Marie-Noelle Marquis (00:06):
Welcome to the AIP Summit Podcast, your go-to resource for taking control of your autoimmune health, presented by AIP Certified Coaches. Hi, I'm Marie-Noelle Marquis.
Jaime Hartman (00:17):
And I'm Jaime Hartman. And we're here to equip you with the tools knowledge and support you need to effectively use the Autoimmune Protocol. And today we're answering some more of the most frequently asked questions about AIP.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (00:39):
So before we jump into our content for today, we want to let you know that this episode assumes that you already have some basic knowledge about the autoimmune protocol, which we refer to with the initials AIP. If you don't, we'd suggest that you pause this episode right now and go back into the show library to find episode number one, which was entitled the ABCs of AIP.
Jaime Hartman (01:02):
And I'll be sure to put a link in the show notes to that episode and also to episode number six, which was our first common questions episode. And then finally, I'm also going to put in a link where you can send us additional questions you have about AIP that we could answer in a future episode like this one. Okay, let's reach into the mailbag and find some questions that we can answer for you today. First one is a good one for both of us to consider a common question people ask coaches, and that is, what is the biggest mistake you see people do on AIP Marie-Noelle?
Marie-Noelle Marquis (01:45):
I would say only focus on the diet elimination and not pay attention to healing the gut. Bring healing nutrients. So thinking I'll just remove things and everything will go away and not have this healing element.
Jaime Hartman (02:06):
To add onto that, I think people get really focused on the idea that the idea is to eliminate the things they're sensitive to figure that out and then just avoid those foods not realizing that it's about how your body actually handles those foods. And so just simply removing them is only part of the picture. We want our body to be able to heal and maybe be able to tolerate more foods in the future.
(02:29):
And then my answer to this is that the biggest mistake I saw when I first started practicing and continue to see is people really rushing into it without taking some time to prepare for success. Just saying, I found this food list and this is the way I'm going to eat. And they're just like, they're often running without really understanding what they're into and getting themselves into and getting prepared and all of that. And that's why I ended up creating my program ready, set AIP, which takes those mistakes that I've seen people making and gives them that instruction ahead of time so that hopefully they don't keep making them. But it's that idea of just not being prepared that I see as the biggest mistake.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (03:10):
Yeah, and that program is fantastic. We'll put a link in the show note, Jaime, for your program.
Jaime Hartman (03:16):
Will do. Absolutely.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (03:19):
Okay, next question. Let's see. Is there any lab testing I should have done before I start AIP? What about before I start reintroductions?
Jaime Hartman (03:33):
Yeah, so if you have regular lab testing that's done as part of monitoring your specific autoimmune diagnosis, it might make sense to have that done before you start if that's feasible. And then repeating that again at periodic intervals, and this is especially important if you have a condition that's treated with a medication that might need dosage adjustments if your affected body parts start functioning better. For example, if you take a thyroid replacement and your thyroid function improves, you could go from having hypothyroid to being hyperthyroid if your medication isn't adjusted properly. So that would be one reason that you would, yeah, it would make sense to have lab testing done and periodically. So if you're not sure if that applies to you, if you don't quite know what we're talking about, just check with your doctor. I think it really depends on the type of condition you have. I would also add that if you or your doctor has any reason to suspect that you have celiac disease and you have not previously been evaluated for it, you need to have that testing done while you're still eating gluten. And so if you are currently eating gluten, somebody thinks you might have celiac disease, I would definitely talk to your doctor about whether it makes sense for you to have that test now, get that answer before you actually remove it. So that would be the other case there. How about you?
Marie-Noelle Marquis (04:57):
Yeah, I agree. That's a very good point. I had that happen to me where I was already starting to feel better and the doctor was like, go back to eating gluten and when you're sick, we'll retest you, and I don't want that. So that's a very good point. I feel in my practice, I always encourage my clients to do labs at the start of the journey and very important to also retest. The most important test is the second one, just so we can have this baseline and then you can see measurable improvements. I also use, I mean it's not lab testing, but I still consider it testing. I use functional questionnaires in my practice when we start working together. And same thing, we redo those two because I think, again, when we're struggling with a multitude of symptoms, sometimes it's hard to look back and go, oh yeah, I don't have that headache anymore.
