What is a typical day for you?

[born2swim]

Bare with me...

I'm trying to find my triggers... and the elimination diet hasn't reduced my symptoms yet...:hmm:

What was a typical day for you on the elimination diet? I just couldn't bare the thought of eating today, but by 4pm, I thought I should have something. I had some oatmeal, mozzarella sticks, and some bread with butter. I know that it's not the healthiest diet... but it's more variety that normal for me. Oatmeal is generally all I eat plus milk. I cut out milk to see if that could be a trigger...:hmm:

[mom_in_ma]

Alyssa,
I remember well what it was like when I was first diagnosed. I lost 20 lbs in two weeks! I was a stick! I too was scared of food...of eating the wrong things...of making it worse and not getting better. I didn't do the elimination diet, but I did stick with the mostly safe column for a long time.

Since I've been flaring again, I've been following the diet religiously. Here's a sample of my day.

Breakfast - nothing today. Opps. I got busy. Tomorrow, I'm thinking scrambled eggs.

Lunch - brown rice with steamed broccoli. It was in the fridge. Usually I'm a bit more creative. For a snack I had a handful of organic blue corn chips.

Dinner - Fresh wild caught salmon with butter/dill/garlic, summer squash, snap peas, and brown rice. Salad with cucumber, olive oil and sea salt. I would have had corn on the cob, but I was full.

We also tend to eat a lot of good crusty bread (but not sourdough!) with meals, but I'm avoiding that lately as I've developed a bit of a yeast problem and until that's resolved I'm staying away from yeast and sugar. But, otherwise, I might enjoy vanilla ice cream, or some organic white chocolate if I need something sweet.

[kadi]

When I started the IC diet, I printed out the diet in the patient handbook. Then I started by only eating foods in the "usually ok" column, reading package labels to make sure things did not have acidic preservatives, chemical additives, colors etc. I wrote down what I ate each day & my symptom level. That way when symptoms spiked, I could try to figure out what did it.

Once I stabilized on that diet, I began one at a time to add in the "sometimes ok" foods, again noting how I was feeling.

This worked out well for me. I wasn't so overwhelmed by deprivation & once I had it figured out, I could give a copy of the lists to a nutritionist & she worked with me to come up with new ways to use those foods & to make it healthier overall. I also gave the list to my dad who uses it to cook for me & my mom (who developed IC about 18 months after I did).

Good luck! Hope you get some answers soon!

[mom_in_ma]

Alyssa,
Kadi has a good point. I would suggest getting in touch with a nutritionist who can help. She's the food idea queen! She's got a great list of stuff you can eat from Trader Joes. Oh how I wish we had a Trader Joes is my little New England town.

I keep a journal of my symptoms to go along with meds....but Kadi is right, it's good to do so with food. It can help.

[kadi]

The nutritionist helped me a lot, the other thing that helped a lot is getting Julie B.'s book, "Confident Choices". Julie is a dietician who has IC and wrote a book for all of us, with basic guidelines, food plans, menus & recipes.
You can get it in the ICN shop linked above. It's worth every penny!

[mom_in_ma]

Opps...that didn't read right. I meant that Kadi is the food idea queen! I've used a lot of her ideas over the years.

[ICNDonna]

Oatmeal is a problem for some ICers. You might want to replace it with rice in your elimination diet until you know.

Donna