Friday 14 June 2013

Nine week update
View at the back of my head

View from the top of my head

Hi all 
I am now nine weeks into my auto immune Paleo experiment. Since the last picture was posted at five and half weeks I have seen a lot more white fuzz appear. As you can see from the photos below. 
Food wise  I have not been as super strict as the first few weeks allowing myself on occasion the odd cup of decaf coffee with a small bit of milk or I had a total blowout one night and had some strawberries and double cream ....mmmm delicious. Apart from this and the odd indulgent spoon or two  of hazelnut butter I am sticking to it and plan to go back to super strict for the next few weeks. 
As you can see from the photos below the fuzzy hair is multiplying which is very encouraging and helps to keep me motivated to stick to this way of eating. I have so much hair now, lol, that I am going to have to shave it off. I wear a suction wig and because of the fuzz it is not sticking as well as it should to my head. A good complaint I think. 
So what am I eating? My diet mainly consists of some type of meat chicken, fish, lamb, steak, rashers etc. Luckily I am living in Ireland which has lush green fields and animals are raised mainly in a traditional way, being grass fed in summer and fed silage (fermented grass) in the winter. I am eating  vegetables such as broccoli, spinach, rocket, asparagus, cauliflower, avocados etc. I also on occasion will scramble the yolks of eggs, these are fresh from a local farm. After that I try to fill up on fats such as ghee, coconut oil, olive oil, fish oil, fat from meat and some butter. 
I have recently purchased a Kuhn Rikon pressure cooker and am making bone broth from that. Also I just got a delivery of Pickl It jars and am going to make some batches of fermented vegetables in these to increase the beneficial bacteria in my gut. 
I would love to hear from others who are following the autoimmune Paleo protocol, so that we could share our experiences and the challenges we face eating in this way. 
My hopes are that eating this way I will heal my gut and my hair will grow back and that in time I will be able to eat a more liberal diet, always sticking to Paleo principles but perhaps being able to follow Mark Sisson's 80/20 rule. 
Please feel free to add your comments below and I will update you again in a couple of weeks...

5 comments:

  1. Hello from another baldy eating low carber! Lost my hair when I was 26, 16 years ago. About 95% of my body hair is gone and only a third of my head hair. They call me patches.

    I'm doing a LCHF diet and have been for some time, off and on. I have found no difference in my hair at any point. Sorry :( I hoped eating this way and losing weight would do *something*. To be honest, I would rather have it all fall out, rather than grow back. I'm in this "no man's land" where I can't let it grow because it looks bad, but I have to shave it every other day or it will look bad.

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  2. hi Mary,
    thanks for starting your blog & Congrats on the progress, its very encouraging! i hope you will continue to post and keep us updated.

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  3. Hello, amazing results! Do you eat fruit at all? prunes? thanks & keep it rolling, girl!

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  4. Well, Mary, I have to admit that I've NEVER heard of your condition. I am a little surprised that going paleo is growing hair but for your sake I'm happy for you!

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  5. Hi Mary, The results look great.

    I have had Alopecia Universalis for the past 3 years and before that I had dealt with minor Alopecia Areata for about 16 years about one time a year. I started the Autoimmune Protocol Diet about 4 and a half weeks ago and was wondering if you kept with it and had good results after the nine week update you posted. I'd love to hear more about your experiences on it. -- Jim

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