Thursday, October 28, 2010

Elimination Diet; End of Day Four

Only three more days! And guess what? My cravings have pretty much disappeared. Sometimes it just takes a few days of getting it "out of your system" for cravings to diminish. Does this mean I will never eat chocolate or peanut butter or dairy again? Heck no, because I never had a problem with eating too much of it in the first place. However, if I really felt I ate too much and didn't have control over these foods, I might end up giving them up for good.

By the way, thanks for your suggestions on a dairy and soy free yogurt. The only issue I have is that the most popular suggestion I received, coconut yogurt, doesn't come in a plain flavor! Thankfully the cultured coconut milk does come in plan. The flavored ones all contain ingredients I can't have either on the elimination diet, or FODMAPs. My life is over. hehe, jk.


A few more new things I've discovered since my last post;

- I love organic chicken. Seriously, it tastes like a whole new product! I always buy natural chicken (without added hormones) but the extra benefits of the organic chicken really show up in the taste. Maybe it's just the particular brand I bought? Who knows, but it's delicious.

- I am not really feeling any better, overall, but then again, I never felt bad. I think my real elimination diet was my FODMAPs diet. I've felt great since taking all of those foods out of my diet. Actually I'm finding out that I really shouldn't be drinking the cultured coconut milk. It's giving me bad gas. I'm not supposed to have coconut according to FODMAPs, but someone told me that some people can handle the milk. Apparently, I can't.

I was hoping giving up dairy would help my allergies (I've heard some people swear by that concept...) but I'm still getting random allergy flare ups in the middle of the day. Maybe I should be more patient?

- I'm able to survive on only about 200-250 mg caffeine per day, still! Sure, you may be thinking that's still a lot, but considering just last week I was doing 300-350 mg/day, I'm pretty proud of myself. We even have coffee available to us all day long, for FREE, at Market District, but I haven't touched it.



Here are some things I've been eating:

Lunch is still a spinach salad with veggies, quinoa, and balsamic vinegar. Tomorrow I'm going to add organic chicken to my salad.



I've also been packing this delicious acorn and butternut squash soup, for which I will post directions and the recipe soon. It turns more soupy once it's heated (the picture below was taken when it was cold).


I'm also packing my granola, veggies chips, and a banana.

I've also started eating these curry flavored twigs. They are fabulous!



Dinners have been steamed kale, topped with tomatoes and nutritional yeast. This combination is actually very satisfying. I have some type of fish every night for my protein. Last night it was salmon, tonight I did tilapia.



We gave out Halloween candy tonight.




This was staring me in the whole time (and still is...).



Now that the Trick-Or-Treating is over, I will make my new favorite "elimination diet dessert"!


I mix about 1/2 cup frozen blueberries with about 3/4 cup almond milk and some Stevia in the Magic Bullet. I then put it in the freezer for about twenty minutes. It's incredibly satisfying and I plan on making this even when I'm no longer on this diet. Who needs ice cream when you have this?!?! Ok, maybe I still want ice cream, but this is a great substitute every once in a while.


I'll post again on Sunday, my last day! I may end the diet Sunday evening, since I started on last Sunday evening so technically that would be a full week.... We'll see how I feel!



22 comments :

  1. I loooooove those curry sticks and twigs! So good! The regular sea salt ones are good too!

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  2. I like the idea for your "ice cream" and also can't wait for you to post the soup recipe. I love a good soup in the winter!

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  3. Interesting craving observations. :)

    I also think organic chicken tastes SOO much better. My mom buys Amish organic chicken, and those birds always taste amazing.

    I really admire you for trying (and sticking to) this diet!

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  4. I was told by my parents when I was very young that I was allergic to milk. But the only symptom was that it set off my asthma. I have never met anyone else with this "allergy" and I've always wondered if it was true. I just grew up drinking soy. And eventually began eating things made from milk- and having no reaction. I'm curious if you stick with the no dairy for a while longer if it will help your allergies? Or make no difference either way...

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  5. so interesting that you actually find out that what you were doing was just perfect for you, no more restriction necessary to feel good! :D
    that "ice cream" looks so good! I'll definitely try to make it! ;)

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  6. Hang in there, girl! I'm glad to see you're keeping in some caffeine...a girl needs her sanity!

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  7. I forget...can you have chickpeas? My favorite baking thing is pureed chickpeas WITH COCOA...and a homemade almond butter on top.

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  8. Your frozen dessert looks amazing!

    Glad the cravings went away, and I'm not surprised. At one time, I thought I couldn't live without Diet Coke, but once I stopped drinking it, it was a lot easier than I had thought (once I got past the first few days).

    Hope the last few days of your elimination diet go well!

    Happy Halloween!

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  9. Finally caught up on your elimination diet posts! Thanks so much for sharing this experience, Gina - sometime we really just don't know how things will be until we try them, and now I don't have to - yet ;) I thought it might be really, REALLY hard since you're on the FODMAPS diet, too, but you're handling the restrictions really well! It must be so rough to be on this experiment during Halloween, though :O I think I'm going to try to cut back on the caffeine, too, as you're making it look so easy :)

    I was going to suggest that SO coconut yogurt, too - I'm surprised they don't make that in plain. Can you have rice yogurt? There's a company called Ricera that makes a rice yogurt that I don't think has any of the FODMAPS ingredients.

    I'm looking forward to reading about the rest of your experiment Have a great weekend, Gina!

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  10. I think things like this are really tough to stick to if they aren't making you feel better!

    Why did you guys do Trick or Treating so early?

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  11. I feel you on the candy! I bought our Trick-or-Treat candy today (Delaware's time is Sunday 6-8) and I can't eat even one! Therefore, I am baking. Oops :)

    Congrats on the caffeine, that's huge for you...I know! ;)

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  12. so interesting so far! I just read your past posts on the elimination diet. It sounds like youa re really adjusting. Just like anything, it def takes a few days to get used to! I could NEVER go from driking coffee to eliminating it all together, baby steps right?? the food looks great!!

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  13. That quinoa salad looks great!

    That is good to know that you didn't find following the diet was too limiting. I am sure it would take a couple days to get used to it.

    Thanks for sharing your eats! Have a great weekend, Gina!

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  14. Too bad the coconut milk isn't agreeing with you. I work with a lady that suffered a persistant cough. She went to see a nautropath who recommended that she give up diary b/c she suspected it was the root probelm of the cough. She did and hasn't had that nagging cough since!

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  15. You're doing such a great job with the elimination diet. It does sound like you already eliminated most of what was giving you trouble (other than the coconut kefir). I recently decided to finally give up certain foods to see how my stomach responded and it's been quite amazing! I just need to keep up with the trial and error to see what foods suit my stomach best.

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  16. You are doing such a great job with the elimination diet! Oh and you just reminded me that I finally need to try quinoa =)

    I need to read your older posts on this diet...I have been so behind on blogs.

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  17. Hey, something is wrong with your site in Opera, you should check into it.

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  18. haha its so fun to see how it was like the worst thing ever a few days ago and now you're not minding it as much! i love this experimentation :)

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  19. I've never tried the curry twigs but I do love all things curry.

    I'm going to have to try your dessert - it looks so simple and tasty :)

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  20. Glad to see it is going well and the cravings are subsiding. I agree that you probably did not really need to eliminate these since you basically already did an elimination diet and had results, so this was more like seeing what people would go through to eliminate these foods. I am sure this is a valuable learning experience.

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  21. That dessert looks so good!! Happy Halloween :)

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