Coffee Fingers

Cat already wrote about quitting coffee and getting full mobility back in her - what she thought - osteo-arthritic fingers.

I really tried to follow suit, but I just have zero willpower to quit my one to two cup a day addiction (a rather modest addiction for someone like me...).

So I decided to try another trick, mentioned by my Italian friend Francesco - drinking espresso coffee instead of filter coffee. The theory is that the filtering process of your normal Swedish coffee leaches too many toxins out of the coffee grounds, which makes for a larger amount of irritating substances compared to espresso.

Our rather modest collection of espresso magic makers

After reading up on the link between coffee and osteoarthritis, I gave it a go. The change wasn't as quick as for Cat, but I would say that after a month 99% of the pain and 95% of the swelling is gone. Success!

Especially after the rather tragic experiment of fasting this summer, that did absolutely nothing for my fingers (but everything for the start of a six-pack, but that is another story.)

Breaking Fast (Practicing What I Preach)

Right-ee-o, so sometimes I don't really practice what I preach. I've mentioned that prolonged fasting is perhaps not a great habit for the ladies but I still go ahead and do it myself. Fail.

Fine, the theory behind it is great, that it will give the body time to heal and clean up a few inflammations, but women are different hormonal creatures compared to men, so will react differently. In this case, pappa was just fine in dealing with any lingering hunger pangs, whereas the two ladies involved developed some pretty severe grumpiness (am surprised pappa still has a head on his shoulders). Like PMS for a week. Without the resolution.

So that part of the experiment ended this morning. The family is going back to having breakfast 10-15 hours post-dinner, with the window reflecting what feels natural to the women in the family.

The rest of the experiment is still on though! The middle finger is feeling rather sprightly at the moment, so maybe it is doing some good, after all.

The herring is in there somewhere

The Lowdown on Tweak Week

As mentioned in my previous posts, I've decided to tweak my diet to see if it has any effect on what I suspect may be the start of osteoarthritis. Although a week is by no means a long enough time to tell if I can delay onset of full-blown osteoarthritis in a decade or so, I have already noticed a few interesting things.

My fingers feel better, but still feel a bit swollen in the morning. I use my hands for various gardening tasks that I am not entirely used to yet, so the lingering stiffness could be a result of that.

Food-wise, I have been completely compliant with one exception. For pappa's birthday, I made chocolate mousse with cream and dark chocolate (and eggs and orange peel, if you must know, and it was absolutely divine). I probably had the equivalent of 50 ml of cream and 20 g of chocolate, so not a huge amount. But I woke up with a slightly painful middle finger the next morning. Who knows, I might have been busy sleep-walking and giving the neighbours the finger, but my guess goes with the dairy. I am steering clear until my cousin's wedding in two weeks to do another experiment (assuming that cream is served, that is!).

Fasting for 16-18 hours, ie between an early dinner and a late breakfast/ early lunch feels ok, energy-wise. Going for walks, sprinting, working out and gardening before breakfast went well, although the heavier exercises were perhaps a bit slower than usual. Also, there were some issues with crankiness before brunch was served up, so perhaps 15 is the sweet spot. Or maybe maybe it's a matter of getting used to.

I have lost a bit of weight, around a kilo. Obviously, eating twice or at most three times a day will do that to you. Especially since my sweet/ snacking tooth disappeared with the dairy fairy. However, I still weigh more than I've ever weighed in my life, just 6 kg less than pappa (ah, the awesomeness of working out less and still adding muscle...).

I have a funny taste in my mouth, but I guess that is the usual early sign of ketosis.

I had some skin blemishes that disappeared within the first two days.

My belly is happy. Enough said.

So overall I'd say it's well worth prolonging the experiment to see how things develop. Luckily, both my parents are extremely indulgent, happily joining in the intermittent fasting and phasing out all non-organic meats and vegetables. I'm impressed with their patience. :-)

Tweak Week

The first day of anti-osteoarthritis week (or month or year, we'll see) went well.

I started off my day with an 8 am run, workout and walk. I haven't really done much training since I left Höö, so I figured it was time to get going again. Yikes. Five rounds of box jumps (thank you officer M), pull-up negatives, overhead squats (log included) and sit-ups left me pretty tired but satisfied.

This is where the fun began. Because after this, we all went straight to the garden to start a two hour session of digging. Let's just say things went pretty slowly, given that the sun was cranking up the heat by 9 and we were starting to get hungry... There was some whining (no names divulged, but it wasn't me) before we finally sat down for brunch at 11:30. Given that I've pledged to give up non-organic meat (no bacon for a while... oh the hardship), I went for a slightly odd breakfast option of salad, eggs and herring. Oh, and mamma's green smoothie made of weeds. :-)

Swedish Midsummer come early

Instead of the usual breakfast chaser of "egg latte" and nut & seed crackers with butter, I had two cups of egg latte with some additional coconut oil to set me up for more garden work.

Heaven in a mug

After the initial slo mo moments this morning, the rest of the day in the garden felt like any other day, i.e. pretty energetic. The bikini weather may contributed to it...

By the time 5 pm rolled around, we were all starting to feel a bit peckish, so we cobbled together some dinner. Given my self-imposed meat restriction, I had to dig through the pantry to find some more fish, this time tuna.

Tuna salad, crudités and Jerusalem artichokes (with a LOT of ghee and coconut oil added) 

Dinner was finished by 6 pm and given that we've got a few things to do before brunch tomorrow, we're probably looking at an 18 hour fast. I've said it before, more extreme fasting is probably not that great for women, so I will definitely not want to make that too much of a habit. Also, the point of  this particular exercise is not to lose weight (or get cranky), so I will want to limit it to 16 hours on most days.

Progress report to follow!

Tweak Tweak

Yup, time to make another tweak to the way I eat. As some of you will know, the resistant starch experiment is well underway. A few tablespoons of potato starch, the odd cold or grated raw potato, a bit of green banana, bigger helpings of raw cabbage/ beet root/ carrot, etc, etc. Sleep quality has been extremely good some weeks, then a bit intermittent. It seems like my belly needs a bit of time to adjust though, with unusual smells (euphemism of the day) and less regular bowel movements (there, I said it), but energy levels seem to have improved, so I will keep it up.

Anyhow, I am now considering making further tweaks as I think I am starting to develop what a number of my female relatives suffer from: osteoarthritis. The joints in my fingers have been a bit stiff and slightly painful a few mornings in a row. I have found myself shying away from shaking hands too firmly (oh how I hate limp handshakes...). I noticed my left hand feeling a bit weak while tying my shoe laces after a long cold walk. Sure, I have been using my hands A LOT more (milking is an interesting movement for office hands), but this development still worries me. Hence I've decided to make a few tweaks to how I eat to reduce inflammation and boost cell repair for my joints in particular:

• Fasting between early dinner and lunch the next day (should make 17-18 hours of fasting)
• Increased intake of organic vegetables and collagen-rich bone broth
• Focus on grass fed meats & ghee as well as organic eggs and fatty fish for protein (or go without...)
• Strict avoidance of nuts/ seeds/ seed oils, all dairy (apart from ghee), alcohol, grains and sugar
• Continue taking extra vitamin D and fish oil, add in a bit of turmeric
• Focus on other sources than potatoes for resistant starch

I know these are a lot of tweaks at the same time, but I figure I should throw everything I've got at it. Then I can always reintroduce some things at a later date to check if there is one particular trigger.

Laters!