I had an absolute ball Monday night interviewing two ladies with incredible stories of health transformations via diet.
Amanda Torres from The Curious Coconut and Orleatha Smith from Level Health & Nutrition and Batch Cookery joined me on the KS Connect *Plus* Google Hangout and shared about their healing with the Paleo diet, which literally saved both of them from life-threatening obesity in their 20s and early 30s.
Now they’re passionate about grain-free living and have years of experience, as you’ll see in the video of the interview below:
If you can’t see the embedded video, click HERE to see it on YouTube.
Don’t Have an Hour to Watch?
I never, ever used to take the time to watch videos online, even 3-minute shorts. Now I do a little more, and here’s how, if it helps you:
I’ll get a video going in one tab and flip through emails or edit pictures or even read a blog post or manage my Facebook page while listening – if it gets really good, I’ll tune in more closely, but I can kind of keep up and determine when I need to pay attention and when I can drift a little.
Otherwise, you can use my notes to find sections in which you’re particularly interested in, like Orleatha and Amanda’s personal stories, how Paleo works with kids, the surprising enemy both may blame for their obesity problem, what ailments they were healed of, and baby steps to healing YOUR gut.
Cheat Sheet – You’ve GOT to see the culprit at 5 minutes and hear the hilarious story about McDonald’s at 42 minutes!
- 4:00 (at 4 minutes in on the ticker) We explain the title, the 3 trillion bacteria in our guts
- 5:00 The role of a certain prescription in damaging the gut and how important gut health is (from Orleatha, an holistic health coach), including link to obesity
- 7:10 Orleatha shares about chronic eczema and spending a month in Mayo Clinic
- 8:00 Amanda’s obesity story begins, including the mind-blowing number of prescriptions she was on in her early 20s
- 12:30 Does gluten still affect Amanda?
- 14:00 Orleatha’s story starts
- 16:00 How Orleatha’s kids have a healthy relationship with food
- 18:45 What is Paleo and how did they get started (the definition is more like 21:00)
- 23:00 On healing food allergies by healing the gut
- 26:00 What is a baby step someone can take if they aren’t into going Paleo or GAPS full out, but they want to improve their gut health a little bit.
- 28:00 Orleatha’s old favorite Weight Watchers meals (ewwww!)
- 30:00 Amanda’s baby step that she recommends to friends
- 33:00 We talk about how expensive gluten-free diets can be and get passionate about alternative flours
- 34:30 On the importance of varying your diet with Paleo
- 35:30 Katie plays Devil’s advocate about how she feels going gluten-free
- 37:10 Biggest challenges with the Paleo diet
- 42:00 What happens when Grandma takes the kids to McDonald’s
- 43:15 Is this sustainable, a diet you’ll use forever?
- 45:00 have you added foods back in?
- 46:00 Amanda wonders if she’ll add in traditionally soaked grains
- 48:00 Katie thinks it would be hard to give up cheese if she went Paleo and assures the girls it’s not hard to soak and sourdough
- 49:00 How do you notice what symptoms are related to what foods? Why an elimination diet might help. (at 51:00 Orleatha shares a great analogy for how elimination diets work)
- 52:00 Listener question on how healing the gut impacts food allergies, can food allergies be healed?
- 58:00 Orleatha shares about her upcoming venture, a “Mom Summit” to support the mind, body and souls of mothers (and I’ve been asked to be a speaker, so watch for it here around Mother’s Day!) and a cool new YouTube series.
If you learned something from the video, share it or ask more questions in the comments below – I truly enjoyed my time with these gals, and I know many will benefit from their experiences!!
The next KS Connect *Plus* hangout is for bloggers about monetization on March 10, and then two “real food” hangouts in a row:
March 24: “The Unprocessed Day”
- Beth Ricci from Red and Honey
- Kresha Faber from Nourishing Joy
- [plus at least one more]
March 31: The Super Cookbook Author Hangout
- Tess Masters, The Blender Girl
- Ricki Heller, formerly of Diet, Dessert & Dogs, now rickiheller.com
- Jenny McGruther of Nourished Kitchen
Follow this Week’s Speakers
+Amanda Torres
Blog: http://thecuriouscoconut.com/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/thecuriouscoconut
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/curiouscoconut
Twitter: www.twitter.com/curious_coconut
Tumblr: http://www.tumblr.com/blog/thecuriouscoconut Instagram: www.instagram.com/thecuriouscoconut
+Orleatha Smith
Websites: http://lvlhealth.com/ and http://batchcookery.com/
Twitter: www.twitter.com/levelhealth
FB: www.facebook.com/mrspaleo and www.facebook.com/lvlhealth
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/OrleathaS
Photos are from the speakers’ blogs.
I understand that these women cannot eat grains because they hurt their bodies, and so must eliminate them from their diets for a time. This is becoming more common today, and most likely a direct result of consuming only the endosperm portion of the grain for many years. The consumption of large quantities of gluten can eventually cause it to become toxic to the body. So, removing grains entirely as a corrective measure makes sense. It seems that it might be better to describe this as a “grain-free corrective diet”. Interestingly, once people get their bodies on a healthy track after removing processed foods, they are usually able to reintroduce things like dairy and grains (in their WHOLE, natural forms) with no problems. I was just cautioning you in getting behind the “paleo” movement, since the theory behind the paleo diet does have its roots in evolutionary beliefs. I also disagree with the belief that wheat has changed so greatly over the years that it now is unsafe to eat. Sue’s article goes into reasons why it is likely the refining of wheat – not the wheat itself that is causing the problems people are experiencing with wheat sensitivity.
I am concerned about any support given for the paleo diet coming from a Bible-believing Christ follower. Of course, if a person removes vast amounts of processed foods and refined grains from the diet he/she will certainly become healthier and most likely lose weight. However, removing all grains and going back to a hunter-gatherer approach has its roots in evolution. Grains are God-given, unique sources of nourishment. In their whole form they provide nearly every vitamin/mineral known and can be stored almost indefinitely under the right conditions. Jesus knew how critical grains were (as vital as water for good health), and consequently called himself the “bread of life” as well as “the living water”. Sue Becker has written some very helpful articles that are well-researched and cover this topic. Here is a link to one of them: http://info.breadbeckers.com/wheat-belly-fact-or-fiction/
Joy,
Thank you for your comment. I don’t think that eating a Paleo diet is supporting evolution any more than reading something about the Jewish faith makes me a Jew. And in fact Orleatha is a very solid Christian, and I’m sure she praises God daily for the wonder of His creation and for helping her find this diet. She would love to eat grains…but they hurt her. We as humans have messed up our environment so severely that 1. wheat particularly is not the wheat of the Bible any longer and 2. some people need to avoid all grains to heal. I don’t think anyone is saying that evolution is correct, but that we have to listen to our bodies and eat what helps them, not hurts them. I would never tell an alcoholic that just because Jesus also raised up wine as “the cup of salvation” that they must drink it. Same situation here – no one is saying Jesus is wrong. We’re saying our fallen world is a scary place to be. (If you watch the video, they both would like to eat bread, and Amanda does occasionally.)
Praise God for this diet providing health for the temples of the Holy Spirit these ladies are walking around in!
🙂 Katie