Day 19

Today I didn't introduce any foods.  But I did get bloated around 3pm and stayed that way until about 10pm.  I think it might be a delayed reaction to the milk.  I don't feel that I'm getting good concrete evidence as to what is bothering me and that bothers me!  But one thing that is positive- my mood is much better.  I thought work went well and I had a positive attitude.  I've even laughed more lately! Which is great!  Definitely worth continuing to stick to it and see what else happens.  Tomorrow I was supposed to go out for Italian with a friend but we are now doing sushi since that is much more FODMAP friendly.  I'm going to try to stick to it...but may take a breather on Easter :) We'll see.... Have a great night!

Day 18- Milk

I got home from work late!  I drank about 12 ounces of milk at 6:38pm.  At about 6:49pm I thought I felt weird...maybe just paranoia?
Anyways, I'll take it out tomorrow.  Because I'm not drinking ounces of milk. bleh.
I made some tacos tonight.  Using this recipe. They were yummy!

Days 16 and 17

Yesterday I tried 3 cloves of garlic and not much of anything happened.  Just kind of burping.  Don't know what that means?  I think it means I'll need to try it again to see if I react.  But today I moved on to milk.  I drank about 6 ounces.  My stomach made some definite gurgly noises and got bloated, but not as bad as what has happened when I ate apples.  There wasn't pain, just discomfort.  So tomorrow I'll try it again, only with 12 ounces. I'm not a big milk drinker.  This was probably the first time since high school that I've drank a glass of plain white milk.  I don't plan on permanently adding it to my diet, but I eat a lot of other foods that have lactose- sour cream, cottage cheese, ice cream to name a few. Mmmmmm....ice cream :)

Days 12, 13, 14, 15.... and possible reaction to GARLIC!

Nothing exciting happened the last few days of the elimination portion- hence the lack of blogging.  Yesterday was my first challenge day.  There's a lot of information on the web, but not much about how to challenge FODMAPs back into your diet.  I searched and searched and ended up with a plan which combines a few different methods I read about.  I will challenge one food from each group to start with.  There was a site that recommended the following challenges:
Fructose- Mango- 1/2 mango
Lactose-Milk- 1/2-1 cup
Fructans- Garlic- 1 clove
Galactans- Chickpeas- 1/2 cup
Mannitol- Mushrooms- 1/2 cup
Sorbitol- Apricots- 2-4 dried apricots

My plan is to challenge the food for 3 days.  On day 1 I will eat the amount listed above, day 2 I will eat double, day 3 triple (unless I have a strong reaction on one of those days).  Then I will remove that food from my diet again, if necessary be completely FODMAP free for a couple of days before reintroducing the next food.  I will not mix the sugar groups above or keep a food in my diet while reintroducing another food. Some of the information I've read talks about not reacting to 2 different types of sugar on their own, but if a person eats them combined they get sick.  Ideally I will record times I eat, everything eaten, quantity of food eaten, and any times of digestive issues along with specifics on pain.

Yesterday I reintroduced garlic.  I made some potatoes and seasoned them with 1 clove of garlic. I only ate about half of the potatoes so I probably didn't get the full effect, but I had no reaction.  Today I took some Panda puffs to work and Pamela's Lemon shortbread cookie (yum!).  When I got home I made some food.  I used the marinara I had made that was fodmaps free and added 2 cloves of garlic to a serving.  I cooked up some chicken and topped it with the sauce and some mozzarella.  I also ate the leftover potatoes.  I ate at about 4:45pm and at aboug 5:50pm I felt a pain in my stomach.  Not the worst I've had it, but it was noticeable since my stomach had been feeling so good the past couple of weeks.  I'm not entirely convinced, although I probably should be.  But I think I will try the garlic again tomorrow and triple it and see if there is a reaction.  I really didn't think I was going to react to fructans.  Trying not to be sad about it.

Day 11 -Sunshine!

Today I was on the road for work a lot.  I was so grateful I had gone and picked up some convenience foods! No new recipes tried.  I did enjoy a day of sunshine and it's 6:10pm and still sunny! Love it!  No GI symptoms. Love that too!

