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Michele Spring: This episode's a little bit different than usual in that I am interviewing Stacey from RealWorldAIP. I talk all about her journey with her, all the symptoms that she's had, things that she's done to try to cure them or to heal them in the past, and what has worked and what hasn't. It's really interesting, so stay tuned!
Michele Spring: All right, so today I have a special treat for everyone. I have Stacey Venancio from RealWorldAIP here, and I know a lot of you are fans of her channel. I know I see a lot of you commenting on her stuff, and vice versa, and you've all asked me to do some sort of collaboration with her. So I felt like today might be a good time to just start with maybe like an interview, so we can get some background, understand… I really like the inspirational stories and understand why people do AIP and that whole connecting. So, welcome, Stacey.
Stacey Venancio: Well, hi. It's so nice to meet you finally.
Michele Spring: I know, seriously. We've never actually met each other. We talk to each other online. So this is kind of our meeting each other.
Stacey Venancio: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Michele Spring: I really want to keep this kind of informal, but I did write out some questions for her, which I gave to her in advance. So she's not going to get blindsided.
Stacey Venancio: I just looked at them like 10 minutes ago. So it's very off the cuff.
Michele Spring: Hopefully this will give you a good background on Stacey and her story and all that kind of stuff. But if you have any other additional questions after that, feel free to put them in the comments, and we'll check them and see if we can get those answered, as well. I'm going to go ahead and start. Stacey, what autoimmune disease or diseases do you have?
Stacey Venancio: Celiac's the main one, and then Raynaud’s. I did have autoimmune-induced alopecia once, one time. All my hair fell out in big patches after a stressful, really stressful few months. But I don't walk around and say I suffer from alopecia, because it was a one-time thing. And then I also… I have a lot of other stuff. Those are the main one. Those are the main ones.
Michele Spring: Like all of us. We have this laundry list of things.
Stacey Venancio: Yeah. Yeah, I could just sit here and go on for the whole hour.
Michele Spring: Yeah, like sometimes they get diagnosis, sometimes they don't. Right?
Stacey Venancio: Well yeah. I have self-diagnosis. I know I had eczema on my feet all my life, but it technically didn't get diagnosed. But I know. You know.
Michele Spring: Totally get it. So, going back to before you got any sort of diagnosis, like self or from a doctor or whatever, what symptoms were you experiencing?
Stacey Venancio: You know, for the longest time… This all started when I was 21. I was like pretty normal, as normal as whatever. I could eat anything, go out and drink and go out and get Chinese food and eat pizza and pop Advil and just… So I always thought, for the longest time, “Oh, it must have been those three rabies shots I had that set off my autoimmunity.” That was what I kind of placed the blame on, but the more I think of it and the more I learn, I'm pretty sure it was the food poisoning I got from eating at the Chinese restaurant after a night of drinking.
Stacey Venancio: I don't know why I kind of overlooked that, but yeah, the more I'm learning, I'm pretty sure that's what triggered it. Maybe the vaccines had something to do, I don't know. But so I was 21, had really, really awful food poisoning. For days I was shaky and weak and just as bad as food poisoning can get. And then, I just remember always being bloated. That was the first thing. I was always bloated. And I had serious motility issues, and I hate talking about it because I hate it. I just, I hate it. I actually thought in advance, “How will I word that so I can even get through it.”
Michele Spring: She's talking about pooping.
Stacey Venancio: No. I was not constipated. I had motility issues. That was major. I hated it. I was 21. I wanted to go out and look cute and wear cute dresses, and I was super skinny and I wanted to go to the club. And I have this big, bloated belly. I hated it. And I remember asking my roommate, “What can I eat? How can I fix this?” And she's like, “Eat some beans.” I remember eating like a whole can of baked beans, and oh, it was so much worse. It was worse. Ugh. Anyway, that was the beginning of the downward spiral was the bloating. So apparently something got wonky in my microbiome and led to all the leaky gut and all the food intolerances and all that mess. And it's just kept spiraling.
Stacey Venancio: I tried to write this story out, because I had a video up of it in my story on my channel, but it's like…
Michele Spring: You pointed up.
