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Transcript
- 02:19 About Mickey Trescott
- 06:01 What is an Autoimmune Disease?
- 06:48 What is Leaky Gut?
- 07:42 Causes of Autoimmune Disease
- 08:28 Heal Autoimmune Disease
- 10:46 Mickey’s Autoimmune Protocol
- 13:01 The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook
- 15:32 Autoimmune Disease and Diet
- 18:45 Food Sensitivity Testing
- 23:11 Most Pressing Health Issue in the World Today
- 25:13 Find Out More about Mickey Trescott
Wendy: Welcome to the Live to 110 Podcast. My name is Wendy Myers. You can find me on myersdetox.com. You can find the video portion of this podcast on the corresponding blog post on the website and on my YouTube channel, WendyLiveto110.
Today, our guest is Mickey Trescott. She’s a nutritional therapy practitioner. She healed herself from autoimmune disease and she wrote a cookbook called the Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook and is going to be talking to us about how you can nourish your immune system and heal and even reverse your autoimmune disease.
Please keep in mind that this program is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or health condition and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Please consult your healthcare practitioner before engaging in any treatment that we suggest today on the show.
I’m so thrilled to announce the release of my online health program called BodyBioRehab.com. Go to the website and sign up for when it releases. April 1st, that’s when we’re going to unveil the online health program that I’ve been working on for months.
It’s going to be talking about the five pillars of health, which are diet, exercise, sleep, stress and detoxification. There’s going to be all kinds of videos, all kinds of contents, six different modules to learn. You’re going to be doing a 3-day Paleo reset diet and I’m going to give you all the recipes and tips and tricks about how to do that.
And then you graduate to the Modern Paleo Diet when you’re done with the entire program. It’s going to just tech you all the basics that you need to know to improve your health and to reverse health conditions and to get you started with the basics on improving your health and feeling better and getting your energy back, getting your mojo back, which I think is really important.
So definitely go check that out at BodyBioRehab.com.
Our guest today is Mickey Trescott. She’s a nutritional therapy practitioner. She’s the chef and blogger behind the website Autoimmune-Paleo.com, which provides recipes and resources for the autoimmune protocol.
After recovering from her own struggle with both Celiac and Hashimoto’s Disease, adrenal fatigue and multiple vitamin deficiencies, Mickey started to write about her experience to share with others and help them realize they’re not alone in their struggles.
She’s a certaified NTP by the Nutritional Therapy Association and is the author of the Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook, a guide and recipe book for the autoimmune protocol.
Mickey is also on the board for Hashimoto’s Awareness, which is a support and advocacy group organization for autoimmune thyroid disease. She recently moved to Wilamette Valley, Oregon to start a homestead with her husband.
Mickey, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Mickey Trescott: Thank you for having me. I’m really excited to be here.
Wendy: Well, why don’t you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself and your story?
Mickey Trescott: Yes! So I was diagnosed with two autoimmune diseases, both Celiac Disease and Hashimoto’s Disease about 3 ½ years ago. Before that, I really hadn’t had any health complaints. I have been vegan for about ten years and I really believed that a plant-based diet was the best for staying healthy. I was very active. And so my world kind of all came crashing down.
I got these autoimmune diagnoses and surprisingly, I didn’t feel better on a gluten-free diet, which was the biggest prescription by my medical professionals. They said, “Go gluten-free. You have Celiac Disease. Your thyroid labs are normal despite having antibodies.”
In the months following my diagnoses, I continued to get worse. I started having some neurological symptoms. I had [inaudible 00:04:17], which is a symptom of lupus. And so there was this period where I really felt like my autoimmunity was progressing.
And so that’s really where I found dietary change and I started to learn about ancestral health and ancestral nutrition and Paleo. I made the 180 from vegan and I really have not looked back.
Wendy: Was that hard?
Mickey Trescott: Oh, yeah. It was so hard. And I don’t think that I would ever have been able to do it if I hadn’t been totally bedridden and not able to function. It was a decision that I made that was just for my health. It went against everything that I believed at the time, but it was the thing that got me better.
Wendy: Yeah, I’m right there with you because I was vegetarian and a vegan – it was a couple of years and I only had very mild symptoms. I had some fatigue and trouble losing weight. I’m like, “Oh, hell no!” As soon as I realized my diet was what was causing, contributing to my mild health issues, I made a really quick turnaround.
Do you feel that your vegan diet contributed to your health issues?
