Nutty no more

I've been on the Paleo nutrition plan for 6 months now and can say that I am a successful convert. I have more energy, less inflammation, don't get sick as often, and am not suffering from IBS symptoms any longer. Some people think my diet is crazy, but it really works for me and I don't feel deprived at all! My body thanks me by performing and looking better. Who could ask for anything more? :)

At any rate, about 3 months in, I made a change to increase my daily intake of fats to help power me through my day. This included cooking with coconut oil, eating avocados, drizzling olive oil on veggies (after they are cooked!), and eating nuts (almonds, walnuts, almond butter, and hazelnuts mostly). My nut consumption went from being fairly low - I treated them like a treat - to being an almost daily staple in my diet.

What began happening was strange...when I would eat too many nuts or too much almond butter I'd have stomach aches similar to how I felt when I used to eat grains: bloated, full, almost nauseous. I'd even get headaches sometimes. I'd often over eat nuts in the evening, and it made it difficult to sleep. I started to journal what I was eating and how I felt and noticed that it must be the DAMN NUTS!

I've never had a known allergy to nuts, but by consuming them almost daily, I could have been over-doing it and perhaps my body was telling me to cut it out. It's amazing what you can learn if you just listen to your body!

So, from now on, I'm kicking the "almond-coconut- sun-butter" habit and going to eat raw nuts sparingly. Maybe only 2-3 times per month as a treat. I will get my healthy fats from avocados, coconuts, olives, and their oils.

As I said about the purple band in a previous post: Almond butter and its evil cohorts coconut butter and sun butter are dead to me, DEAD TO ME!