leptin reset update (1 week) and eating Paleo in Berlin

I have been following the leptin reset protocol for a week today and already notice a big decrease in my cravings / hunger. It is nice to not think about food as much as I used to. I was not used to eating breakfast that early and my breakfast would usually be my smallest meal, but now I am now very much looking forward to my big breakfast every morning!

Here is what my typical breakfast looks like:

leptin reset breakfast at home!

I took advantage of the long weekend here in Germany (labor day) to visit Berlin. It is a vibrant city, so different from Munich. I loved it!

Berlin

Even away from home and without a kitchen, I was able to stick to my leptin reset breakfast, with about 50 grams of protein and a bit of grass-fed butter to round up my meal. Eating 2 whole cans (BPA-free) of sardines/tuna/salmon is not as easy as eating my typical breakfast, but it worked well too! I felt full enough that I didn’t have to stop for lunch, which left me more time (and money) to do other things!

leptin reset breakfast on the go!

While in Berlin, I HAD to go to SAUVAGE restaurant, Europe’s first Paleo restaurant. We actually went 2 nights in a row. The quality of the food was AMAZING. It was so nice not to have to worry at all about having gluten, grains or any other ingredients that I don’t tolerate well. I ordered without asking any questions and didn’t have any bad reactions! Although the restaurant is located a bit further away from the city center, it is definitely worth the detour. I so wish we had a restaurant like that closer to where we live! 😉

Paleo restaurant SAUVAGE in Berlin

leptin reset experiment – PCOS , weight and craving control while keeping my gut healthy

Although I have been having very good success with my low-carb / Paleo / GAPS diet to improve my PCOS and control my weight, I think that it is time for me to switch things up.

My weight went up during winter (without any changes to my diet / exercise of course, thanks to PCOS!) and I managed to lose part of it without doing anything special and just eating my same usual diet.

However, I have been stuck at a higher weight than I would like to. About 10-15 lbs or so. I don’t know for sure since I don’t have a scale anymore, but I have some of my old smaller size jeans that I used to fit in last year, albeit for a short period of time, that I would like to fit in again.

The other problem I have is that I am almost always constantly hungry and craving foods. I manage to control myself and fill me up with low-carb Paleo & GAPS-friendly foods, especially zucchini, eggs, ghee and mashed carrots with coconut oil and cinnamon, but I am just tired of having to restrict myself so much. I often feel like I could eat all day!!! Even with such a restricted, limited and boring diet, I can’t seem to get enough. Of course, I have tried increasing my fat intake and it works to some level… but it makes me gain weight!

Obviously, there is still something wrong with my hormones. I decided to do an experiment and give the leptin reset protocol elaborated by neurosurgeon Dr. Jack Kruse a try. Here is what I will do, starting tomorrow:

• Eat within 30 minutes of rising

  • Make sure breakfast is little to no carbs (less that 50 grams)
  • LOTS of protein (50-75 grams)
  • Overweight: limit carbs to 25 grams
  • Fit: less than 30 carbs
  • DO NOT count calories
• How to eat/use your fuel (most important)
  • NO SNACKING! Snacking destroys timing and circadian clocks that work in unison with Leptin
  • Most will notice a change in cravings within 4-6 weeks
  • Eat 3 meals a day initially (as your hunger and cravings fade you can adapt to 2 a day)
• Other DOs and DON’Ts
  • Do not work out before or after breakfast (if you must work out do it after 5pm)
  • Do allow 4-5 hours between dinner and bedtime
  • Trouble sleeping? Do 3-5 minutes of body weight exercises (i.e. pushups or squats)

I usually have breakfast later in the morning and it is usually my most light meal of the day so getting 50 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up will probably be a challenge in the first few days, but I am definitely curious to see whether it helps me keep my mind off food for the rest of the day…

I had also been spreading my food into 4-5 times a day in an attempt to keep cravings at bay, but it is obviously not working. I will basically be eating the same thing and same amount of food, but the timing will be very different. Let’s see if it is the missing ingredient for me!

I’ll keep you posted….! =)

Have you tried the leptin reset? Did it work for you?

new ebook about cholesterol from another Paleo dietitian!

Here is a guest post from one of my virtual Paleo dietitian friends! 🙂 Ana Johnson is a Registered Dietitian with a passion for helping clients get real results. Check out her blog at www.wholelifediets.com. If you are worried about your blood cholesterol levels, I highly recommend to check out her new book. For only $5, it’s a steal!

As a Registered Dietitian, I have seen hundreds of patients trying to lower their cholesterol via a low fat, low cholesterol diet. Many patients come to me desperately trying to figure out why their cholesterol keeps increasing after years of avoiding fried foods, meat, bacon, eggs, and cheese. I learned in school, that if a patient was not seeing results with a low fat, low cholesterol diet it probably meant they weren’t REALLY avoiding the foods they needed to avoid. Just a few years ago I believed that if a patient was truly eating lots of whole grains, very little fat, and avoiding red meat at all costs, they should have low cholesterol. But, after a while in this field, seeing one unsuccessful patient after another, I started to see that this was clearly not happening. How could ALL my patients be lying to me about what they were actually eating? Sure, there is a genetic component to high cholesterol and some people’s numbers are high no matter what they do, but these cases are rare. I didn’t feel that genetics was accounting for the lack of change I was seeing in my patients when they changed their diet according to my recommendations

The thing is that I was eating a “heart healthy” diet myself, exactly as I had learned in school. I knew I had a family history of high cholesterol and had to be careful with my diet. But, even in following the traditional recommendations (and who knew them better than me?), my total cholesterol was over 200. My LDL (bad cholesterol) was borderline high. How could this be? Why was my cholesterol so high at only 27 years old ? I had all the information and was following the recommended diet I had learned in school. Why couldn’t I lower my own cholesterol? Why were my patient’s struggling as well?