Mickey Trescott: Yes. And actually, I think that I never would have had such a deep and dark crash had I not been vegan. So I was having issues. I mean, it was multiple nutrient deficiencies on top of two raging autoimmune diseases. I was having things like neuropathy and neurological issues that were B vitamin deficiencies. I was having trouble breathing and fatigued and hair falling out because I was so anemic. So that definitely compounded and I think was a big reason why I got so ill.
Wendy: So why don’t we talk a little bit about for any listeners that maybe aren’t totally familiar, what is an autoimmune disease?
Mickey Trescott: Simply, autoimmune disease is when your immune system attacks your own body. So in my case, my thyroid was attacked by my own body, and my small intestine. It can happen to any organ in the body, any system, so there are skin autoimmune diseases, they are endocrine autoimmune diseases, there are neurological autoimmune diseases. So there are over a hundred of them.
We’re very familiar with some of them and not with others, but they all do have a link in leaky gut. And so that’s why food is so effective at helping manage autoimmunity, because it directly affects the gut.
Wendy: What is leaky gut? Can you explain a little bit about that and how that contributes to autoimmune? I believe you have to have a leaky gut in order to have an autoimmune.
Mickey Trescott: Yeah! And it is scientifically shown that leaky gut and autoimmunity go hand-in-hand. So leaky gut is basically when the intestinal barrier, the lining of the small intestine which is supposed to keep viruses and bacteria and everything out and let nutrients in becomes leaky and becomes too permeable. And so not only those virus, bacteria and everything can kind of get in to the immune system and cause problems, but larger proteins and undigested foods.
And so this is where certain foods can really irritate people that have this leaky gut. So those are the foods that we remove on an autoimmune protocol that generally get people on track to feeling a lot better.
Wendy: And are there any other causes of autoimmune?
Mickey Trescott: Yes, there are tons of theories. I don’t think that there is really one cause to autoimmunity. I think it’s a combination of diet and stress, genetics, toxin load, like I said, infectious. There’s a lot of different theories.
And from what I have learned, I think that it’s just a combination of us eating food that’s unsuitable for us and plus being in a toxic environment. Generation by generation, our world has changed so much that now, we’re very susceptible to disease like autoimmune diseases.
Wendy: And so how can you heal these diseases? Can you heal it permanently? I know I have clients that they get rid of their Hashimoto’s and other autoimmune diseases, so we know that it can be reversed. Were you able to reverse your autoimmune?
Mickey Trescott: It depends how you define that. I’m very cautious using the words ‘reverse’ and using the words ‘cure’. I don’t live with many symptoms. Although if I step off track or I get extremely stressed out, I start not sleeping, I will experience symptoms – or if I get glutened or if I have dairy or a few foods.
But for the most part, I live a really active, healthy life. I’m able to be very focused and productive at work. I really don’t have a lot of health complaints.
I do take medication. I have taken medication through the whole thing. For some people, they might say that that’s not success unless you’re medication free, but I really think that living vibrantly, happy, healthy is the goal. That’s how I feel.
And so I do think it’s possible to reach this point. It might take awhile. There’s a lot of underlying issues that people might have to explore. But yeah, there’s always something someone can do to improve their situation.
Wendy: Did you do any detox protocols to reduce your toxin level?
Mickey Trescott: You know, a detox protocol actually put me in the hospital. I went to a naturopath originally when I got my diagnosis and that was the first thing they did. I was so weak at that point, my body was just not strong enough to do detoxification. I’ve been very scared of it since.
I am compound heterozygous for MTHFR. I know that I have some issues with methylation. I take a couple of supplements, but I’m very conservative in the way that I deal with that kind of stuff because I know how powerful herbs and supplements can be and I know how it crashed me once before.
So really, how I feel about detoxification is that our bodies have this innate ability to detoxify. And so supporting that by not overburdening ourselves with toxins and eating a really good diet full of these nutrients that we need in order to detoxify is good enough for most people unless they have a specific issue.
Wendy: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Wendy: And so let’s talk a little bit about your autoimmune protocol that you talk about in your book.
Mickey Trescott: So it’s actually not mine, but you could call it mine. I blog under Autoimmune-Paleo, but there’s actually a whole community of people who really came at this idea from a lot of different angles at the same time. And so I don’t really think anyone can really be credited more than Sarah Ballentine. She really did all the research. But even the original idea predated her work.
So there were some people in the Paleo community, Robb Wolf, Chris Kresser, there was the functional medicine community with Datis Kharazzian who were kind of coming through with the little threads of this plan. And then she really came along with her personal experience and her science background and came out with all of the science and reasons why it works.
