Eileen, Author at Phoenix Helix

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 + 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.

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.

Andrew’s Paleo AIP Reintroduction Experience

Are you curious (or confused) about the AIP food reintroduction process? I created this interview series so you could hear about other people’s experiences. Andrew Smyth has psoriatic arthritis. In this interview, he shares which foods he was able to reintroduce successfully, which reintroductions “failed”, how he discerned the difference, and what he learned along the way. The Paleo Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) has 2 phases: elimination and reintroduction. It’s this second phase where we learn how to expand and personalize the diet for our unique bodies.

50 One-Pan Paleo AIP Recipes

For me, the worst part of cooking is having to clean up the kitchen afterwards. I don’t like to do dishes, especially when there are lots of pans. That’s why I love one-pot and one-pan meals, so I’ve gathered together 50 of them! All of these can be made on the stovetop or in the oven. No special equipment needed. Here’s to simplifying our lives in the kitchen, and in life overall.

Episode 131: Blood Sugar & Autoimmunity with Dr. Jeff Horacek

Blood sugar is one of the building blocks of life. It gives our cells the energy they need to do their jobs. Yet when our blood sugar gets too high, drops too low, or swings wildly between these extremes, it negatively impacts our health on multiple levels, including autoimmune health. In this podcast, we’ll be taking a deep dive into this topic. What factors influence blood sugar levels? How can we tell if ours is out of balance? What are the common symptoms? What tests are helpful? And what diet and lifestyle choices harm vs. help? My guest is Dr. Jeff Horacek, a functional medicine physician with over 20 years of experience. Blood sugar is one of his medical specialties.

Episode 130: Long-Term Healing Diets

This episode marks the 5-year anniversary of this podcast! When I was thinking about how I wanted to celebrate, I decided to invite 2 friends onto the show who have been following a healing diet for 5 years or more. But that doesn’t mean our diet today looks the same as it did on day 1 of this journey. We’ve personalized it over the years, learning what does and doesn’t work for our unique bodies. We’ve had setbacks and recoveries, and we’ve learned to navigate our bodies’ changing needs.

Episode 129: Resilience with Dr. Cynthia Li

Our topic today is Resilience, that ability to bounce back from life’s hardships. With autoimmune disease, we get lots of practice. Sometimes we feel strong and capable of overcoming suffering. Other times we feel beaten down and frightened by our body’s unpredictability. The good news is that resilience isn’t something you either have or you don’t. Resilience is a trait we can nurture. My guest is Dr. Cynthia Li, a functional medicine physician who has autoimmune disease herself. The intensity of her own health challenges ended up being a masterclass in resilience, and also changed the way she practiced medicine.

Episode 128: Best Of – Mind-Body Nutrition with Marc David

This is one of my favorite podcast episodes! How does mindset impact nutrition and food tolerance? At its most basic level, food is sustenance. It fuels us for life. But food is more than just a source of energy. Emotions surround the experience of eating as well. Food can comfort and bring joy, yet it can also inspire feelings of guilt. People also connect with each other over food, building memories, traditions, and even identities. And when you’re following a healing diet, there’s gratitude for food being medicine, often combined with feelings of deprivation, rebellion and grief. It’s complex! Here’s the fascinating part you might not realize: Not only does food inspire emotion, but emotions impact our ability to digest our food, including how well we tolerate foods. That’s the subject of our podcast today.

Low-Power Mode: Self-Care During Challenging Times

iPhones automatically shift into low-power mode when their batteries get low. The goal is to conserve energy. There are times in life when our body and soul ask us to do the same. It’s about letting nonessential responsibilities go, and focusing our limited energy on what’s most important. In this blog post I share my recent experience doing this, and give you tips to do the same.

Episode 127: Best Of – Social Lives on the Paleo Autoimmune Protocol

This is one of the most popular podcasts – for good reason! In cultures around the world, we gather together over food: we have dinner dates, drinks with friends, favorite festivals, and big family meals at our grandparents’ house. What happens when we can’t eat that food any more? Some people make the mistake of giving up their social life altogether because they simply don’t know how to manage it. In this podcast, 3 experienced AIP-ers share their experience and advice for having a full and fun social life while still staying true to your healing diet. It can be done!

