New to the diet this week are soy and wheat. These are the "big" foods for me. These are the foods that are part of my everyday diet that were a big change for me when I started the elimination diet to find out if I have food allergies.
When I sought out another margarine other than Earth Balance since E.B. contains soy I couldn’t find one. Every other margarine I checked contained whey or gelatin or milk solids. Yuck. Oh and now I know why “I can’t believe it’s not butter” can call itself that, it’s because one of the first ingredients is buttermilk! Okay so big deal I give up margarine. It’s been a week and now I don’t even care if I eat it ever again and this is coming from the person who was an Earth Balance junkie. Score one for the diet (actually two since I’m now off the bean as well).
Friday I introduced soy back into the diet with some soymilk in my Vega smoothie. I don’t usually drink soymilk ever, but having shopped for the detox we were a little low on soy supplies and I needed to put it back in my diet somehow. db drinks soy every day so we had the milk on hand. For dinner I added a little cubed tofu and spinach together for a quick sauté on the side with my root veg soup (db was sick so we had to pass on the planned stir fry and I made some soup for us instead). So far there’s been zero reaction. Saturday was the same.
Sunday was wheat day.
Wheat didn’t worry me too much even with my lack of enthusiasm when I quickly tired of starting my day with rice cakes, almond butter and hemp seeds. Time for oatmeal goodness and…uh oh…no maple syrup. Okay plain oatmeal and fresh berries works with a little rice milk (by the way check the rice or almond milk ingredients for soy. I should probably make my own like my sis does but…I’m not there yet). That worked quite well actually.
With no bread in the house (db was too sick to bake and didn’t bother last week since I wasn’t eating bread anyhow) I made muffins for breakfast and ate several while watching the St. Louis Chicago game. They were fairly small muffins and St. Louis lost in overtime.
Sunday night pasta would be my next wheat meal. Rice pasta is yummy. I’m enjoying it, but db isn’t as keen and is “rootin’ for the gluten.” I made the good ol’ durum semolina in a simple tomato sauce. db had seconds. He felt much better today.
I feel fine. I did notice a little heavier feeling after my meal, but no adverse effects so far.
Next I think I will get to the corn. I still haven’t gone back to sugar and I think that one might be the key.
I’ve got 19 days to go.
Showing posts with label diets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label diets. Show all posts
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
So what will the vegan eat now?
So today is Day 4 of my diet. I start reintroducing the forbidden foods on Friday when I can eat one type of food two times a day for two days and record how my body reacts. By then I should be over the caffeine withdrawal and will be able to tell how my body reacts. At first I thought coffee would be the first thing I’d want back, but now that I’ve weaned myself off it I don’t think I can go back. I’ll go back to decaf eventually but I think caffeine is something I should do without. If you read about my days below you’ll understand why I’ve come to this decision.
Shopping has been relatively easy since I have pretty specific foods I'm craving that I know I can eat (avocados, rice crackers, hummus). db and I shopped on Sunday and spent even more time reading labels than usual and once again I was reminded how prevalent corn and soy are in our diets. Fortunately I don't have much of a sweet tooth so I'm not really craving or missing sugar at all. The fruit I eat is sweet enough.
How spoiled we are in North America to have so many choices. Really we have limitless choices of foods and this just amazes me even more when people still ask me "what do you eat?" when they find out I'm vegan. It's astounding the number of bad foods that are on grocery shelves that are so much a part of the industrial food production. I can find any variety of chips, frozen dinners, colas or sugary cereals, but I don't want those I just want to get more than one or two choices of apples when I know there are probably 15 or more varieties grown in BC alone.
As for reintroducing the food, I think I’ll start with corn since I suspect that will be fine and I can get back to snacking on tortilla chips and making enchiladas.
So this is how my diet went so far:
Day 1
I want my f***ing coffee!!!
Gone is my morning ritual of turning aromatic beans into a fine grind and measuring it into the espresso machine handle that automatically applies the perfect pressure to produce just the right crema atop my shot of espresso. Instead I made herbal tea that turned out to be a bit too ginger strong for me. The rice cakes with almond butter, hemp seeds and sliced banana were delicious. I started my supplements as prescribed by my ND and was feeling okay.
Two hours later the headache started and I knew I was well into caffeine withdrawal. I thought I’d go out for my 11 k run anyway and would probably feel fine once I got going. Wrong! I’ve never felt worse running. Chugging along I felt like someone was pulling me back and I was fighting the resistance. My legs ached and I felt like I had no strength in my hamstrings to get me up any slight slope. Usually I look forward to the hills, but the hills became impossible. I turned back and ran and walked home. Not a stellar performance.
