Committed to Change

[Silver]

Day 13

I added my first food today on the elimination diet - potato. I had them twice today. The first time I ate them in the morning and I had an almost immediated mild reaction. My throat felt fatter inside, like it was maybe a little swollen. Nothing like an anaphylactic reaction. My throat didn't itch or hurt but it was definitely "something". I also got mild indigestion and a headache. I had them again for dinner and so far, no throat reaction, no indigestion, but I do have a mild headache. As of now, I do not have increased joint pain. I am going to have potatoes again tomorrow and will assess then.

B - Small Red Potaotes. Boiled and then lightly browned in the oven.
L - Fruit Soup blended with Spinach and ice. (1 apple, 1 pear, 1/3 c. blueberries, 10 cherries.)
D - Small Red Potatoes. Fixed as above. 1/2 cup Brown Rice with Broccoli Stalk and Celery.

3 times that I had anaphylactic shock, I had just received an allergy shot to try and relieve hayfever symptoms. I of course had to stop the shots. I have been reading recently that there are some foods that release histamine in the body so I am wondering if those are the foods that might be causing me problems. Two of them, I am eating on my elimination diet - cherries and spinach. So for now I am going to stop eating them. I'll use kale instead and a few extra blueberries in place of the cherries. I think I'll make an appointment with my allergist to get his view on the subject. I have never been told in the past to avoid these histamine foods and am not sure if it is necessary.

[Silver]

Day 14

B - Blended Cooked Fruit Soup with Kale (1 apple, 1 pear, 1/2 c. blueberries) and Ice. I drank about 3/4 and saved 1/4 for later.
L - Yam
D - Rice with Celery
S - the rest of the Smoothie mixture

I did not have potaotes again today with the small immediate reaction I had yesterday. I'll retest later.

[Silver]

Day 15

B - Blended Fruit Soup with Spinach and Ice. Added banana to the usual mix.
L - 1/2 Yam (still full from the smoothie)
D - Brown Rice w/Black Beans, Celery, Broccoli, and Romaine Lettuce
S - Rest of the Yam

Today I added in Black Beans - so far, no immediate reaction like there was with the potatoes. The reaction I am most worried about is the joint pain that may take a few days to manifest. That is the pain I can't handle and is what has made me leave the program before. I don't know what it means when a new food gives me indigestion. I can deal with a little indigestion but does that mean I shouldn't eat it at all? That it is doing other things in my body as well and it's a food I should avoid? I don't know.

I'm getting a little tired of the lack of variety and taste in my meals. I'm glad I'm in the adding-in food stage.

I weighed in today and lost 3.4 pounds the past week.

[Silver]

Day 16

Today I have quite a bit of relief in my hip pain. This is a major improvement and very exciting. In addition, I have not had any of the new/increased joint pain that I would normally have at this time in restarting this way of eating. I don't yet know what food(s)would be causing it; that is still to come. I am getting a little tired of the lack of variety in my food, but it is worth it to have my pain getter better in all parts of my body. The most painful area currently is the butt and wrist (but I think that is sprained)(the wrist ).

B - didn't eat until 1:00 - wasn't hungry. Then I had the usual Blended Fruit Soup mixed with Spinach and a little Kale and Ice. (Kale is a very unpleasant taste for me - it is hard for me to get used to.)

S - 1/2 Yam.

D - Brown Rice with Black Beans, Broccoli, Cauliflower, and Romaine Lettuce.

S - 1/2 Yam and a little of the Smoothie left over.

I think the next food I add in might be Grapefruit. I really love Grapefruit and that could take the place of my Blended Fruit Soup and give me an idea about citrus and how it affects me. I'd really like to be able to squeeze some lemon on my steamed veggies or rice for some more flavor.

[Silver]

Day 17

I decided to wait on the grapefruit and added in onions today. I got a headache within 30 minutes of eating dinner. In Neal Barnards Foods that Fight Pain book, onions can be a trigger for headaches as well as joint pain. Tomorrow night I am going to have the same dinner, minus the onions, and the following night add the onions back in and see what happens. I will be very unhappy if I cannot eat onions, but I am very glad this process is working. I am going into week three and at this time before when starting McDougall, I would be wanting to quit due to increased joint pain. No increase in joint pain but the almost immediate headache is an interesting development. It's also the reaction I had to potatoes the other night.