Hashimoto's AIP Medical Study | Phoenix Helix

Episode 126: Hashimoto’s AIP Medical Study

I have some exciting research to share! It’s the first medical study looking at the paleo autoimmune protocol as an intervention for Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. The results were impressive! In this episode, Dr. Rob Abbott and Angie Alt (the research team) give us all the details.

5 Tips for Healthier Smoothies

Most people choose smoothies because they think they’re a healthy alternative to fast food. The problem is that liquid “meals” like these can hit our bloodstream as sugar blasts, which isn’t healthy for anyone but especially people with autoimmune disease. So, what do we do? Here are 5 tips for making your smoothies as healthy as they can be (while also being delicious). And I also share my personal favorite smoothie recipe

Episode 125: The Pursuit of Perfect Health with Dr. Terry Wahls

Most of you know Dr. Terry Wahls’ story. She is a physician who developed multiple sclerosis, and in spite of the best that conventional medicine had to offer, she ended up confined to a tilt-recline wheelchair. She started to research nutrition and lifestyle interventions, eventually creating The Wahls Protocol. She’s no longer in a wheelchair, and is now able to ride a bicycle to and from work. That said, she’s not cured, even though she’s often presented that way in the media. In this podcast we tackle the difficult conversation of what it means to heal, how not to compare your results to someone else’s, the difference between progress vs. perfection, and the role acceptance plays in this journey.

Donna’s Paleo AIP Reintroduction Experience

Are you curious (or confused) about the AIP food reintroduction process? I created this interview series so you could hear about other people’s experiences. Donna Allgaier-Lamberti has Hashimotos’ thyroiditis and lichen sclerosus. In this interview, she shares which foods she was able to reintroduce successfully, which reintroductions “failed”, how she discerned the difference, and what she learned along the way. The Paleo Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) has 2 phases: elimination and reintroduction. It’s this second phase where we learn how to expand and personalize the diet for our unique bodies.

Episode 123: The Forgiveness Controversy with Dr. Harriet Lerner

There’s some compelling research that suggests the inability to forgive leads to negative health consequences, and the practice of forgiveness can have health benefits. When it comes to small injustices, this seems relatively easy to do. But what if you have experienced something that you find unforgivable? Is forgiveness a requirement for healing? The pressure to forgive can feel like getting re-victimized all over again. In this podcast, we take a deep look at this topic. My guest is clinical psychologist and bestselling author, Dr. Harriet Lerner.

Instant Pot Garlic Mashed Cauliflower (Paleo, AIP, GAPS, Wahls, Whole30)

Have you ever roasted garlic whole? It’s a completely different flavor – mellow and rich. It turns out that pressure cooking in the Instant Pot creates that same flavor in much less time, and it pairs beautifully with cauliflower. This recipe is delicious, fast, and nutrient-dense. I hope you love it as much as I do!

Episode 122: Brain Fog with Dr. Tim Gerstmar

Do you ever feel like your brain isn’t working quite right – that you can’t remember things, or think clearly, or focus and make decisions? That simple tasks feel challenging, and complex tasks feel impossible? This cluster of symptoms is often called Brain Fog, because that’s what it feels like – that there’s a fog bank surrounding your brain, making everything more difficult. It’s also common to feel physically clumsy on brain fog days as well. In this podcast, we’re doing a deep dive into the root causes of brain fog, and how we can identify and treat them.

Loving Martine: A Legacy Cookbook & Sample Recipe: Fish Dumplings in Shiitake-Ginger Broth

My friend Martine Partridge passed away in 2017, but she left a legacy of love behind. She was known for her strength, sense of humor, positive outlook, and love of flavorful food! This cookbook is her legacy. It contains 130 paleo recipes, 100 of which are AIP. In this blog post, I share all the details, including a sample recipe for Fish Dumplings in Shiitake-Ginger Broth and an interview with Martine’s mother

Episode 121: Time Management with Laura Vanderkam

In this podcast, we’re taking a big picture look at time. How can we gain clarity on where our time goes? How can we start to feel in control of time, rather than buffeted by it? What makes it slow down in some moments and speed up in others? Is it possible to be productive and feel relaxed at the same time? And how can we flex our expectations and our schedules when our health fluctuates? My guest is Laura Vanderkam, an expert on the subject of maximizing time.