Stacey Venancio: Huh? Oh, link on the left. Link left. That's how I remember is point left. Yeah, so I was going to write it out, because I was going to do a guest post for the Paleo Mom Blog. I talked to her and like that works for her. I can't remember what her title is, but she was like, “Oh, it would be great if you could tell your story.” I couldn't. I just couldn't. I couldn't sit there and write it out. First of all, it took like 20 hours, and what I was left with was a however long saga. It was so boring. I tried to read it to my boyfriend. It was so boring. He was like, “No.” I'm like, “I don't know what to do. I can't. I don't know what to edit.” So I just gave up. I'm not writing my story.
Stacey Venancio: I don't even like to talk about it a lot, because I'm very moving straight ahead and you get what you focus on, and I'm not ill, I'm not a victim. I am strong and healthy now, and moving. I don't want to dwell on all the things that were… You know. I'm happy to do it today, and maybe it'll help somebody. But in general, you know.
Michele Spring: That's what… Yeah. I like to help other people that may be in that same situation. That's it.
Stacey Venancio: Yeah. So you know, once in a while I'll dive down that.
Michele Spring: Yeah.
Stacey Venancio: So it started with bloating. Anyway. So I was 21. By age 23, I mean this was so long ago. I'm 43, so okay, 20 years ago. I'm trying to remember all this stuff, and I have my file, my medical file I'm digging through, and so I used to tell people I was gluten-free since 2003, but now I had an endoscopy in 1999. But I was already on gluten-free diet. So I don't know why they let me do it. You're supposed to eat gluten up until then. But I told them, “I'm on a gluten-free diet.” I put myself on a gluten-free diet 20 years ago. That's how much… I spent all my free time at the library. There was no Google. I was sick, and I wanted to get over it.
Stacey Venancio: I was at the library reading every book known to man, trying every diet known to man, and anyway yeah. I was on a gluten-free diet, self-imposed. I did the endoscopy and they found mild inflammation. Then I think it was 2003 when they found antigens towards gluten. Gliadin issues in my blood. That was a couple years later, but I was already eating gluten-free in '99. So that, to me, was like my diagnosis, the gliadin antibodies. I don't know if that's good enough. I don't know. Some people say you have to get an endoscopy while eating gluten. I'm not eating gluten.
Michele Spring: Meh. Right. I totally get it. Same thing. Same thing here.
Stacey Venancio: Yeah. You couldn't pay me. Well, maybe like… I'll eat some gluten for I don't know $25,000.
Michele Spring: Yeah.
Stacey Venancio: Really, it would cost that much, and then I would just prepare and not leave the house for five days. But for like $5,000 I'm like no way. Get that out of my… I'm not eating that cake. So yeah, I don't know. I guess 1999 I was 23. My 20's were ruined. They were just bad. I literally have to keep… I can't even remember all the stuff that was wrong with me. I literally wrote it down for when I did my story video. I had to sit and think, because I don't know if I try on purpose to forget or it's just been so long, or I don't know. But I had to sit and think, “Okay, what else was wrong? What was it like back then? Because I'm going to tell my story.” I literally had to write it down. It's kind of like you go to apply for a job and you need to keep a list of dates, you know for your resume. But you don't remember all that stuff.
Stacey Venancio: The Celiac wasn't… The gluten-free didn't help me. That wasn't enough. That was nothing. I have issues with all grains, and whatever. I don't know. I had cystic ovaries, I had all kinds of hormone problems. I was always at the doctor for something. Mostly, my increasing food intolerances. I would notice like everything I ate made me sick. I'd get all red, I'd get like the beet red ears, I'd get hives, a lot of histamine stuff. I would react to things like olive oil. I must have had the most severely leaky gut known to man. Everything I ate. I don't know, salicylates, just every chemical that's in food was reacting with my sad leaky gut and just causing havoc. I was just a ball of symptoms. Tired, moody, bloated, afraid to eat because it would make me sick, bad skin. I was on prescription acne medication.
Stacey Venancio: I had the keratose pilaris, the “chicken skin bumps,” I healed that when I started eating liver. Literally, it was a vitamin A deficiency. They just wanted to put me on salicylic acid cream. My feet, the bottoms of my feet were just like I had scales and they would crack and it would hurt to walk. They were a mess. I couldn't wear flip-flops. My aunt has the same thing. She just got diagnosed with eczema. She also has lupus and stuff, and I'm asking her about ours and I'm like, “That's what it is. Ah. I've got eczema. Okay, we'll add that to the list.”