B - Blended, non cooked, Fruit Smoothie with Spinach and Kale. (I know these are not in the McDougall Program - but it's getting in my fruit and some extra greens that I would have a hard time fitting in otherwise.) As my food repertorie grows, I'll include other things for breakfast.

L - 1 Yam.

D - Stir "fried" veggies. Brown Rice with Celery, Water Chestnuts, Broccoli, Cabbage, Onion. I also sprinkled it with a little Ginger and added a very small amount of Tamari.

[carollynne]

silver, you are doing wonderful on your elimination diet! wow!
Stick with it, and keep journaling about it to. i am learning a lot from reading your journal!
I love onions and potatoes too!! my joint pain is going away, but I still have some flare ups too. I need to eliminate the onions!!

[Silver]

Carollynne - Thanks! In case you don't have the Foods That Fight Pain book here are the top 10 arthritis food triggers:

1. Dairy Products
2. Corn
3. Meats
4. Wheat, oats, rye
5. Eggs
6. Citrus Fruits
7. Potatoes
8. Tomatoes
9. Nuts
10. Coffee

Day 18

B - Usual Fruit Smoothie with LOTS of Spinach and a little Kale

L - 1/2 Yam, 1 Rice Cake (no salt)

D - Last nights menu of Stir "Fried" Veggies, minus onions, but added Snow Peas and Yellow Squash. I DO NOT HAVE A HEADACHE. Not that I'm sad about not having a headache, but I hope it wasn't the onions. I will try the same recipe with onions again tomorrow night.

S - Some of the leftover Yam and 1 Rice Cake with a little Blackberry 100% fruit jelly.

I am not on this elimination diet for headaches. I don't normally have a problem with headaches (back in the day when I was drinking coffee, I did) so I am surprised that a food might be causing a headache, when I ate onion and potoatoes fine before and never had a headache from them. Maybe it is just all this pure food I have been eating, that when I add something that doesn't agree with me, it is more easily noticed? I don't know, but I will test the headache theory tomorrow. I have noticed in the past getting indigestion with potatoes, mostly when they are cooked to a "dry" state - like hash browns, but not when I would eat them boiled in a soup along with other ingredients. I also normally don't have a problem with indigestion and/or tummy troubles.

In looking at the above mentioned book, I noticed I have always skipped chapter 1 because I had never had the problem before - Back Pain. In discussing back pain it states "Unfortunately, of all the arteries in the human body, the abdominal aorta is among the first to develop atherosclerotic plaques, bumps that slowly grow and end up blocking the flow of blood........Vertebrae and disks that would normally be nourished with every heartbeat become increasingly cut off from their normal supply line.......Could it be that back pain begins not in the back muscles or the spine but in the arteries?.........Indeed, the Finnish researchers found that people who suffered from chronic back pain had clogged lumbar arteries much more often that people without back pain, and the greater the blockage, the worse the degeneration in the disk it supplied."

Yikes.

I didn't feel very good today and I felt it was from the Smoothie, although I guess it could have been the onions too. I felt like I had too much sugar. Not the jittery kind of feeling, but I had a funny feeling in my breast bone area, low chest, very upper abdomen area. I don't know why I feel like it was too much fruit sugar, it just did. I thought the spinach would be enough to offset it but maybe not. Tomorrow, breakfast will be something different.

[Silver]

Day 19

B - Brown Rice with 1/2 Banana and 1 Date (blended with water to make a "syrup")

L - 1 Yam

D - Stir "Fried" Rice with Celery, Cabbage, Broccoli, and Water Chestnuts. Sprinkled with Ginger and a little Tamari (which is wheat free but very high in sodium, even though it is low sodium)

I decided to wait on adding back in the onions, even though I was so looking forward to them. I wanted to think about it another day or two.

