Suggested Eating Plan - Stage ONE

[tex]

It's wise to always ask when you're not sure. Most of us do indeed have problems with onions during recovery. Later, after we've been in remission for a while (after the gut has had some time to heal) most of us can resume eating onions again without any problems.

Tex

[nigelc]

Just wondering if there is anything thing I can improve on as I have settled into the following bland diet that I can live with after receiving a terrible result from Enterolab. Have to cut out Beef, Chicken, POTATO, RICE, Corn, Oat, Wallnut and Tuna as well as failing ALL of the big 4.
AG 40 AC 13 AS 24 AF 29

So I have settled into this for past 2 weeks.

Breakfast: I never took breakfast before so no worries, just a few cups of coffee up until lunch does me.
Lunch: NutraBullet, I have flat slabs of carrots and sweet potato that I boiled, cooked well, cooled, mashed, bagged separately and froze same for avocado add a similar sized chunk each of those along with a banana and coconut oil and it is really nice, yummy, almost like desert kind of nice. If you lay the mashed carrots flat in sealable bag about 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick spread to fill the bag and expel the air before sealing it takes very little room in the freezer and once its solid but you can easily snap it into squares and drop one into your NutraBullet. I add hot water because with everything being so frozen it can end up too thick, hot water will still end up cold.
Dinner: Boiled sweet potato and some the following, cauliflower, carrots, parsnips, turnip, bacon, pork chops, occasional lamb chop, ground turkey, pork roasts. I wish I could say the list goes on but for now it doesn't
Supper: none, never did.

Snacks: I was taking sea salt potato chips, I would still like to occasionally but I " displayed immunologic reactivity to white potato,"
Should I avoid potatoes like the plague?
Same goes for an occasional handful of peanuts, should I totally avoid for now due to Soy?

I currently am avoiding these but I have lost enough weight to make me concerned that I am not eating enough. I would like to add Quinoa to my lunch but have read the concerns in other posts. Are there some more ultra-safes that I could be missing out on?

Bone Broth: Well here I had been making my own broth and taking 1/4 - 1/2 cups 2 or 3 times a day only to find out Beef has some reactivity so I have another week or 2's worth of it in the freezer and I am not sure if I should be avoiding it. I am going to make another batch soon but I guess it will be turkey bones.

One last thing, the potatoes, with some reactivity are Nightshades and they recommended I avoid that group for now in which they include pepper.
So my question is should I totally not even sprinkle a couple of fresh grinds onto my pork chops?

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this wealth of knowledge, it's nice to be able to set a path finally.

[tex]

Hi,

Here are a few thoughts:

Compared with most of us, you're eating a relatively huge variety. Most of us find that the simpler (less variety) our recovery diet, the faster we're able to recover. I've been in remission for 15 years, and my diet still consists of 4 or 5 foods, every day. I could eat more variety, but I really don't crave anything else. I need to go on a diet — I'm getting too fat.

You're going to lose weight, anyway, regardless of what you eat, until you reach remission. But you'll lose less if you eat more, smaller, more frequent meals. More calories (from more of the same, safe food — not more variety) = less weight lost. It takes a lot of protein to heal, so it pays to eat at least some protein with every meal. Breakfast is important, and it's my biggest meal of the day, FWIW.

You don't have to avoid potatoes like the plague, but I would switch to sweet potatoes. If you don't want to give up chips, try sweet potato chips.

If you're sensitive to soy, you're almost surely sensitive to most legumes, so hold the peanuts until you're in remission, then you can test them to see if they bother you.

You don't have to avoid pepper because it's a nightshade (unless you have arthritis not caused by MC), but you should avoid all seasonings other than salt, and all spicy food while in recovery. Besides, seasonings in general are notorious for being contaminated with all sorts of foreign matter.

Now that we have MC, rather than eating for enjoyment, Our food is our medicine, first and foremost. After we're in remission, and we have a better understanding of our requirements, we can explore our options, and with a little ingenuity, we can make even a limited diet a gourmet delight.