(05:50):
Okay, okay, my white blood cells count is getting a little better. We're on the right track. So I feel like that is valuable information. There's a lot of great functional lab tests that can be expensive. I'd say I encourage people to just run the basic CBC differential electrolyte level liver enzymes, and so the basic panels and then a vitamin D panel that I find is really key with managing autoimmunity. If you have a thyroid condition, running a comprehensive thyroid panel, not just a TSH, but full complete panel with the antibodies, I think that's, that's really relevant. I do also like to run antibody tests from a immunology lab called Cyrex, but I think one thing that's important that people will sometimes just rush and do a million labs, if you have an underactive immune system, you can spend money through all these tests, but then you'll end up with false negative and the same thing.
(06:54):
If your immune system is overactive, then you might tag everything and then suddenly you think you have everything possible on those tests. So I think I recommend, again, I think there's value in getting those baselines, basic tests. And then my personal approach to my practice is really supporting your immune system, nourishing the gut, getting to that root cause of your triggers and eliminating those. And then we can move to antibody testing for cross-reactivity and things that can help even be helpful during reintroduction phase. Although I don't recommend doing labs instead of doing the reintroduction phase of AIP. I think that's very important to do that.
Jaime Hartman (07:34):
So yeah, I think people hear about lab testing and there's a huge gamut of what that can mean. It can be things that you are doing with your specialist, it can be doing things that you're doing with a functional practitioner. It can be things you order on your own. So that's where it's going to be very individualized. So talk to somebody who understands what you're going through, what you're dealing with. Maybe that's an AIP Certified Coach. Maybe it's somebody who's your primary care provider or your specialist. They can help you figure out if you need lab testing. But I think we both have agreed that it's not a bad idea. Probably a good idea to do it at various periodic intervals. And if you can do it before you start, you have a baseline, which is awesome. Alright, next question. I think we're ready to move on to that one. If I have a flare or my symptoms come back, does that mean that AIP is no longer working?
Marie-Noelle Marquis (08:31):
I like that one. I would say let's remember that AIP is a tool. It is not medicine that prevents flare-ups. So autoimmune disease are conditions that need to be managed throughout our lifetime. So while it's possible to stay symptom free for decades, flare-ups can and most likely will happen over the course of our life. And I think it's also important to understand that a big component that impacts flareups is leaky gut or intestinal hyperpermeability. And while food can inflame our gut and lead to leaky gut, other factors like stress, lack of sleep, environmental factors can also impact our gut in similar ways. So when we're dealing with leaky gut for a period of time, it's very possible to experience a flareup. And that's when I would say that all the components of the autoimmune protocol become your best supportive tools to get through that flare up all are equally important that getting more rest, making time for adequate movement connection with others and natures reflecting on what elements of your diet maybe can play a role at that particular moment where you're at. So our body changes and healing it's important to remember is not linear. So AIP is not about being symptom free forever. It's about empowering you to connect with your body and learn how to implement specific tools to navigate flare up successfully and hopefully reduce the length of time and intensity of symptoms that you experience.
Jaime Hartman (10:11):
Yeah, I just want to reinforce that reminder that AIP doesn't guarantee that you're going to be symptom free forever. No treatment for autoimmune disease can possibly guarantee that, and maybe that's hard to sit with sometimes when we say that, but the point is that you are going to have a higher quality of life because your symptoms will hopefully be less frequent, less intense as long as you keep employing all of the principles. So well said Marie Noel.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (10:44):
Okay, next question. Can you combine AIP with intermittent fasting?
Jaime Hartman (10:52):
Okay, so we're laughing at this because meanwhile we both have probably fairly strong opinions about this, but are going to be diplomatic. I mean, I'm going to start by saying sure, you could do intermittent fasting in combination with AIP. There's nothing that says you can't, but I don't generally recommend it, so I'm going to say right away if you're thinking about doing it, you want to check with your doctor or other qualified health provider to make sure it's appropriate for you. Perhaps you're asking this question because your doctor has said you should do intermittent fasting and if so, yeah, it can be combined with AIP, but work with your practitioner to make sure it makes sense for you. And then if you do get that, okay, if your practitioner says it's a good idea for you and you really want to try it, my suggestion would be to try to have an eating window that's earlier in the day rather than one that has you delay breakfast.
(11:43):
So if you're not familiar with what intermittent fasting means and this eating window, it's just the idea of an intermittent fasting schedule is that you're lengthening that overnight fast when we're naturally not eating anything because sleeping. So you're just lengthening that that's generally what people are doing when they're intermittent fasting and sometimes it gets to a really narrow eating window, but it can even be just a little bit broader than what would naturally happen. So the reason that I came to this recommendation is that the evidence is showing that's better to do it that way, but also my personal experience bore this out. I actually, I don't know if you've ever tried any intermittent fasting marine Well, but I did it a little bit when my husband got into it. It was kind of that the craze and I wanted to see how it worked for me.