Stacey Venancio: I went to a lot of allergy specialists. They tested for food allergies, and it was interesting. It was one of those alternative medicine. What was it? Like IgE and IgA. I didn't really have a lot of antibodies towards food, just slightly to cashews and pistachios, but nothing major. It was saying I was okay with dairy. I'm not okay with dairy. But then, the one thing that stood out to me was, my overall level of IgE was through the roof, so high IgE. And then I started seeing a functional medicine physician. He did all kinds of testing. He did heavy metal testing, I had to collect my urine for a week. I had to bring a jug of urine to work. Luckily it was winter so I just left it outside the back door.
Michele Spring: Yeah.
Stacey Venancio: Did you have to carry the jar of pee around? Yep, that was fun. Yeah, he tested me for a lot of stuff. He kept giving me all these supplements to try. I've tried every supplement known to man. I don't trust supplements. My body reacts all wonky with supplements. I get weird headaches, and even [inaudible 00:11:43] I don't know. I react weirdly. And it's not a binder in the pill, it's just all those things interconnected. When you speed up one pathway, you're overworking another one or you're slowing down another one. That's all very intricate, and I don't know. I don't mess with it. I take like calcium, magnesium, but I don't go crazy with the supplements at all.
Stacey Venancio: But anyway, he had me try like DHEA, he gave me all kinds of stuff. I don't even remember. In the end he was like, “Oh, it seems like there's something with your nervous system or something, but just try to enjoy your life. Just try to enjoy your life.” I'm like, “Oh, that's great.” Actually, that's what I did. I took his advice.
Stacey Venancio: I was like, “Okay,” I already have been keeping lists of what I ate and lists of my symptoms. And I figured out… Well, it was obvious because it was getting worse. Tomatoes and corn were just huge. Like huge, huge, huge triggers. I knew. It's just so bad. And the last time I tested tomatoes, I was laid out in bed with a really high fever and heart palpitations and I think I had a headache. I don't know. It was a long time ago, but it was bad. So I took his advice. I'm like, “Fine.” I was on a gluten, corn, soy, and tomato-free diet. I avoided those like the plague.
Stacey Venancio: And then I just coasted through 10 years with horrible digestion. I have terrible digestion, but I wasn't having hard, stabbing migraines or overwhelming fatigue. Well, I wasn't having to have to work. My husband was paying the bills, so if I was tired, I took a nap. It was nice. But yeah, I coasted with that for 10 years. I guess I'm just telling my whole life story without even asking any questions. Sorry.
Michele Spring: It's okay.
Stacey Venancio: Yeah. I don't know. Anyway, that's what led me up to AIP. Kind of that's the whole back story, anyway. That's my experience with doctors, I mean. Yeah, allergists, functional medicine physician, going to the gynecologist like, “What's wrong with my hormones? Do I have endometriosis? I think I do. You don't understand how bad these cramps are. I can't go to work, I'm going to lose my job.” And they're like, “Oh, it looks like you have some ruptured cysts in there. Just take the pill.” Always, take the pill. I'm not taking the pill. Oh, God you couldn't… “Well, there's different doses. There's different formulas. We'll find one that's right for you.” No, we're not. I don't trust them.
Stacey Venancio: I don't know. The medical system failed me, just failed me miserably. But at the same time, I know that there are good doctors out there, and we need them to do things like prescribe thyroid medication. So I'm not like totally anti, I hate doctors, but they failed me really badly.
Michele Spring: I mean, yeah. How many years of your life did you really kind of lose?
Stacey Venancio: My 20s were ruined. I lost my 20s. I did not have healthy, fun, happy 20s. And 30s were just like my digestion was horrendous, but I didn't have to work so whatever. I just coasted.
Michele Spring: Yeah.
Stacey Venancio: Yeah. 20 years.
Michele Spring: So, when you're 20, or in your 20s, you shouldn't have to worry about chronic medical problems like this.
Stacey Venancio: No.
Michele Spring: I don't think you should at any point in time, but especially…
Stacey Venancio: They said it was in my head.
