On this week’s episode, Sarah shares an update on a major life event that recently happened and how this event is impacting her diet and lifestyle moving forward. Stacy and Sarah also covered information on nutrient-dense foods that aide in the healing process when you get sick or are impacted by a major medical situation.
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The Paleo View (TPV), Episode 370: Nutrient-Dense Foods & Healing
Welcome back Paleo View listeners! (0:41)
It has been a week for Sarah, but just a few days since Stacy and Sarah last recorded, as they recorded episode 369 two days ago.
Sarah thanked Stacy for pre-recording with her.
While she hasn’t talked about this much on social media, Sarah wanted to give this special group of listeners a unique window into her life.
Sarah wanted to share what has been going on in her life. She has been in crisis mode, working through the steps of what she needs to get done.
The next step is going to require that she travel all next week. She knew she wouldn’t be able to record a full topic show.
By the time this show goes live, it will have been almost two weeks since Sarah’s father had a massive heart attack. He was on a city bus at the time that it happened, going into full cardiac arrest.
Sarah’s Dad was dead for three to four minutes, and there happened to be someone on the bus who really knew CPR. They were able to do CPR effectively until paramedics arrived.
Once the paramedics arrived, it took two shocks to get his heart beating again. They were then able to transfer him and treat him at the hospital. Sarah’s Dad will have a long recovery ahead of him, but he seems to be on the road to recovery.
One of Sarah’s big takeaways from this all was that her Dad didn’t have emergency contact information attached to his identification or his file.
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The hospital didn’t know who to call. Sarah’s Dad was in the hospital for two days before Sarah and her family knew about what happened.
Sarah was still waiting to receive her passport from her change in citizenship and hasn’t been able to be with her family during this time.
However, Sarah has been so impressed with how her brothers rose to the occasion. Once her passport did arrive, Sarah looked to her brothers to tell her how to jump in and help.
The family doesn’t yet know the endpoint of her Dad’s recovery. If he will be able to live independently or if he is going to need someone to come into his apartment.
There is no heart disease in Sarah’s family that she knew about. This situation felt very out of the blue. Sarah shared more about how she is processing this event. In addition, Sarah shared more about how this is changing her habits around diet and lifestyle.
Sarah is walking more, making sure that she is going to bed early, eating more vegetables, and eating sardines for breakfast daily. (11:50)
Soon Sarah will be heading home to help out as much as she can. The plan is to take this all one step at a time.
Stacy shared her love for Sarah and her family during this time.
When Matt was in a terrible car accident, Stacy learned the importance of having emergency contact information on hand. Stacy thanked Sarah for pointing this out.
Sarah has found many life lessons throughout this whole experience.
Stacy asked Sarah to share more about the healing and nutrient-dense foods she mentioned earlier in the show. (17:36)
Sarah is trying to make soups and stews that will be easy for her Dad to reheat. She is also focusing on the nutrient-dense ingredients that will help with his healing process.
A really big thing for heart health is omega-3 fats and monounsaturated fats. One of the things that Sarah will be doing is making sure he has high-quality olive oil to cook with.
When taking fish oil, capsules are better. Capsule form protects from oxidation. Sarah particularly looks for tuna oil as an ingredient, as it is high in DHA.
Sarah will also put her Dad on Just Thrive probiotic.
In addition, Sarah will make sure she is helping to increase her Dad’s vegetable intake. At home, Sarah uses pumpkin or overly cooked cauliflower, to then blend and thicken the stew. This is a great way to hide extra vegetables and increase vegetable intake.
Stacy loves this method of stew prep as well. She personally loves to use roasted butternut squash as her thickener.
Before leaving to be with her Dad, Sarah is also working to fill her own freezer with nutrient-dense meals for her husband and daughters.
Sarah will be also checking her Dad’s snack supply once she arrives at his house. She will make sure that he has unsalted nuts around, like pecans, walnuts, macadamia nuts, and cashews. To make it even easier for him, she will likely measure out the portions and prepare individual serving sizes for her Dad to grab.
In addition, Sarah plans to talk to her Dad’s doctor about adding a CoQ10 supplement.
Sarah will also be looking at her Dad’s potassium intake and adding in potassium-rich fruits and vegetables.
When you are sick and recovering from something you don’t want to eat something that feels foreign. (27:13)
Sarah has had other friends in her life, where she has seen how challenging it is when you are recovering from something to modify your diet at the same time. If her Dad doesn’t like something he simply won’t eat it. So Sarah needs to find a way to get the nutrient-dense foods into him while he is recovering and not feeling well.
Eventually, Sarah will also look to get her Dad’s vitamin D levels tested.
B vitamins, all of the antioxidant vitamins and all of the electrolyte minerals are really important when it comes to heart health. As long as you are eating good vegetables, you will be meeting these needs. However, since Sarah lives so far away, she isn’t sure what her Dad is eating on a regular basis.
Sarah also plans to get her Dad walking on a regular basis, but it will be a slow start as his heart heals.
If any of The Paleo View listeners have cardiovascular disease risk factors and you are interested in digging into it a little bit more, Sarah recommends that you get enough sleep every night. Sleeping less than six hours a night doubles your risk of stroke and heart attack. Stress and activity are also very important. (30:39)
The only other key thing that Sarah recommends, is getting genetic testing for APOE. If cardiovascular disease runs in your family, getting tested for APOE is a really good thing. Sarah personally likes MaxGen Labs for genetic testing. However, even a functional medicine doctor can add it to a blood test and just check for your gene variance of that one gene.
Stacy thanked Sarah for taking the time to both tell listeners what is happening and to share this helpful information about nutrient-dense foods for healing and recovery. If you have further questions on this topic, please feel free to pass those questions on. They may be incorporated into future shows or blog posts.
Thank you for tuning in and being here! Stacy and Sarah will be back next week! (35:17)
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