So basically, I follow her version of the protocol, which is an elimination and provocation diet that is tailored to those of us with autoimmune conditions. And that way, it’s very autoimmune-specific. So we remove grains, beans, dairy, eggs, nuts, seeds and nightshades (which is a family of vegetables including tomatoes and peppers and a couple of herbs like Ashwagandha, things like egg plant). And also, spices. So if there’s a seed spice like cumin, we would avoid that or coffee and chocolate unfortunately.
Wendy: Oh, no!
Mickey Trescott: And so you eliminate that for a period of time. The period of time is open to interpretation. If someone starts feeling great in 30 days, they can start reintroducing foods. If they don’t, they might need to do two or three months. The goal is to start seeing some improvement maybe in digestion, maybe in a slow reversal of their autoimmune symptoms.
And then they can start reintroducing those foods one at a time following a very specific way as to not overload the body with too much information or too many new things at once. But then you can really see how food affects you. That person can end up on a customized diet just for their healing path.
Wendy: Yeah.
Wendy: And so why don’t you tell us a little bit about your book, The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook and how you introduce people to an autoimmune type diet.
So with my book, I really wanted to eliminate – I made the excuse that anyone may not be able to do this diet. It is very restrictive and there aren’t a lot of resources – or there weren’t. There are starting to be a lot more. There’s almost 50 bloggers at least that I know of that are writing about this.
But at the time that I wrote it, there were no recipes, there were no meal plans. So really, my book has over 110 recipes that are all suitable for the strictest phase of the elimination diet. They’re all delicious, they’re all easy. I don’t really believe in complicated, crazy recipes for people that are chronically sick. These are recipes that anyone can make. They can serve it to their families, husband-approved.
I have a background as a personal chef, so I spent a lot of time cooking in kitchens and streamlining my craft.
When I got well, I put it all together in this book and really made it a guide for people who wanted to get started. So in addition to the recipes, there’s also meal plans. I have tips and tricks. I’ve got shopping lists. I’ve got a guide on how to select food, all kinds of things to just get people started with doing the diet.
Wendy: What’s your favorite recipe in the book?
Mickey Trescott: My favorite recipe – that’s a good question. I like a lot of them. The Nomato Sauce is pretty revolutionary. It’s a nightshade-free tomato-like sauce, but it doesn’t have tomatoes in it. It doesn’t have any peppers. But it has that kind of earthy – it’s red. I used beets and carrots and cook them for a little while in broth. It’s just really nourishing and delicious.
Another recipe I really like is the salmon chowder. It’s really fun if you end up with a whole fish. You can actually make a stock out of it and that ends up being a really delicious testing broth with lots of Omega 3 fats from all the skin and head and everything.
Wendy: Yeah, I like the Nomato Sauce. That’s probably one of the worst foods to go if you have a nightshade sensitivity. I have a feeling I probably have a little bit of issue with tomatoes. My tongue gets really sore after I eat tomatoes. It’s finally one day going to dawn on me that maybe I can’t eat those. But that’s in so many foods. It’s hard to avoid on a diet.
Wendy: So why don’t you tell us a little bit about what kind of diet do you have to eat if you have autoimmune? What kind of foods or what are the top foods we need to eliminate?
Mickey Trescott: So those would be the foods that I mentioned before. I would say that they’re not all forever foods. Gluten, I think, for anyone with an autoimmune disease should consider never eating it again. But all the other foods are kind of possibilities depending on where in the spectrum you end up.
Some people, they feel great on the elimination diet. But when they start reintroducing eggs or other grains or nuts or seeds or something, they don’t feel great, so they go back to the elimination diet and they’re happy to stay on a restricted diet because it enables them to feel great.
Other people like myself, three years in, I’ve really been able to expand the foods that I’m able to tolerate. I would say I eat a pretty loose Paleo diet. There are a couple of foods in there that are not Paleo, but if I ate it at a restaurant, I would have an allergic reaction. Dairy and soy and obviously, gluten, I don’t eat, but white rice on occasion.
So there’s definitely a highly variable range where people can get into, but I think long-term, a Paleo diet is great after someone has gone through the trouble of doing the elimination diet and healing their gut and getting to a place of strength and vitality so that they can better make choices about food.
Wendy: Oh, yeah. I’ve heard that if you have autoimmune, probably dairy is a big one you should avoid. Do you agree with that?
Mickey Trescott: Yeah! Yeah, dairy, dairy is huge. I mean, I’ve had an anaphylactic reaction to dairy since I can remember. So I’m particularly allergic to it. But I do know some people who have been able to reintroduce it successfully. So just because I can’t tolerate dairy doesn’t mean that the next person with Hashimoto’s isn’t going to be able to.
