The Stone-Age Diet

The Challenge of The Stone-Age Diet

In preparation for the stone-age diet challenge,  my wife and I went on a shopping spree for healthier foods. We spent most of our time in the vegetable section, buying everything we could find that was organic, except potatoes of course, as I was committed to eat only a stone-age diet.  I am not a great lover of meat products, but for protein I bought some chicken breasts and fresh fish.  All the vegetarian packet foods that I had been eating before, had artificial flavourings and other additives, so they did not find their way into the shopping basket.

My food doctor had told me that prehistoric man probably ate different seeds from wild grasses so providing that nothing was added, crushed seeds like oats or barley could be considered as part of the stone-age diet, but not bread.  Commercially made bread that could be bought in the stores and supermarkets were off the menu because of the additions of chemicals and sugar.  

Some of the foods I quit
Some of the foods I ate

On that first morning, breakfast consisted of organic porridge oats made with water. No milk or sugar was to be added.  I began feeling somewhat positive about beginning this new diet. I was going to feel well again!  I had managed to find organic porridge oats made by an Irish company called Flahavans    The product comes in strong paper packaging and not plastic, which I liked; so I was happy that I was doing the best I could for my health by having a product that didn’t risk contamination with petrochemicals and/or plastics.   I boiled  the oats  in some filtered water and that was all there was to it. I can’t say that I didn’t like the porridge, but it had no taste whatsoever.  I finished breakfast with a cup of hot-boiled filtered water.  All tasting so totally bland,  but I had a good imagination and imagined that I was feeling better already! I also imagined that I was smelling and drinking a beautiful cup of black coffee as I sipped my way through my boiled water. The mind is very powerful and believe or not, this really worked for me!  

By profession I am a hypnotherapist and regularly use meditation and often self-hypnotic techniques. If you want to know more, please leave your question in comments below, or visit my Zen and Hypnotherapy Blog for more details on the subject.

By mid morning I was craving for some cookies, biscuits, or even a cheese sandwich would have gone down really well! But all our ‘junk food’  had been disposed of, to remove temptation.  I like to think that because of my commitment, any sort of temptation would have been out of the question, but sugar addiction in particular can be very persuasive and powerful. I will just say that it would have been extremely difficult and tested my determination to keep my commitment to the limits!  I reminded myself what the good food doctor had told me, “addiction was a strong sign of an intolerance”. 

Addicts to any substances are intolerant to the substances they crave, and those substances can destroy their health.  I was beginning to understand the mechanics of addiction, experientially. It came to me that even gambling addicts, were on the road to self-destruction. The mind is easily addicted, and its main function is survival of all that it learns. And through repetition of any bad habit,  the mind learns so very well!  Food addiction is learned through the digestive and immune system, and a gambling addiction is learned through the behavioural and nervous system.   It has been discovered that the immune system and the nervous system have strong links to each other.  So either will result in creating problems in the body and mind, or both. 

My dietary discipline went on for about three days without too much problem, but then the addiction seemed to ‘step up in intensity’.  I  had returned home from some business I had been doing and as I walked in, our home smelled strongly of baking.  My wife, who had suffered from her teens with arthritis was also following the stone-age diet with me.  I asked her, “Why on earth are you baking cakes?”  She assured me that she was not. “Yes, you are,” I argued, “I can smell them!” I marched straight into the kitchen, and nothing. Not a cake, a bag of sugar or flour was in sight. In fact all such products  had all been stripped from our kitchen and given away or thrown away.  It seemed that I was coming a ‘sugarholic’ and had started hallucinating an illusory sense of smell! 

During next day, I was beginning to feel exhausted, with a pounding headache and I had a busy day lined up with clients.  I would not allow myself to take pain-killers because of the chemicals they contained, and they had long-since stopped working anyway.  I knew that I could easily transcend the pain whilst interacting with my clients as I had done it before so many times. It was a struggle, but I had a break mid-afternoon, so I phoned my food doctor.  He told me that I could expect these pains, and what I was describing was classic withdrawal symptoms.  My body was detoxifying itself from years of built-up toxins and chemicals.  This was a ‘die-off process’ sometimes referred to as the Herxheimer Reaction. He added that I probably had an overwhelming toxicity with a variety of yeasts, bacterium and moulds in my system that was now being ejected from the cells into the blood stream.  I was right not to use pain-killers to subdue it, and was advised to drink plenty of water – room temperature would be good, to ensure a good flushing through my system.  

It was not possible for him to assess how long I would suffer from this withdrawal effect as everybody experiences it differently. It was likely to come and go, but it was a sure sign of food addiction and sensitivity, so I was on the right track.  By sticking with this exclusion diet, I would continue to unmask symptoms of sensitivities and would make a really positive difference to my M.E, 

It was difficult to remain positive and optimistic now that I was in pain.  And is was difficult to see this pain as a part of the healing process, but I trusted my doctor. Things were definitely changing!  I began to feel nervous as to how I was going to manage my workload if this was going to get worse, but I was committed and I would deal with it.  

Now I was realising the full force of  stone-age diet challenge. And yes, it was to come and go, with symptoms that would grow worse, but my body and mind would just fully accept that I was doing this to enhance my health and quality of life. I knew that I was supported by my doctor who had years of experience in this field. And I now felt thankful for  my day-dreaming imagination that had at times got me into trouble during school lessons! 

The challenge goes on in the next post….

Please note: Posts and articles on this blog are not meant to be medical advice in any way. Please contact your medical doctor or qualified practitioner for all medical conditions.