Episode 61
Mark Carlson:
Building Health: The Key in Recovery from Extreme Gut Issues
In this episode, we are talking about healing serious gut issues, like Crohn's, by shifting the focus from disease management to building health. Mark Carlson is here to walk us through how we can use diet and lifestyle to heal.
First Aired on: Nov 14, 2022
Episode 61
Mark Carlson:
Building Health: The Key in Recovery from Extreme Gut Issues
In this episode, we are talking about healing serious gut issues, like Crohn's, by shifting the focus from disease management to building health. Mark Carlson is here to walk us through how we can use diet and lifestyle to heal.
First Aired on: Nov 14, 2022
Table of Contents:
In this episode:
In today's episode, Mark Carlson shares how shifting our focus from disease management to building health can allow even the toughest health challenges to heal.
Mark spent his thirties struggling with terrible gut pain, medical testing, and sleepless nights wrestling with the fear of being too sick to support his family.
About 7 years into his struggles with his stomach pain, he knew he needed to find answers.
"I've got to fix this!"
His doctors had told him " you don't want it to be Crohn's"
Tests, tests, and more tests...and over 6 months to wait for the test he really needed, a GI series.
He was surviving on prednisone to calm his symptoms.
When he finally did the test he needed, they found he had a stricture in his terminal ileum, with ulcers below and above and would need multiple surgeries.
After his first surgery, when they removed 7" of intestine, Mark started playing with diet to figure out how to improve his pain and hopefully keep as much of his bowel as possible.
He found out that brown rice was the worst trigger for his pain. Doctors didn't believe that food mattered.
Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) got him 60% of the way there.
Avoiding antinutirents -oxalates and gluten
And..avoiding glucose spikes - ketosis
It has been about 15 years since he figured this out and feels better than ever.
Crohn's is not an autoimmune disease per se. There are no antibodies involved in Crohn's.
When the innate immune system goes awry, we get systemic auto-inflammatory diseases.
Mechanism of action is different, expression is similar.
"Our job is to focus on building health, and let your doctor worry about disease."
What diet is right for me?
How is my sleep?
Am I exercising in the way that supports my body?
Am I managing stressors?
Using Functional lab testing to check markers for:
Hormone balance
immune system
digestion
stress markers
Specific Keto Foodlist
Mark has a spreadsheet he uses with clients
Paleo and high fat!!
Mark's 1 Step
Don't set goals...start with building a system or process that sets you up for health.
How can you structure your life in a way that supports and reinforces a healthy lifestyle.
It's not about being perfect, its about having a system to fall back on.
Mark spent his thirties struggling with terrible gut pain, medical testing, and sleepless nights wrestling with the fear of being too sick to support his family.
About 7 years into his struggles with his stomach pain, he knew he needed to find answers.
"I've got to fix this!"
His doctors had told him " you don't want it to be Crohn's"
Tests, tests, and more tests...and over 6 months to wait for the test he really needed, a GI series.
He was surviving on prednisone to calm his symptoms.
When he finally did the test he needed, they found he had a stricture in his terminal ileum, with ulcers below and above and would need multiple surgeries.
After his first surgery, when they removed 7" of intestine, Mark started playing with diet to figure out how to improve his pain and hopefully keep as much of his bowel as possible.
He found out that brown rice was the worst trigger for his pain. Doctors didn't believe that food mattered.
Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) got him 60% of the way there.
Avoiding antinutirents -oxalates and gluten
And..avoiding glucose spikes - ketosis
It has been about 15 years since he figured this out and feels better than ever.
Crohn's is not an autoimmune disease per se. There are no antibodies involved in Crohn's.
When the innate immune system goes awry, we get systemic auto-inflammatory diseases.
Mechanism of action is different, expression is similar.
"Our job is to focus on building health, and let your doctor worry about disease."
What diet is right for me?
How is my sleep?
Am I exercising in the way that supports my body?
Am I managing stressors?
Using Functional lab testing to check markers for:
Hormone balance
immune system
digestion
stress markers
Specific Keto Foodlist
Mark has a spreadsheet he uses with clients
Paleo and high fat!!
Mark's 1 Step
Don't set goals...start with building a system or process that sets you up for health.
How can you structure your life in a way that supports and reinforces a healthy lifestyle.
It's not about being perfect, its about having a system to fall back on.
Other Resources:
Connect with Mark Carlson
Mark Carlson has a gift for you!
Specific-Keto Food List
Get a free version of the Specific-Keto food List, or SKL for short. The list is especially relevant to people with IBD, but anyone who needs a straight-forward list of food to supercharge healing would be interested.ONLY foods that are highly bio-chemically digestible, high in nutrients, low in anti-nutrients, and low in sugar are included.
Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome back to The Inspired Living with Autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michaelson, and today we're joined by Mark Carlson. Mark's a board certified functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner who works with high performance cronies to uncover their healing opportunities to build their health.
Mark shares his inspiring story with us today of his journey with Crohn's disease and how he has overcome this [00:01:00] incredible health challenge. He lets us in on what he's learned. Spoiler alert, what you eat does matter, and if we focus on building our health instead of fixing disease, the possibilities are endless.
Julie Michelson: Mark, welcome to the podcast.
Mark Carlson: Thanks, Julie. Glad to be here.
Julie Michelson: I am so excited for this conversation. And you're, you're bringing also the male perspective which we were just talking about before I hit record. Which I love because although the numbers you know, of women to men listeners, autoimmune strugglers it's, we we need Ben in the conversation. So I'm, I'm really excited to have you here.
I wanna start by asking you to share your story with us. I know you, you have this incredible journey and I'd like you to bring listeners along.
Mark Carlson: Yeah, [00:02:00] sure. Well, my story, the theme through my story is, is this sense of having to care for my family. And it is taken me through well through d few different careers. But more so given me the motivation, the I guess the desire, the, the need to actually, the male side of fixing it. It drew that out even more.
And, and in my case, it actually worked out pretty well. So I started out my career in as a counselor in. Chemical dependency and mental health units. And that worked out well. And I started having some odd issues, which eventually started being diagnosed as dual dental ulcers. And I kept that for often on, for maybe, maybe five, seven years, and then ended up [00:03:00] transitioning to another career.
And that other career was fantastic, is fantastic. But it was highly stressful. I mean, in the sense of there was a lot of traveling, a lot of speaking to board members, to to clients that were quite high status, I guess you say. And I knew I had to keep everything going. And in the mean, The pain was starting to get worse, and as we were talking earlier, I, I had this kind of epiphany moment that I needed to get even more help.
After my, my wife started noticing that I was coming home late for work later and later and later, and eventually I broke down and told her, Well, it's because I was in the I was at the er, but not actually in the. In the parking lot at the er, which seems [00:04:00] like that makes no sense. So I was like, well it does make sense cause I'm trying to figure out this thing.
I've had this quite a long time now, and I doctor and they. Told me at the time, Well, you don't want it to be crunched And that's where I was kinda left at. That's, that's a terrible way to, to leave it. So in the meantime, they're doing tests, tests after tests, you knows up, scopes down, all the kind of stuff.
And I'm pulling over into the er, parking after. Because for some reason like this, I could keep things together while I was at work put on a good face. But after work, you know, I guess the tension kind of relieved from the body. And, and I would, the pain would start coming off and these convulsions of paying would start going and I, and I, there's no way I could even drive.
So I would pull over to the parking lot. In the ER and lay in the back seat, [00:05:00] get as close to the door as I could just in case I passed out or something like that. I, I just didn't know what else to do. But I, I, I thought that it was not so bad to where I really needed to be in the er. That's that kinda melt mindset, you know?
Yeah, I can fix it, I can take care of myself locally, that stuff, I never went to the er, went to the ER or, or went to the hospital many other times later. But I didn't there at that time, I was getting a bit of a handle on doing some ab testing, you know, for, for with diets and coming from the whole standpoint of back then, this was in, this was the early 2000.
So it was, it was, you know, the food pyramid was the big thing. And, and so I would kind of work my way from the bottom to the top, you know, grains. And starchy vegetables and breads and then kind keep going up and very methodically figure out what, what hurt the worst pain was very much my, my [00:06:00] leader as, as far as what I do and well, With the telling my wife what was going on, that kind of made me think a little bit differently as well too.
Julie Michelson: did you hear it as you said it,
Mark Carlson: yes, that's, that's it. I heard it as I said, so. Well, this sounds a bit crazy. So by that time, I actually had my, I had a physician general physician who actually still did specialize in digestive disorders, and he was one who said, Well, you don't want be Crohns. By that time, he already had scheduled me to see somebody else, so that kind of got me off of the proverbial couch to where I, I could see him.
