Latest / Health with Hashimoto’s - Thyroid or Immune Education for Autoimmune Thyroid Disease / 113 // Unlocking the Autoimmune Protocol Diet: A Path to Healing

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113 // Unlocking the Autoimmune Protocol Diet: A Path to Healing · Health with Hashimoto’s - Thyroid or Immune Education for Autoimmune Thyroid Disease

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  In this world of autoimmune problems, and Hashimoto's specifically,
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  there is so much information and opinions about diets.
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  I am sure you have encountered that.
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  And I've talked about it before. Episode 44 is Navigating the Diet Maze,
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  and it is one of my most popular episodes of all time,
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  because we're hit with so many different opinions and people saying their their
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  opinion as fact, as saying, you need to do this, all of the shoulds, right?
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  Well, in all of the whatever we're at 113 episodes, I have not talked about
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  the autoimmune protocol diet. It's called the AIP diet.
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  I have heard it called the autoimmune paleo diet, which is not correct.
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  It's the autoimmune protocol diet because it's not quite paleo.
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  That's what we're going to talk about today.
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  It's a very common one as far as recommendations, and also it's a little overwhelming
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  when you look at it. So let's talk about that today.
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  Before I dive into that though, I am Esther. Welcome to the Health with Hashimoto's podcast.
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  I am a registered nurse. After about 17 years in the emergency department and
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  working in clinics and hospitals around the country, I left Western medicine.
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  I was so sick and tired of putting short-term band-aids on chronic things,
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  and just seeing the same people back again.
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  Even in the ER, we'd see the same people back, or for sure, the same problems
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  back, because we were never really giving solutions.
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  We were just giving short-term band-aids. Western medicine is so broken,
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  and you have probably encountered that if you have Hashimoto's.
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  The average woman to get their Hashimoto's diagnosis sees four different specialists
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  or doctors over four different years and encounters multiple multiple misdiagnoses,
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  all to find out that she has Hashimoto's. And then what does the doctor tell her?
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  Take this Synthroid or Levothyroxine or maybe even Armour and come back in a
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  little while and we'll recheck your labs.
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  But that's not even addressing the problem.
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  It's like a supplement. When you have Hashimoto's, you have an autoimmune condition.
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  Your immune system is confused and it starts attacking your thyroid.
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  Your thyroid then, because it's under attack, can't do what it's supposed to
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  do. It can't produce what it's supposed to produce.
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  And that's what Synthroid or Levothyroxine, all the different medications are.
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  They are supplementing what your thyroid is no longer producing.
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  But those medications are not helping the root cause, which is the autoimmune problem.
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  It is your immune system getting all.
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  Haywire. It's attacking the wrong thing. And that is one of the main reasons
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  that people turn to the autoimmune protocol diet.
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  It is because that diet is specifically to help your immune system calm down
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  and it's going to also help the gut.
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  If you have gone through Hashimoto's Decoded root causes, you know that the
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  gut is one of the root causes and triggers for Hashimoto's.
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  So of course we want to look at gut health.
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  So if you took your gut, so I'm talking from stomach all the way to rectum.
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  If you took that, most of it is intestines, small intestine and then large intestine.
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  And most of that is small intestine. If you took it and you laid it out just side by side.
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  So every single little wall of your gut is spread out. It would be the size of a tennis court.
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  That's huge. That's all inside of your torso.
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  And your gut health is responsible for about 70 to 80% of your immune system.
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  So if your gut is not working right, then your immune system is not going to be working right.
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  And if your immune system is not working right, it might attack your thyroid,
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  and you have Hashimoto's.
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  Another thing for your gut is most of that tennis court is only about one cell thick.
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  Now, you know how thick a cell is, right? Or at least you know it's super, super, super tiny.
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  Not very big at all. Like think of one strand of hair.
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  It's smaller than that. It is so very thin.
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  And that's okay. That's how God designed our guts to be super thin.
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  In. The reason why is because it needs nutrients to pass through,
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  but your gut was not designed for foods to pass through.
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  Now, when you eat and you don't chew your food well, you're going to swallow big chunks of food.
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  Your stomach is then going to try to digest them and hopefully break them down
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  to appropriate sizes, which is, you know,
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  tiny, and then it'll go through your gut. And hopefully that food is not big
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  enough to like slam against the gut wall and break through.