Michele Spring: Yeah.
Stacey Venancio: Like one of them tried, “Okay, we'll get you on a low dose of Prozac.” I think they just felt like they were always patting me on the head, “It's okay, little blondie. You're overreacting because you're a little tired. Get out.” They really didn't try. They did not take me seriously.
Michele Spring: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Stacey Venancio: I mentioned this when I did the podcast with Eileen, because this stands out to me so much. I had Bell's palsy. That's when it looks like you had a stroke. Half of your face… Facial paralysis, possibly from Lyme's disease or something. I don't know. Anyway, I wake up, half my face has fallen down, so I go to the doctor. That was the best experience I've ever had with a doctor in my entire life. They took me seriously. I felt like they cared. I felt like they were listening. Because, I had to walk in with half my face down for them to hear me and have them believe me. I went to them for years and years like, “You understand? My quality of life is horrible. I have this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this…” “It's okay, honey. Go to sleep.” It's like you literally need to walk in bleeding or something to get taken seriously, as a… I don't know. Maybe some people don't have that.
Michele Spring: No, I mean I hear from viewers, readers, clients every single day. Same kind of stories. I had the same thing for 10 years where they're like, “Whatever, just take a pill.”
Stacey Venancio: You probably had to help yourself, right? You probably had to go out and go against them telling you, “Oh, food won't help you. There's nothing you can do. That's all…” You know, I can't think of the word I'm looking for, but you know. Quackery.
Michele Spring: Yes. I couldn't think of it, either.
Stacey Venancio: Yeah. They don't. And there is a lot of quackery out there, so you do, you have to be careful.
Michele Spring: For sure.
Stacey Venancio: Food is like… I think of food as like, you know when you get a prescription, they put you on an antibiotic or something, which don't take if you don't have to, but if you look at the insert in the package, it has these crazy diagrams with hectagons and they're all linked and all the chemical and how it's made. Food has the same thing. Food is the same. Food is doing the same thing in your body. But people don't understand. They just can't wrap their head around it. They really can't understand. You just would have to see for yourself.
Michele Spring: It's easier to take a pill.
Stacey Venancio: Yeah. True, yeah. I think, if they really, truly understood, if they really believed it could help them as much or more than the pill, that they would try it. But they don't. They just don't believe it. They can't wrap their head around it. And I wish I was better at explaining it. You know, sometimes you know you have a point and you want so badly to get it across and you look like a lunatic. You look like a fanatic, so what do you do? That's sad. It saddens me. I don't know.
Michele Spring: I get you. So, what led you to finally use food, like AIP, or just… You said you tried every diet under the sun.
Stacey Venancio: Yeah. I literally… Well, back in my 20s. Back then, it was Atkins, I tried Atkins after being vegetarian. So you know. For someone with motility issues, Atkins wasn't really the answer, but I felt better on that than I did being a vegetarian, because I was eating that like eat the whole grain spread with all natural peanut butter. Oh, I ate stuff. I thought I was doing… I was just doing what the library books said was healthy. I did the Zone diet, you know 40-30-30. Suzanne Summers had a book out, I Summersized. I wasn't trying to lose weight. I was never trying to lose weight. I was very thin, and everyone was always accusing me of having an eating disorder. I really would… That was so frustrating to me. I don't know, that was one of the most frustrating things, aside from people not believing and thinking you're just weird or you're a hypochondriac or something. But then, people thinking you had an eating disorder.
Michele Spring: And you have this eating disorder because you're trying to get rid of your hypochondria.
Stacey Venancio: Yeah, yeah exactly. She's a real basket case.
Michele Spring: That's the whole problem. Oh, it's so frustrating.
Stacey Venancio: Yeah. They promised health, you know? Fit for Life, which kind of reminds me a little of Medical Medium. I don't know. I shudder. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, Fit for Life. You eat fruit, just fruit for the first half the day, then you do food combining and you can't eat protein, carbs, and I don't know. I did everything. I looked into… I studied low blood sugar, and I had blood sugar regulation, but that was just a symptom. That wasn't the root cause. I don't know, but yeah I tried every diet that was available at the Newport Public Library and Middletown Public Library. Oh, and I was always in the bookstore, too. Walden Books, I was always right there, zoom. How can I fix my health?
