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Hi Star McDougallers,
I'm planning out some new menus for an elimination diet that I will be doing in the next few weeks to figure out what might be triggering my migraine headaches.

I'm plugging them into Fitday to see how the nutrients balance out and I noticed something. Because of the limited list of foods I'm allowed to have on the elimination diet (I'm doing Dr. Barnard's version in his "Foods That Fight Pain" book, which is similar to the one Dr. McDougall describes on his website but a bit more lax with seasonings and condiments), I'm cutting out a lot of foods that I used to eat which are more protein-dense (like beans). Usually, my Fitday percentages for my McDougall menus show about 75-80% of calories from starch (carbs). However, the elimination diet menus are showing a much higher percentage - about 90%!

I'm a little worried about this, as I don't think I've ever eaten a menu that is so high in carbs. Of course, they are all good stuff (mostly sweet potatoes, brown rice, peas, and puffed brown rice, as well as lots and lots of veggies and about 3 servings of elimination diet allowed fruits, since Barnard is also a bit more lax with fruit servings). But I'm just wondering if having such a huge part of my diet as carbs can be an issue.

BTW - I don't have any other health issues besides migraines and rashes/hives, so blood sugar isn't an issue (may it never be in the future!)

Djuna

Hey Djuna -

Can I ask what your specific concerns are - gaining weight, protein, etc.?

I don't have any knowledge of Dr. Bernard's elimination diet. But I took the list of foods from Dr. McDougall's elimination diet (which you say is similar) and I made a daily meal plan of what one could possibly eat and put it in Cron-o-meter (similar to your fitday).

Many of these foods are what I eat already. A day of puffed rice, an apple, a banana, brown rice, green beans, sweet potatoes, peas and asparagus comes out to be 9:86:4 (protein, carbs, fats).

This is around what my foods would usually come out to. I have oatmeal instead of puffed rice and some beans so a little different but in the same ballpark.

So for me, the elimination diet just looks like a narrower version of what I eat. I see no problem with this and no need to worry.

Also, you will only be doing the elimination diet for a short time. Hopefully you will be able to target the foods that are causing you problems and then once again be able to have a wider variety of foods to chose from.

I'd be interested to know what you find our from your self-evaluation.

Donna

The diet you are possibly going to embark on has been the diet of countless cultures.It only looks restrictive given our huge, almost limitless, choices available to us. This is an anomaly that has never existed before and skews our view of eating.
I would also pay strict attention to the liquids you may consume as many triggers for migraines can be initiated by various drinks. Good luck in your search for the cause of the headaches.
f1jim

Thanks, Donna and Jim. Donna, your question is a good one. It's not weight gain I'm worried about, as I've done the McDougall plan for periods of time on and off in the past few years and I know that eating lots of good starch doesn't cause weight gain (at least, for me it didn't seem to ). I guess it was more of a health concern, i.e., "putting all your eggs in one basket" type of situation when it comes to nutrients over balancing the nutrients out between carbs, protein, and fat. I can recall a time when I was doing low carb diets several years back where I would have periods of a very high percentage of protein and even fat (in fact, I can recall a time when my fat percentage of calories a day was over 70%!). Needless to say, I do not recall ever thriving on these kinds of plans, which is why I was concerned. I know that a high percentage of calories from fat and/or protein is nothing like from carbs, but I was still a bit concerned.

But as Jim rightly pointed out, many of these cultures exist on this kind of plan, so there shouldn't be a problem. And, as Donna points out, I'll be doing this for a short period of time, so it shouldn't be an issue.

Thanks again!
Djuna

Have you watched "The Starch Solution"?

http://www.drmcdougall.com/video/starch_solution.html

You are afraid of starch for no good reason! The video above will assure you of that.