And so of course, that sent down a whole nother path. More tests. More tests, more tests. And that GI said, Well, I know what actual, what test I need to run. And it was GI series but insurance is gonna make me [00:07:00] run these others first. And so it was about another six months, six months of that where I'm having to pull over into the , into the parking lot and just kinda wait for these pains to kind of subside.
Seemed to so strange. It was, it would last for about two or three minutes, excruciating pain, and then like a release of endorphins for like five minutes. And it would do that for, for like 30 minutes to an hour. So, so, and the, and I was also doing a bunch of, you know, the typical medications at the time.
The biologics really weren't that big into everything but the steroids. And, and I at one of the times at work when we were in,
Julie Michelson: We're chiming in. They, they know all about steroids and biologics in this house,
Mark Carlson: I got up over here to the, I even went to one of the, [00:08:00] one of the meetings after I was on about probably six months being on and off the steroids, prednisone in particular. Guy came up to me, said, Are, are you Mark's older brother? And he was dead serious. Yeah. Yeah. And then he realized, you know, as it's coming out of his mouth, Wait a minute, this might actually part, and, you know, you get that like face and the, that, that prednisone look where Oh, you just bloated.
And, and oh, I mean, so that was, and I had many other side effects from the, the prednisone as well too. The reason why I stayed on Predone so long is they couldn't find anything and lot of other kind medication go on and off and off, which is such a common story for with Crohns is this diagnosis.
So about another three months [00:09:00] of going through these tests, the insurance company required, We did get to the GI series. And that's the test where you swallow the barium and you stand up and for about four hours you watch the barium go all the way down. And it's the most amazing test. It really is. And I could see it, It it's like a like you would see.
Water or even like a syrup kind of going down a a hose. And it looks really good, really good until it got down to, you know, right beside my my naval and then it went now to just like little veins and barely even that. And and I could say, See right there? Hey,
Julie Michelson: That's where it
Mark Carlson: right there. Yeah, that's it.
And I tell you it's exactly where I'm feeling it. And he was right. That's exactly what it needed to be. Well, by that time they, they found a lot of other things too. There was a stricture, so a place. [00:10:00] It was just swollen so bad, nothing could really hardly ever get through it, and that's where the pain really was.
And that was at the the ileum, A classic place for Crohn's, the terminal ileum, the end of your small digestion digestive system right before it goes into the large digest, the digestive tract. So. There was ulcers below and ulcers above. And so they said I had severe, severe Crohns and I would need some lot of surgery. And it was looking like after the first surgery there maybe two or three other ones after that as well too. So of course it's spining in my mind it's like, it's impossible. There's no way I. Take off work, for surgery. I mean, I gotta pay the bills. I gotta, I gotta raise my family. I mean, how, how does anybody ever do this?
So by that time I was still going through a very methodical process of, of just diet [00:11:00] and very interesting things were, I was finding out that. I, of course starting out with the the bottom of the food pyramid. The worst, absolute worst thing that gave me pain was brown rice. And that's what I was told to eat.
Eat rice, eat potatoes. That would hurt so bad and it was repeatable cuz I didn it twice. I couldn't do anymore more after I would do that. It would just, I mean, I, I couldn't, I would be wiped out for the whole day. Just a little bit of, of brown rice. One of the last things I even tried was just doing straight, like red meat.
Cause like red meat, that's like the worst thing. It's hard to digest, right? Well,
Julie Michelson: So they say,
Mark Carlson: yeah. So they say, and, and, and it's changing a little bit now I guess, but but I could within three days of eating nothing [00:12:00] but meat. And maybe a little bit of crucifer vegetables, but mostly just need, I could be pain free, which actually made no sense to me or any of the doctors.
So I went the last, the last recommendation was for me to have surgery and have a fair amount of my bowel taken out. I was pretty confident at this point that I could control at least the pain that I wanted to see what would happen. So I got a, i, a specialist, I, a specialist, a gi this was in, and he had some very.
They said he had some very experimental new ways to treat Crohn's and I was like, Oh, right. This is great. You know, I of stuff written down my diet,[00:13:00]
this process to that has, has nothing to do with it . So
Julie Michelson: Unbelievable. I knew
Mark Carlson: I
Julie Michelson: I'd been waiting for it. I was like, Did anybody tell you? You know, it has nothing to do with what you eat.
Mark Carlson: Oh, and, and, and that was demoralizing really in some ways because I kind of put him up on a pedestal cuz he was third level up of seeing a GI person that, hey, this guy really knows who he was talking about. And so his recommendation was just new while they were biologics is what it was. They were coming out and that was his recomme.
And, and I got a whole bunch of by auction and went to the refrigerator. Well, it was a bit demo demoralizing, but at the same time it kinda lit a fire on me and, and I went back to the surgeon. The second surgeon I had, I had two people, [00:14:00] you know, second opinion on surgery as well too. So the second surgeon I went back to and asked him, I showed him my GI series test.
I actually went to the the lab and said, Hey, can you give me that, that test, after watching it go down and showing him nothing, showing right where stuff was, and they gave it to me. By the way, anybody can get that. I mean, if you have some medical records, you can get any of the stuff they put onto the dvd.
That's right. So it, so I took it to that search and said, You see this part right here? I mean, I, I see this. I mean, you, I know you do. Can you just take out that part? Just that one part, because we've talked about it and, and, and I knew that that was not just an inflamed part of my intestines. It was scarred.
It was scarred where it's hard. So I thought there's realistically, there's no way that's gonna heal or at, I'm not gonna be able to with it, to, to hill. So after a little while, he said yeah, yeah, I'll just take out just that one. And that [00:15:00] was the moment right then where I was like, I just realized I bargained, I bargained with my surgeon and I, I, I effectively did that with the my GI specialist of the specialist as well too, because I up firing him, firing their doctors, but.
Julie Michelson: I think sometimes we do need to fire a doctor and find somebody who's more aligned. So I say, Oh, good for you.
Mark Carlson: we're good. Well,
Julie Michelson: did he, I'm just curious. I have so many questions, but, We'll, we'll, we'll circle back, but I, I wanna know, you know, in that bargaining,
Mark Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Julie Michelson: you know, if I only take this part out, you're gonna come back for more.
Mark Carlson: Yeah. Yeah, he did. He, he totally ex he, But he expected that from the beginning anyway,
Julie Michelson: Right,
Mark Carlson: so if we're talking about,
Julie Michelson: you're saving potentially feet of intestines by not jumping right.
Mark Carlson: that's right. So, [00:16:00] you know, he, So long story, we did take out about seven inches the terminal Ile. Which wasn't too bad compared to, it was probably gonna be a few feet before that, and in different places as well too. This was just in one place, so I thought the healing might be a little bit easier as well too.
And I had this newfound sense of, Hey, I'm about, I'm in control. I can make these decisions and let's just see what happens. I know I can go pain free or at least pretty close to pain free for a while by just controlling what I eat. There's gotta be something there. There's gotta be. And so I did that and you know about I ended up over the course.
You know, it probably took a total of five years and working more and more diet. I ended up doing the c d diet with this, which is the specific carbohydrate diet. I'm sure you're aware of. Elaine, gosh, she a biochemist did a fabulous [00:17:00] job of coming down to a methodology figuring out which carbohydrates.
Easier to digest based on being a complex carbohydrate versus a disaccharide versus a monosaccharide. So complex car had to be broken down to a disaccharides. Diac have broken down to monosaccharides, and then it can go into your blood bloodstream. We as people with Crohn's, you see, i b d, just general digestive issues, have a problem with that step going all the way.
And frankly, a lot of people may have it as well too. It's just difficult to digest some of the complex car. And that SCD diet formed the basis of me going from basically kind of like a to, into something like this. And that got me, you know 60% of the way there. I. Going a little bit further, a little bit further and figuring out if I dropped out some of [00:18:00] the antinutrients outta the carbohydrates as well too, like the Oates, the gluten, and and those, those type that actually robbed your body of nutrients along the way.
So I ended up with this, basically this food list, this food list of the c d foods. Minus the Antinutrients foods and prioritize based off of blood sugar and insulin response as well too. So I ended up having this big long spreadsheet and I found out that well, well, it took me about 60% of the way there, taking out the antinutrients and then dropping down into ketosis gave me the performance that I really needed.
So it takes me back to where, I want to not just be able to provide for my family, but I wanna perform really well. I mean, I, I was in a high pressure job. I didn't have a choice but to perform well, , and, [00:19:00] and I, I did extremely well. I, I I dropping down into ketosis after going through the series of the SCD and everything made a huge difference.