So, I hit the internet and did some research, I desperately wanted real results for my patients and myself, and didn’t want to provide information that clearly wasn’t working. I attended a few “alternative” nutrition conferences to try to discover different ways of thinking about heart health. After a lot of research into what would actually lower my cholesterol, I changed my diet. I quit following the “recommended” heart-healthy diet and I added back many foods that I had been avoiding for years. After 6 months on this new diet, my cholesterol went down 32 points, my LDL was down 27 points, now all within normal levels! How did I do this?

So I wrote a program manual called “How to actually lower your cholesterol” to help people like myself who are doing everything they can, following all the recommendations as closely as possible, and still not seeing the results they want with their cholesterol levels. It outlines exactly what you need to do to get your cholesterol down fast. Are you ready to see real results? Are you ready to shock your doctor with your drastically lower cholesterol?

The book is available here via Amazon.com for kindle or here in PDF format via Lulu.com! Enjoy!

Ana Johnson, RD

IBS and the Paleo diet.

Do you still suffer from IBS symptoms despite being on the Paleo diet? Read my new post about how to manage your IBS symptoms by optimizing your Paleo diet here: http://www.eat-real-food-paleodietitian.com/paleo-diet-and-ibs.html.

Let me know what you think! =)

travelling on a GAPS / Paleo / low-carb diet – Prague, Czech Republic

For Easter, my husband and I went to beautiful Prague, Czech Republic and loved it! Travelling with food intolerances or just trying to follow the Paleo diet is not necessarily easy but it is doable!

I don’t usually do intermittent fasting (restricting your eating within a short window of time), but I use travelling to do it. Some studies have shown it can be beneficial to decrease inflammation, prevent cancer and weight loss in some people. I wouldn’t recommend doing intermittent fasting if you are underweight though.

Since I currently can’t eat any dairy at all (with the exception of ghee) nor nuts, chocolate or processed/cured meat (deli meat and sausages), I stocked up on canned fish (mainly sardines and tuna BPA-free tins, in olive oil). I also brought my own ghee (which was not a problem since I was not flying, but I don’t know if they would consider it to be a liquid or not….). I’ll be trying it in June and will let you know!

my survival foods: BPA-free canned tuna in olive oil + Kerrygold butter ghee

To complete my small meals, I also bought some jarred olives and would have bought pickles if I couldn’t have read the ingredient lists (which was in czech of course!) The ingredient list of the olives was short enough that it was easy to figure out, but the pickles had a long ingredient list and I just didn’t want to take any chance.

For the 3 days I was travelling, that is basically all I ate. Sure I was hungry from time to time, but because my body is used to burning fat because of my lower carb intake, it didn’t affect me too much.

My husband also eats Paleo but doesn’t have as many dietary restrictions as I do. He also brought German sausages that can be kept at room temperature, nuts, a stick of butter and dark chocolate. 😉 He bought fresh cherry tomatoes and freshly made Czech potato chips that were, according to him, the best he even eaten in his whole life! 😉

Not only did I felt safer eating my own foods,                                                                 but we also save quite a bit of time and money too!

Český Krumlov, Czech Republic

On our last day, we indulged and ate out at a 100% gluten-free restaurant called Na Zlaté křižovatce (just by Florenc bus/metro station).

100% gluten-free restaurant in Prague, Czech Republic

I was so excited to find this restaurant, because even though you sometimes try to explain what you can and cannot eat to the server, it is not always easy and the language barrier makes it even harder.

love their explanation of gluten-free diets: gluten-free is NOT taste-free!!! unlike many gluten-free restaurants, they used very little gluten-free products and relied mainly on potato as their carbohydrate option.

I had the rumpsteak with grilled vegetables and my husband had the special Easter dinner with the stuffed rabbit with French mustard sauce and roasted potatoes, along with a Czech gluten-free draft beer called Celia (again, the best gluten-free beer he ever had, but that is not a surprise considering Czech have the world’s highest beer consumption!). I definitely highly recommend this restaurant if ever you visit Prague!

my dinner! it was my first time eating nightshades in a few months and I am glad to say that I tolerated them fine!!! =)

Now, I am really looking forward to eating eggs and vegetables again! I will only appreciate my favorite foods even more after not having them for 3 days and am soooo happy to have had a beautiful symptom-free time in Prague.

What do YOU do to stick to your diet and avoid being sick when travelling?

PCOS and the Paleo diet

I posted a new article about PCOS and the Paleo diet on my website. I now have a comment section at the bottom of each of my pages, so please share your experience with PCOS and the Paleo diet! 😉