I actually am tolerating some nightshades now, which I know a lot of people with autoimmune conditions don’t ever seem to tolerate them. So we really are all unique people. Our guts are unique, our immune systems are unique. And so what we’re going to be able to tolerate is not going to be the same.
So I really don’t believe in a one-size-fits-all approach. The beauty of the elimination diet is just figuring out what works for you.
Wendy: Yeah. I just think the big two are gluten and dairy. Those, for sure, need to go at first until you can [inaudible 00:17:57].
Mickey Trescott: Yeah. People can go into it the opposite way. So if you don’t want to do the elimination diet straightaway, someone can start just by going gluten-free one month and then dairy-free the next month and then build on that – and end up on Paleo and then go further to do AIP. You don’t have to just say, “Tomorrow, I’m doing AIP and throw out everything in your house.” You can make it a gradual transition as well.
Wendy: Yes, because it is hard to do a food elimination diet. It’s very, very difficult. I’ve tried several times. I’m not terribly successful. I’d definitely be more motivated if I had a very severe health issue. I have found it to be extremely difficult to throw out ten major foods that are part of most people’s diets on a near daily basis. It is challenging.
Wendy: So what are some of the issues of food sensitivity testing? Definitely, the gold standard I’ve heard is the food elimination diet. Have you done food testing before?
Mickey Trescott: I actually have not done food testing and I have worked with some clients in my nutrition practice who have come to me with those tests. And what I found is that sometimes, they do seem to line up with true allergies. So where someone says, “I know I’m allergic to dairy and I’ve got this test. Now, I’m also allergic to dairy.” But then I’ve had people say, “I’m allergic to dairy. I got this test and it didn’t come up, but I know I’m allergic to dairy.”
So they have been a source of confusion for people. It’s not that I don’t think that they’re accurate, but I question the kind of – people tend to take them in a very black and white way. They tend to say, “Oh, well, if gluten is on there and it says it’s fine, then I guess I can eat gluten” even though we both know that for someone with an autoimmune disease, gluten is probably the last thing they should be eating.
So, what I usually tell people to do, if they want to, they can add whatever comes up on their food sensitivity test to an elimination diet. But having been cleared on a food sensitivity test doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t need to eliminate it during the autoimmune protocol.
And that means if they are motivated to heal. If they’re not feeling terrible, then they can do water they want. But if they are motivated to get better and they want to go through the process of the elimination diet, a piece of paper saying, “These are okay” is not going to change the protocol.
Wendy: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve heard that there are issues. Even the best test I think does the mediated release test. Even that only has a 93.5% reliability rate. The other tests are worse. It can be as worse as 30%.
Mickey Trescott: And another thing to remember too is that our bodies can tolerate different depending on our mood or our situation. So if we’re relaxed and we’re on vacation, we might have a different experience eating the same food than if we’re stressed out or eating on the run. That’s something that I don’t think a blood test can really pick up.
So when you have the experience of eliminating a food and then reintroducing it, you really start to feel in your body when something affects you. Having that kind of information and being able to guide yourself is really priceless.
Wendy: Yeah. Yeah, and I’ve heard that a food sensitivity testing is maybe a nice place to start if you can afford to do it. If you can’t, do an elimination diet. But testing can be a nice place to maybe test as a starting point to do a food elimination diet so that you can see foods that you may be surprised that you need to eliminate.
Mickey Trescott: Yeah, yeah. I agree with you. I think that it could be a good place to start. But a lot of people, also, once you’ve done the elimination diet or you’ve started with the food sensitivity testing, you don’t want to then be reliant on doing that blood test to see if something has changed. You want to be able to feel in your body, “Okay, now I feel like I can tolerate eggs” and not, “Now, I need to go get a $500 test, so that I can eat eggs again or see.”
So just having that intuition I think is a lot more powerful than being reliant on the blood test.
Wendy: Yeah, because you do. Every person, they have to listen to their bodies.
Mickey Trescott: And as a culture, we don’t want to do it. We really just want someone to tell us what’s right for us, we want rules, we want it to be black-and-white. But our bodies are not that. We’re all so different and it’s hard to make those kinds of recommendations.
Wendy: And that status changes. When you do a food sensitivity test and you’re sensitive to eggs, when you start healing your body and stop that immune attack that are draining your body’s resources and you’re healing your adrenal glands, you’re healing whatever is ailing your body, people can reintroduce foods to which they were formerly sensitive. They don’t last forever.
Mickey Trescott: Yeah. Yup, I totally agree.