And at that point, I started not only. Just getting better, but being better than I was even before in the past. And ever since then, that's been about 10, 15 years ago. Ever since then, when I drop out of that kind of methodology, the sluggishness starts coming back. And I mean, I, I was diagnosed with narcolepsy at one point. Because the just being so, I mean, I just couldn't even, Yeah. Yeah. And part of that, part of that was the side effects of the medications as well too, going on and off, but just having just a gut in terrible. You know, just couldn't absorb nutrients Well, and a blended, [00:20:00] I mean, couldn't, enzymes, you know, was terrible shape all.
Julie Michelson: Amazing. And for those of you that are listening on audio, I would say he looks like Mark's younger brother. Certainly not Mark's older brother
Mark Carlson: Oh, and today's my birthday. I
Julie Michelson: Oh, happy birthday. I'm, I got, I have got a year on you, but I know, I know what it's like to feel younger in your fifties than you do in your forties, so it's, it's pretty darn fantastic. Yeah, it's great
Mark Carlson: I, I feel younger now than I did in my thirties. This when everything was going on was in, I was in my thirties. Yeah. Oh man. Crazy. Our, our story tracks in so many kinda ways. It is amazing. I mean, that's that's gotta be inspiring to other folks that
Julie Michelson: which is why we're here. This is why
Mark Carlson: Yeah.
Julie Michelson: what we do. Right. So I wanna circle all the way back
Mark Carlson: Yeah, go ahead.
Julie Michelson: and I believe I, I do know [00:21:00] the answer to this, but I want listeners to, to hear it as well. You started playing with diet. Fairly early on when you were like, No, I gotta fix this. And you alluded to it, but by just this, was you looking for a solution?
This was not doctors saying, Hey, you have a gut issue, Food might be involved. Is that correct? Yeah.
Mark Carlson: Yeah. Actually I was, I was told by, by not just doctors, but pretty much everybody, there's really nothing. The diet is just not even a course to go. But I didn't have a choice and, and this is important. I, I don't know if I would've had the intelligence maybe, I mean, I was into nutrition before all this.
I've, I've been a personal trainer in the nineties and, and you know, that was a big part of nutrition and all. But, but you know, that was like I say, food pyramid type
Julie Michelson: Right. MI
Mark Carlson: not, not this. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, totally opposite of what I ended up doing. [00:22:00] But
Julie Michelson: It's always.
Mark Carlson: where, where I was like,
Julie Michelson: Shocking. Well, this idea of you can have this major gut issue and we're going to talk about, clarify this is Crohn's and autoimmune disease. Is it not an autoimmune disease? I still am shocked with any autoimmune like issue that, that doctors aren't, you know, addressing food, but especially when it.
To the gut, you know, I, I beyond donate gluten if you have celiac, that's it. That's all they say. So it, it's is truly unbelievable to me.
Mark Carlson: it, it is. And, and what I was gonna say is I was forced into going down this path purely because of pain. I didn't have a choice. So when I got to the point of really it was meat and fat. That I felt the best off of, and that went against everything I knew. Oh, my cholesterol, I'm [00:23:00] heart attack. I know all these things'.
Julie Michelson: Yeah, I remember when I first went keto and it too was, had been a process of eliminating things and I'd been on a low fat diet my whole life. So, you know, no surprise that finally having high quality fats, you know, just turned cells on in my body. And I remember my, my GP saying to me, Oh my gosh. Your cholesterol.
My cholesterol had always been high, which makes sense. I was inflamed. It's an inflammatory molecule , so makes total
Mark Carlson: such.
Julie Michelson: But when I did, when I first went keto, it did go even higher and she was panicking and I, that was exactly what I said to her. I said, I feel well. I'm not changing a thing. Like if I die, if this, the high cholesterol kills me tomorrow, which I now know was never going to fine, I, I feel well.
And sure enough, without changing a [00:24:00] thing, just giving my body more time, it all came right back to, you know, came down actually lower than it had ever been in my life. But it, it is, it's just remarkable. You, you did. I joke, I, I, I've said it on the podcast before. I used to think I was smart, you know, but I believed my doctors when they said, nothing you can do.
And so I love that you were like, Hey, nobody else was fixing this. I had to do it. And I, I was thinking about. I know cuz I, I've, I've talked to people with Crohn's in uc and they are told, you know, just eat gentle foods like rice, and, and carbs. And I think of even as a young mom when my kids got diarrhea, shocker that my son who has celiac, used to get diarrhea when he was little
And they would always say, you know, brat. Like, why are we doing that to our children? Why are we giving them rice and toast when their guts are inflamed? Just it's wild.
Mark Carlson: [00:25:00] And yeah, and, and we're completely the, the lifestyle we typically live. us right into doing all that as well too. And the processed foods. Oh man, the processed foods are, if there's any one evil out of the food, it's processed foods and we're constantly bombarded with you know, the ads. And when you go to work, you're driving to work and you pass 20 billboards about a filet of fish sandwich and your mouth starts watering cuz it really does look good, you know, so.
It, it's, it's crazy. It's like we have to, we have to change so much in today's, today's lifestyle in, in order for us to actually have a healthy lifestyle. I mean, two years, it was so much easier to live healthier than it now.
Julie Michelson: that's what it was. Now it's like swimming upstream and, and, you know, fighting a fight. And it, and it is, I, I do try to always give the grace of, it's so [00:26:00] much easier for somebody like myself or you that. Had such severe negative consequences to living, you know, eating the standard American diet.
And, and so, you know, for me there, I, there's no, you're not going to eat rice. I'm not going to eat gluten. You know, like there's no way I would do that to myself versus. Someone who hasn't really connected all those dots yet, or somebody who would like to prevent illness, but you know, isn't really, doesn't, can't feel that direct impact.
Mark Carlson: Yeah.
Julie Michelson: talk to us a little bit about you, you know, said we're gonna connect Crohn's and autoimmune and, and I again, sometimes think I'm educated. I'm like, I thought Crohns was an autoimmune condition. So let, let's talk about that. Explain to us what do they know?
Mark Carlson: Yeah, Well, it has been classified in autoimmune condition for a very long time, and in many cases it still is, [00:27:00] but is starting to change. So a quick refresher of your immune system is you have the two parts. You have the. The adaptive immune system that we're used to. You know, we come in, come in contact with a new virus, a new bacteria, something like that, that we don't, our body has not seen before.
So in order to develop some kind resistance against it, it creates , what's the word? Antibodies. It, it creates antibodies. And we can see this when this whole system of creating antibodies and being able to fight a disease goes haywire into the autoimmune issues. So Celiac, you know, has an antibody counterpart.
Rheumatoid arthritis has an antibody counterpart. So these
Julie Michelson: Shemos. Yep. Up.
Mark Carlson: shemos. Does
Julie Michelson: and I always say this is a, it is. It's a good system. It's just, as you mentioned, when it goes awry that we end up with auto units when we start attacking [00:28:00] self.
Mark Carlson: Right? It starts attacking itself. Well, the funny thing is with Crohn's, there has been no antibody found for Crohn's, and they don't expect there will be. So the other part of the immune system is the in native immune system, the immune system that we're born with. When, when we, when we're very small, we can have a cut and it gets a little bit inflamed and heals up.
Well, that's the, the immune system we're born with that knows how to deal with that. Well, just like any other genes, it can go awry as well too. And when the innate immune system goes awry, it's more systemic. So crohn and systemic means it inflams anywhere in the. So what they're starting to call Crohn's is an autoinflammatory disease
Julie Michelson: Ah, okay.
Mark Carlson: so than a autoimmune.[00:29:00]
So it does the inflammation.
Julie Michelson: Mm-hmm.
Mark Carlson: And it, it, but it doesn't do it. It you, it does focus it in the gut. But as Crohn's is known to expand more than say u you uc does. I had it everywhere and, but it was concentrated into terminal ium, which is very, very typical of a Crohn's. But if I look back, my parents.
Told me that they went to they, it was shortly after well, well, I think their first big vacation with me when I was young and around two years old, they had to leave and, and this was thousands of miles away. They finally had to leave and come back home because I had so many ulcers in my mouth and, You know, just scream as a little kid.
Just couldn't take that kind of stuff. And I remember as a child, I don't know, maybe even up through teenagers, I would on a regular basis get [00:30:00] ulcers like in my mouth as well too. So that kind of shows where Crohn's does expand. And it's also, I kind call, I, I'm starting to see Crohn's as more like a, as a cascade disease. Shortly after I was diagnosed, I started having my physician ask me, Well, do I have any arthritis?
Julie Michelson: Mm-hmm.