Stacey Venancio: Anyway, after Dr. Hemmel told me to just relax and enjoy your life, I was like, “Well, what else is there for me to do? I've exhausted every single option. I've been to every specialist, so I'll just coast by.” And I focused on whatever, I had a hobby business that I was very passionate about, and I focused on that. And then it wasn't until my husband and I split up that I was like, “All right. I'm going to be dating. It's time to do a little self work, and I need to do something about my digestion. It's just really horrible. It's just horrendous.” And you know I still… I had other issues. But I don't know. That was the main thing. And the tonsil. I had chronic tonsil problems. They wanted to take them out. All my life, it was just gross. I don't want to go into detail, but I had just infected tonsils all the time. I used a lot of mouthwash and stuff. I had to get in there with Q-tips and stuff, but I wasn't going to let them rip out my tonsils. I'm not into that. I don't do every surgery.
Stacey Venancio: So yeah, I was always a huge dairy person. I loved dairy, and I didn't get any major headaches or anything horrible from it. But that disappeared when I finally cut out dairy. AIP got me to cut out dairy. That was tough. That was my toughest one. But then, yeah, that went away. My main goal was to just fix my digestion so that I could just be a more normal functional human, I guess. And yeah, so I guess I started Googling like improve your digestion, why am I always bloated, or whatever, and I must've landed on AIP.
Stacey Venancio: I was like, “This looks interesting because I have autoimmune issues.” I was like, “Wow, tomatoes? Okay.” Yeah, tomatoes. You can have corn nuts, cool, because… This sounds like it's tailored to me. It sounds like things they're telling me not to have. But it was still hard for me to wrap my head around I don't touch tomatoes with a 10 foot pole, but I loved banana peppers and crushed red pepper flakes. I loved those. I was eating those every day. And dairy. Oh. That's what helped me. That was huge, getting rid of the dairy and the nightshades, that made a huge difference, you know?
Michele Spring: How long…
Stacey Venancio: I'm sorry.
Michele Spring: How long after you discovered AIP do you think that you went on it? Did it take you a while, or did you do it?
Stacey Venancio: Oh no. No it didn't take me… Actually, for a while I remember I was like, “I'm going to do AIP, but I'm going to do…” It irks me. Everybody does it. I was guilty, too. I'm going to do AIP, but I'm not going to give up buckwheat, coffee, and vodka. That's not autoimmune profile, that's anything in your piehole. That's not… You can't just customize it and just leave it. But I was doing it, too. I didn't want to give up my buckwheat bread. I made this amazing buckwheat, just a little flax as a binder, a buckwheat bread. It was so good, and I didn't want to give it up. Most people are like, “I don't want to give up pizza.” I'm like buckwheat bread.
Michele Spring: Sounds good.
Stacey Venancio: But you know, I have been eating different for years. I think that's helped me a lot to be on AIP, because I was already, “I don't eat gluten, corn, tomato.” I couldn't eat at restaurants anyway for 10 years. I had 10 years of practice before AIP. I don't even remember what your question was now because I just went off on a major tangent. What was your question?
Michele Spring: Well no, I was just trying to figure out when you started AIP what brought you to it.
Stacey Venancio: Oh, yeah. Google, which might not bring me to it now, because of whatever they're doing with their SCO. Duck, duck, go, I guess it is.
Michele Spring: Yeah. So, how long have you been doing AIP? It's been a while, right?
Stacey Venancio: I started it in November 2015. I haven't tried reintroducing those that I know are going to fail, that I know are just going to backfire.
Michele Spring: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Stacey Venancio: I've been daring. Like, I tried egg yolk. Oh yeah, that was another thing I haven't had in years was eggs or poultry. That's not AIP. That's just me apart, just me being weird. That's one of my weird personal things is that chicken gives me migraines.
Michele Spring: Hm.
Stacey Venancio: And I tested it over and over and over. I'm tempted to test it again with a free-range no soy fed, but at the same time, I don't ever want to have a migraine like that again, and I'm like whatever, because I can eat beef. I'll be okay. Fish. I don't even need the chicken. Whatever. It's not a superfood. But eggs, I wish I could eat eggs. That's one thing I wish I could have, but I tried reintroducing egg yolk. My friend got it from a local farmer, but I'm pretty sure they probably fed them soy, because they all do. I don't even know where they get soy-free eggs. I don't know, because it's in all the feed.
