Author: Paul McGillivray

Paul McGillivrayhttp://healingjournal.co.uk

Homemade Ghee Mayonnaise

I love mayonnaise. But with my being on a cross between Jini Patel Thompson’s diet and a low residue diet following my surgery, Hellman’s, with its additives and fillers, is simply out.

So it occurred to me this evening that it must be really easy to make my own – and I was totally right. My Ayurvedic consultant has recommended lots of warm, sweet, cosy foods, and lots of Ghee, to help keep my Vata Dosha under control – I’ll write about this soon in a different post – so I was delighted to find a recipe for Ghee Mayo on Mark Sisson’s excellent Paleo site. The Mayo will certainly help add the cosy comfort factor to my food.

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My Chinese herbs have arrived!

I’m very excited, as I’ve just received my personalised mixture of Chinese medicinal herbs from Simon Jones.

I’m to take 10g per day, split into two 5g doses, mixed with warm water. Simon has asked me to look out for any adverse reaction, as I have such a sensitive system; if my stomach doesn’t like it at all, I’m to split the dose into four 2.5g servings instead, to let my body get used to the herbs.

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Paul’s raw Cacao protein shake

I thought I’d mix up the taste of my morning shake today, so I added a couple of teaspoons or Peruvian Raw Cacao powder, and really like the result. The raw Cacao is a super food, rich in anti-oxidants, and tends to give me an energy boost too, which is great. I don’t know for sure whether Cacao is an ‘allowed’ food for people with IBD; the SCD diet says no chocolate of any kind, but others say that Cacao is fine. Jeannie’s divine chocolate doesn’t seem to be doing me any harm, so I’m sticking with it until I feel otherwise.

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Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT, or Tapping) – Part one

I went for my first EFT session yesterday, and it was profoundly powerful.

EFT was developed by Gary Craig, and is now practiced in many forms all over the world; the basic principles are very easy to learn for yourself, by advanced techniques can go very deep.

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Autoimmune disease – treating the cause, not the symptoms

Dr Mark Hyman practices Functional Medicine, which is as he puts it, ‘the future of conventional medicine – now’:

It seeks to identify and address the root causes of disease, and views the body as one integrated system, not a collection of independent organs divided up by medical specialties. It treats the whole system, not just the symptoms.

From the moment I was diagnosed with Crohn’s, it was obvious that this is the way to treat any disease, which is always – it appears to me right now anyway – caused by an imbalance in the system which needs correction. As I’ve seen over and over again in the countless case studies and testimonials I’ve read since coming home from hospital, contemporary western medicine seeks to simply cover up the symptoms, often with drugs that have incredibly damaging side effects.

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Chinese medicine for Crohn’s and other IBD’s – Part one

We had a surprisingly-useful first session with a Chinese Medical Practitioner a couple of days ago. I was recommended Simon Jones, based at the Ludlow Clinic by an old colleague whom Simon had helped very much in the past. I’d actually been looking for someone that might be able to give me some acupuncture treatments, as it’s a recommended treatment for IBD by Jini Patel Thompson in her fantastic book ‘Listen to your Gut‘. Yes, I’m going to go on about this book constantly, but it’s been both an inspiration and a lifeline for me over these last couple of weeks.

Simon gave us a simple-but-useful overview of what’s happening in the body with inflammatory bowel disease. Of course, it’s all about stress, and how we manage it. I’ll try to describe my take on it, although his was a lot more accurate and comprehensive!

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Jeannie’s all-natural shake for healthy weight gain.

Jeannie’s shake

1/2 glass of raw milk

1 banana

1/2 avocado

1 heaped teaspoon wild harvested slippery elm

2 opened capsules vsl3

1 tablespoon organic hemp oil

1 dessert spoon maple syrup

Whizz that

Add 1 whole egg and 1 egg yolk

Slow blend

Absorb Plus – with our make-your-own ingredients list

As part of her books ‘listen to your gut’ and ‘The IBD Remission Diet’, Jini Patel Thompson has put together a full-spectrum shake that can be used as an elemental diet, or to build weight during or after a IBD/Crohn’s flare-up. There are many reports of people going into remission when taking nothing but these shakes for 2-6 weeks.

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Malnutrition after a flare-up – Healthy weight gain

On the second day back from hospital, we have our first real challenge presented: my continued weight loss.

My ‘normal’, skinny-fat, not-working-out weight is 10 stone, sometimes a little more. Over the course of the three months of chronic diarrhoea I experience, my weight dropped to 8.9 stone. On the day before my release from hospital, I was at 8.5 stone. Today, I’m at 8 stone exactly, despite eating small healthy meals every two hours. Now there’s a good chance our bathroom scales aren’t very accurate – I don’t feel like I’ve lost half a stone in two days, but the fact is that I’m not putting on weight again, and I seriously need to.

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