Paleo Diet and Paleolithic Diet Questions & Answers

Question

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Honeymoon, Jamaica, personal chef. So how bad did I injure my gut? If one follows Paleo in most every area (no veg oils, no sugar, no grains in any form, healthy fats, veggies, no fruit, no nuts, pastured dairy, lots of venison, occasional chicken, lots of free range eggs, occasional grain fed beef, wine or bourbon twice a month) and then once a year takes advantage of fine local Caribbean cuisine, how badly is my gut/liver/pancreas etc damaged and should I have done any special fasting to recover?

BTW, this was not processed food either, so I guess if you are going to splurge it is somewhat better than a fast food binge. It was all cooked daily from local produce and animals: free range chicken and eggs, grass fed beef, daily caught fish, mangos, papaya, pineapple, watermelon, vegetables, peppers etc. My concern is the daily daiquiris, homemade banana bread, orange juice, alcohol (red stripe beer and rum with OJ) and nightly homemade desserts. Three meals a day, appetizer before dinner and unlimited alcohol, so basically it was a constant calorie intake while awake (except during excursions of swimming, kayaking or hiking etc).

Results from the vacation binge and the following week it took me to get back on the paleo wagon at home: gained 9 (count em, NINE) pounds, and cravings like you wouldnt believe. Prior to the trip I was eating one meal at noon and then a small snack at 7pm. I realized that I might be damaging myself when I started to feel slight twinges of mild pain in the general area of my gall bladder. (I am 5'4" 130 lbs 39 yo and weight train 2-3x per week, fairly good physical shape but could still stand to lose a little body fat left from my old way of eating)

Can a once a year "free for all" cause permanent damage if you eat properly the rest of the time?

flag	asked Jun 28 2010 at 20:07 texasleah 4,809●1●14●34

	@texasleah What sort of pains did you feel? And when did you they start? – Patrik♦ Jun 28 2010 at 20:44
	@Patrik-just a slight twinge of pain under my right ribcage area about 30-45 minutes after a meal. – texasleah Jun 30 2010 at 21:26

garymar · Accepted Answer · 2010-06-29 03:45:56Z UTC

First of all, you should not feel bad at all. This was your honeymoon, for heaven's sake. How many of those do you plan to have?

Still, 9 pounds out of 130! A 7% weight gain.

My boss came to town for a week and we visited customers and ate out together (with much drinking) for 7 days. I gained 7 pounds (out of 172) so not as bad as you but I have much less excuse. I went back to my 'paleo-dairy' diet and lost it all again this week. Mostly I did it with 4 straight days of only eating a large fat-heavy breakfast -- doing a 24 hour fast 4 times in a week. Before I ate paleo, I was doing Brad Pilon's "Eat Stop Eat" which of course is just intermittent fasting, but it was harder to keep the weight off in between, and harder to fast. Now as a 'paleo' I do 4 days of IF in a row and I hardly notice that I'm not eating. Just hit a new personal low of 169 this morning.

Stephen-Aegis · Answer 2 · 2010-06-28 20:20:09Z UTC

Quick answer, yes you can seriously damage yourself in a week... More than SAD, debatable

However, I'd say the best thing you can do right now is really strict healthy paleo eating... Our bodies are incredible healing machines and you can recover from almost anything that doesn't kill you

Most of us ate poorly for 20+ years, what's a week?

Heavy inflammation periods of diet can and will leave Internal scars IMO, and regularly damaging yoursystem with heavy AGEs will add up

grace · Answer 3 · 2010-07-02 05:29:38Z UTC

OMG

I am so jealous. Private chef??! u gotta be JOKING haa

Hope you had lots of S*X!!!

Don't worry -- just get back on the bandwagon -- all damage is remedial IMHO in 2-4 wks.

Consider the value of a fast if you r healthy... (avoid fasting however under conditions of poor adrenal function).

Have you had gallbladder issues in the past? Bland diets are best until it calms down -- lower carb, no GLUTEN. More veggies. I've had people avoid gallbladder issues with a shot of lemon juice every day (plus or minus a shot of olive oil).

I have a 50-something friend who ended up in the ER after one indiscretion of ONE HOT DOG BUN after paleo x1yr (lost 30+ lbs)... Every member in her family had already had their gallbladders removed. She was the last one and so pleased she had avoided it thus far. Alas, alas it was taken out.

Ken · Answer 4 · 2010-07-06 03:16:57Z UTC

A lot, perhaps most, of the damage from alcohol occurs from its primary metabolite, which is acetaldehyde. Vitamin C can quench acetaldehyde. Since vit C has a short half life, take a tablet maybe every 3-4 hours when drinking.

It's just one week anyway.

dream puppy · Answer 5 · 2010-10-05 14:28:54Z UTC

These are precisely the times when you should let go. Even paleo man ran into a honeycomb every couple of years. Fussing and feeling guilty will make you feel worse and could affect you worse than the food through raised cortisol levels. I reckon, just move forward and you will minimize any damage you have done. Maybe keep things on the low carb front for a while to lose some weight (I gain the same as you: QUICKLY, but don't worry, it's usually water weight).

Shilpa Nicodemus · Answer 6 · 2010-10-05 16:03:00Z UTC

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Maybe take some fish oil capsules for a couple of weeks.

answered Oct 5 2010 at 16:03

Shilpa Nicodemus
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familygrokumentarian · Answer 7 · 2010-10-05 22:14:55Z UTC

I also gained something like that amount of weight on my honeymoon, well before being a Paleo convert. You can even see it in the pictures taken of me the evening after we few home vs. the wedding pictures! :)

That said, how often is there true cause for celebration? A honeymoon is the perfect time to live it up!! You and your husband will be daydreaming about what a great time you had for years to come...and yes, you might even muse a bit over the daquiris you downed. :)

Whether or not there's lasting damage (I'll wager "no lasting damage" if you're conquering your cravings with low carb paleo livin' for a while), what's done is done, you clearly had an awesome time, and now you can move on with healthier eating and happy memories.

Good luck getting back on the wagon!

A week in Jamaica with a personal chef three meals a day and unlimited alcohol…So how much damage did I do to myself?? Any recovery tactics/advice?

7 Answers