I hope this helps.

Tex

[nigelc]

Thanks for the reply Tex, I hear what you are telling me so I have started forcing myself to eat breakfast every day since my last post, and I will even will eat the same for supper if I have any hunger before bed, doing this has stopped the weight loss it seems.


Breakfast - Sweet potato and bacon, the potatoes I have pre cooked so I slice thin and fry in the bacon fat.
Lunch - Sweet potato, carrots, avocado, banana, coconut oil - nutra-bullet.
Dinner - Sweet potato, carrots, cauliflower and either fried pork or lamb chops. 2 or 3 of them depending on the size.
Snacks - Sweet potato cauliflower and/or bacon.

Also I have made a big batch of turkey stock and am taking a little 2 or 3 times a day.
Apart for that, an "occasional" glass of red wine "every" night and that's it.

I can keep this up for however long I need to I think.

[tex]

That sounds like a good plan, and it should allow your digestive system to heal.

Tex

[Gabes-Apg]

with your occasional red wine - keep in mind that alcohol is inflammatory to the digestion process

I do ok with organic / low preservative type wines. and I increase things like B6 and magnesium if i am drinking alcohol to minimise the inflammatory impacts.

also with the eating plan, i found having a small serve of animal protein every meal/snack also helps.

Happy Healing

[nigelc]

WOW I am SO excited to announce extremely huge success already.

Monday morning I noticed my first BM that started out solid-ish and ended as WD.
Same Tuesday, Wed, then by Thursday was mostly solid-ish and only 2 times that day.
Friday, I woke and usually it happens right after I waken or as soon as I have a coffee but today i felt different, I didn't have to go. Nervously I left for my commute and got there "safely". It was not until around noon I had the BM and it was solid the whole way for the first time in about 1 1/2 years. I can't believe this all happened so quickly. I was expecting several months maybe 6 months of this dietary adjustment before I would see any changes.

So basically around the 20th Nov I started eating nothing but sweet potato, carrots, parsnips, cauliflower, avocado, banana, coconut oil, olive oil, pork, lamb, and bone stock, salt and small amounts of pure fresh ground black pepper. I had an occasional portion of potato chips, and quite a lot of red wine (I'm Irish so that could entail 1/2 or 3/4 bottle sort of "occasional" on the weekend evenings). Also an occasional glass of fruit juice that my kids take, it's as natural as we can find, no corn syrup obviously) and NOTHING else!!

So I am just letting you guys know and hopefully this will give others the knowledge that although this was difficult to adjust to initially that it is worth it and it can work quickly.

Of course I will continue this for a while before introducing anything else, then potato and beef will likely be my first 2 experimental food introductions.

Thanks to everyone here for helping to steer me into a recovery path.

[tex]

Congratulations on your fast recovery. Yes, some of us recover quickly, and some of us take longer. We're all different.

Thanks for the update.

Tex

[Gabes-Apg]

nigelc

congratulations and well done on your milestone!
so pleased that the guidelines have proven their worth (yet again!!) and you had the diligence to embrace it like you have!

my suggestion - take it slow adding in new ingredients
it is soo tempting when things are going well, and the intoxication of christmas and people encouraging you to have a treat!!
stick to bland, slow and steady.

Good quality healing in the early stages of your MC journey will give you much better healing and long term - life with minimal symptoms

[AmandaB77]

I’m having such a hard time identifying safe foods. I thought I was doing well for a few weeks. I started a strict elimination diet on Dec 26. Since then, BMs have solidified, but now I’m back to bloating :( I have been eating cream of rice cereal, canned pumpkin, coconut oil, and a bit of coconut milk and cinnamon for breakfast. I will sometimes put a bit of collagen into the rice cereal. Then for lunch and dinner I have either mashed sweet potatoes/yellow potatoes/rutabaga with salt and olive oil, and with a protein (usually chicken, shrimp, pork tenderloin, or tilapia). I sip on bone broth occasionally. I was feeling good so I also added in half a banana after dinner, but may need to take that back out.

