elimination diet – day 3

2nd day eating only protein & fat. I finally woke up with a flat stomach this am! Yeah! Although I had another episode of bloating in the am and the pm, it didn’t last more than 1 to 3 hours each time, so I consider it a big improvement! Apart from feeling very tired for maybe an hour after lunch, I felt great! For the first time in quite a long time, I had energy and good mental clarity and ability to focus. I was super thirsty all day long though and probably drank 2L of H20 & green tea! I’ll probably wait another day or two before reintroducing small amounts of veggies, just to be safe.

elimination diet – day 2

After my 3rd night and 3rd day in a row of feeling unwell, I decided to completely eliminate veggies today… I think it is the first time in quite a while that I haven’t eaten not even one bit of vegetables! lol

It is so tricky to know what veggies I react to and in what amounts and I just want to feel good again, like I was able to a few times last week. It is so frustrating not knowing what foods are causing me all of these problems, especially when following the guidelines of what should be tolerated with fructose malabsorption (the supposedly low-FODMAP diet).  So, my diet today was totally free of all FODMAP, how’s that?! =)

At the end of the day, I started feeling better, although still bloated, I had a boost of energy and jumped around for no reasons in my living room… I guess this is good sign! lol Hopefully, tomorrow I will get back to my normal baseline me… 😉

symptoms: super tired, lethargic with a brain fog for the first time of the day, increasing energy in the afternoon, abdomen still distended but improving.

elimination diet – day 1

symptoms: distended stomach, abdominal discomfort and pain, fatigue and brain fog

*** I started feeling bad 2 days ago 1 hour after taking a probiotic supplement [which I stopped] and maybe exacerbated by the balsamic vinegar I had yesterday??? I realized my balsamic vinegar actually has 8.7 g of carbs and 6.2 g of sugar, which is a lot… wrote to the company to have the breakdown of glucose to fructose, but have decided to stay away from vinegar during my elimination diet anyway to decrease the number of variables…

link to my elimination diet: initially and updated.

my elimination diet

UPDATE August 16/2011: I have refined my list of tolerated safe foods combining the Paleo diet + low food chemicals + low-FODMAPs and it can be found here in my latest post.

***

Ok, as you are aware, I have been dealing with a lot of different symptoms in the last months. I first thought going Paleo would clear everything. Since then, I was diagnosed with a parasite infection (Blastocystis Hominis), took 2 kinds of antibiotics (Tinidazole & Metronidazole), without any improvements in my symptoms. However, my last blood tests were showing improvements in many markers. I felt like eating some foods were making things worse for me, but couldn’t point my finger on it, until my gastroenterologist mentioned Fructose Malabsorption (FM). At first, I thought, well I don’t eat fruit nor sugar, so that cannot be the problem. However, I did my homework and found that FM is also linked to problems with ingesting fructans, sorbitol and mannitol (found in many vegetables).

investigating the low-FODMAPs diet

Yeah! Ok, I am 2 days shorts of my 30 days, but I had started before and will be continuing eating Paleo. I am quite happy and it has become second nature to eat gluten-free, dairy-free, legume-free and processed food-free. Although the Paleo diet has not miraculously cured my problems like I hoped it would, I am sure it helped me alleviate my symptoms and give a bit more strength to my immune system to fight this parasite. When I described the symptoms I still had to my gastroenterologist last week, which include fatigue, brain fog, abdominal distension, abdominal discomfort and at times, pain and cramps, she mentioned it may be due to the bug or to something else… like fructose malabsorption.

day 28

:: 9h30am: 2 free-range eggs + coconut oil + eggplant + tomato sauce

:: 1pm: free-range chicken + bok choy + GF tamari-sauce

::3h30pm: deviled eggs with homemade mayo (made with macadamia oil)

::5h30pm: grass-fed beef + red capsicum

::6h00pm: jap pumpkin + nutmeg + cinnamon

day 27

:: 9h30am: 2 free-range eggs + 1 zucchini + coconut oil

:: 1pm: grass-fed beef  + curry + green beans + butter

::3h30pm: celery stick + sun-dried tomato

::5h30pm: grass-fed beef + eggplant + mesclun + balsamic (I wish I could’ve had the avocado + homemade ketchup my boyfriend had, but these foods are high in FODMAPs, so I skipped them)

::6h00pm: jap pumpkin + nutmeg + cinnamon