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  Now I'm not talking about, you know, big, huge pieces going through.
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  Although if you've ever eaten corn, you probably know that the corn comes out the other side whole.
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  So we do have big chunks of food going through. And most of the time our body
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  is designed to deal with it.
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  But sometimes foods, whole food particles, can go through your gut lining instead of nutrients.
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  We want the nutrients to go through your gut lining.
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  For example, if you're eating protein, your body is designed to break that protein
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  down into different amino acids.
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  Then the amino acids pass through the gut wall, and then your body uses those
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  amino acids, it puts them back together, it uses them as ingredients to build more protein.
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  So you eat protein, the protein is broken down into its basic building blocks,
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  the amino acids, those pass through your gut, and then your body uses those
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  amino acids to build up protein.
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  It's a wonderful, amazing system.
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  But what happens if there's actually food passing through your gut lining instead of nutrients?
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  Well, then your body, it is so wise, your body is like, that is not supposed
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  supposed to be here. That is a foreign invader.
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  And what does your body do against foreign invaders? It attacks.
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  And if it's attacking a specific food, then it's going to remember that food.
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  And when you eat that food again, just like when you encounter germs,
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  your body has already been exposed to them. Your body knows to fight them.
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  So when you eat these foods that it's already fought, it's going to mount a response.
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  And that's where food sensitivities come in. So the autoimmune protocol diet
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  is designed to help your gut health, it is designed to help with food sensitivities,
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  and then it is also designed to decrease inflammation.
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  All inflammation is.
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  Increases autoimmune problems and is a trigger. Inflammation causes the immune
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  system to go haywire. So we want to lower inflammation.
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  So what is the autoimmune diet? Now that I've told you what it does by helping
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  your gut health, lowering food sensitivities or identifying them,
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  either one and lowering inflammation.
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  Well, the autoimmune protocol diet is an elimination diet and you're you're
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  eliminating a ton of foods.
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  You are eliminating all grains. So that includes gluten because gluten comes
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  from wheat and some barley.
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  I think one other thing. So it's removing all grains, not just gluten,
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  all grains, rice, every single grain.
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  It's eliminating legumes. So that's beans, nuts, seeds, that includes nut and seed butter.
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  So peanut butter, almond butter, cashew butter, seeds, so if you have any seeds
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  on your salad or with your breakfast, you know, all seeds, eggs,
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  dairy, all dairies, even cheeses.
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  It also eliminates nightshades. Now nightshades is a specific like scientific
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  classification of fruit bearing plants.
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  It's basically vegetables, or we think of them as vegetables. It includes a lot.
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  It includes potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, And then peppers, of course,
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  that includes like things like chili powder and paprika, all of the pepper spices
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  and herbs, not just bell peppers and jalapeno peppers, but all peppers.
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  So those are some of the nightshades. I think there's only over 200 different
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  types of nightshades. Those are the most common ones.
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  The AIP diet also excludes NSAIDs, which are non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
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  They are things like ibuprofen and aspirin, tobacco, and alcohol.
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  It's a lot of things. Oh, wait, and coffee. And remember how I said it eliminates seeds?
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  It also eliminates seed oils, things like canola oil and rapeseed oil,
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  soybean oil and and the sunflower oil. Those are also included.
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  All of the seed oils.
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  The AIP diet also excludes refined sugars.
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  Basically, you're coming to understand that if a food has been processed,
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  it's probably eliminated.
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  Processed sugars would include cane or beet sugar, corn syrup,
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  and all high fructose corn syrup derivatives,
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  brown rice syrup, which is often used instead of of corn syrup, barley malt syrup.
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  And then all of your processed sweets, your pop or your soda,
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  your candy, your chocolate,
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  all of the processed foods like that, because they're going to contain processed
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  sugars, and a lot of them are going to contain other things that are eliminated from the diet as well.
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  So you can see the AIP diet is going to remove a ton of stuff out of your diet.
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  And And again, this is elimination diet for a short time, 30 to 90 days,
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  with the goal of helping your gut heal, to help your inflammation reduce,
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  and to eliminate foods and identify foods that you have sensitivities for.
