free as well. Uh, so we were just going with that. So when we go to birthday parties and stuff, we bring our own cupcakes, uh, and bring our own snacks. They have their own lunches at school and stuff like that. So it's, it's not as hard, uh, to make sure that they're not eating stuff at birthday parties because they only, they already, that's what they know. But, um, I do like in their lunches, they got Hershey kisses in their lunches today. Like things like that. Like we're, I'll do little touches so they don't feel completely left out. But for the most part, everything is healthier than what a lot of the other kids are getting. But they'll, they'll get some things that just kind of balance it out to make it not. So it's so in your face, like I am some completely different, I don't give them books, salmon and kombucha and, and seaweed for lunch, you know, have that looks similar to their friends, but it's not terrible.
Speaker 2:Okay. Yeah. So, and, and, and of course you're giving advice based on the fact that you're confident that they have celiac. Right? So this is, this is not necessarily a something that all mothers need to do out there, but those are some great practical ideas. I think perfection IDAST is, is for sure the enemy of good health. Um, because I think the kids that, um, I think televisions is a good example. Um, we've seen a lot of examples of families that don't want to television in their house. And, and I remember those kids who come to our house and binge, and, uh, I think it's a similar concept with the, with candy and things like that. Uh, our best efforts if they're a little too extreme can backfire. So I liked the fact that you're building in sustainability, you're feeding them the best you can without a zero tolerance policy. I think that would backfire for almost all kids.
Speaker 3:I think so too. And we do have a conversations about it too, that like, Hey, like you're eating this way because it helps fuel your body and your mind. And you notice how like when little Johnny over there ate all that candy, how he was running around screaming and then he was crying 20 minutes later, you know, so we have learning opportunities that we had discussed this and I think my kids start to get it. We'll see when they're on their own. But hopefully we've taught them well enough. That's, I mean, that's all we can do as parents. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Well, this has been, this has been fascinating. Um, and I'm sure for people especially that are listening that have an inkling that Hey, I might be dealing with some of those symptoms that she talked about. Um, your, your solution of, of, of paleo. Um, and your story of how you went through and figured things out and got solution and now you've gone on to become a coach. Uh, it's a great story. Um, but before I let you go, there's another part of it I want to talk about. You used to be an iron man triathlete. I did triathlon for eight years. I get triathlon. I, I picked it up because I thought, Hey, running, biking, swimming. I mean those are great, uh, activities that would keep me pretty healthy. Right? And so that was part of my health journey for eight years. Um, but what are you doing now? What's your, what your, what are you doing for general fitness and what kind of things are you're teaching your clients to do for general fitness?
Speaker 3:So that's another big part of autoimmune disease that a lot of people don't understand is that there's actually exercise and tolerance that can come out of autoimmune disease. And, uh, some people are able to go on and do whatever they did prior to having their autoimmune diseases. But some people like me seems to have this exercise and tolerance. If I tried to go and do a three mile run, I get sick afterwards. Usually it's like a cold or a flu or I spend the next three days staring at the wall because I'm just, I can't handle it. Uh, and so I, a lot of people have had this and I've noticed I've gotten better over the years as I've healed, but mostly I walk 30 to 45 minutes a day right now, which that was hard at first going from iron man triathlons to walking. I felt like that was kind of being lazy, but I love it. Now I also do bar ballet classes to kind of work all of my muscles and yoga[inaudible] a lot more of these like gentle things. And I'm a small hours. We do pretty strenuous mountain hikes. So that's more of my marathon of these days is we'll go out in like a seven, nine mile mountain hiking up mountains of Colorado here. Um, but I do take a lot of time off afterwards. I don't push myself. Like I used to, like with iron man, you would go every single day, twice a day for hours at a time. I don't do that anymore. It's definitely a lot more gentle, a lot more about listening to my body and just really kind of playing off of if I feel really tired, I don't do anything that day. And if I feel good that I can do something.
Speaker 2:Ah, it's good stuff. I'm, I'm dealing with those types of issues just from getting older. I'm 53 now and I, I've, I've cut back on some of the things I'm doing. Uh, I'm cutting back and how much weight I lift and things, but I'm starting at the same time to appreciate some of these things you're talking about. Uh, for example, I've, I've got a habit of meditation that I've gotten fairly good at and developed over the years and um, and I have a walking meditation that I do when I walk my dog and it's simple and I'm kind of killing two birds with one stone cause I walk her everyday anyway. And, uh, I've just got a little mantra I got from tick, not Han. And I just say that in my head. And, uh, and it's nice. It's turned my, you know, I, I look back with some regret at some of the times. It's like, Oh, I gotta walk the dog and I just, you know, the, the leash dragging guy. Yeah. On some days when you gotta get to work, I've totally gotten over that. I, for me now, it's just, it's fun for me and her, it's out in nature and I'm starting as an older guy too. I appreciate that. That combo of walking, which I used to think was a pathetic form of exercise. It actually is exercise and it's nice. And if I add some mindfulness and meditation into it and it's refreshing mentally, spiritually, it's something I really enjoy. So I, I'm having to make some of these zigs and zags that you're, you're talking about. Um, and yet I've learned it's not a step down. It's not like, Oh, I used to be able to do an iron man. Now I got settle for a hike in the mountains and hiking the mountains is kind of awesome. And Colorado, right? Yeah. I enjoy it more. Uh, yeah, actually I can totally get that too. Having dragged myself through many miles of, of wishing a lot of people think that running a marathon or doing a triathlon, um, you know, that it's such an accomplishment. Everything[inaudible] and it really is. But, um, when you see people cross the finish line at some events with that huge smile on their face, uh, you and I both know that that smile is cause you get to stop[inaudible] right. I think that people who've never done it do not understand that for the last three hours all you've wanted to do is stop running or whatever you're doing. Right. And so, uh, it's an interesting thing. Um, so the, this has been great. You've covered some really great topics. Uh, is there anything you want to add that we didn't talk about enough or any points that you want to make before we wrap up?
Speaker 3:I think only, um, that if you are struggling with these symptoms or even if you've been diagnosed with an[inaudible]
Speaker 4:okay.
Speaker 3:Because it's not such a well known disease like cancer. A lot of people don't understand it. You may not have the support from your spouse or your friends or your family that you may get if you had something more identifiable. And it's really hard a lot of times where people like you may not have support from your doctor or anybody else and I just want you to know that there are a lot of other people, like 50 million Americans apparently that have this and are going through it as well. So just do not feel like you are alone and like seek out support. Like you can come to my website but there's plenty of other places on the internet and everything that have people, a communities of people that are struggling through this too. So reach out and really just get that support you need because I know it's so hard to go through this alone and what goes on in your head can be so like damaging psychologically and everything as well. So just just know that.
Speaker 2:Okay, great stuff. And tell us about your website and any other places where people could more about you and what you're
Speaker 3:doing. Yeah, my website is thriving on paleo and uh, I'm on there. You can come to Instagram. I'm thriving on paleo on there as well. I have a Facebook group which you can get to via my website and that's a great place to connect if you do have autoimmune disease and are trying to figure out, you know, what's going on with you or like need that support and also YouTube channel. So I was just everywhere. Okay. Thriving
Speaker 2:on paleo. Well thank you so much for taking the time, Michelle. This has been really great. Thank you so much for having me. And for those of you who are listening, this is Dave Sherwin wishing you health and success. Okay. Well, thanks again for listening and don't forget about that coupon code insider to get anything you like at[inaudible] dot com at 15% off and check out the health and fitness for busy professionals, free mini course at[inaudible] dot com there's plenty of other really good resources on the resource page there. By the way, check them all out. D I. R. O B i.com. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.