Michele Spring: I wouldn't farm. Yeah, there was one farm I went to that had it, but it was far away, and yeah.
Stacey Venancio: I'd have to literally go so far out of my way. I mean, if I can't even have chicken, then eggs is probably going to bother me, too. So it's probably just something with me. But I tried the egg yolks and I had a headache for a day, so you know. I tried ghee. At first it was great. I loved it. I didn't have any problems with it. But then again, I never had any overt symptoms from dairy. So you know me, I'm putting butter on everything now, ghee, clarified grassfed butter, putting it on everything. It's so good and I'm enjoying it. I've started putting it in my coffee, even. I got on that train for a little while. I still put a little coconut oil because it tastes creamy, but I don't do… But anyway. Then my tonsils came back, my infected tonsils. After a couple weeks of loading myself with ghee, they came back.
Michele Spring: Huh, that's interesting.
Stacey Venancio: I'm sure I could tolerate it in small quantities here and there, but that's not how my personality works. I'm like, “Whoo, I can have ghee. I'm going to eat ghee all day on everything every day.”
Michele Spring: Yeah. I know how that goes. I am the same way with beans. I can have beans like one to two times a month, and if I have it more, then I start having issues, as well. So it's like yeah. Restrict.
Stacey Venancio: It's easier just to not have it at all.
Michele Spring: Yeah, it's often easier just to have that line in the sand and not worry about it.
Stacey Venancio: Yeah. I didn't give it up completely. I have some, is it A1 or A2 that's less likely that's from the Eastern European?
Michele Spring: Yeah, I think it's 2?
Stacey Venancio: It's right here. I don't know. Anyway, it's yak. It doesn't say on here. Well, it's the one, it's the good one, the one that's used in Europe that's not supposed to bother you. So I got pasture-raised yak ghee that I'm going to… I haven't opened it. I haven't tried the crickets yet, either.
Michele Spring: If you missed that, Stacey did a video last week? So what, cricket powder, they're fed gluten and corn and soy, right?
Stacey Venancio: Yeah. There's one company just no gluten, but they still use soy.
Michele Spring: Yeah, so they're using that. So you reacted to the cricket powder that you had gotten. So she bought her own crickets and made cricket powder.
Stacey Venancio: It was great.
Michele Spring: Did you eat it?
Stacey Venancio: What's that?
Michele Spring: Have you had it yet?
Stacey Venancio: No, no. No. It's in the fridge, because it's got to be a day where… Maybe I should do it at the end of the day? That way if I get that stupid headache, I'll just go to bed.
Michele Spring: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Stacey Venancio: I don't know. It's just hard. It's hard to…
Michele Spring: To eat crickets that you raised yourself and had to kill?
Stacey Venancio: Oh, no I don't feel bad for them. They had the best life any cricket ever had. I bought 500, and I had about 50 left at the end, because I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to go through with it. And then they all just died of old age. But I have enough to do the test. I just don't want to get a headache, so I'm just putting it off, you know?
Michele Spring: She doesn't want to get a headache. I don't blame you. I don't want crickets. I'm not a cricket powder fan. I've never had it, but the idea is just… It's like liver to me.
Stacey Venancio: Yeah. I mean, well yeah, you're better off making yourself eat liver than cricket. I mean, crickets we'll live without them. I just thought it was so cool like, “Oh, this alternative protein.” Because I wanted… There's no good protein powders that I know. I don't know, I can't have collagen, and it's not a complete amino acid. I don't know. I just was like, “Wow, this could be the AIP protein powder.” But no. It's impossible to get right now without the allergens in it. But maybe in the future.
Michele Spring: Yeah. Well, thanks for being a pioneering woman to try to figure that one out for us. I just hope it doesn't…
Stacey Venancio: Yeah, I don't know. I'll see how the reintro goes and I'll go from there. I was thinking of having… I don't know, I didn't want to raise them myself, but I was thinking, “Oh, maybe I can have a company do this special diet and also the pyra.” But no one has the capacity right now. I'm not going to be a cricket farm. I toyed with the idea, and I tried that as a sample, and I'm not interested in doing the farming.
