Eating Really Clean

[Gentleheart]

If I have been gluten free for 3 mos and staying away from other allergens I KNOW I'm allergic to, but still not feeling well, would it be an idea to just whittle out a diet for awhile that is REALLY strict and clean just to see if that works? I'm new, so I realize this is probably not a new idea for all of you. But I wonder if maybe I am trying to eat just too close to the "gluten fence" with all the alternative bread, cake and cookie recipes and need to really back off for awhile.

I want to eat big beautiful gluten free baked goods and fun fancy recipes as much as everybody. But I'd give it up for now or even forever if it meant getting well faster or getting well at all.

Just wondering.

[jerseyangel]

It sounds like a great plan to me--go back to the basics. I actually had to do just that because 4 months into the diet, a lot of my symptoms came back--along with reflux, which I'd never had before. If you're not feeling better after 3 months, and are getting no hidden gluten, I would suspect other intolerances. Stay on the basic diet until you are feeling better, and then you can try to add in other foods--one at a time. Keeping a food journal during this time is a good idea.

[corinne]

I've had to do that. Right now I'm just eating cooked + peeled fruits + veggies, meat and fish. I've been doing this for about 6 months and feel good. I'm now slowly adding in some fresh fruits and veggies. You may not have to cut as much out, but it's worth a try. Go easy on the fruit too - too much can give you D etc. You can make some good dishes even they're simple. I love sliced apples cooked over pork chops or spaghetti made with spaghetti squash.

[Guest nini]

I had to do that to. Just go back to the basics and keep it really simple. I've started reintroducing some of the substitute products back into my diet and a lot of the time I find myself feeling bloated and uncomfortable. Unlike when I was eating very simply and felt so much better... ugh... maybe time to start simplifying MY diet again... (grumble grumble)

[Gentleheart]

I had to do that to. Just go back to the basics and keep it really simple. I've started reintroducing some of the substitute products back into my diet and a lot of the time I find myself feeling bloated and uncomfortable. Unlike when I was eating very simply and felt so much better... ugh... maybe time to start simplifying MY diet again... (grumble grumble)

Would it ruin it to just add brown rice? Anybody out there especially sensitive to that?

[CarlaB]

Truthfully, I don't think you even have to be a celiac for that diet to be beneficial.

[gfp]

Truthfully, I don't think you even have to be a celiac for that diet to be beneficial.

True though be careful not to overdo fresh fruit or like a non celiac it will make you loose although not in a bad way but its easy when you start off yo identify the loose stool and D as being gluten related.

Herein lies the problem for many. I know lots of people do have other intolerances and allergies but also many don't and hidden gluten and CC are so difficult to get used to and until you go 100% gluten-free for a while and get that "normal" feeling (like being a non celiac) it is very hard to tell if something is just a common tummy bug, change of diet or gluten.

Its almost impossible to explain the feeling of being glutened but when you are 100% gluten-free for a while and you are glutened its very obvious, the problem is getting to that point and the only way to do it is IMHO removing all possible risks of hidden gluten and CC 100%.

blanchemae: I would try and take things a step at a time as you suggest but I would think that nearly everyone who starts a gluten-free diet gets to a point where they find later that they were getting some CC or hidden gluten, especially those who keep saying "but Im not getting better" and next post you see them asking about some questionable item or posting about some takeaway/resto....

Honestly you just can't eat in resto's without risk .. of course you can control that risk by the choice of resto and your interaction but it also depends who is working that day, how busy they are and what someone ordered before you.

Half the prob with celiac disease is the onset of problems tends to vary between individuals but also within individuals, in an extreme case I have had no gastro probs for 3 days then BAM! Then Ive had the tiniest CC and been got in 2 hours....

Sorry all this sounds hopeless but its NOT.... what you have to do is control the disease, not let it control you. Somehow you have to get to the safe place and people do it different ways... some go direct and other take 3 steps forwards and 2 back... I started out in the latter group until I realised I thought I was gluten-free ... I thought I had the bases covered but I didn't, I was still getting hidden gluten.... BUT most of all...

I wish I had done what you are suggesting

If I could give a single bit of advice to newly diagnosed people it would be what you are suggesting.

[Mongoose]

Would it ruin it to just add brown rice? Anybody out there especially sensitive to that?

Brown rice generally leaves me with indigestion. Despite what the nutritionists say about how you're supposed to eat so many servings of whole grains a day, I generally feel better when I eat no grain at all in a day. Eating more veggies and fruits helps me manage my weight, too.

[Tubby-Zumba]

It won't be easy or popular, but I've been wondering. If I have been gluten free for 3 mos and staying away from other allergens I KNOW I'm allergic too like dairy,corn, soy and eggs, but still not feeling well, would it be an idea to just whittle out a diet for awhile that is REALLY strict and clean just to see if that works? I'm new, so I realize this is probably not a new idea for all of you. But I wonder if maybe I am trying to eat just too close to the "gluten fence" with all the alternative bread, cake and cookie recipes and need to really back off for awhile.