(12:32):
And at the time I was using a sleep and activity tracker that measured heart rate variability and other data points to give an overnight recovery score. And it was really fascinating. I felt okay, okay. I mean it kind of sluggish, but it seemed like I was doing okay, maybe this was working. But when I looked at my recovery scores on the days that I delayed breakfast where I would try to have a eating window where I didn't say eat till noon, I'd have this all morning not eating the next day, 24 hours later, my recovery scores were terrible. They were much, much, much worse. The other end of the spectrum, or maybe it's the same thing, if I had a really big meal late in the day, my recovery scores were impacted. So what I realized for myself anyway was that that wasn't going to work. And what I do now is that I have, usually my biggest meal is at lunchtime and then in the evening I have a lighter meal and I try to allow at least two hours between that and when I go to bed. Now, this is just my personal experience, but it jives with what a lot of the studies are showing, which is that meal timing matters. But I'm not a big fan of intermittent fasting. I encourage my clients to find a schedule that works both for their body and for their lives. How about you?
Marie-Noelle Marquis (13:49):
I agree. I am also not a fan of intermittent fasting as like a blanket rule. Right? I agree. I think you brought up a good point. If your a doctor is recommending that, go with your practitioner that way. But as this popular thing, I think it can work great for certain people and it can be really unhealthy for others,
(14:18):
I feel like because we always encourage people with autoimmune disease also, you need to make sure you have plenty of rest. And if you're getting nine hours of sleep and you're avoiding eating two hours before you go to bed, well that's a pretty good fast. So I feel like just again, adapting this, adopting a healthy lifestyle or conscious lifestyle to make sure you get plenty of arrest involved, you'll get sort of that fasting phase in your day anyway. And I agree you with the breakfast, I think, I know it's hard to find some IP breakfast sometimes, but it's so key. I've done that on myself as well. If you skip breakfast, it sort of sets you up for trouble or inflammation the whole day. So having, eating a very macro balanced meal with good protein and good fats within two hours of waking up is usually what I recommend and not delaying breakfast. So I completely agree
Jaime Hartman (15:22):
With that. And I say even earlier, I mean two hours should be the absolute maximum. I think for most people really it's something even earlier. And if you're working out, if you're exercising in the morning, I don't like exercising on a fast. That's something that especially if you're looking for performance benefits from your workout, you're going to have a hard time there. So we could have probably a whole episode talking about this, but the bottom line, to go back to the question, can you combine it? Well, sure you can, but here you have two AIP Certified Coaches that are like, if you were our clients, we would not recommend it. Right. Alright, next question. If I've done some reintroductions and then I have a flare up, would you recommend going back to an elimination phase until that flareup is resolved?
Marie-Noelle Marquis (16:13):
Well, studies show that going back to correlation is not necessary. I would say your body best, and I think that's the key, right? Connecting with your body. By that time you're introducing, you should be at the point where you're in a more connected space with your body to really listen to what it's telling you. So I think that if removing certain foods feel like it will impact your recovery time more than just the food that you've ever introduced. If there's certain things like, okay, sure, let me say this again. So let's say you've done through, you've introduced three different foods and then you go to food number four and then you react. I don't think you go, it's necessary to go all the way back to core, right? You can be like, well, maybe I think there's one I reintroduced and there was a little borderline.
(17:14):
Sure. If you feel like removing a little bit more is going to make an impact, then sure, I am fully supportive of you figuring out how to get through that flare up of that reaction. But I think what is really important is to switch our mentality to not just going back, eliminating and depriving, but okay, what my body is reacting right now, I'll remove this one item that I've reintroduced and I'm reacting to, but what can I add to bring extra support, extra healing to help my body cope with what just happened? So cultivating this, adding, nurturing, healing mentality I think is a really important way to look at it.
Jaime Hartman (17:58):
If this person asking the question was my client, I'd make my recommendation based on their individual situation and their needs. And I mean, I know you're people listening to the products are going to get sick of us saying that, but it's true. But as a general rule, I would say that no, you don't need to go all the way back to the elimination phase because you had a flareup. If you are sure that flareup was caused to the food that you're eating, then maybe that makes sense. But we have to remember a lot of times there was something else that caused it. I'll also say though, that sometimes it makes sense to step back to a way of eating that was more supportive of your wellness. That would not necessarily be the full elimination phase, but it might mean just kind of reincorporating some of the meals that you may have had when you were in the elimination phase in order with Mar Noel for some urban AIP meals.