Michele Spring: So how long… Are you planning on just doing AIP with your modifications for the rest of your life, then?
Stacey Venancio: Oh absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I don't miss anything. Okay, yeah, I'd like to… I don't even care anymore. It's been so long. I don't even care anymore. But obviously, I'm never going to reintroduce gluten. I have Celiac. And like tomatoes, I don't think that's ever going to get… All the stage fours, I'm not going to touch those stage four. I feel like I've used Cronometer, and I know that my diet is balanced and I'm getting all the nutrients I need, all the vitamins, minerals, everything, and I've reintroduced some things. Failed miserably at my other reintroductions, and I just feel like I found my custom diet. I'm just going to stay on it because I like the way I feel. I enjoy my food. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything, so yeah. I found my personal… Well, I'm still customizing. I just did the Viome. The Viome microbiome test. I just got that back, and I'm going to do a video on that soon.
Stacey Venancio: But then they tell you, out of all the things you're eating, and that's cool, because you pick… They only talk about stuff you're actually eating, so you don't have to wade through lists of quinoa and pasta and stuff that's not even relevant to you, which is nice. But anyway, they take all the foods you're currently eating, and then they tell you which ones you should eat more of and which ones you should eat less of. So I'm starting to try a little of that. I'm going to do that. So, within my AIP basket of things I can have [inaudible 00:31:55] because I still have… That's the one thing is, my microbiome is persnickety. It's easily tipped into SIBO-C. I swing into that very easily.
Stacey Venancio: I'm fine for long periods of time, and then I start playing in the kitchen for a video or making something with too much starch in it or something, and then it all goes… So anyway, I'm excited to see how that turns out.
Michele Spring: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Stacey Venancio: But that's still AIP template. I'm going to be on that forever and ever and ever. I just might tweak it within that template.
Michele Spring: Right. Well, that's what works for you.
Stacey Venancio: Yeah.
Michele Spring: Would you say that all of your symptoms that you were suffering from in your 20s and 30s have gone?
Stacey Venancio: My God, I wish I felt like this in my 20s. I'm so mad, because that… Oh. Yeah. I don't get headaches. I remember I was working with this girl, it was probably a year ago now, but it was kind of recent. She was like… I said something like, “Oh, I can't take Advil.” She was like, “Oh my God, what do you take when you get headaches?” I'm like, “I don't get headaches.” She's like, “You don't get headaches?” I'm like, “No. I don't get headaches, unless I eat commercially-raised cricket powder.” Other than that. I don't know.
Stacey Venancio: Oh my gosh, my hormonal issues are gone. I don't get cramps. Carry on, business as usual. My moods are stable. I was very moody in my 20s. That could've just been being 20, too. Maybe getting older helped that. I don't know, but my skin cleared up. I had horrible skin. Yeah, everything. You know what's funny? The last thing to clear up, and I think I heard this before, the skin takes the longest to heal. Literally, this is the first summer that my feet aren't cracking and painful. I don't have the eczema on my feet.
Michele Spring: Hm.
Stacey Venancio: So it took three years AIP for my eczema on my feet to heal. That's a long, long time.
Michele Spring: Your body needs the nutrients elsewhere, right?
Stacey Venancio: I guess, but yeah. I can't believe it. I used to live in socks, even in the summer because if I didn't put socks on, they would flare. And yeah, my energy is good. I don't have just that fatigue. Everything. The only thing is, I still have to baby my… I have to figure out perfectly how to weed and fertilize the internal glidogen there, and I think that's the last piece to me feeling… But this is good enough. If I felt like I do right now with no improvement ever, that's fine. I can live a happy, long life and no complaints. That's a big deal. I'm probably nitpicking at this point.
Michele Spring: But that's awesome, because that's through food, right? You said you don't take hardly any supplements.