Day 10

Today I hit my calorie goal!  A big part of this was because I threw Paleo out the window for the day.  I bought some prepackaged foods-some fodmap friendly cookies and some potato chips.

I had 2 hamburgers and some pineapple for lunch.

For supper I made a meatza- it's a pizza with meat for the crust.  I didn't try to put any toppings on it so I was pretty much left with a meat crust, marinara sauce and some mozzarella cheese. (I also added cheese in today!)  It was good.  Something different.  The marinara sauce is really yummy.  Next time I'll probably reduce the sugar and balsamic vinegar (maybe by 1/2 or a little less-at least to start with).  The recipe I used for the marinara sauce can be found here.

No GI issues to report.

Day 9

Bad preparation meant no food today until I got home from work around 5:30pm.  I made some bacon and eggs and a hamburger. Protein packed.  Tried to make it calorie dense, but still under goal for the day. Nothing much else to report.

Day 8

Today was a little crazy because of work.  I didn't eat anything before work and didn't take anything with me.  When I got home I ate a hamburger with lettuce/tomato/mustard and had a couple of hard boiled eggs. I also made banana ice cream.  It wasn't too bad.  I used 3 frozen bananas, 1/2 can of coconut milk and a little over 1 t of vanilla.  Pureed it all together.  The result is the consistency of ice cream and the temperature of ice cream.  The coconut milk and vanilla kill a little of the banana flavor. It still tastes like bananas, but just not as intense.  It was a decent sweet treat.  If I was a bigger fan of bananas I would LOVE it, but I still currently like it enough that I would make it again.

day 7

Again, I wasn't craving or hungry for much today. I hope the lack of cravings means my body is free of the addiction of all those sugary foods I love so much! I hope it means things are healing and I'll just keep feeling better and better with each day.  Stomach/GI wise, no issues.  I could hear my stomach digesting after I ate supper, but it wasn't painful/gassy.  Just noise, and I can live with that.  I'm also hoping as my body heals and  I eat healthy/safe foods that my mood will improve.  I feel tired/moody/anxious/grouchy a lot of the time without anything I'm able to identify as causing me to feel that way.  I'm also trying to establish a better sleep pattern to help with that. I would say I have a 50% success rate with following my sleep schedule right now.

For supper I made 2 burgers and put some paleo mayo, mustard, tomato and lettuce on them.  Good stuff.

After 1 week I'm down about 10 pounds.  So that's an additional positive bonus to being on a FODMAP free diet.

day 6

I wasn't hungry for much today, except brownies :)

I skipped lunch and just had some plain chicken for supper, all by its lonesome.  Sometimes you just have days like that, right?  Kept up on the water and I bet I'll get an appetite back tomorrow.

Day 5

Had a salad for lunch and more of that bacon potato salad.  I think I only have 1 serving left, praise the Lord! Supper was just a brownie.  Nothing too exciting to report on today.  I have a feeling the real excitement will start when I begin adding in foods :)

Day 4

Continue to be free of any GI distress.
Just eating mostly leftovers!
Lunch was chicken, bacon potato salad (when will it be gone?!- next time I'll make a 1/2 batch.  or less.), pineapple, and a flourless brownie.  For supper I made a salad with romaine lettuce, sprouts, tomato and a can of tuna mixed with about 1 T of the paleo mayo (which, since I made it with bacon grease, made it taste like bacon flavored tuna...edible, not delicious).  Still drinking lots of water.

Day 3- flourless brownies

No GI issues at all- FODMAP friendly foods = so far, so good.  Nervous already about the reintroduction phase, but I've got some time before that.

Today I feel more energetic and my stomach is completely calm- so weird and wonderful.

I made some FODMAP free brownies- using THIS recipe, but modifying a little. (adding a little arrowroot flour, pinch of salt, and using cocoa powder). It was chocolatey to be sure.