Tomorrow will be day 20 and I am proud of myself for not eating anything off plan once. When I say off plan, I don't mean the elimination diet, I mean Plant Based Eating. At this point before, I would have had something. I have been craving peanut butter but have not given in. I know I need more time on the plan before I have a "cheat" because it is not near ingrained in me enough yet. (I guess the tamari isn't the best choice, but I'm talkin cookies and pizza here!) And the more and more time that goes by, without an off plan item, the more I won't want one.

[Silver]

Day 20

B- got up late, didn't eat.

L - Brown Rice with Banana and Date. Too much sugar feeling again. Had a whole banana and the date/water syrup mixture. Will tweek again. I usually split the banana with my husband but he was gone since I got up so late and I didn't want 1/2 banana sitting around. In my fog, I didn't even think about sticking it in the freezer.

S - Rice Cake with Fruit only Blackberry Jelly. (So why did I have something sweet again after the yucky feeling earlier. Thought it would add a little umph to the rice cake. Should have left it alone.)

D - "Fried" Rice with the Usual Veggies plus Onions. (so far so good, no headache!). 1 Yam.

Doing OK - I've been having trouble sleeping for quite some time - months and months, nothing to do with the WOE. Last night I gave in and had 1/2 benedryl. Woke up this morning with a headache and a hung over feeling for most of the day. Going to sleep at 4:00 am and waking at 11:00 am is not working for me personally or professionally!

I keep reading about Japanese Yam/Sweet Potatoes. I wonder where everyone gets them? I can't find them where I live. It sounds like they hold up firmer when you cook them.

[CarolynA]

Silver - I know that in your first post you stated that you don't think you have Fibromyalgia. However, a lot of the things that you are saying make me think that you really do have it. Trouble sleeping, and even the "leaky gut" are symptoms. I also have Fibromyalgia, and have developed bursitis in my hip. I am not a stranger to the McDougall plan, but have never really committed myself fully to it (until now). My doctor has me on Lyrica for the fibro, and I am doing physical therapy to help with the hip issue. I am hoping that this WOE will help me to overcome the condition, as well as other health issues that I am facing right now.

Is your pain getting any better? You have been doing this for several weeks now - I just wondered if you can tell a difference now.

[Silver]

Hi Carolyn. Thanks for stopping by with such a timely post. Last night as I was laying in bed not sleeping I was thinking that I needed to rethink the Fibro. As least read the book the doctor recommended.

I thought my symptoms were getting better at first and I think they did - to a point. My stiffness is a little better, my heel is a little better, my hip may be a tiny bit better and my butt is the same. My wrist pain is worse and I have new pain in the middle back area (between waist and bra area). I was researching middle back pain last night because I have never had it before, lower and upper, yes, but not middle. One of the things that was mentioned was Fibro. so that got me started thinking this way again and then I read your post this morning.

I don't know whether I have it or not. I don't know that much about it. All I ever heard about it was the trigger point pain and a feeling of "being run over by a truck" - which I certainly have never felt. Oh, and that some doctors don't think it is real. I don't know what is causing all my joint and muscle pain. I don't think my trigger point pain is any better yet.

I don't know why I can't sleep at night. I thought it was stress, but it even happens when I am not too stressed. I thought it was menopause, but I go for months having hot flashes and then none for a month or so. Right now I am not having any so it isn't that. I know Dr. McDougall has a solution for insomnia, but that hasn't really worked for me.

Regardless of what is causing my pains, I plan to stay with this WOE. I have believed since the 80's that it is the best way to eat. I have never fallen for any of the other diet/WOE ideas. For me it has always been SAD or McDougall. I plan to stay McDougall/Whole Plants Foods.

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I broke my Elimination Diet last night and I do not recommend anyone who has been on an elimination diet to come off it early like I did. If you invest all that time, you should see it through. I went off (not back to SAD - but to MWL McDougall) for a number of reasons. I'm not sure food is what is causing my problems. It could be my weight, something else, or a combination. And I just couldn't take it anymore and I was worried I might break it with SAD foods. I don't like enough veggies yet to have stayed on it any longer. My plan is to lose the weight and regain my health and then see what health issues have resolved and tackle what is left.