Stacey Venancio: No, I don't take supplements. Very minimal supplements. Food. It is just food. It's a combination of what I'm not putting in my body and then also, I make myself eat a lot of salmon, liver, and shellfish and all that on purpose. Yeah. I don't know. I try to explain to people. It's very sad to me if I'm with someone I love and they don't feel well and they have autoimmune problems, and I'm watching them eat all the things that I know is just making it worse. I have to be quiet, because I'm going to sound like some wacko fanatic if I even start talking. I just feel like I want to scream, “All you got to do is this. It works.” And no one believes you, because they hear that from everybody about every stupid thing that doesn't work. I don't know. I'm so glad that they're doing the scientific studies now, because I love that. People can wrap their heads around that. Look, in this study 72% of the participants went into remission. It's better than drugs. So that helps.
Michele Spring: Yeah.
Stacey Venancio: Yeah. Just food. Food fixed all that systemic, all the health problems.
Michele Spring: Well, you're in a safe place here to shout it to the rooftops.
Stacey Venancio: Okay.
Michele Spring: You all agree, right? We're all at least… I think people that are watching this at least are interested. Maybe not quite convinced yet, or trying it, but at least they're not shut down.
Stacey Venancio: I think they should try it. I know it's hard. It's hard to… I don't know if someone had just said… If someone had told me before like now, “You will not have headaches, you won't have skin problems, you won't have this.” I'd be like, “Shut up. Yeah, right.” I don't even think I would've believed them. You know? It's not a quick fix, but I mean, it works.
Michele Spring: Well, that's awesome. I'm really glad it's worked for you.
Stacey Venancio: Yeah.
Michele Spring: Your laundry list of stuff.
Stacey Venancio: Yeah, I literally was like I don't want to forget anything. Celiac, Raynaud's, alopecia, cysts, psoriasis, tonsillitis, oh yeah the sleep disorder. I still have that. Yeah. I got it all. I remembered it all.
Michele Spring: That's why it's always important to write down everything so you remember.
Stacey Venancio: I can't even remember science. But yeah, Celiac and Raynaud's, you know. The Raynaud's… Oh yeah, that's the one thing that hasn't been touched. I don't know. That could be nerve damage. I don't know. But I still have Raynaud's.
Michele Spring: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Stacey Venancio: I can live with that. No big deal.
Michele Spring: Yeah. All right. Well, I think that's all I have. Do you have any other thoughts or advice or anything that you want to share with us?
Stacey Venancio: Oh. Yeah, I mean if you're on the fence about AIP, what do you have to lose? We're not selling you anything. It's free. It's not a pill. It's not a shake. Those are the ones you need to mistrust. I know it's hard because everybody all over is selling this and this is the best and this is the best, but I don't know. Read up on the studies they're doing. There is proof now, and just try it. Just try it, and try it the right way. Do the no foods, but do the yes foods, too, because you can't live on casaba chips and ground beef and say you're on AIP.
Michele Spring: Like half of it. Yeah.
Stacey Venancio: That's like… Yeah, no. There's a bad, but it's kind of like this dirty Keto. You can have bacon and mayonnaise for three meals a day, or you can have a big green leafy salad with salmon. They're both Keto.
Michele Spring: Yeah.
Stacey Venancio: So if you're on the dirty AIP, don't complain. Maybe it won't work. You do it like Dr. Sarah lays out, follow it to the best of your ability, God, just try it. Why wouldn't you try it? Because it can seriously change your life. It sounds so cliché. But yeah, I guess that's all I have to say.
Michele Spring: All right. Well, where can we find you? If we want to find out more.
Stacey Venancio: My website realworldaip.com will lead you everywhere else. I started as a YouTuber. That's really I love doing YouTube videos, and I have a ton of them, but my website will kind of lead to all that, the videos or my Facebook page or Instagram and all that. Home base.
Michele Spring: All right, and I'll like to all that below, so you can get that. I would link to it up here, but I can't.
Stacey Venancio: Oh yeah, that's right.
Michele Spring: Because she's not on my channel.
Stacey Venancio: Well, yeah. I follow that.
Michele Spring: Well, thank you so much for joining me today and joining all of us for this. It was delightful to talk to you and to finally meet you. Look forward to seeing more of your videos and everything like that.
Stacey Venancio: Yeah. I love doing it, and I plan on keeping it up. Yeah, I love doing interviews. Sometimes I wish I had more time, but I do love doing it.
Michele Spring: Yeah.