I was worried about the evening because I was meeting Wandering Coyote and Red Jane for dinner. Even though we were going to a vegetarian restaurant I knew that I’d have to let go of the rules of the diet. That was fine. I can live with that. I tried to find solace in my steamed brown rice. The food was good and it was great to see both WC and RJ, but I was in my caffeine withdrawal fog and didn’t feel fully present (sorry WC and RJ). I think my energy was pretty low, which is part of Adrenal Fatigue and then being sans caffeine on top of it pretty much put me in the fog.
The upside? I slept a deep sleep. I had one of the best nights sleep I’ve had in a long time.
Day 2 (really Day 1 of the diet because of Day 1’s dinner)
Still no coffee??? And I have to go to work?
Again I felt fine for the first couple of hours in the morning, but the headache returned. It wasn’t as severe as Day 1 but it was still there and again I felt like I was walking in a fog, not fully present. Granted I can feel that way at work on the best of days, but Day 2 on Saturday was a fog with time standing still. I finally broke down and took advil that contains caffeine, but it took the edge off. I still had a headache, but at least it was quieter.
My commute home seemed endless and I’ve never been happier to arrive home (okay there was the time I had to spend the night in the woods and that may have been the one time I was happier to be home).
db made an amazing pizza with a rice crust. It was heaven.
Again I slept soundly.
Day 3
Latte time?
We discovered that db could not make me the tea latte because almond milk contains soy lecithin.
It’s true I’m an addict in withdrawal and am feeling so messed up without my daily shot of espresso I don’t know how long I’ll have enough energy to do anything.
I accepted the fact that there would be no latte and watched db delight in one of his peaked perfections of creamy soy latte excellence. That was satisfying enough. I did make us a nice brunch with home fried potatoes to go with my almond buttered rice cakes and hemp seeds. I watched db load up the earth balance and realized I didn’t miss wheat I missed the stuff I put on it,
the earth balance buttery spread, the vegenaise and all that good stuff. 
Of course I love db’s bread and it’s delicious, but I’m okay without it.
Still feeling foggy and as the day went on I tired out quickly. I spent some time at a friends place learning how to turn a pen (making a pen out of a wood blank using a lathe). Unfortunately the wood I chose was a bit prone to chipping out and that’s what it did. The first time I was able to salvage it, but the second time I realized that it was over and I’d have to start over, but next week since I already spent a couple of hours on this one pen. It doesn’t usually take so long, but I was learning and we did have to try and fix my initial chipping before going on. Anywho…I enjoyed using the lathe and turning a piece of wood.
db made rice pasta that was very good. It breaks down a little easier so db missed being able to twirl his durum semolina spaghetti around his fork. I think the rice pasta would work better in a short pasta like a penne or a fusilli.
Shopping has been relatively easy since I have pretty specific foods I'm craving that I know I can eat (avocados, rice crackers, hummus). db and I shopped on Sunday and spent even more time reading labels than usual and once again I was reminded how prevalent corn and soy are in our diets. Fortunately I don't have much of a sweet tooth so I'm not really craving or missing sugar at all. The fruit I eat is sweet enough.
How spoiled we are in North America to have so many choices. Really we have limitless choices of foods and this just amazes me even more when people still ask me "what do you eat?" when they find out I'm vegan. It's astounding the number of bad foods that are on grocery shelves that are so much a part of the industrial food production. I can find any variety of chips, frozen dinners, colas or sugary cereals, but I don't want those I just want to get more than one or two choices of apples when I know there are probably 15 or more varieties grown in BC alone.
As for reintroducing the food, I think I’ll start with corn since I suspect that will be fine and I can get back to snacking on tortilla chips and making enchiladas.
So this is how my diet went so far:
Day 1
I want my f***ing coffee!!!
Gone is my morning ritual of turning aromatic beans into a fine grind and measuring it into the espresso machine handle that automatically applies the perfect pressure to produce just the right crema atop my shot of espresso. Instead I made herbal tea that turned out to be a bit too ginger strong for me. The rice cakes with almond butter, hemp seeds and sliced banana were delicious. I started my supplements as prescribed by my ND and was feeling okay.
Two hours later the headache started and I knew I was well into caffeine withdrawal. I thought I’d go out for my 11 k run anyway and would probably feel fine once I got going. Wrong! I’ve never felt worse running. Chugging along I felt like someone was pulling me back and I was fighting the resistance. My legs ached and I felt like I had no strength in my hamstrings to get me up any slight slope. Usually I look forward to the hills, but the hills became impossible. I turned back and ran and walked home. Not a stellar performance.
I was worried about the evening because I was meeting Wandering Coyote and Red Jane for dinner. Even though we were going to a vegetarian restaurant I knew that I’d have to let go of the rules of the diet. That was fine. I can live with that. I tried to find solace in my steamed brown rice. The food was good and it was great to see both WC and RJ, but I was in my caffeine withdrawal fog and didn’t feel fully present (sorry WC and RJ). I think my energy was pretty low, which is part of Adrenal Fatigue and then being sans caffeine on top of it pretty much put me in the fog.