Speaking of weight I lost 3 pounds this week for a total of 16.2 pounds in three weeks. Yay!

I won't post every day now since I am off the eliminatin diet, but will be reading and will post my weight loss and when I have something to say.

Here's to your Health!

[lmggallagher]

Hi Silver:

Just read your journal. I do have fibromyalgia and I used to believe the problems I have with my legs, hips, back, neck and all my joints were all separate things also. So did the initial doctors treating me. In fact, for me, it's all fibromyalgia. I am curious about the symptoms that you don' t have, that make you think you do not have fibromyalgia?

I saw the response to Carolyn - that the "run over by a truck symptom" isn't something you have experienced. I don't think many of us would exactly say that covers it. But your recent sleep issues, headache, plus all the areas that are bothering, and even more importantly that it's changing all the time - really make me think it is fibro.

This is a fairly comprehensive list from web MD. Note some days I have some of these and it changes frequently. I have never had other symptoms - no anxiety for instance. Definitely, insomnia and headaches, but these things come and go with out any rational as to why. For instance, I am having headache today - and I have been eating a Mary's Mini -- the exact same food for a week now -- it's not food for sure!

So recheck these symptoms in light of not all of the above, at least not all of the time.

http://www.webmd.com/fibromyalgia/under ... a-symptoms


Not that I want you to have it, not at all, but when you talked about the trouble you have going up stairs - that was exactly me. Also, the pain in the butt, for me, is sciatica, which happens when the fibro gets really taut and I am sitting improperly - but it's still triggered by the fibro itself.

Another thing that will give you overall pain symptoms just exactly like fibromyalgia is Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome. It's really similar to sleep apnea, except with UARS you wake up when you stop breathing. I have this as well, so I had like double fibro pain. I started wearing a CPAP and got rid of half my pain and the weight started coming off too. This is something that is worth checking out by doing a simple sleep study.

Sleep studies are no longer a big deal - you simply take one of the preprogrammed machines home. It tracks you for the night and provides the read out for your medical personnel. From that you can be diagnosed easily and not even expensively.

Anyway - not that I don't think you are right about what is ailing you - but I'd feel bad if I didn't mention these things. As one of them is simple to solve.

Best wishes for your success - Michelle

[Silver]

Hi Michelle - the reason I thought I don't have fibro is because my joint pain always gets worse on the McDougall diet so I thought it must be food related. Unless I have just been self medicating my pain with high sugar and oil. I just don't know what is causing it.
Thanks for all the information on fibro and UARS.

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One month into this WOE and I have lost 20.8 pounds!

I stopped the elimination diet at the beginning of week 4 and have been doing mostly MWL. Several times I have had rice cakes plain or with fruit-only jelly although not lately. Twice, about a week ago, I had a small corn tortilla (fat free) on Mexican night. I am continuing to tweat my diet. I need to add in more green and yellow veggies and more greens. The problem is, is that I am not very hungry.

I also added in Evening Primrose Oil tablets. Somewhere Dr. McD mentions to use that as a last resort if the WOE doesn't ease joint pain. It has been three days since I started and it is the first thing that had helped with my hip burisitis. Edited to add: It is not Dr. McDougall that recommends the Evening Primrose Tablets; it was Dr. Barnard.

Pain wise - The hip is getting better. My wrist is still sore. My butt pain hasn't changed. My plantar fasciitis is still bothering me. I can go with my husband on the nightly dog walk about every other night. Once I walk on it, the next day, I need to take it easy. The middle back pain comes and goes.

I will check in next month to post weight and pain levels, if not sooner. I am doing well on the plan. As long as I don't trigger my food cravings (by eating even the smallest thing off-plan), I have no problem staying on plan. I am a little worried about having to go out of town in the middle of the month; that has always been my downfall in the past, but I'm trying to plan ahead to avoid that.

[Caroveggie]

I'm glad things are working for you. Keep it up, you're doing great.

[CarolynA]

Congratulations on your weight loss!! I am SO happy for you!

If the Evening Primrose oil is helping your bursitis, I am definitely going to try it! Hopefully the combination of that and exercise will help me to heal!