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Hey all!

In an effort to sort out symptoms that are related to thyroid/adrenal issues and possible allergy symptoms that may be related to the thyroid/adrenal issues, I am doing an elimination diet. This is day three.
Question 1) I am wanting to know if on the starch list I am limited to just those listed: brown rice, sweet potatoes, winter squash, taro, tapioca rice four, and puffed rice. I would like to have regular potatoes but since they are in the nightshade family which can be problematic I thought they might not be on the list for a reason.
Question 2) I am eating homemade applesauce with prunes cooked together mixed with rice for breakfast. Do I need to count the fruit servings on the elimination diet and limit them like I would regularly? Cooked fruit seems pretty concentrated and is diminished in volume so 2 servings of fruit is not much volume wise.
Question 3) Can I have uncooked anything? I didn't see where Dr. McD explained why everything was suppose to be cooked and I am missing raw crunchy foods and bananas which I love.
Thanks in advance for the assistance.
Terry

The ED was very helpful to me in solving a host of inflammation problems. Here is a post about my experience with it: http://www.anti-itisdiet.blogspot.com/2 ... foods.html

My answers to your questions:

1. Yes, to start with, I (as an experienced layman) would say limit yourself to the listed starches, just to be safe. If you want to eat another starch, then make it your first test food.

Note that with one exception, rice, there are no grains on the list, and no other "seeds" -- nuts, beans, peas. That is not a coincidence. Grains and other seeds are potent foods, containing a lot of proteins. And proteins are implicated, apparently, in some reactions to foods.

2. Personally, I think the ED is difficult enough as it is. Don't worry about serving sizes. Just make sure you are eating a balanced meal of mostly starch, a serving or two of vegetables, and a serving or two of fruit. There is no magic percentage.

3. Dr. McDougall explains somewhere that cooking breaks down proteins. My personal view, as a layman, is that you can probably dispense with cooking very quickly. Try it as your first test or second.

Remember that the most suspicious foods are the ones you like the most and therefore eat frequently.

Thank you Burgess! I agree that the ED is a bit challenging. I am not hungry but I like to crunch on food and normally eat a lot of raw foods during the day. I understood the limited grains and no nuts or seeds. The idea of cooking my fruit though was a bit foreign other than applesauce and prunes which I like cooked.

Hey there all!

I am in day five of the elimination diet. I have strictly adhered to the regime though it is difficult. I am having worsened problems with constipation. While some of my constipation could be related to food sensitivities the bigger problem may be largely due to thyroid problems. Since I won't know about that piece until Tuesday I am going to go back to my regular McDougall regime until the picture of all symptoms is clearer. The constipation is very miserable now and I am starting to feel that it could be exacerbated by the brown rice.

As I am sure I will need to do this elimination process in the very near future to fine tune a diet that works to support my body optimally. Based on that knowledge, I am wondering if anyone else that has done the elimination diet found that rice was not a food that worked well for them?

In the last five days I have eaten brown rice, sweet potatoes, spinach, swiss chard, kale, zucchini, carrots, celery, apples, plums and a banana. Perhaps someone recognizes something else in this list that might be worsening my constipation.

Thanks for all the help!
Terry

As I think I noted before, rice on the ED is an anomaly. It is the only grain on the ED -- in fact, the only "seed" of any kind. I personally would not include it in the ED.

First, could you be more precise? When you say your constipation is worsening, what do you mean? Do you mean the frequency of bowel movements is less? If so, how often? Or do you mean the quantity is less? Or both?

Second, are you taking a probiotic? That should increase the quantity of the stool and probably increase the frequency of BMs.

Third, with the possible exception of the rice, I see nothing in your list of foods that would be constipating. (Bananas are low fiber, however.) To the contrary, what you are eating, for most people I have talked to, would increase the frequency and urgency of bowel movements -- the exact opposite of constipation.

Hey Burgess!

Thanks for your response. I will try to be more precise. I started the ED on Wednesday which was the last time I had a BM that felt like I had completed the mission and relieved the sense of needing to evacuate my bowels. I have had two subsequent strained attempts which ended in minor hard stools. I had multiple attempts each day with no more success.

Prior to switching to a plant based whole foods diet, I had no sense of urgency or pressure for three or four days had passed and then with straining and pain I could pass very large hard stool. Since changing my diet it got better for a short period to having more frequent though no less difficult to pass BMs. Then as I continued to adjust my dietary fiber upwards of 50+ grams per day it was more frequent though still not normal by Dr. McDougall's definition, and would be considered constipation.

Since starting the ED I now experience a sense of pressure and urgency that is a new sensation. I seem to feel like that all the time now though the BMs are less frequent and not complete.

Considering that constipation is a symptom of hypothyroidism and the doctor thinks that is probably one of my main disorders at the moment, I think I will need to wait to continue the ED once I have determined if my thyroid is causing a large part of this problem. If so then once I am on medication for that, I should be able to continue and figure out what is causing some of my other issues. I have enough health issues going on to keep me on the ED sweet potato fest for a good while! I feel like this 4.5 days on the ED plan has been a good experience and very educational. I know it will be a useful tool in the near future.

I really appreciate your sharing of your experiences with the ED and advice. Any input you have regarding the added info will certainly be helpful. I suspect I will be looking for more input on this subject.

Terry

Hi Terry2eat,
a while ago I tried just eating pumpkin as my starch for a day to help with weightloss (which it did) but it gave me loose BM. I had pumpkin soup and steamed pumpkin. So you could try and add some pumpkin into your diet, especially soup which taste nice even without seasonings. If you also cut out the rice it might make a difference.

I'm also doing the ED and have cut out rice so I can test it separately.

Thanks Erbse! When I start the ED diet again in the next couple weeks I will probably leave the rice out and follow your suggestion using pumpkin along with the sweet potatoes. Part of the difficulty of the ED for me was the fact that we were in the middle of a heat wave here with temps over 100 degrees each day so cooked food was really not appealing at all. Pumpkin soup sounds wonderful.

I tried elimination diet and they just had sweet potatoes in a grocery store so I tried them for the first time(they are very rare here in my country), and they gave me big hard stools, but I ate them peeled. The same is with white potatoes.