Wendy: And so I think that’s key. Even if you do a food sensitivity test or a food elimination diet, you still have to listen to your body and constantly test the waters and challenge because your body constantly changes.
Wendy: So let’s talk a little bit about a question that I like to ask all of my guests.
What do you think is the most pressing health issue in the world today?
Mickey Trescott: That’s hard because I’m kind of biased. My world is an autoimmune world. It’s really troubling, the statistics now. The Autoimmune-Related Diseases Association says that there may be up to 55 million Americans or more with autoimmune diseases.
And so that’s massive. It’s growing, it’s on the rise. Our western medical system doesn’t really have a lot of options for fixing it.
So I do think that it’s a really big issue. And the solution is not simple. The solution is not just diet. It’s better diagnosis and care from our medical system. It’s less toxins in our environment. It’s eating more nutrient-dense and healthy food. So it is a very complicated issue.
That’s why I’m out here doing what I’m doing because I really want to change the world and I want to turn the tide of disease towards wellness. We all deserve to be happy and healthy and well and not feel this kind of inflammation that comes from having autoimmunity. It’s terrible.
Wendy: Yeah. And I’ve read that autoimmune is the fastest growing subset of diseases in the world. It’s a huge, huge, huge, growing problem.
Mickey Trescott: And part of why the number is growing – it seems like it’s on the rise I think because a lot of diseases that previously they thought weren’t autoimmune now have an autoimmune component. And ten also, the rate of diagnosis and everything is just snowballing. So it’s really troubling.
Wendy: Yeah. I mean, everyone is eating sugar and gluten and all these horrible foods – lots of grains and soy that deteriorate our guts. And then add that toxic body burden and all these 80,000 chemicals in the environment, nutrient deficiencies and we’re all ripe, we’re sitting ducks for autoimmune.
Mickey Trescott: Yeah, totally.
Wendy: So why don’t you tell the listeners a little bit about where they can find you. You have a beautiful website. It’s gorgeous with lots and lots of recipes and information about autoimmune. Can you tell the listeners where to find you?
Mickey Trescott: Yeah, totally! So I have a book called the Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook. You can pick that up anywhere you buy books – Barnes & Noble, all your local bookshop, Amazon.com. That’s the book that I was talking about before. It has tons of recipes, meal plans, just basically a complete guide if you’re just starting on the autoimmune protocol.
But if you don’t want to spend the $20 to buy the book, everything is for free on my website. I really don’t believe in having everything be for a fee. I want to help everyone wherever they’re at. There’s over a hundred episode, which is about the same amount that you’ll find in the book. And they’re all unique.
So those are all in the website. It’s Autoimmune-Paleo.com. I also have free cooking videos on my YouTube channel. So that’s YouTube.com/AutoimmunePaleo. I have a 90-minute batch cooking session.
And then if you subscribe to my email list, I do a 2-week free meal plan. All the recipes are included and everything. So there really aren’t any excuses for anyone to not get started if they’re interested.
And I’m on Instagram, MickeyTrescott. I live on a farm here on Oregon. My husband and I are kind of starting to build a homestead and raise chickens and goats and stuff like that. So you can follow that part of me on Instagram. It’s the best place to connect.
Wendy: Oh, that sounds wonderful. I wanted to have a little homestead where I’m having chickens and things like that.
Mickey Trescott: It’s awesome! Being able to take chicken breaks is like the best stress relief ever.
Wendy: And so you just went on a book tour as well, right?
Mickey Trescott: Yup! I did the first leg on the west coast and we’re about to do a southwestern tour in April. I’ll be announcing those dates. Let’s see, I’m doing Utah, Colorado and Arizona and Texas. That’ll be in April.
Wendy: Okay, great.
Mickey Trescott: Yeah, so anyone who lives in those areas can stay tuned.
Wendy: Yeah! And everyone, go check out her site, Autoimmune-Paleo.com, correct?
Mickey Trescott: Yup, yup.
Wendy: You can see her tour dates if she’s coming to a town near you and get your book signed. Mickey, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Mickey Trescott: Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Wendy. It was awesome!
Wendy: And everyone, if you want to learn all about detoxification and how to heal your health conditions naturally and my version of Paleo, the Modern Paleo Diet, go to my website, myersdetox.com.
Thank you so much for listening to the Live to 110 Podcast. Go check out my new health online program called BodyBioRehab.com. That’s going to be launching April 1st. You can go sign up and then I’ll send you information about it as soon as it launches.
Again, thank you so much for listening to the Live to 110 Podcast.
