Leaving the regular doc in the dust (a.k.a., Part Two of "A Visit to a Paleo Doc")

You may recall that I recently had my first appointment with a local doc from the Paleo Physicians Network and Primal Docs. I ranted. I raved. I generally was thrilled with the notion that you could talk to a paleo doc about crazy stuff like inflammation, paleo eating, K2, and a host of other subjects that would make my regular doc either squirm or look puzzled.

Today, I had my paleo-doc followup to review the incredibly detailed bloodwork (it's like 8 pages long!!)....

My diagnosis: inflammation markers are awesome. Blood-sugar management is great. HDL is high and triglycerides super-low. More awesome. It's like I eat paleo or something. But... LDL-p (particle number, not the LDL on your "regular" bloodwork) is on the high (bad) side of normal. Vitamin D is "normal" but not optimal. Most surprising to me, my Omega 6 to 3 ratio is 3.5:1. I was hoping for closer to 1:1. ("Normal" -- but awful -- for most people is 10:1 or worse, by the way, so I'm hardly terrible on that count, but my copious intake of grassfed ruminants and wild-caught salmon and sardines had me hoping for a lower/better O-6:O-3 ratio).

My "prescription" for those "bad" issues: no "prescription" at all, but here's what the doc suggested....

--reduce intake of O-6s and up the O-3s. So chicken, pork, nuts and avocado are going (almost entirely) out the window. I'll likely eat them a little if I am out, but no more at home. I'm concentrating, as I (mostly) do already -- but "already" has not been "entirely," mind you... after all I am the sausage-and-kale guy -- on grassfed beef and lamb plus fish for my protein. I'm adding some daily fish oil (containing 1000 mg of O-3s). So, "Bye-bye" to sausage."Auf wiedersehen" to avocados. "Later, dudes" to nuts and nut butters, and we'll dial the bacon down to what the lawyers call a "de minimus" amount..
-- get more Vitamin D. I'm going to supplement my daily fermented cod-liver oil/butter-oil capsules with a drop of liquid D3.
--keep otherwise eating paleo and exercising the way I do. There was one particular blood marker that the doc referred to as "the easy way to call BS on someone who lies about not eating grains," and mine was great. "You obviously don't eat any grains," he said. Plus, he told me my inflammation markers were super low from the CrossFit/paleo combo.
--stop eating my *ridiculously*-oversized meals and opt for something slightly smaller, with a bit less fat and added protein subbing for that fat. Apparently, the wise doc thinks, part of my high LDL-p is the fact that I eat gargantuan-sized (good)fat-loaded meals -- an interesting theory.... because I do.
--Come back in four months to see if all that made a difference.

I love it. Keep eating paleo. Keep doing CrossFit the way I do now (three days a week plus a day of heavy lifting). Make a few minor tweaks. Feel (and be) even better.

Or I could go to my regular doc and take a statin and eat whole grains. Hahahahaha. I crack myself up....






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By the way, the longest no-alcohol experiment of my adult life has reached around six weeks. I feel so good that I just have no idea when I will have a drink again, but it's definitely not going to be at least until that 300-pound front squat arrives.