Paleo Diet and Paleolithic Diet Questions & Answers

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Hi all, I'm having issues and looking at a few different things in my diet and exercise to try and push through a five month plateau. I've lost 35 pounds so far, with another 40 to lose to be in my healthy weight range. I have multiple sclerosis (RRMS) that is currently in remission and has been since I started eating a paleo diet about 9 months ago. I'm not currently taking any DMD (disease-modifying drugs) but will start beta interferons (Avonex) if my MRI in August shows any disease progress. I'm not on any other medications. I'm a good 90% compliant with diet, do eat dairy probably once a day (cheddar cheese, homemade heavy cream yogurt, kerrygold, cream in coffee). I am for fewer than 50g carbs per day and do high fat, moderate carb. I eat eggs and bacon and veggies for breakfast around 11-12 in the morning, and have dinner around 7pm- meat and veggies cooked in fat. A snack when my kids are eating dinner around 5pm is usually some cheese or nuts or berries. This is all very general. My diet varies a lot. ANYWAY, my goals are weight loss (which hasnt happened since March) and continued management of systemic inflammation secondary to RRMS. I'm recently starting supplements again and want to know if I'm missing anything here.

1 prenatal multi vitamin (brand is "Nature Made")
200mg CoQ10 (Trader Joes brand)
1600mg turmeric (brand is NSI)
1000mg cinnamon
500mg magnesium (NSI brand)
2 cARLSON Cod Liver Oil gel caps (5000IU vitamin A, 800IU vitamin D, 140mg EPA, 160mg DHA, 90mg "other omega 3s")
Milk Thistle is something I will begin to supplement with again if I start taking Avonex

Any feedback is appreciated. TIA!

flag	asked Jul 12 2011 at 13:38 being 15.3k●1●14●58

	All MS patients I usually recommend stopping all dairy. I would especially do that before starting immunosuppressives. – The Quilt Jul 12 2011 at 16:08
	I also think the doses your on may need to be elevated in relation to your situation. I tend to use heavy doses. And with CoEnQ10 I use the rediced form and generally push that dose to 200 BID and in those with AI disease I push that higher too. Cash tends to limit that one because it is not cheap. Milk thistle is solid choice but you should consider adding NAC Phosphotidyl serine and choline as well for the turnover in the CNS from MS. I also push Zinc in MS and B vitamins in high doses. Vitamin D status is citical as well especially if you have a lot of muscle weakness. – The Quilt Jul 12 2011 at 16:13
	The more muscle weakness the more I push basic minerals and R alpha lipoic acid, PQQ, green tea extract, quercetin and resveratrol. MS and fibromyalgia patients tend to be on more supplements than any other I see. – The Quilt Jul 12 2011 at 16:17

luckybastard · Answer 1 · 2011-07-12 13:57:50Z UTC

it sounds like you're doing everything right, akd. points where you might want to keep an eye on is the nuts(you didn't mention how much you were eating for a snack) because they definitely caused my plateau last summer/fall. they are calorie dense and can easily push your daily calorie intake into maintenance territory instead of having you run a healthy deficit. also, if you eat too many nuts, even though you are taking the clo, it may knock your balance off and make you slightly inflamed which would also make it hard to lose weight.

if that's not the problem, i would look at the amount of fat you're using. i'm definitely not fat-phobic, but when trying to lose weight and you having a lost a significant amount already, you should probably have a rough idea of what your maintenance caloric level is now as opposed to what it was 35 lbs ago. that was the cause of a second plateau of mine. i was still eating like i weighed 290 when i was 240. it's easy to go overboard with adding fats to food and while i'm all for that, if you're trying to lose weight, the caloric density of fat may be hurting you if too much is used.

i would look at dairy only as last resort because it hasn't hurt weight loss in my journey, nor in other people i've observed. plus it looks like the majority of your dairy sources are full fat. even though most autoimmune paleo protocols call for eliminating dairy, if you're still in remission with the full fat variety in there, i wouldn't get rid of it unless you have tried all other avenues.

good luck

edit: i think your supplementation looks fine considering that you're dealing with the MS.

none · Answer 2 · 2011-07-12 14:10:44Z UTC

In regards to supplements for inflammation:

Proteolytic enzymes like serrapeptase and bromelain, are said to help with inflammation.

I was also looking at the ingredients of Zyflamend - they have things like ginger, oregano, green tea and holy basil.

Anne · Answer 3 · 2011-07-12 14:25:14Z UTC

Have you had a vitamin D level checked to make sure it is in the optimal range? According to www.grassrootshealth.net optimal is 40-60ng/ml

There are also some studies using high dose vitamin D for MS. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-david-perlmutter-md/vitamin-d-benefits_b_818912.html

Have you had a B12 level checked? Low B12 can mimic MS. I had a friend who was diagnosed with MS but it turned out what she really had was low B12. B12 tests are not perfect and, IMHO, what is considered "normal" is set way too low. I know some doctors who use 600 as the low cutoff for "normal"

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