Eileen, Author at Phoenix Helix

Debra’s Healing Story (Graves’ Disease)

Two of the most prevalent autoimmune diseases in the world affect the thyroid. Hashimoto’s Disease causes hypothyroidism (an underactive thyroid). Graves’ Disease causes hyperthyroidism (an overactive thyroid). Conventional doctors will often say that diet and lifestyle have no impact on these conditions, but one-by-one, patients are discovering the powerful difference they can make in their own health. Debra’s story is inspiring for the dramatic improvements she’s gained, but also her persistent and holistic approach. There’s no area she doesn’t consider in making her health the best it can be, and her life as full and joyful as possible.

Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable #302

This week’s Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable is now live! The featured recipes from last week are: Burgers and Fries Sheet Pan Dinner, Onion Dip, Turkey Breakfast Stew, and Asian Chopped Salad. Happy cooking, everyone!

Episode 140: Autoimmunity & the Brain with Donna Jackson Nakazawa

If you’ve ever experienced brain fog, anxiety, or mood issues alongside your autoimmune symptoms, you’re not alone. Doctors know that mental health issues often increase with an autoimmune diagnosis, and a new scientific discovery might explain why. There are cells in the brain called microglia that are actually part of the immune system. And just as our body’s immune system can go into overdrive and cause chronic inflammation with autoimmune disease, the same thing can happen in our brains. My guest is science journalist Donna Jackson Nakazawa. Her latest book is called The Angel and The Assassin, and it’s all about these little brain cells and how they can help us or harm us.

Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable #301

This week’s Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable is now live! The featured recipes from last week are: Breakfast NOMelet, Chicken and Broccoli Stir-Fry, Coconut Butter, and Guacamole. Happy cooking, everyone!

CBD Oil and Autoimmune Disease

Can CBD oil alleviate autoimmune flares and symptoms? Can it sometimes harm instead of help? What does the research say? Are some brands more trustworthy than others? What’s the right dosage? In this article, I answer these questions and more.

Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable #300

This week’s Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable is now live! The featured recipes from last week are: Sweet Potato Sugar Cookies, Sheet Pan Pesto Chicken, Broccoli “Cheese” Soup, and Meatloaf with Hidden Liver. Happy cooking, everyone!

Episode 139: Healing Stories 7

If you’re a regular listener of my podcast, you know that I often start my shows with personal stories, where my guests share their health journeys from rock bottom to reclaiming a vital life. But at a least once a year, I dedicate an episode to back-to-back healing stories, and I make an effort to speak to people with different autoimmune diagnoses each time. In this episode, we talk about Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, Endometriosis, Sjogren’s Syndrome, Vasculitis, Celiac Disease, Type 1 Diabetes, Ankylosing Spondylitis, Antisynthetase Syndrome, and also Autoimmunity in general. And if you want to hear the prior Healing Stories podcasts, check out episodes 1, 14, 30, 43, 61, 87, and 113. Let’s inspire each other!

Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable #299

This week’s Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable is now live! The featured recipes from last week are: “Chocolate” Banana Cookies, Blueberry Sweet Potato Turkey Breakfast Sausage, Instant Pot Mashed Cauliflower, and Pomegranate Roasted Asparagus. Happy cooking, everyone!

10 Tips for Success on the Paleo Autoimmune Protocol (AIP)

Autoimmune disease is strong inspiration for making healthy diet and lifestyle changes, but that doesn’t mean the AIP is easy to do! Here are 10 tips for getting started, staying on track, getting support, setting yourself up for success, and making the AIP work for you.

Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable #298

This week’s Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable is now live! The featured recipes from last week are: Pork, Apple, and Delicata Squash Breakfast Casserole, “Chocolate” Coconut Truffles, Zucchini & Tuna Rolls, and Roasted Salmon with Cranberry Orange Chutney. Happy cooking, everyone!

Episode 138: Best Of – Exercise and Autoimmune Disease

This is one of the most popular podcast episodes! The right exercise has the potential to improve our health, but the wrong exercise can cause an autoimmune flare. Our needs will often change from month to month, maybe even from day to day. In this podcast, I share my own experience of how my exercise needs have changed since being diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. I also interview 3 other people about their exercise experiences as well. One guest has multiple sclerosis, one has Crohn’s disease, and the other has Hashimoto’s.

Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable #297

This week’s Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable is now live! The featured recipes from last week are: Parsnip Hashbrowns, Mongolian Beef Meatballs, Coconut Yogurt, and Sugar Cookies. Happy cooking, everyone!