Day 2 FODMAPs

Lunch was chicken and bacon potato salad.  Supper was chicken, salad, grilled pineapple and some more bacon potato salad. I will admit I'm craving sweets, but the pineapple was super delicious and that helped curb cravings.  Still getting in lots of water.  I slept almost 11 hours last night! Whoa! I'm not sure what that was about since I've been doing well with going to bed early all week. Maybe I'm still playing catch up after years of poor sleep habits.  Either way, it was nice to sleep in without an alarm.
Heres' a picture of supper.

Here we go again! This time FODMAPs! (and some paleo thrown in there)

I'm on my 103rd diet- FODMAPs, still trying to figure out my stomach woes, but this one so far is promising (and depressing). Promising on the one hand because I did it for a short time and it worked! Depressing because I found out apples make me deathly ill :(

After they hypoallergenic trial I saw my GI doctor. I told her what had happened- that I didn't really react to introducing any specific food groups back in. Except I got a little burpy with the nightshades. She diagnosed me with GERD and gave me Ranitidine- which I took for a minute and promptly stopped. It made me have burning and intense reflux like never before! Yikes! I'm sure it helps some people, just not this person.  Besides the GERD dx she also introduced me to the FODMAP friendly diet. I tried it for a couple weeks (before another GI check up) and during the elimination phase I accidentally ate something with apple puree in it and got oh so very sick. Apples! I'm devastated and still not over it. I actually forgot about the apples trying to kill me when I was visiting some family and they had homemade applesauce warmed up with cinnamon. I helped myself to a heaping serving and then the stomach pains came...sooooo painful! Here is how much I love apples- favorite pie- apple, favorite crisp- apple, annual family trip- apple orchard, favorite food my grandma made- apple butter...I could go on. This blow was so devastating I didn't even want to know what foods were bothering me so I have just been eating whatever I want for a few months. But some thing has gotta give and it's time to figure this out once and for all!

Currently my goals are
1.) to consume 100g of protein each day
2.) do intermittent fasting (wait to begin eating until 4 hrs after waking up and stop eating after 8 hours from the start time)
3.) consume 1500 calories daily
4.) consume 100 ounces of water daily
Ok, so those first 4 goals are really the goals my personal trainer has for me.
5.) Follow the FODMAPs friendly diet  (Read about FODMAPs here.)
6.) Follow a Paleo diet (mostly because it can fall in line with FODMAPs anyways) (Read about Paleo here.)
7.) Get at least 8 hours of sleep a night.

Probably the things I will focus the most on are 1. FODMAP friendliness 2. calories and 3. water. I've already made progress with intermittent fasting and sleep- so hopefully those good habits stick.  I'm going to be trying to combine FODMAPs and Paleo and found THIS awesome site to help

After a period of time (appx 2 weeks) I'll start reintroducing FODMAPs back, but my GI doctor did say that just because you don't/do react to one food in one sugar group that doesn't mean you will or won't react to all the foods.  Reintroduction is literally one food at a time. This is going to take so long.

So today was DAY 1 and here's what it looked like:
Got up, had a big glass o' water, had some of the cold pressed coffee I made the night before.  I tried to make a iced coffee with coconut milk and stevia- it was drinkable, but not awesome.  Cold pressed coffee might be best just on its own.
I then had multiple other big glasses of water.
11am- I can start eating!  I waited until about noon.  I had packed 3 ounces plain cooked chicken breast and a salad (romaine lettuce, tomato, green onion, olive oil, balsamic vinegar).
More water.
When I got home I got adventurous.  I'm allowing myself bacon (as long as there is no sugar added) as a bit of a treat (I'll mostly try to get protein from chicken and fish).  So I decided to make an original recipe (at least I think it's original) Bacon Potato Salad. mmmhmmm.

I cooked up the bacon and save the drippings.
I used those drippings to make a Paleo mayo.
I boiled some eggs and potatoes-cooled-diced.  Diced up some green onion and crumbled the bacon.  I added some mustard and vinegar to the mayo and mixed everything together.  Amazing!  It was so much work, I'm glad it  tasted good.  Definitely a "treat" to be had on this diet.  I was having a hard time hitting 1500 calories until I made this deliciousness.