Mark Carlson: I was like, No, I, I don't, don't really have any. And they kept asking, Found
arthritis itself
to Crohn's makes more sense as an autoinflammatory rather than autoimmune. Cause it works with the the innate immune. It's, it's, it's a disruption of the immune, the innate immune system where it attacks itself and it's kind more generalized. It may start in the gut, but easily other autoimmune [00:31:00] systems autoimmune diseases,
Julie Michelson: Wow. So mechanism. Mechanism of action. Is different. Expression is similar cuz most autoimmune conditions also it's systemic inflammation. It's, you know, RA isn't just joint pain. It can affect the heart, It can affect, you know, So so I, I love that understanding of, okay, you know, this is a different process kind of going on behind the scenes.
You are, you focus on. Not disease management, right? We're trying to shift the focus from disease management to building health.
Mark Carlson: That's right.
Julie Michelson: talk about that. Share with us this approach of, you know, if you, if you really wanna solve the problems you have to build health.
Mark Carlson: Yeah. I, I kind of say Now look, the doctors worry about your z. And our [00:32:00] job is to worry about our health. And they're two totally separate things. We put this health, this what kind of diet do I need to do? What kinda exercises do on our doctors, which is completely crazy and they don't even want that either.
That's not their responsibility. But we kind of, we always say that, We'll, talk to your doctor before starting this exercise program or talk to your doctor about what kinda, what do you need to eat, but they don't want. And they had no training in that. And I started realizing that with some of my experiences about the doctors saying, My diet has nothing to do with it, even though I went from pain to no pain.
And, and so I went down. For me, it was a path of going, you know, what kind of diet is right for me? What type, how is my rest? Like, you know, am I sleeping well at. And am I doing the right exercise? Am I actually doing the right [00:33:00] kind of exercise? Which I was not at the time, I was doing a lot of the, you know, at the time it was kinda like sprinting hit that kinda stuff swapped it all over to doing just resistance training.
I could recover so much better from that and I, and it, and it had the benefit of. Helping me sleep better at night as well too. And, and, and a lot of the stress reduction side of things was, was really big. And, and for me, what that turns into now is not just the stress that we kind always talk about, like the emotional stress of, of things or just stressful situations, but the hidden stressors.
And so, I kind of had an avoidance of doing tests after all the poking and
Julie Michelson: fair
Mark Carlson: dones. Scary after a
into functional lab [00:34:00] testing and opened up a whole new world about what to look. So then instead of focusing on the disease of Crohn's, I would look at things like, Well, are my hormones balanced? You know, my corsol, the d e a ratio, What's that? In my immune system, my secretory iga. You know, how, how is that my digestion?
You know, this is one of the things that for me, I. Is a leading indicator. You know, I look at things like indican it, it's kind of, it's a, it's a market that shows how well protein is being broken down and absorbed in the gut. So if you, if protein does not, it ends up futurizing then, then you get some this sy release that you can test for.
So you. I'm starting to look for all of these kind of markers, Sluggish liver, you know all these kind of things. So I start working on this oxidative [00:35:00] stress. I start working on all these kind of things, and so what I do now is kind of hit. Hit at, hit at it very hard, very comprehensively at first to find out exactly what's going on in my body right now.
Not just Crohns, not just the gi, not just my microbiome, but all those other things I mentioned as well too. And it gives me a very clear sense of all the things I can actually work toward to build my help up, you know, going forward. And that has made all the difference in the world. So I can, I can map out going forward.
You know, what I need to do on the, my diet, my rest, my exercise, my supplementation, the stress to relieve those hidden stressors, you know, internally as well too. So,
Julie Michelson: Sure.
Mark Carlson: so that's, that's kind of, that's kind of how it, it's taken me and, and that's actually not even looking at Crohn's anymore. And
Julie Michelson: Right.
Mark Carlson: I haven't looked at Crohn's in 10 years and it's [00:36:00] been wonderful for me.
Julie Michelson: I love it. And, and that's, This is functional medicine, right? This is what we do when, when we, We all need these systems. We need these building blocks. And when we look for those deficits and roadblocks really to healing because the body is designed to heal. And when you're expressing something like Crohn's or RA or whatever it is, you've got roadblocks.
And so yes, we need to remove the roadblock, but like you said, we need to build the. And get those systems working beautifully. And then, you know, we're not using names of diagnoses, we're we're just people creating wellness. That's the, that's the beauty of it.
Mark Carlson: exactly it. Well said.
Julie Michelson: It's amazing. So do you have a, I think I know the answer just from what you had said, but is there a specific diet that you recommend or is this an individualized.[00:37:00]
Mark Carlson: Well, short answer is individualized thing. I, the diet that I end up kind of doing a default and, and it's not really so much a diet as a list that I, I referenced before. I, I call it a specific keto food list. So it is that specific carbohydrate diet and then taking away some of the, the histamine, the oscillates, that kinda stuff.
And and normalized it for low blood sugar, low insulin reaction foods as well too. And, and that's kind of my go to list, but it's not really a full on diet. You can do it so many different ways. Matter of fact, I keep it a spreadsheet so I can sort. Well, what, what affects the blood sugar the most?
What's the most histamine, you know, and I can go down the line as well too. Or just carbs, calories, that kinda stuff. So it's very, it's a very nice utility type sheet. So yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Well that's [00:38:00] been a lot of my career is in technology, so it kinda. Know, the engineering side comes out when, when that goes in.
So, yeah, so I guess that's kind of my go to. But if, if I'm talking generally, what I always recommend is more of a paleolithic, you know, hundred gatherer type diet. And I go for more, yeah, I go for more higher fat as well too. We all still have this fat phobia, which. Probably the thing that is one of the biggest roadblocks that I've found for most everybody.
Getting into a diet that actually will get you, you know, healthy. I mean, that's, that's probably one of the big things. So that's when I work with people, that's probably one of the, the bigger things I have to work with. That takes a long time to kind of break through that.
Julie Michelson: That's decades of programming. We all need to, I remember when I first. Started, you know, I, I understood my br like logically and scientifically why I [00:39:00] needed the fat. And I just remember gagging on it, in the beginning, you know, and I can tell you it has been ages since I've had a boneless skinless chicken breast.
Thank goodness,
I had enough of those through the first part of my life , you can't go back. You just, you know, when, when you feel your body come alive, that wellness that you're talking about again, it's now, you know, you don't wanna go, don't wanna go the other way.
So what is one step that listeners can take today to start to improve their health or start to build wellness for themselves.
Mark Carlson: One step.
Julie Michelson: I know it's a trick question. It's tough
Mark Carlson: Yeah. And, and the funny thing is, I knew you were gonna ask that as well too,
Julie Michelson: I know, but it's so hard to pick one
Mark Carlson: It is, you
Julie Michelson: to start to move the needle. Something they can do.
Mark Carlson: I, I think it's, I think the main thing is we [00:40:00] have this, we're we're told to set goals. And when this areas, it'll probably be around New Year's time. Right? New Year's resolution. You have New Year's resolution start Yeah. To start working out every day or have New Year's resolution to, to eat better, whatever that happens to.
Those are goals, right? And I think that's the wrong path to take. And if, if I would have one thing to say is, is stop with the goals and start with. Building a process, a system. So instead of well, I'm gonna go work out every day, it kind of sets you up for failure cuz you're not gonna do it, right?
I mean, that's what always happens, but think about what's going on in your life. That is conducive to working out every day or eating well every day. So the podcast, you know, when you have something coming in your ear that's talking about help, talking about working out, and, and it might be a specific thing [00:41:00] that, that you like as well too.
It starts building that kind of constant. Instead of the billboards coming at you every day, you're starting to have other things coming. So you're thinking. How does my life need to be structured so I can do these things, Not this goal of I wanna work out every day. How can you structure your life?
So when you're going to work and you have all, you know, you have all these billboards coming at you, take the countryside. Yes, it's gonna take longer for you to get to work, but maybe you need to go to bed a little hour early anyway. So you start thinking about, well, how can I structure my life rather than having goals to do these specific things?
How can I structure my life to where it's a healthy lifestyle going forward? That takes longer, but it's way more sustainable to keep as well too. So you're going to bed an hour early. You're, you're taking the countryside to work. You're, you're seeing pastures in nice moving cows instead [00:42:00] of the fla of fish billboards coming. And, and you're getting these podcasts coming in to start to talk about health, starting to talk about exercise, you know, new ways of doing. So what you're doing is you're building this, this, this loop, this loop of reinforcing healthy lifestyles. And that is what starts really making you have the big changes going forward.
So I, I guess that's a lot. I know you wanted something short and quicky.
You
Julie Michelson: Well, I will, I'll sum it up for you so that it's the one thing, which what I heard you say was, you know, instead of setting the goals that we never stick with anyway, really take the. Time to create that system, to build the healthy, healthy lifestyle. And like you said, You think about it, it, so I, you know, something you can start today is thinking about what does that look like?