The upside? I slept a deep sleep. I had one of the best nights sleep I’ve had in a long time.
Day 2 (really Day 1 of the diet because of Day 1’s dinner)
Still no coffee??? And I have to go to work?
Again I felt fine for the first couple of hours in the morning, but the headache returned. It wasn’t as severe as Day 1 but it was still there and again I felt like I was walking in a fog, not fully present. Granted I can feel that way at work on the best of days, but Day 2 on Saturday was a fog with time standing still. I finally broke down and took advil that contains caffeine, but it took the edge off. I still had a headache, but at least it was quieter.
My commute home seemed endless and I’ve never been happier to arrive home (okay there was the time I had to spend the night in the woods and that may have been the one time I was happier to be home).
db made an amazing pizza with a rice crust. It was heaven.
Again I slept soundly.
Day 3
Latte time?
We discovered that db could not make me the tea latte because almond milk contains soy lecithin.
It’s true I’m an addict in withdrawal and am feeling so messed up without my daily shot of espresso I don’t know how long I’ll have enough energy to do anything.
I accepted the fact that there would be no latte and watched db delight in one of his peaked perfections of creamy soy latte excellence. That was satisfying enough. I did make us a nice brunch with home fried potatoes to go with my almond buttered rice cakes and hemp seeds. I watched db load up the earth balance and realized I didn’t miss wheat I missed the stuff I put on it,
the earth balance buttery spread, the vegenaise and all that good stuff. 
Of course I love db’s bread and it’s delicious, but I’m okay without it.
Still feeling foggy and as the day went on I tired out quickly. I spent some time at a friends place learning how to turn a pen (making a pen out of a wood blank using a lathe). Unfortunately the wood I chose was a bit prone to chipping out and that’s what it did. The first time I was able to salvage it, but the second time I realized that it was over and I’d have to start over, but next week since I already spent a couple of hours on this one pen. It doesn’t usually take so long, but I was learning and we did have to try and fix my initial chipping before going on. Anywho…I enjoyed using the lathe and turning a piece of wood.
db made rice pasta that was very good. It breaks down a little easier so db missed being able to twirl his durum semolina spaghetti around his fork. I think the rice pasta would work better in a short pasta like a penne or a fusilli.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
The Elimination Diet Challenge
So I saw the ND today. She was great and we sorted through my various health issues and I've started on a new plan to improve my health. She went over my blood test results with me and suggested that I do have a type of anemia. My iron is low as is my B12. Now my "traditional" doctor didn't see a problem with the iron and B12 levels, but the ND suggested that the prescribed guidelines for high and low levels is not a set rate. In other words, if I'm on the lower level as far as she's concerned it's too low and needs to be dealt with. Another area that she brought my attention to was my red blood cells (is this getting too personal? Maybe, but so-be-it.). From what I understood my red blood cell size is larger than normal. So the dizziness or lightheadedness I've been experiencing is most likely a symptom of anemia. There are several other indicative symptoms but there's no need to go into my whole history with everyone here.
Finally I feel like I'm getting to the root of the problem and can now treat it. It's such a great feeling. For once I left a doctor's office feeling better. I didn't get to leave without a B12 shot. Waaahhh! I hate needles. I mean I really really hate needles. I stop breathing when I see a needle (not a sewing needle thank goodness or a knitting needle). Anywho...I had the stupid shot in my hip and now it's a bit sore. I'll be stopping back once a week for a bit for a regular B12 shot. I asked her about the B12 patch, but she hadn't heard about it. I'm not even sure if it's in Canada yet. She thought it was a good idea but really felt the shot was the best option for immediate treatment. So I'll just have to deal with that.
I've got some new supplements and one of the things we discussed was having an allergy test. However, when I learned that the blood test she does cost 300 dollars I opted for the elimination diet as a way to test for allergies. I'll do the blood test when I have the extended health care plan (if ever). So...tomorrow I'll start my elimination diet. Being vegan it really isn't a huge change for me since many of my foods are on the "foods to include" list. The big one will be removing wheat from my diet since I eat bread 82 times a day and we have pasta almost as much. The big hurt will be eliminating caffeine. I can't even fathom what that's going to be like. Well, actually I can since I once went on the McDougall Program that required no caffeine and I became a herbal tea drinker. I remember three days of headaches and crankiness and about a week before I felt "better." db has promised to make me a tea latte with my unsweetened almond milk. He's also ready to research a new gluten free pizza crust so I can still enjoy pizza night. We bought some rice pasta that promises to be "Not Mushy" so that's promising. Between the supplements and the diet I should start to feel more energetic.
I do have dinner plans tomorrow but eating in a vegan restaurant should make things easier and I decided for this one night out I'm not going to be too concerned with food for one dinner. Being decaffeinated I just hope I can stay awake through dinner.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)