(18:47):
So you've kind of got everything just done for you, especially if that flareup is making you feel low energy and it's hard to cook again. I also think there's this decision fatigue that sets in sometimes, especially if we're having a flare where I'm thinking about what to eat all the time, and maybe it helps to just put that on autopilot. It adds a lot of stress to have to decide what to eat. So one way you can relieve that is to narrow the window. And that's one of the reasons that in the AIP summit community, we provide members with weekly meal plans that are compliant with the modified AIP elimination, not because everybody in the community is eating that way every week, but because all of us can benefit from having just some of our decisions made for us from time to time, and that modified AIP elimination is a really good home base for most people in those situations.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (19:36):
Yeah, I agree. And just one thing I wanted to add is rereading the question, right? It doesn't mean it's necessarily the food that you reintroduce. I think that's a very good point, and going through the list and checking is it that, but asking yourself what happened in your life recently, anything causing extra stress, anything causing a sleep, and just go through that checklist to make sure that you can really identify what that source of inflammation could be.
Jaime Hartman (20:05):
And I'll add that sometimes you're not going to figure it out, and that's okay too. Our bodies are just weird sometimes, and you have an autoimmune disease and there's a flare and you can't really explain what happened and we look for an answer, and if we can't find one, we might blame ourselves. And that's not helpful either.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (20:21):
No.
Jaime Hartman (20:21):
I think our next question kind of leads into this as well, so let's take a look at that one. Marie-Noelle, you want to read it?
Marie-Noelle Marquis (20:27):
Yeah. It says, I have reintroduced some foods that were fine and now they're bothering me again. Does that mean I needed to stay on the elimination phase longer?
Jaime Hartman (20:38):
So my first thought to this one when I saw it and we flagged it as when we were going to answer, is I would ask this person, are they really sure it was the reintroduced foods that are really the culprit? They seem pretty sure they're like, the foods are bothering me. But a lot of us we're really quick to assume that that's the case, but it could be something else. It could be something else entirely. But more than that, the way this question was worded, I'm sensing a little bit of self blame here, and I really want to stamp that out. They didn't do anything wrong. The person asked if they, oh, did this mean I screwed up? I needed to stay in the elimination phase longer. You didn't do anything wrong by moving into reintroductions when you did. It's just the nature of the process and being unsure about reintroductions over a period of time is totally normal.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (21:26):
Yeah, I agree. I think AIP, it's a protocol, it's guideline. This is the research. There's studies to back it up, right? Here's this compiled advice and research to help guide you, right? But it is, it's a process. It's not a protocol of A, B, C, and everybody's going to get the same result at every step. So it is fluid and it's okay, and your body's going to react however it's going to react, and it doesn't mean that anything wrong with you. I think that's very important. So yeah, no, it doesn't mean that you had to. That's my answer. You didn't have to say elimination face longer. I think it just mean that your body might not be tolerating. Let's say it is the food, then yeah, it's not tolerating those foods well anymore. We just mentioned before, maybe it's dealing with something else that's interfering with adding stress or sometimes it's also been combination. I've had clients with, I'm totally fine with tomatoes and I'm fine with rice, but if I combine them together, no. So sometimes, which is so unique, it's going to be like maybe you had the flu and it weakened your immune system. So
(22:42):
Whichever reason it is, I think it's important to understand it and listen to your body. It's okay to avoid that food for a period of time, but again, there is no need to just throw all the progress out. Just deal with this one thing at a time and listen to your body.
Jaime Hartman (23:05):
Alright, let's see. Next question. This person asks about their supplements and oh and medications too. They say, some of my supplements I found out can contain cornstarch, and I come to realize I don't even know what is in my prescription medications. Does this matter?
Marie-Noelle Marquis (23:26):
I think it does. I definitely have seen clients who are doing unquote everything and still have symptoms and then they find out that there's gluten in their medication or some filler that they're reacting to. I would definitely ask your pharmacist or your doctor for a full list of ingredients or practitioners that's in your medication that also goes for supplements. And if it's medication and you react to something in particular, they might be able to prescribe you a different brand that uses another type of filler and you still get the medicine that you need, but you wouldn't be reacting to that filler. For supplements, I recommend using website called fullscript, which is like a third party tested supplement dispensary. You do have to work with a practitioner to sign up, but I mean, I wonder if you can sign 'em and just see the brands though. I'm curious about that. But anyway, you know that those brands are third party tested and their certifications have really been verified. So there's tons of brands that are gluten-free, corn free, filler free and all that. So yeah, I think it matters.
