Over the course of the last 10 years or so I have been struggling with digestive issues. Stomach cramping, weird pains, spasms and even severe constipation at times. Most people I am related to have gastrointestinal issues as well one has been struggling with crohns disease. Also many people in my family had gallbladders removed due to gastrointestinal problems, guess you can say it “runs” in the family...no pun intended. Early on in my struggles it was mild cramping that would happen at random times, so I thought. I would be sitting in class then all of a sudden, boom! My stomach would cramp. This would typically happen in my afternoon classes after I would eat lunch, I thought this was a normal thing and didn’t think much about it. Time went on, cramping kept happening. Then once I turned 21 years old, I noticed my symptoms start to get worse and started to develop heartburn regularly. The heartburn got worse over the course of the next year, and I had symptoms almost everyday. Sitting in my college classes was a struggle trying to pinch off my flatulence while my side cramped, making it a super hard to pay attention. Around this time is when I started to notice my symptoms start to correlate with specific food I was consuming. The first food I blamed my symptoms on was dairy.
I eliminated dairy from my diet and my symptoms slightly improved but was still not great. Heartburn was still running rampant, flatulence still present, and I still felt bloated. I thought about eliminating gluten from my diet but didn't want to. I continued with my symptoms throughout the rest of my college days at Oregon State University. Once I graduated I started working for Chiropractors that were also functional medicine specialists. We talked about my symptoms, took some blood tests and found out my bilirubin levels in my blood were well above normal range. He suspected my gallbladder was not functioning how it should, based off my blood test and my symptoms of right upper quadrant pain, especially after a high fat meal. I went on a supplement protocol and he also recommended trying to go gluten free, especially since my brother was a suspected celiac at that time. Probably only after two weeks I started to notice a difference in my gut related symptoms. The flatulence decreased, my heartburn was significantly better, I felt less bloated, my pain that was suspected to be my gallbladder was alleviated, and I was no longer having brain fog episodes like I was having. The protocol was working.
Since I was doing so much better, my stupid self thought, “hey now that you feel better, try eating gluten again…” Worst idea ever! After one meal that contained gluten my symptoms would start to show up again. I continued eating gluten off and on for the next year or so, and having relapsing episodes of gut flare ups and brain fog. Then as of 2017 I have been strictly gluten free and dairy free (except for butter), and have felt the best I have since I was a young teenager. However, my stomach issues aren’t fully resolved and I am still learning new things about how to deal with healing my gut.
Some of the things that I currently do seem to help me, but I need to stay more diligent about eating clean and doing what I feel helps me. I regularly do intermittent fasts. Over the past year and a half I have been doing intermittent fasting 5-7 times a week. Intermittent fasting is going for an extended period of time with no food. I have read articles that state, a good amount of time to intermittent fast is 12-16 hours at a time. During the fasted state many different article state whether you can or can’t consume coffee but only water. I consume coffee during my fast and still have benefits from it. When I first started fasting I could barely go 10 hours without feeling the need to eat everything in site and was so low energy towards the end of my fast. I read that many people are considered “sugar burners” if they are unable to go for 12 hours without feeling the need to eat. Well I was most definitely a sugar burner. However, I kept with it, 10 hours became 12 hours, 12 hours became 16 hours. At the 16 hour mark is where I really started to notice a difference in my energy levels and cognitive function. My mind was more clear, my thought process was sharper, my memory recall was better than ever, and my endurance increased substantially. I could go for a 2 hour bike ride or run and never get hungry or would even need to eat, often times I would forget to eat because when you fast ghrelin (the hunger hormone) decreases in the body. I was feeling better than I ever had. Over the past couple of months I have started to incorporate one 24 hr fast a week and I want to see how that goes. So far it's been pretty good, a lot more difficult than a 16 hr fast but definitely doable. As I am writing this I am at hour 19 of a 24 hr fast. I find that my productivity has been going up with the longer fasts.
There are a few more things I have been doing over the last couple months. I am eating a low carb diet during the day and my only carb meal is with dinner. So far I feel less ups and downs in energy throughout the day. I am working up to going full keto to see how I feel. I have also been doing cold showers which are supposed to reduce systemic inflammation in the body, don’t worry it gets easier the more you do it. My timing of my cold shower is important as well. According to Ben Greenfield (https://bengreenfieldfitness.com who happens to be someone I look to for lots of health and fitness guidance), states that you can change the conversion of white adipose tissue to brown adipose tissue, brown adipose tissue is considered good fat. This works by taking caffeine (coffee or green tea) then taking a cold shower (2-3 min) during your fast. Then overtime this is suppose to convert white to brown fat.
Thanks for reading my blog, if you have any questions for me feel free to ask (https://www.facebook.com/tgrossfitness/). I am going to continue learning and implementing health hacks to try to improve my health. If I find something cool that really seems to make me healthier, I will be sure and post about it.
