Jamie Fellrath | Practical Mindfulness

What a great story this is.  RobbWolf.com is carrying a testimonial from Paleo devotee Rachel, whose daughter Scarlet experienced an amazing turnaround in her autism after her mother put her on a Paleo diet to help her overcome that issue.  Rachel also blogs at PaleoFreedom, and shared her story there as well with more detail that will be familiar to parents of autistic children. Scarlet was diagnosed fairly early, at 20 months, and was speaking at only an 8-month old level.  She had lots of stimming type behavior and displayed a number of sensory-triggered apprehensive traits as well. Her mother put her on a Gluten-Free/Casein-Free (GFCF) diet to begin with, and there was a fair amount of improvement there with her vocabulary improving to about five words.  But she was having problems with family members sneaking her cookies and the like, which was undoing or at least interfering with the progress she'd made. Finally, Rachel put Scarlet on a full Paleo diet - grain/dairy/legume f...

There are a lot of great Paleo and low-carb podcasts out there on the Aethernets, and a lot of us get a great deal of our information from them. Let's face it - the mainstream media isn't so great (though getting better) about covering the latest in real science at the level to which we've become accustomed with such great blog and podcast content as we have in our community. But because there's a lot of content to cover, it can't always be addressed as the mainstream media would like to cover it: sound bites and easy-to-swallow portions. Like the meat and veggies we all love so much, Paleo podcasts have to be chewed and swallowed to get all the relevant information across, and that takes some time. If you're strapped for time like I frequently am, and want to catch up on some of the great offerings that our community has to offer, then I'll recommend you listen to Latest in Paleo , by Angelo Coppola. But as you'll find out, that's hardly the only re...

Just a quick note this morning - came across a new magazine for Paleo people like ourselves, and it's properly named Paleo Magazine . Looks like a print version of some of the stuff we have online, but should also provide lots of ads for Paleo service providers (hopefully!). They're saying that the first issue will ship in the week of May 16th on their Facebook page. So there's still time to get in and get the first issue. The next step in Paleo world domination, I like it. They're also on Twitter . Looking forward to this in a BIG way!

Each Friday, we post the links of the week of particular interest to those of us with a mental focus.  Enjoy! Mark Sisson discussed how the ability to focus changes as we age, and how to develop those skills.  The Scattered Mind: Finding Focus in a World of Distractions

One of the ways that parents of kids with Autism frequently look to help their children is by finding a DAN doctor.  DAN is an acronym that means "Defeat Autism Now," and the idea is that physician in question knows and utilizes therapies that can help alleviate some of the symptoms of Autism. I personally know of some people who have reported great gains for their kids after having been on a treatment program with a DAN doctor.  Some of these therapies are diet-related, some are medicinal, and there are probably others that I don't know about as I haven't learned as much about the programs yet as I'd like. But in my perusal of this subject this morning, and wondering if there are DAN doctors in the Columbus area, I came across this statement on the webpage for one of the referring groups for DAN doctors, the Autism Research Institute . Nutrition and supplementation are a very big part of addressing the needs of those on the spectrum. Dietary adjustment is one of ...

Monday marked the end of week one of my Paleo Challenge, which I started on April 26th.  And so far, so good.  Having a goal in mind of going for 30 days really does help with completing the challenge and avoiding the splurge foods that normally might derail me if I were to say "I just want it tonight." The one real fault I had over past week was when I ate a couple of Johnsonville sausages with dinner - there were probably some wheat or other carby fillers in those things.  But it didn't seem to have bothered me at all. I'm very pleased with how I feel.  Fatigue has been at a minimum and hunger has not been an issue at all.  Like I said in an earlier post: I've been in that nebulous "mostly paleo" mode for a while now so the big changes didn't happen.  But I have had some little headaches as I came down off the sugars I was allowing myself to take in. And the other positive is that I'm feeling fitter - the diet plus a few good sessions of Mark S...