Wondering if supplements are a factor. Taking Omega fish oil capsules, vitamin D drops, Magnesium Bysglicinate, and some days vitamin C. I use CBD oil capsules occasionally to help with sleep. I believe all supplements are clean and free of allergens. I also have Celiac disease, but have been gluten free for about 3 years already.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions. Very discouraging eating such a bland diet and still feeling crappy all the time :(

[tex]

Hello Amanda,

Welcome to the board. I couldn't handle processed foods with multiple ingredients when I was recovering. Look at the ingredients in that rice cereal very carefully. What time of day does the bloating occur? A food/reaction journal will often pinpoint dietary problems when they can't be found otherwise. I couldn't handle ascorbic acid (vitamin C) when I was recovering.

That said, I'm guessing that histamines might be your primary problem, as virtually all the proteins (and the cereal) you are eating, are (or can be), relatively high-histamine foods. Pork is the only low-histamine protein in your diet. All the others can turn into high-histamine foods if they are stored for any length of time at refrigeration temperatures, rather than at deep-freeze temperatures. Grains are high-histamine foods, and so are bananas. As bananas become ripe, their histamine level climbs rapidly. I can eat really fresh chicken (as long as it's stored frozen), but after it's been stored in the refrigerator for longer than a day (whether cooked or raw), eating it (or chicken soup) will cause me to bloat slightly. After it's been stored in the refrigerator for longer than 2 days, eating it will cause significant bloating and diarrhea, for me. YMMV.

Again, welcome to the board, and please feel free to ask anything.

Tex

[AmandaB77]

Thanks so much for your speedy response Tex! The rice cereal is fortified with iron, so I'm wondering if that may be the culprit. I will also hold off on the vitamin C for now! I will try to switch over to more pork and less of the other proteins for now.

Would turkey be a better substitute for chicken? Also wondering about breakfast ideas as I feel like this is my biggest struggle! Maybe some mashed sweet potatoes with a bit of cinnamon and coconut oil?

The coconut milk I am using is from a can and contains only organic coconut and water. Is it okay to keep using this?

Also wondering about the collagen. It is single ingredient, bovine collagen. I'm struggling to get protein in the morning, which is why I added it.

The bone broth is chicken, Imagine brand. Minimal ingredients but still not sure as it’s chicken.

Thanks again! So glad to have found this forum! Also working through reading your books!! :)

[tex]

Iron fortification could possibly be a problem for MC patients because iron supplements in general tend to cause digestive upset, even though they're only marginally effective in boosting iron levels. If you need iron, it's safer to get iron from cooking in cast iron pots, or eating a little blackstrap molasses as a supplement.

Yes, turkey is much safer than chicken because turkey not only eliminates the histamine issue, but none of us are sensitive to turkey (more than a few of us are sensitive to chicken). Duck, goose, pheasant, quail, rabbit, lamb, cabrito (young goat), venison, etc. are also safe choices.

For some of us, our breakfast looks exactly like our other meals while we're recovering. We mostly eat leftovers from the previous day's dinner.

Canned coconut milk is not only the safest, but it's also the highest in calories (which is important for those who are looking for more calories in their diet).

Virtually all protein supplements are so highly processed that they're counterproductive for a recovery diet. It's always best to get our nutrition from real foods. I note that most of us who are sensitive to beef, react by bloating, headache, and or upper backache, rather than with diarrhea. That supplement might be the source of your bloating.

Imagine is a safe brand, but homemade broth is always best.

You're very welcome. I hope this helps.

Tex

[AmandaB77]

Thanks so much Tex!! Very helpful information :) Will make those changes and fingers crossed the bloating will subside!

[AmandaB77]

Hi again Tex,

Any suggestions on good veggie options for me, considering a potential histamine sensitivity? So far I’m limited to sweet potato, mashed potato, canned pumpkin and sometimes rutabaga. Maybe some kind of squash or puréed green beans? I feel like I need another colour.

Thanks again!
Amanda