What would it take? And that's how you set yourself up for success. So I, I think that's a beautiful [00:43:00] one thing. It's a, it's a, it's an amazing overarching and we share this, you know, as a coach, it's, I, I don't wanna say I don't like goals. Goals are great. I don't like resolutions and I don't like, you know, it's, it's Part of what I do in supporting my clients is we make sure we're setting it up for six.
You know, they'll say, Oh no, I'm just gonna cook, you know, on plan. Well, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like, let's start with, you know, what are you gonna make? What's the grocery list? When are you gonna shop? You know, all these parts and pieces, and that's where
Mark Carlson: So, So what's in your
Julie Michelson: to. Yeah.
Mark Carlson: exactly. What do, if you open up your pantry, do you have a whole bunch of processed food sitting there? Well, you do. Then you're probably not gonna have, you're not gonna be successful with the goal of not food's much harder
Julie Michelson: Yeah, so start is that that beginning of the setup would be, you know, pantry, clean out time and you know, [00:44:00] really, really figuring out what that looks like. And I love what you said back to the, your, the systems guy, you know, Allows you to create that system for.
Mark Carlson: That's right, and don't, don't beat yourself up if you know you have these moments where if things don't, it's not about things that to.
Julie Michelson: I love it. Every, every one day better or one thing better is, is moving you in the right direction. So for people who listen on the go on that nice country drive to work, if they're lucky enough to have that where can listeners find you?
Mark Carlson: The best place is my website. It's www.healthundercontrol.com. They can also send me an email, mark@healthundercontrol.com as well too.
Julie Michelson: Wonderful. Mark, thank you so much. You have [00:45:00] shared some amazing gold with us today.
Mark Carlson: Well thank you Julie's. Thank you so much for having me on this. The work you're doing here is fantastic. Oh, and I wish you Years and years of success.
Julie Michelson: Thank you so much. Right back at you. For everyone listening. Remember, you can get the show notes and transcripts by visiting inspired living.show. I hope you did great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I'll see you next week.
Mark shares his inspiring story with us today of his journey with Crohn's disease and how he has overcome this [00:01:00] incredible health challenge. He lets us in on what he's learned. Spoiler alert, what you eat does matter, and if we focus on building our health instead of fixing disease, the possibilities are endless.
Julie Michelson: Mark, welcome to the podcast.
Mark Carlson: Thanks, Julie. Glad to be here.
Julie Michelson: I am so excited for this conversation. And you're, you're bringing also the male perspective which we were just talking about before I hit record. Which I love because although the numbers you know, of women to men listeners, autoimmune strugglers it's, we we need Ben in the conversation. So I'm, I'm really excited to have you here.
I wanna start by asking you to share your story with us. I know you, you have this incredible journey and I'd like you to bring listeners along.
Mark Carlson: Yeah, [00:02:00] sure. Well, my story, the theme through my story is, is this sense of having to care for my family. And it is taken me through well through d few different careers. But more so given me the motivation, the I guess the desire, the, the need to actually, the male side of fixing it. It drew that out even more.
And, and in my case, it actually worked out pretty well. So I started out my career in as a counselor in. Chemical dependency and mental health units. And that worked out well. And I started having some odd issues, which eventually started being diagnosed as dual dental ulcers. And I kept that for often on, for maybe, maybe five, seven years, and then ended up [00:03:00] transitioning to another career.
And that other career was fantastic, is fantastic. But it was highly stressful. I mean, in the sense of there was a lot of traveling, a lot of speaking to board members, to to clients that were quite high status, I guess you say. And I knew I had to keep everything going. And in the mean, The pain was starting to get worse, and as we were talking earlier, I, I had this kind of epiphany moment that I needed to get even more help.
After my, my wife started noticing that I was coming home late for work later and later and later, and eventually I broke down and told her, Well, it's because I was in the I was at the er, but not actually in the. In the parking lot at the er, which seems [00:04:00] like that makes no sense. So I was like, well it does make sense cause I'm trying to figure out this thing.
I've had this quite a long time now, and I doctor and they. Told me at the time, Well, you don't want it to be crunched And that's where I was kinda left at. That's, that's a terrible way to, to leave it. So in the meantime, they're doing tests, tests after tests, you knows up, scopes down, all the kind of stuff.
And I'm pulling over into the er, parking after. Because for some reason like this, I could keep things together while I was at work put on a good face. But after work, you know, I guess the tension kind of relieved from the body. And, and I would, the pain would start coming off and these convulsions of paying would start going and I, and I, there's no way I could even drive.
So I would pull over to the parking lot. In the ER and lay in the back seat, [00:05:00] get as close to the door as I could just in case I passed out or something like that. I, I just didn't know what else to do. But I, I, I thought that it was not so bad to where I really needed to be in the er. That's that kinda melt mindset, you know?
Yeah, I can fix it, I can take care of myself locally, that stuff, I never went to the er, went to the ER or, or went to the hospital many other times later. But I didn't there at that time, I was getting a bit of a handle on doing some ab testing, you know, for, for with diets and coming from the whole standpoint of back then, this was in, this was the early 2000.
So it was, it was, you know, the food pyramid was the big thing. And, and so I would kind of work my way from the bottom to the top, you know, grains. And starchy vegetables and breads and then kind keep going up and very methodically figure out what, what hurt the worst pain was very much my, my [00:06:00] leader as, as far as what I do and well, With the telling my wife what was going on, that kind of made me think a little bit differently as well too.
Julie Michelson: did you hear it as you said it,
Mark Carlson: yes, that's, that's it. I heard it as I said, so. Well, this sounds a bit crazy. So by that time, I actually had my, I had a physician general physician who actually still did specialize in digestive disorders, and he was one who said, Well, you don't want be Crohns. By that time, he already had scheduled me to see somebody else, so that kind of got me off of the proverbial couch to where I, I could see him.
And so of course, that sent down a whole nother path. More tests. More tests, more tests. And that GI said, Well, I know what actual, what test I need to run. And it was GI series but insurance is gonna make me [00:07:00] run these others first. And so it was about another six months, six months of that where I'm having to pull over into the , into the parking lot and just kinda wait for these pains to kind of subside.
Seemed to so strange. It was, it would last for about two or three minutes, excruciating pain, and then like a release of endorphins for like five minutes. And it would do that for, for like 30 minutes to an hour. So, so, and the, and I was also doing a bunch of, you know, the typical medications at the time.
The biologics really weren't that big into everything but the steroids. And, and I at one of the times at work when we were in,
Julie Michelson: We're chiming in. They, they know all about steroids and biologics in this house,
Mark Carlson: I got up over here to the, I even went to one of the, [00:08:00] one of the meetings after I was on about probably six months being on and off the steroids, prednisone in particular. Guy came up to me, said, Are, are you Mark's older brother? And he was dead serious. Yeah. Yeah. And then he realized, you know, as it's coming out of his mouth, Wait a minute, this might actually part, and, you know, you get that like face and the, that, that prednisone look where Oh, you just bloated.
And, and oh, I mean, so that was, and I had many other side effects from the, the prednisone as well too. The reason why I stayed on Predone so long is they couldn't find anything and lot of other kind medication go on and off and off, which is such a common story for with Crohns is this diagnosis.
So about another three months [00:09:00] of going through these tests, the insurance company required, We did get to the GI series. And that's the test where you swallow the barium and you stand up and for about four hours you watch the barium go all the way down. And it's the most amazing test. It really is. And I could see it, It it's like a like you would see.
Water or even like a syrup kind of going down a a hose. And it looks really good, really good until it got down to, you know, right beside my my naval and then it went now to just like little veins and barely even that. And and I could say, See right there? Hey,
Julie Michelson: That's where it
Mark Carlson: right there. Yeah, that's it.
And I tell you it's exactly where I'm feeling it. And he was right. That's exactly what it needed to be. Well, by that time they, they found a lot of other things too. There was a stricture, so a place. [00:10:00] It was just swollen so bad, nothing could really hardly ever get through it, and that's where the pain really was.
And that was at the the ileum, A classic place for Crohn's, the terminal ileum, the end of your small digestion digestive system right before it goes into the large digest, the digestive tract. So. There was ulcers below and ulcers above. And so they said I had severe, severe Crohns and I would need some lot of surgery. And it was looking like after the first surgery there maybe two or three other ones after that as well too. So of course it's spining in my mind it's like, it's impossible. There's no way I. Take off work, for surgery. I mean, I gotta pay the bills. I gotta, I gotta raise my family. I mean, how, how does anybody ever do this?