Episode 137: Best Of – MTHFR with Dr. Ben Lynch

This is one of the most popular podcast episodes – for good reason! Once you start researching alternative approaches to treating autoimmune disease, it isn’t long before you hear of a gene mutation that can be a root cause for chronic illness and also a healing stumbling block. It’s called MTHFR. This is a very complex topic, and it’s easy to misunderstand and make mistakes trying to treat it. Our goal today is to explain MTHFR clearly in layman’s terms, talk about how you can tell if this mutation is indeed impacting your own health, and help you find a qualified practitioner to guide treatment. My guest is Dr. Ben Lynch, a world-renowned expert on this topic. He’s the expert consulted by other experts.

Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable #296

This week’s Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable is now live! The featured recipes from last week are: AIP Biscuits, Burger Bake, Roasted Beef Bone Broth, and Shrimp n’ “Grits”. Happy cooking, everyone!

Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable #295

This week’s Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable is now live! The featured recipes from last week are: Cranberry Date Upside Down Cake, Probiotic Spinach Artichoke Dip, Chicken Adobo, and Turkey Stuffed Acorn Squash. Happy cooking, everyone!

5 Mantras for a Healthy Holiday Season

When I think of a healthy holiday, I think of so many things: autoimmune health, celebration, self-compassion, stress resilience, and social connection. Yet the holidays are sometimes the opposite of these things! What is a mantra? It’s simply a statement of intention. How do you want to spend your holiday season? I’ve come up with 5 to inspire us.

Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable #294

This week’s Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable is now live! The featured recipes from last week are: Sweet Potato Soufflé, AIP Stuffing, Duck Confit, and Glazed Ham. Happy cooking, everyone!

Episode 135: The Placebo and Nocebo Effect with Erik Vance

If the placebo effect taps into our body’s natural healing capability, and the nocebo effect can turn fear into physical symptoms, these are things we need to understand. In this podcast we dive into the research to try to make sense of one of the human body’s great mysteries. My guest is science journalist Erik Vance, author of the book Suggestible You.

Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable #293

This week’s Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable is now live! The featured recipes from last week are: Holiday Dressing, Apple Pear Crumble, Shepherd’s Pie, and Sweet Potato Gratin. Happy cooking, everyone!

Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable #292

This week’s Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable is now live! The featured recipes from last week are: Raspberry Filled Breakfast Pastry, Lime-Crusted Cod with a Warm Olive Vinaigrette, AIP Mocktails, and Marinated Party Olives. Happy cooking, everyone!

Episode 134: Orthorexia with Imei Hsu

What’s the line between a healing diet and a harmful one? Orthorexia is a term that was first coined in the late 1990’s by Dr. Steven Bratman. It refers to an obsessive focus on healthy eating that becomes clinically impairing. This idea has become controversial in the paleo autoimmune community. Does a healing diet automatically set you up for orthorexia? What does it mean to eat in a way that supports your health? And what does it look like when this goal becomes unhealthy? My guest is Imei Hsu. She’s a registered nurse and clinical psychotherapist, and eating disorders are one of her specialties. She also has autoimmune disease herself as well as food allergies.

Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable #291

This week’s Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable is now live! The featured recipes from last week are: Instant Pot Shrimp Etouffée, Monster Mouths, Broccoli “Cheese” Soup, and Instant Pot Coconut Milk. Happy cooking, everyone!

Paleo AIP + GAPS Starchy Vegetable List

I came to the Paleo autoimmune community through the GAPS doorway. The GAPS Diet is designed to heal the gut and therefore heal the body. One of the tenets of the GAPS diet is that starch can feed pathogenic bacteria, so a low-starch diet can shift the gut microbiome toward health. The Paleo Autoimmune Protocol is designed to heal the gut as well, yet it allows many high-starch vegetables. So who is right? It turns out that starch tolerance is very individual. Some people thrive on a high-starch diet, while others feel best on a moderate to low-starch diet. If you’d like to conduct your own self-experiment, I’ve compiled a list of the vegetables allowed on both diets, from low-starch to high.

Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable #290

This week’s Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable is now live! The featured recipes from last week are: Cinnamon Pumpkin Soup, Pumpkin Spice Granola, Mongolian Ground Beef, and an October Recipe Roundup, Happy cooking, everyone!

Episode 133: The Gut Microbiome with Dr. Lucy Mailing

There’s a community of 38 trillion microorganisms living in and on our bodies, and most of them reside in our gut. That’s equal to the number of cells in the human body. By this definition, we are only 50% human. This is why gut health has such a huge impact on human health, and research in this area is exploding. What does the science say about the intersection between the gut microbiome and autoimmune health? Where can we apply that knowledge in our own lives? And what are some common myths and misconceptions that new research is starting to dispel? My guest today is Dr. Lucy Mailing, a research scientist specializing in how diet and lifestyle impact the gut microbiome in both health and disease states.

Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable #289

This week’s Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable is now live! The featured recipes from last week are: Paleo Twix Bars, Beef AIP Egg Roll in a Bowl, Slow Cooker Pot Roast & Gravy, and Instant Pot Moroccan Apricot Chicken. Happy cooking, everyone!