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  This AIP diet is not forever.
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  It is not forever. No elimination diet should be for forever.
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  We want to set a time limit on it. Now you do want to give your body time to
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  process all of that out and to heal.
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  So the shortest time you would want to do this, if you're going to do it, is 30 days.
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  You really want to probably give it longer, like 90 days, so that your body can fully heal.
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  If you're going to go to all of the work to implement the AIP diet.
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  Then implement it to the best of your ability so that you get the most benefits out of it.
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  Because I'm not going to lie, implementing a huge elimination diet like this is difficult.
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  It is not simple and sustainable.
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  It is a big undertaking.
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  So you want to plan for it well, and then implement it very well so that you
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  can reap the benefits and learn from it.
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  So then what is stage two after your elimination stage?
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  This is the stage that we're looking forward to with the whole elimination stage,
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  right? We want to add back in some foods.
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  When you're adding back in, you're not just going to go binge,
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  you know, a huge pizza and put in all of the grains and the tomatoes and then
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  other nightshades and like all of that. Nope, that's not how it works.
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  What you're going to do in the reintroduction phase is you're going to choose one food and.
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  And you're going to eat a very small amount a couple times in the day,
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  and then you're not going to eat it again, and you're going to track how you do.
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  You're going to track how you do that day when you're eating it,
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  and then you're going to track how you do for the next three to five,
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  even seven days, and then you're going to repeat.
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  So you try small amounts of a specific food, let's say it's tomatoes,
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  because you really love your tomatoes, so you're going to introduce that specific type of nightshade.
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  Do you have tomatoes? Just a little bit for two different meals on day one.
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  And then day two or day one, you're tracking, how do I feel? How does my body feel?
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  Day two, you're going to track, how do I feel? Day three, you're still going
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  to be tracking because some foods can take 72 hours to give you symptoms.
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  And even day four, you're still going to track. Day five, it's up to you.
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  Are you going to reintroduce a second food or that same one again on day five?
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  Or are you going to start with another food?
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  If your tomatoes in that example did fine, then maybe on day five,
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  you bring back more tomatoes.
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  And again, you're not going to probably go out and have a tomato salad or tomato
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  soup for a meal, but you're going to have more in your diet and make sure that things are okay.
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  And every five to seven days, you can reintroduce one food following that diet
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  that timeline, a small amount on day one, track how you're doing,
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  and then every five to seven days, repeat again.
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  That is how you do the reintroduction phase.
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  So depending on how it goes for you, maybe it can go fairly quickly.
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  For example, like your gut healed, you did the AIP diet for 90 days,
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  your leaky gut was able to heal up.
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  And when you reintroduce foods, you don't have any symptoms,
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  you don't find any food sensitivities.
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  So when I say fairly quickly, that's still going to be quite a while because
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  you're reintroducing foods one at a time every five to seven days.
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  So if you reintroduce, you know, one type of grain, and then another type of
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  grain, and then one type of legume, and then one type of nightshade,
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  you can see how this is going to take quite a while to reintroduce things.
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  Even though when I say it might go fairly quickly, like I'm saying,
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  it's not setting you back.
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  You don't have to re-eliminate things and then try to heal again.
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  So that's the like overall, what is it and how do I do it?
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  But then the biggest question is, oh my goodness, Esther, what do I eat then?
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  Because you've listed off everything that I eat for every single meal.
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  And that is a great question.
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  Back in my bonus episode number number six, I did a review of a book called
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  Food Saved Me. It's by Danielle Walker.
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  I highly recommend the book. I listened to it on audio and it's really nice
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  to listen to it in the author's own voice.
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  You know, I've seen some videos and some webinars and things from her,
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  so I know her voice and I love to hear her tell her own story in her own words,
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  in her own voice, not listening to somebody else narrate it.
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  Of course, you can also read the book, but that story is a story of of her finding
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  out that she had an autoimmune problem.
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  And at first her doctors didn't even tell her it was autoimmune.
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  They just said, you have, I think it was irritable bowel syndrome.
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  And they actually told her that diet didn't have anything to do with her symptoms or her disease.
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  It took her years and even an overseas trip where she got very, very, very sick.