So by that time I was still going through a very methodical process of, of just diet [00:11:00] and very interesting things were, I was finding out that. I, of course starting out with the the bottom of the food pyramid. The worst, absolute worst thing that gave me pain was brown rice. And that's what I was told to eat.
Eat rice, eat potatoes. That would hurt so bad and it was repeatable cuz I didn it twice. I couldn't do anymore more after I would do that. It would just, I mean, I, I couldn't, I would be wiped out for the whole day. Just a little bit of, of brown rice. One of the last things I even tried was just doing straight, like red meat.
Cause like red meat, that's like the worst thing. It's hard to digest, right? Well,
Julie Michelson: So they say,
Mark Carlson: yeah. So they say, and, and, and it's changing a little bit now I guess, but but I could within three days of eating nothing [00:12:00] but meat. And maybe a little bit of crucifer vegetables, but mostly just need, I could be pain free, which actually made no sense to me or any of the doctors.
So I went the last, the last recommendation was for me to have surgery and have a fair amount of my bowel taken out. I was pretty confident at this point that I could control at least the pain that I wanted to see what would happen. So I got a, i, a specialist, I, a specialist, a gi this was in, and he had some very.
They said he had some very experimental new ways to treat Crohn's and I was like, Oh, right. This is great. You know, I of stuff written down my diet,[00:13:00]
this process to that has, has nothing to do with it . So
Julie Michelson: Unbelievable. I knew
Mark Carlson: I
Julie Michelson: I'd been waiting for it. I was like, Did anybody tell you? You know, it has nothing to do with what you eat.
Mark Carlson: Oh, and, and, and that was demoralizing really in some ways because I kind of put him up on a pedestal cuz he was third level up of seeing a GI person that, hey, this guy really knows who he was talking about. And so his recommendation was just new while they were biologics is what it was. They were coming out and that was his recomme.
And, and I got a whole bunch of by auction and went to the refrigerator. Well, it was a bit demo demoralizing, but at the same time it kinda lit a fire on me and, and I went back to the surgeon. The second surgeon I had, I had two people, [00:14:00] you know, second opinion on surgery as well too. So the second surgeon I went back to and asked him, I showed him my GI series test.
I actually went to the the lab and said, Hey, can you give me that, that test, after watching it go down and showing him nothing, showing right where stuff was, and they gave it to me. By the way, anybody can get that. I mean, if you have some medical records, you can get any of the stuff they put onto the dvd.
That's right. So it, so I took it to that search and said, You see this part right here? I mean, I, I see this. I mean, you, I know you do. Can you just take out that part? Just that one part, because we've talked about it and, and, and I knew that that was not just an inflamed part of my intestines. It was scarred.
It was scarred where it's hard. So I thought there's realistically, there's no way that's gonna heal or at, I'm not gonna be able to with it, to, to hill. So after a little while, he said yeah, yeah, I'll just take out just that one. And that [00:15:00] was the moment right then where I was like, I just realized I bargained, I bargained with my surgeon and I, I, I effectively did that with the my GI specialist of the specialist as well too, because I up firing him, firing their doctors, but.
Julie Michelson: I think sometimes we do need to fire a doctor and find somebody who's more aligned. So I say, Oh, good for you.
Mark Carlson: we're good. Well,
Julie Michelson: did he, I'm just curious. I have so many questions, but, We'll, we'll, we'll circle back, but I, I wanna know, you know, in that bargaining,
Mark Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Julie Michelson: you know, if I only take this part out, you're gonna come back for more.
Mark Carlson: Yeah. Yeah, he did. He, he totally ex he, But he expected that from the beginning anyway,
Julie Michelson: Right,
Mark Carlson: so if we're talking about,
Julie Michelson: you're saving potentially feet of intestines by not jumping right.
Mark Carlson: that's right. So, [00:16:00] you know, he, So long story, we did take out about seven inches the terminal Ile. Which wasn't too bad compared to, it was probably gonna be a few feet before that, and in different places as well too. This was just in one place, so I thought the healing might be a little bit easier as well too.
And I had this newfound sense of, Hey, I'm about, I'm in control. I can make these decisions and let's just see what happens. I know I can go pain free or at least pretty close to pain free for a while by just controlling what I eat. There's gotta be something there. There's gotta be. And so I did that and you know about I ended up over the course.
You know, it probably took a total of five years and working more and more diet. I ended up doing the c d diet with this, which is the specific carbohydrate diet. I'm sure you're aware of. Elaine, gosh, she a biochemist did a fabulous [00:17:00] job of coming down to a methodology figuring out which carbohydrates.
Easier to digest based on being a complex carbohydrate versus a disaccharide versus a monosaccharide. So complex car had to be broken down to a disaccharides. Diac have broken down to monosaccharides, and then it can go into your blood bloodstream. We as people with Crohn's, you see, i b d, just general digestive issues, have a problem with that step going all the way.
And frankly, a lot of people may have it as well too. It's just difficult to digest some of the complex car. And that SCD diet formed the basis of me going from basically kind of like a to, into something like this. And that got me, you know 60% of the way there. I. Going a little bit further, a little bit further and figuring out if I dropped out some of [00:18:00] the antinutrients outta the carbohydrates as well too, like the Oates, the gluten, and and those, those type that actually robbed your body of nutrients along the way.
So I ended up with this, basically this food list, this food list of the c d foods. Minus the Antinutrients foods and prioritize based off of blood sugar and insulin response as well too. So I ended up having this big long spreadsheet and I found out that well, well, it took me about 60% of the way there, taking out the antinutrients and then dropping down into ketosis gave me the performance that I really needed.
So it takes me back to where, I want to not just be able to provide for my family, but I wanna perform really well. I mean, I, I was in a high pressure job. I didn't have a choice but to perform well, , and, [00:19:00] and I, I did extremely well. I, I I dropping down into ketosis after going through the series of the SCD and everything made a huge difference.
And at that point, I started not only. Just getting better, but being better than I was even before in the past. And ever since then, that's been about 10, 15 years ago. Ever since then, when I drop out of that kind of methodology, the sluggishness starts coming back. And I mean, I, I was diagnosed with narcolepsy at one point. Because the just being so, I mean, I just couldn't even, Yeah. Yeah. And part of that, part of that was the side effects of the medications as well too, going on and off, but just having just a gut in terrible. You know, just couldn't absorb nutrients Well, and a blended, [00:20:00] I mean, couldn't, enzymes, you know, was terrible shape all.
Julie Michelson: Amazing. And for those of you that are listening on audio, I would say he looks like Mark's younger brother. Certainly not Mark's older brother
Mark Carlson: Oh, and today's my birthday. I
Julie Michelson: Oh, happy birthday. I'm, I got, I have got a year on you, but I know, I know what it's like to feel younger in your fifties than you do in your forties, so it's, it's pretty darn fantastic. Yeah, it's great
Mark Carlson: I, I feel younger now than I did in my thirties. This when everything was going on was in, I was in my thirties. Yeah. Oh man. Crazy. Our, our story tracks in so many kinda ways. It is amazing. I mean, that's that's gotta be inspiring to other folks that
Julie Michelson: which is why we're here. This is why
Mark Carlson: Yeah.
Julie Michelson: what we do. Right. So I wanna circle all the way back
Mark Carlson: Yeah, go ahead.
Julie Michelson: and I believe I, I do know [00:21:00] the answer to this, but I want listeners to, to hear it as well. You started playing with diet. Fairly early on when you were like, No, I gotta fix this. And you alluded to it, but by just this, was you looking for a solution?
This was not doctors saying, Hey, you have a gut issue, Food might be involved. Is that correct? Yeah.
Mark Carlson: Yeah. Actually I was, I was told by, by not just doctors, but pretty much everybody, there's really nothing. The diet is just not even a course to go. But I didn't have a choice and, and this is important. I, I don't know if I would've had the intelligence maybe, I mean, I was into nutrition before all this.
I've, I've been a personal trainer in the nineties and, and you know, that was a big part of nutrition and all. But, but you know, that was like I say, food pyramid type
Julie Michelson: Right. MI
Mark Carlson: not, not this. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, totally opposite of what I ended up doing. [00:22:00] But
Julie Michelson: It's always.
Mark Carlson: where, where I was like,
Julie Michelson: Shocking. Well, this idea of you can have this major gut issue and we're going to talk about, clarify this is Crohn's and autoimmune disease. Is it not an autoimmune disease? I still am shocked with any autoimmune like issue that, that doctors aren't, you know, addressing food, but especially when it.
To the gut, you know, I, I beyond donate gluten if you have celiac, that's it. That's all they say. So it, it's is truly unbelievable to me.
