Taking Things to an Extreme

I thought that now that I'm only working part time, that I would start to be more active here again. I had a flare up that started back in May of 2020, and I still don't have things under control. I have crappy insurance, or you really can't even call it insurance, it's Medi-share. And they don't cover a pre-existing condition so therefore nothing with my Crohn's is applicable. 

My GI doc wants me to go on a biologic, yet, I'll have to get vaccines and such in order to be able to handle the reduced immune system, so I'm going a little radical in my attempt to get this under control over the next couple months. Bottomline, even though I have been managing sysmptoms, the ulcers in the colon are deep and chronic and if they don't heal, it will result in the removal of a portion of the colon so I have to get some healing going on. 

So what I'm doing now is a fasting mimicking diet once a month for 5 days and sometimes more often. I have a recent post on ProLon: CLICK HERE . ProLon is a product sold by L-Nutra, which is a fasting mimicking diet (FMD). Dr. Valter Longo, the author of the Longevity Diet, is behind this product, and behind many studies on the product. They are right now in human trials for their product to be approved a Crohn's and UC treatment. The clinical trial on mice showed massive promise. 

So although I'm not in their trial, I am following a FMD right now for the second time in 2 months, and then I will follow a mediteranian/longevity diet in between cycles. I plan on doing this every month. So I start on a Sunday, finish on Thursday and have a transition day on Friday. Then three Sunday's later I will do it again.

I'm doing this as well as taking Mesalamine. I've had loose stools for about four months now, which clearly is not good, and I can't afford a biologic until my new insurance kicks in, which by the way isn't that much better because our annual deductible is $8k, but Stelara's $23k per treatment, so without the insurance it isn't any where within reach. So I'm going with this insurance for a year so I can get the treatment I need. 

However, I can't get into my GI doc until the end of February, so I'm doing the FMD a total of 4 times total prior to that appointment and with any luck, I will get things under control and not need the biologic. But if not, then I'm going to have to do what I've never wanted to do in order to get these ulcers under control. 

We will see what happens. So Prolon is not cheap. It's $189 for five days of food. I'm a functional nutrition practitioner these days, which is a topic for another blog, so I get a professional discount, but bottomline, it's still not cheap. So I found a way to do the FMD easy. It's boring as shit, but it's cheap comparatively speaking. 

So here's the deal. Each day you eat between 25 and 40% of your basal metabolic rate. Which equates to 3-5 calories per pound. So I'm 138 right now, so that means my total calories need to be between 414 and 690 daily. And the macro nutrients need to be whole foods, organic, non-gmo, and need to be 9-11% protein, 27-44% fat, and 47-62% carbs. 

Well, 5.3 ounces of avocado, 8 ounces of kombucha, and 1 serving of Feel Great 365 superfood greens, equals one meal in the proper ratio. So if I have that for lunch and dinner a couple days, and then have the Prolon three days one cycle, I can spread the Prolon over 2 cycles. So that's what I'm doing right now. My goal is to find a couple other easy ways to accomplish what's necessary so I can have more variety. 

The avocado approach equates to a higher fat ratio, but with avocados being a medium chain triglyceride, they are easy to digest, not to mention it is already in a pre-digested format, so it's very easy on the gut. And I simply love them. Not to mention, fat is more satisfying to hunger than carbs so leaning on the higher fatt of this ration is perfect. However, I only recommend getting the fat from fruits, vegetables and nuts. No animal fats allowed.

Prolon FMD

This blog was originally posted back in November 2018, but it warrants an update. L-Nutra, who makes the Prolon fasting mimicking diet (FMD) conducted a study on IBD and this product with phenominal results. Now the test was done on mice, not humans, but it prompted a human study which is being conducted right now. 

Additionally, I'm in the middle of a small flare. So I'm on day 5 of the 5 day plan, and I decided to look up on Pub Med any updates on fasting mimicking diets and this is what I found. This study has convinced me that I'm going to do the plan once a month for 4 consecutive months. Check out the study here:  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6528490/. 

It seems like extending the number of days on the plan would make sense to do to get quicker results, but this study indicates that the growth and replacement of damaged intestinal tissue occurs strongly during the re-feeding that follows after their one cycle FMD Prolon plan.

Additionally, I would always do a 3 day water fast when I had any issues with bowel movements that lead me to believe I was heading into a flare up. This article explains how fasting with food, as in this FMD is actually better than a water fast for rejuvination.

Finally, between the time I posted this in 2018, I returned to college and became a functional nutrition practitioner and Prolon is offered in my practice, usually at a reduced price. You can buy it here:  https://gchiropractic.gethealthy.store/. Search ProLon in that online store for all of the options.

Now the information below, is all part of the original post back about two years ago.