As I Enter The Twilight Of My Life …
Zoe promises that perhaps I can eat broccoli, beans, and maybe even … apples and watermelon!
I received my Zoe Nutrition test results as a belated birthday present yesterday. To my dismay, I may as well have been eating at McDonalds daily for the past five years for all the good my healthy — limited — diet has done my microbiome. If I didn’t eat the way I already do, I’d without a doubt be pre-diabetic, and maybe even have full-on diabetes.
I have large numbers of unhealthy microbes in my microbiome — every single one of them is associated with higher levels of visceral fat and lower levels of good cholesterol. I especially have a lot of this microbe called “Chun,” Clostridium spiroforme.
Zoe has actually trademarked the names of both “good” and “bad” microbes that it covers in its microbiome analyses. I have a few “Oscars” and “Felicias”: good gut microbes. I have ZERO Rumi, Billy, Valentina, Veronica, Patrick, Ellie, Otis, Claude, Rosie, Finn, Hannah, or Freddy. I don’t know how to add these microbes to my gut, but I suspect they go along with the healthy fruits, vegetables, and legumes I haven’t been eating for a while because of my IBS. Those foods would include beans and legumes, apples and stone fruit like apricots and plums, and cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower.
The good news is that despite the fact I’ve got an army of evil bugs living inside me and precious few helpers, I have good blood fat control! I always knew I had low cholesterol and high levels of “good” cholesterol, so that indeed, is true.
But my “terror breakfast” showed me that, yes, indeed, I’d be among the millions of pre-diabetic or diabetic Americans if I ate the way most people do (which I do not — therefore I am not).
What was the terror breakfast? I was wearing an Abbott continuous blood glucose monitor for two weeks at the start of the Zoe nutrition programs. I ate the Zoe prepared muffins for breakfast and lunch. Those were the highest sugar and refined carb meals I had the entire time, with the exception of the “terror breakfast.” We occasionally eat breakfast at a local restaurant run by a Swiss family and they offer a traditional Swiss birchermuesli meal which I never got before because — refined carbs — loads.
I ordered it, and it was a bowl of muesli with dried fruit and nuts, covered with bananas, apples, and strawberries and a bit of whipped cream on top. On the side? A massive roll that looked like a croissant, but which was regular white, gluten-y bread inside. I ate half the roll, removed the apple pieces, and finished my muesli. One hour later, my blood glucose had shot up to 180 and I was hysterical.
“I have diabetes!” I told Bruce.
Then my blood sugar began to crash —
If I eat the way I normally do, my blood sugar is relatively even and level all day long. That’s what Zoe (and other nutritional guidance) says is best for us.
In the bad old days of my eating like everyone else, I’d be exhausted at 3 PM. In the really bad old days, I’d get up and eat in the middle of the night. Pretty sure that was due to a blood sugar crash while sleeping. All of these are pre-diabetic signs.
I haven’t had those types of problems for years —
But I still have a microbiome full of bugs that probably grew massively during the times I was eating the typical Standard American Diet.
I feel like I’ve had IBS my entire life. My stomach has hurt after eating for as long as I can remember. This condition isn’t just painful. At its worst, it can be excruciating and severely debilitating. It’s embarrassing and humiliating. In my 50s, I had such severe episodes that I couldn’t stand upright for days at a time. These were brought on by foods including Granny Smith apples, watermelon, and pinto beans.
Broccoli? Fuggeddaboudit!
One of our nature walk partners is an expert nutritionist. It is she who told me that she had young patients in their 20s with colon cancer. She and her husband eat a plant-based diet (that doesn’t mean vegan — just primarily plant-based whole foods).
She’s been preaching the benefits of plant fiber to me for a while, and even joked with her husband and me that she can eat bowls of raw brussels sprouts and have no problems. Shockingly, Zoe Nutrition provides the same guidance. Because of my IBS, it’s been difficult for me to get to the fiber level I desire —
So, despite my terror of consuming fiber-laden foods like beans and apples that have made me very sick with IBS in the past, I’ve been slowly adding these foods to my diet.
We’re on St. Simons Island in Georgia for my birthday. So I went to the local farm market and bought local vegetables (they didn’t have much fruit). I ate a large salad last night with local lettuces, spinach, two different tomatoes, cucumbers, and a big old helping of edamame, different beans, chickpeas, and mushrooms.
This would have killed me back in 2014–15. I would be laid up right now, with a horrible, stabbing pain in my lower left abdomen.
I am as happy as can be right now.
And I know my faithful readers will enjoy hearing that since I’ve been following the 30+ different plant-based foods per week, and working to add more fiber in food, I have something going on that nobody with IBS has.
After year upon year of type 5 and 6 …
YEAAAHHHHH!!!
This has been going on a while. The whole time my massive meno-belly has been shrinking.
So my depressing Zoe microbiome results were from the beginning of the program. I’d only been eating 30+ plant based foods for a couple of weeks, and to be honest, when I took that poo sample and sent it in, it was 5 on that Bristol Scale, not 4. I’ve been at 4 for a couple of weeks now.
My friend the nutritionist said that when eating foods full of fiber, it’s important to go slowly and add them gradually. But she added that the more fiber we eat, the more we can consume without problems. This is what I’ve been doing, and what I plan to continue to do.
Zoe “scores” our typical dinner that I’ve been eating for over a year as “average” or enjoy once or twice a week. I made a few easy changes in that model last night and it became “enjoy freely” — in other words, eat it all the time. I added the beans, a tablespoon of whole wheat berries, and substituted shrimp for meat.
And I am thrilled with my lifetime achievement award on the Bristol Stool Scale.
It truly has been years.
I hope to meet my friends the good gut microbes soon. Maybe I have already met them, and they are what is shrinking my stomach!
See:
And — if you are interested in Zoe, here is a link to get $35 off: a benefit I didn’t get — I paid full price.