Mark Carlson: it, it is. And, and what I was gonna say is I was forced into going down this path purely because of pain. I didn't have a choice. So when I got to the point of really it was meat and fat. That I felt the best off of, and that went against everything I knew. Oh, my cholesterol, I'm [00:23:00] heart attack. I know all these things'.
Julie Michelson: Yeah, I remember when I first went keto and it too was, had been a process of eliminating things and I'd been on a low fat diet my whole life. So, you know, no surprise that finally having high quality fats, you know, just turned cells on in my body. And I remember my, my GP saying to me, Oh my gosh. Your cholesterol.
My cholesterol had always been high, which makes sense. I was inflamed. It's an inflammatory molecule , so makes total
Mark Carlson: such.
Julie Michelson: But when I did, when I first went keto, it did go even higher and she was panicking and I, that was exactly what I said to her. I said, I feel well. I'm not changing a thing. Like if I die, if this, the high cholesterol kills me tomorrow, which I now know was never going to fine, I, I feel well.
And sure enough, without changing a [00:24:00] thing, just giving my body more time, it all came right back to, you know, came down actually lower than it had ever been in my life. But it, it is, it's just remarkable. You, you did. I joke, I, I, I've said it on the podcast before. I used to think I was smart, you know, but I believed my doctors when they said, nothing you can do.
And so I love that you were like, Hey, nobody else was fixing this. I had to do it. And I, I was thinking about. I know cuz I, I've, I've talked to people with Crohn's in uc and they are told, you know, just eat gentle foods like rice, and, and carbs. And I think of even as a young mom when my kids got diarrhea, shocker that my son who has celiac, used to get diarrhea when he was little
And they would always say, you know, brat. Like, why are we doing that to our children? Why are we giving them rice and toast when their guts are inflamed? Just it's wild.
Mark Carlson: [00:25:00] And yeah, and, and we're completely the, the lifestyle we typically live. us right into doing all that as well too. And the processed foods. Oh man, the processed foods are, if there's any one evil out of the food, it's processed foods and we're constantly bombarded with you know, the ads. And when you go to work, you're driving to work and you pass 20 billboards about a filet of fish sandwich and your mouth starts watering cuz it really does look good, you know, so.
It, it's, it's crazy. It's like we have to, we have to change so much in today's, today's lifestyle in, in order for us to actually have a healthy lifestyle. I mean, two years, it was so much easier to live healthier than it now.
Julie Michelson: that's what it was. Now it's like swimming upstream and, and, you know, fighting a fight. And it, and it is, I, I do try to always give the grace of, it's so [00:26:00] much easier for somebody like myself or you that. Had such severe negative consequences to living, you know, eating the standard American diet.
And, and so, you know, for me there, I, there's no, you're not going to eat rice. I'm not going to eat gluten. You know, like there's no way I would do that to myself versus. Someone who hasn't really connected all those dots yet, or somebody who would like to prevent illness, but you know, isn't really, doesn't, can't feel that direct impact.
Mark Carlson: Yeah.
Julie Michelson: talk to us a little bit about you, you know, said we're gonna connect Crohn's and autoimmune and, and I again, sometimes think I'm educated. I'm like, I thought Crohns was an autoimmune condition. So let, let's talk about that. Explain to us what do they know?
Mark Carlson: Yeah, Well, it has been classified in autoimmune condition for a very long time, and in many cases it still is, [00:27:00] but is starting to change. So a quick refresher of your immune system is you have the two parts. You have the. The adaptive immune system that we're used to. You know, we come in, come in contact with a new virus, a new bacteria, something like that, that we don't, our body has not seen before.
So in order to develop some kind resistance against it, it creates , what's the word? Antibodies. It, it creates antibodies. And we can see this when this whole system of creating antibodies and being able to fight a disease goes haywire into the autoimmune issues. So Celiac, you know, has an antibody counterpart.
Rheumatoid arthritis has an antibody counterpart. So these
Julie Michelson: Shemos. Yep. Up.
Mark Carlson: shemos. Does
Julie Michelson: and I always say this is a, it is. It's a good system. It's just, as you mentioned, when it goes awry that we end up with auto units when we start attacking [00:28:00] self.
Mark Carlson: Right? It starts attacking itself. Well, the funny thing is with Crohn's, there has been no antibody found for Crohn's, and they don't expect there will be. So the other part of the immune system is the in native immune system, the immune system that we're born with. When, when we, when we're very small, we can have a cut and it gets a little bit inflamed and heals up.
Well, that's the, the immune system we're born with that knows how to deal with that. Well, just like any other genes, it can go awry as well too. And when the innate immune system goes awry, it's more systemic. So crohn and systemic means it inflams anywhere in the. So what they're starting to call Crohn's is an autoinflammatory disease
Julie Michelson: Ah, okay.
Mark Carlson: so than a autoimmune.[00:29:00]
So it does the inflammation.
Julie Michelson: Mm-hmm.
Mark Carlson: And it, it, but it doesn't do it. It you, it does focus it in the gut. But as Crohn's is known to expand more than say u you uc does. I had it everywhere and, but it was concentrated into terminal ium, which is very, very typical of a Crohn's. But if I look back, my parents.
Told me that they went to they, it was shortly after well, well, I think their first big vacation with me when I was young and around two years old, they had to leave and, and this was thousands of miles away. They finally had to leave and come back home because I had so many ulcers in my mouth and, You know, just scream as a little kid.
Just couldn't take that kind of stuff. And I remember as a child, I don't know, maybe even up through teenagers, I would on a regular basis get [00:30:00] ulcers like in my mouth as well too. So that kind of shows where Crohn's does expand. And it's also, I kind call, I, I'm starting to see Crohn's as more like a, as a cascade disease. Shortly after I was diagnosed, I started having my physician ask me, Well, do I have any arthritis?
Julie Michelson: Mm-hmm.
Mark Carlson: I was like, No, I, I don't, don't really have any. And they kept asking, Found
arthritis itself
to Crohn's makes more sense as an autoinflammatory rather than autoimmune. Cause it works with the the innate immune. It's, it's, it's a disruption of the immune, the innate immune system where it attacks itself and it's kind more generalized. It may start in the gut, but easily other autoimmune [00:31:00] systems autoimmune diseases,
Julie Michelson: Wow. So mechanism. Mechanism of action. Is different. Expression is similar cuz most autoimmune conditions also it's systemic inflammation. It's, you know, RA isn't just joint pain. It can affect the heart, It can affect, you know, So so I, I love that understanding of, okay, you know, this is a different process kind of going on behind the scenes.
You are, you focus on. Not disease management, right? We're trying to shift the focus from disease management to building health.
Mark Carlson: That's right.
Julie Michelson: talk about that. Share with us this approach of, you know, if you, if you really wanna solve the problems you have to build health.
Mark Carlson: Yeah. I, I kind of say Now look, the doctors worry about your z. And our [00:32:00] job is to worry about our health. And they're two totally separate things. We put this health, this what kind of diet do I need to do? What kinda exercises do on our doctors, which is completely crazy and they don't even want that either.
That's not their responsibility. But we kind of, we always say that, We'll, talk to your doctor before starting this exercise program or talk to your doctor about what kinda, what do you need to eat, but they don't want. And they had no training in that. And I started realizing that with some of my experiences about the doctors saying, My diet has nothing to do with it, even though I went from pain to no pain.
And, and so I went down. For me, it was a path of going, you know, what kind of diet is right for me? What type, how is my rest? Like, you know, am I sleeping well at. And am I doing the right exercise? Am I actually doing the right [00:33:00] kind of exercise? Which I was not at the time, I was doing a lot of the, you know, at the time it was kinda like sprinting hit that kinda stuff swapped it all over to doing just resistance training.
I could recover so much better from that and I, and it, and it had the benefit of. Helping me sleep better at night as well too. And, and, and a lot of the stress reduction side of things was, was really big. And, and for me, what that turns into now is not just the stress that we kind always talk about, like the emotional stress of, of things or just stressful situations, but the hidden stressors.
And so, I kind of had an avoidance of doing tests after all the poking and
Julie Michelson: fair
Mark Carlson: dones. Scary after a
into functional lab [00:34:00] testing and opened up a whole new world about what to look. So then instead of focusing on the disease of Crohn's, I would look at things like, Well, are my hormones balanced? You know, my corsol, the d e a ratio, What's that? In my immune system, my secretory iga. You know, how, how is that my digestion?
You know, this is one of the things that for me, I. Is a leading indicator. You know, I look at things like indican it, it's kind of, it's a, it's a market that shows how well protein is being broken down and absorbed in the gut. So if you, if protein does not, it ends up futurizing then, then you get some this sy release that you can test for.