Jaime Hartman (24:47):
What do you think? I have a slightly different answer, and that is that it might matter, but it might not. I've had clients who are not able to fully "AIP-ify" their supplements and their medications and they still saw benefit. So I think if you're having problems, look there, but if you can't make an easy swap for a different product that doesn't contain corn starch or something else that's overtly, it makes sense to do it if you can. But if you can't see how you do, maybe that's troubleshooting later. As Marie-Noelle was saying, Fullscript is a good resource for that. You do need to be working with a practitioner, I believe, to get full access to its catalog. Both of us use that. I've used it to help people find supplements that will work for them.
(25:34):
I usually like to do a consultation with people first to make sure I know what they need, but if that's something you want to work with one of us about, you could let us know. It might be something though that you revisit later as part of your troubleshooting process. So I don't want people to feel a sense of overwhelming perfection is necessary, but if there's something obvious, it makes sense to see if you can swap it out for something else. And of course, we don't want to ever suggest that you would stop taking anything you need to take. You want to check with your practitioner about that.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (26:06):
So let's say you find yourself in a position that this is the medication that you need and there is corn starch, and please take your medication and look at, then think about how you're going to use those tools, right? We've talked about to help sort of compensate. So maybe dietary, you're going to have this one little place that you'll have corn starch, but add those extra nutrients, add that collagen bone broth that focus on all these extra healing practices and lifestyle habits. So always look at your whole toolkit and try to not just stay stuck on that one dietary part. What else can you do to help balance your health? Okay, last question. Let's see. I have a family history of autoimmune disease. Should I do AIP for prevention?
Jaime Hartman (26:54):
So to answer this question, it's important to remind people that the AIP diet is based on elimination and reintroduction, and your ultimate goal is to have a personalized diet. So when people who have symptoms of an autoimmune disease do it, they're looking at their symptoms as a key indicator to determine that personalization, which you really can't do if you're not experiencing symptoms. And we don't recommend anyone just adopt the AIP elimination phase diet as their forever diet. Well, it could be a nutritionally complete and safe way of eating. It just isn't necessary or wise to permanently cut out entire food groups that you don't actually need to cut out. Now that said, if this person was asking because somebody in their immediate family does have an autoimmune disease and they wanted to maybe eat that way to support them and maybe get some additional benefit along the way, by all means, absolutely it would not harm you and it may actually improve your overall wellbeing.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (27:52):
Yeah, I like that. That's a great point. Doing it as a supportive. Yeah, I mean, I think I would say if you're talking about the lifestyle portion of AIP, yes, absolutely. I think those can be very good for prevention, getting plenty of sleep, managing your stress movement, all that self-care. I think if this question is, which I'm suspecting it is referring to the dietary portion, I agree. I would say no for exactly, Jaime, what you just said. If you don't have the symptoms, you can't really manage the effect of eliminating and gauging how your symptoms are going. So I would think that adopting a healthy diet overall and a healthy lifestyle in general would be a good thing to do.
(28:42):
You can go when you get your regular yearly blood test drawn, I would pay particular attention to vitamin D. For me, that was something that, and something I seen clients too, but that was something that was drastically low and I was deficient for many years before I got my diagnosis. So just making sure that you're maintaining a functional healthy range on that, I think. But that's it. Just if you know, and whether it's autoimmunity in your family or heart disease or diabetes, right? It's a good reminder of what can we do to live a healthy full life as much as possible and nourish our body. So I would take all that in consideration, but I wouldn't think, yeah, I wouldn't recommend doing it as prevention.
Jaime Hartman (29:34):
Great. Alright, so that's all we have time for today. Let's wrap things up.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (29:40):
Well, we hope our answers to these questions continues to make it clear that AIP is not just a diet. You're going to be so fed up to hear that it's not just a diet, it is a protocol with multiple, but it's also exciting, right? It's a protocol, it has multiple branches and there are multiple ways that you can approach it and get the benefit from it. So through this podcast, AIP Certified Coaches bring you resources so that you don't have to do AIP alone.
Jaime Hartman (30:07):
Again, if you have a question you'd like us to answer in a future episode like this, you can submit it via the link you'll see in the show notes, or you could send it to us as a direct message on Instagram. We'll be back with another podcast episode in two weeks. So make sure you subscribe to the AIP Summit Podcast in your favorite podcast player if you haven't already.
Marie-Noelle Marquis (30:25):
And if you would like to leave us a rating and review, it would help others find this podcast where we're committed to helping you use the power of the Autoimmune protocol to elevate your wellness journey to new heights.
Jaime Hartman (30:42):
The AIP Summit Podcast is a Gutsy By nature Production. Content presented is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