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  And through all of that and through that overseas doctor, she discovered it
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  was an autoimmune problem and diet did play a huge role.
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  And from there, she started working on foods that would help her heal herself.
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  And now she has this huge world on the internet and through books.
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  She is so helpful to anybody who needs to follow a strict elimination diet.
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  She grew up in a family that valued food and relationships around food.
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  They celebrate with food. Every family kind of does that, right?
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  Her family was really big about food.
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  And her goal eventually was to have an an entire Thanksgiving meal that she could eat.
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  Because when she started out on this journey, she could eat nothing at the Thanksgiving meal.
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  And she wanted to be able to enjoy everything.
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  And by the end of the book, she does share how she could eat an entire Thanksgiving
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  meal and cook it all so that it was safe for her to eat.
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  She started off as a blogger when blogs were where it was like a barely, barely even a baby.
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  And she would share her recipes and her trials and errors.
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  And now she has multiple cookbooks. She has that memoir that I talked about
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  in bonus episode number six.
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  And she even has some courses sometimes about learning how to cook so that it
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  is a way that helps your immune system so that it helps your body heal.
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  Her website is the number one place that I send people if they are wondering, what can I eat?
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  And a lot of the foods on her website and in her cookbooks.
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  Follow the autoimmune protocol diet, you're going to be able to find foods on
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  her blog, which is daniellewalker.com.
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  It used to be against all grains. If you go there, it'll auto direct you to Danielle Walker.
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  And in her cookbooks, you're going to find so many good recipes.
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  They are full of nutrient dense, real foods, you know, meats and vegetables
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  that are not nightshades. You can do a lot of sheet pan meals.
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  I find that so easy when you're trying to avoid grains and when you're trying
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  to avoid dairy, because typically you're not going to put grains and dairy on a sheet pan meal.
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  You might put potatoes, which are nightshades, so you'd have to take them off.
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  But a lot of the sheet pan meals are okay on this specific diet.
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  Thankfully, we have Pinterest these days. You can go over to Pinterest if you've
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  never used it. It is basically a visual search engine where if you think of
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  it as a bulletin board, you take different pictures and you can pin them to
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  your own bulletin board to save them for later.
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  You can follow different pinners. And I love Pinterest because when I'm thinking
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  recipes, I'm thinking visually.
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  I want to see the recipe.
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  I don't want to read your entire life story before getting into the ingredients,
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  which is one nice thing about Pinterest.
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  It kind of shortcuts that. but I use Pinterest when I am looking for recipes
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  and you can type in, you know, what type of protein you want to eat.
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  And then, so you're going to like type chicken AIP diet recipe and Pinterest
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  will show you a whole bunch of recipes that are fine for the AIP diet.
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  So there are so many resources. You don't have to feel stuck on the AIP diet.
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  There really are a lot of different foods that you can eat.
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  One temptation when you're looking at an elimination diet is to look at all
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  the foods that you cannot eat.
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  It might be helpful to make a list. If you're going to do this,
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  make a list of all the foods that you can eat and that you do enjoy.
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  And there is hope. There was a small study done in 2019 of women with Hashimoto's
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  following the AIP diet, and they found that there was an improvement in the quality of life.
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  There were improvements in their overall symptoms, and there were improvements
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  in their immune activity and inflammation.
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  That particular study did not find change in their thyroid function or their
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  thyroid antibodies, but they did say that their quality of life improved and
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  their symptoms improved.
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  And I think if you're going to go for, you know, a huge diet change,
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  that's really what we're looking for.
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  Of course, we want our thyroid antibodies to change. We want our body to stop
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  attacking our thyroid, but we really want our symptoms to decrease and our our
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  quality of life to improve.
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  And the women in that study who were doing the AIP diet found just that.
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  Come over to the free community where we can chat about this.
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  It is on the app, the Health with Hashimoto's app in the community section.
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  Let us know, have you ever done the AIP diet or any other elimination diet?
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  What did you eat? What were your favorite recipes? And then what happened as
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  a result. I can't wait to hear your story.
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  This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only.
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  Please discuss any concerns and plans with your trusted healthcare professional.
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  If you found this episode helpful, will you please share it with a friend?
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  I'll see you next week on the Health with Hashimoto's podcast.
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  Music.