So you. I'm starting to look for all of these kind of markers, Sluggish liver, you know all these kind of things. So I start working on this oxidative [00:35:00] stress. I start working on all these kind of things, and so what I do now is kind of hit. Hit at, hit at it very hard, very comprehensively at first to find out exactly what's going on in my body right now.
Not just Crohns, not just the gi, not just my microbiome, but all those other things I mentioned as well too. And it gives me a very clear sense of all the things I can actually work toward to build my help up, you know, going forward. And that has made all the difference in the world. So I can, I can map out going forward.
You know, what I need to do on the, my diet, my rest, my exercise, my supplementation, the stress to relieve those hidden stressors, you know, internally as well too. So,
Julie Michelson: Sure.
Mark Carlson: so that's, that's kind of, that's kind of how it, it's taken me and, and that's actually not even looking at Crohn's anymore. And
Julie Michelson: Right.
Mark Carlson: I haven't looked at Crohn's in 10 years and it's [00:36:00] been wonderful for me.
Julie Michelson: I love it. And, and that's, This is functional medicine, right? This is what we do when, when we, We all need these systems. We need these building blocks. And when we look for those deficits and roadblocks really to healing because the body is designed to heal. And when you're expressing something like Crohn's or RA or whatever it is, you've got roadblocks.
And so yes, we need to remove the roadblock, but like you said, we need to build the. And get those systems working beautifully. And then, you know, we're not using names of diagnoses, we're we're just people creating wellness. That's the, that's the beauty of it.
Mark Carlson: exactly it. Well said.
Julie Michelson: It's amazing. So do you have a, I think I know the answer just from what you had said, but is there a specific diet that you recommend or is this an individualized.[00:37:00]
Mark Carlson: Well, short answer is individualized thing. I, the diet that I end up kind of doing a default and, and it's not really so much a diet as a list that I, I referenced before. I, I call it a specific keto food list. So it is that specific carbohydrate diet and then taking away some of the, the histamine, the oscillates, that kinda stuff.
And and normalized it for low blood sugar, low insulin reaction foods as well too. And, and that's kind of my go to list, but it's not really a full on diet. You can do it so many different ways. Matter of fact, I keep it a spreadsheet so I can sort. Well, what, what affects the blood sugar the most?
What's the most histamine, you know, and I can go down the line as well too. Or just carbs, calories, that kinda stuff. So it's very, it's a very nice utility type sheet. So yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Well that's [00:38:00] been a lot of my career is in technology, so it kinda. Know, the engineering side comes out when, when that goes in.
So, yeah, so I guess that's kind of my go to. But if, if I'm talking generally, what I always recommend is more of a paleolithic, you know, hundred gatherer type diet. And I go for more, yeah, I go for more higher fat as well too. We all still have this fat phobia, which. Probably the thing that is one of the biggest roadblocks that I've found for most everybody.
Getting into a diet that actually will get you, you know, healthy. I mean, that's, that's probably one of the big things. So that's when I work with people, that's probably one of the, the bigger things I have to work with. That takes a long time to kind of break through that.
Julie Michelson: That's decades of programming. We all need to, I remember when I first. Started, you know, I, I understood my br like logically and scientifically why I [00:39:00] needed the fat. And I just remember gagging on it, in the beginning, you know, and I can tell you it has been ages since I've had a boneless skinless chicken breast.
Thank goodness,
I had enough of those through the first part of my life , you can't go back. You just, you know, when, when you feel your body come alive, that wellness that you're talking about again, it's now, you know, you don't wanna go, don't wanna go the other way.
So what is one step that listeners can take today to start to improve their health or start to build wellness for themselves.
Mark Carlson: One step.
Julie Michelson: I know it's a trick question. It's tough
Mark Carlson: Yeah. And, and the funny thing is, I knew you were gonna ask that as well too,
Julie Michelson: I know, but it's so hard to pick one
Mark Carlson: It is, you
Julie Michelson: to start to move the needle. Something they can do.
Mark Carlson: I, I think it's, I think the main thing is we [00:40:00] have this, we're we're told to set goals. And when this areas, it'll probably be around New Year's time. Right? New Year's resolution. You have New Year's resolution start Yeah. To start working out every day or have New Year's resolution to, to eat better, whatever that happens to.
Those are goals, right? And I think that's the wrong path to take. And if, if I would have one thing to say is, is stop with the goals and start with. Building a process, a system. So instead of well, I'm gonna go work out every day, it kind of sets you up for failure cuz you're not gonna do it, right?
I mean, that's what always happens, but think about what's going on in your life. That is conducive to working out every day or eating well every day. So the podcast, you know, when you have something coming in your ear that's talking about help, talking about working out, and, and it might be a specific thing [00:41:00] that, that you like as well too.
It starts building that kind of constant. Instead of the billboards coming at you every day, you're starting to have other things coming. So you're thinking. How does my life need to be structured so I can do these things, Not this goal of I wanna work out every day. How can you structure your life?
So when you're going to work and you have all, you know, you have all these billboards coming at you, take the countryside. Yes, it's gonna take longer for you to get to work, but maybe you need to go to bed a little hour early anyway. So you start thinking about, well, how can I structure my life rather than having goals to do these specific things?
How can I structure my life to where it's a healthy lifestyle going forward? That takes longer, but it's way more sustainable to keep as well too. So you're going to bed an hour early. You're, you're taking the countryside to work. You're, you're seeing pastures in nice moving cows instead [00:42:00] of the fla of fish billboards coming. And, and you're getting these podcasts coming in to start to talk about health, starting to talk about exercise, you know, new ways of doing. So what you're doing is you're building this, this, this loop, this loop of reinforcing healthy lifestyles. And that is what starts really making you have the big changes going forward.
So I, I guess that's a lot. I know you wanted something short and quicky.
You
Julie Michelson: Well, I will, I'll sum it up for you so that it's the one thing, which what I heard you say was, you know, instead of setting the goals that we never stick with anyway, really take the. Time to create that system, to build the healthy, healthy lifestyle. And like you said, You think about it, it, so I, you know, something you can start today is thinking about what does that look like?
What would it take? And that's how you set yourself up for success. So I, I think that's a beautiful [00:43:00] one thing. It's a, it's a, it's an amazing overarching and we share this, you know, as a coach, it's, I, I don't wanna say I don't like goals. Goals are great. I don't like resolutions and I don't like, you know, it's, it's Part of what I do in supporting my clients is we make sure we're setting it up for six.
You know, they'll say, Oh no, I'm just gonna cook, you know, on plan. Well, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like, let's start with, you know, what are you gonna make? What's the grocery list? When are you gonna shop? You know, all these parts and pieces, and that's where
Mark Carlson: So, So what's in your
Julie Michelson: to. Yeah.
Mark Carlson: exactly. What do, if you open up your pantry, do you have a whole bunch of processed food sitting there? Well, you do. Then you're probably not gonna have, you're not gonna be successful with the goal of not food's much harder
Julie Michelson: Yeah, so start is that that beginning of the setup would be, you know, pantry, clean out time and you know, [00:44:00] really, really figuring out what that looks like. And I love what you said back to the, your, the systems guy, you know, Allows you to create that system for.
Mark Carlson: That's right, and don't, don't beat yourself up if you know you have these moments where if things don't, it's not about things that to.
Julie Michelson: I love it. Every, every one day better or one thing better is, is moving you in the right direction. So for people who listen on the go on that nice country drive to work, if they're lucky enough to have that where can listeners find you?
Mark Carlson: The best place is my website. It's www.healthundercontrol.com. They can also send me an email, mark@healthundercontrol.com as well too.
Julie Michelson: Wonderful. Mark, thank you so much. You have [00:45:00] shared some amazing gold with us today.
Mark Carlson: Well thank you Julie's. Thank you so much for having me on this. The work you're doing here is fantastic. Oh, and I wish you Years and years of success.
Julie Michelson: Thank you so much. Right back at you. For everyone listening. Remember, you can get the show notes and transcripts by visiting inspired living.show. I hope you did great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I'll see you next week.
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My Guest For This Episode
Connect with Mark Carlson
Mark Carlson
Mark spent his 30s struggling through gut pain and medical testing, including many nights waking from fear that he could no longer provide for his family.
Despite being diagnosed with Crohn's, a severe irritable bowel disease, Mark climbed the corporate ladder, finished an MBA, and raised three kids ... unfortunately, he also lost part of his GI track in the aftermath.
Now in his 50s, he has been in remission for over 10 years and has turned to helping others take a much quicker path to health.
Mark is a board certified FDN Practitioner working with high performance Crohnies who feel their ambition draining away. He uncovers a client's hidden healing opportunities using objective lab testing and plots a clear path to build their health.
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