I mean like: meat/poultry/fish, vegetables, fruit, water, salt, etc.. I'm realizing after reading hundreds of these posts in the last few days that lots of people are also allergic to alternative things like tapioca, potato starch, xanthan gum and quinoa, which I've been baking and cooking with for weeks. And they sometimes don't find out for months or years gluten free that it's even a problem, I'm noticing. If I were willing to be really austere about this for awhile, why wouldn't that be a good strategy to see if my body just needed a great big REST from it all. At least until some substantial healing could occur. Allergy-free supplements would be a good addition just to make sure all the nutritional bases were covered.

I want to eat big beautiful gluten free baked goods and fun fancy recipes as much as everybody. But I'd give it up for now or even forever if it meant getting well faster or getting well at all.

Just wondering.

I think that if you have only been gluten-free for a few months, you may not be fully healed yet. You should maybe try sticking to fruits and vegetables and meats, nothing fried or too heavy, just until your small intestine has time to heal as much as it can. I was just diagnosed a couple of months ago, and I have responded great to the diet. However, before I was diagnosed, I was so ill, my 3 children had to go stay with the granparents until I got better, (we thought I was going to die). Since I have been diagnosed and have recovered, the kids are home. My problem now is cross contamination from Cherrio's and other crackers and things. I try to be careful, but it seems as though the smallest crumb brings my symptoms back. It sucks!

Anyway. don't be discouraged yet, but I would recommend sticking to things easy on your stomach until it has time to recover from all the trauma life with gluten gave it. Hope this was helpful!

[Guest nini]

Would it ruin it to just add brown rice? Anybody out there especially sensitive to that?

in my opinion, no, but some are sensitive to it, and many proponents of the basic return to nature type diet say that grains of any kind should be avoided, that they are all difficult to digest... I would think that in small amounts it wouldn't hurt.

[kabowman]

I had to do the same thing after a couple of months of being gluten-free because once the gluten was gone, I started to notice other times when I would have tummy troubles and with the big one out of the way, the rest were showing up. It really helped me.

I still add new foods in and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. I just eliminated something else and wow, I haven't felt this good in a long time - it was all my non-dairy (not Vance's because I haven't tried that yet) milk substitutes. Once I got those out, I was MUCH better.

[emcmaster]

In general, I try to stick to that diet.

When I was first diagnosed, it was less than 2 months before my wedding and even a few days of being completely gluten-free made my horrible bloating better than it had been in a year. I was incredibly scared of trying new foods because I was afraid the bloating might come back and not disappear before the wedding.

Thank goodness, it didn't come back. Now that we're back from the honeymoon and things have returned to normal, I try different things. But in general, I stick to whole foods: fresh vegetables and fruits, meats, eggs, legumes and occasionally rice or potatoes.

If my symptoms ever return, I will cut out legumes, rice and potatoes until my symptoms disappear and then slowly add one back at a time to see what it is that is irritating my stomach. Just something to think about if you start having problems.

Good luck!

[BRUMI1968]

I went gluten-free and some of my symptoms went away instantly (canker sores and itching), others lingered (bloating and constipation). I did some reading and decided to quit all grains. Since doing that 8 days ago, my gums have entirely stopped bleeding, my fingernails have become stronger again, everything looks sharper. My bloating didn't get better, though. Finally, I figured out that i was eating enough walnuts every day in my trail mix to feed a small nation. I've quit that and I think that I might be getting to some balance here. I do think my intestines are inflamed, probably from gluten but possibly from some other food intolerance. I'm having a food panel done this week.

I eat: veggies raw and cooked; fruit dried and fresh (but am trying to avoid those high in insoluable fiber like apples, blueberries, and pears); salmon and other COLD WATER fish; eggs; nuts and seeds. It has not been easy to find foods. For breakfast I usually have either sauteed kale or chard with poached eggs, or an omlet with veggies and eggs. Oh yeah, I don't eat dairy either, or legumes.

I guess it's the paleolithic diet, for the most part. I'm giving it a try.

I think we are our own best doctors, and there is nothing unnatural about experimenting with our diets. I think things to keep in mind are - don't become rigid or obsessed with food; don't look at food as the enemy; give each thing enough time unless it's totally obvious that it's not working.

Good luck.

p.s. oh yeah, I was vegetarian for 15 years - except that I added salmon about 10 years ago out of frustration eating in restaurants. I'm considering adding chicken/turkey/buffalo, that kind of thing, but ONLY from a farm in my area that I can go check out to be ethical in their treatment of the animals (that's my bit, obviously, and doesn't need to be yours). I enjoyed being veggie and it worked well for me. My husband, on the other hand, was a miserable vegetarian. He did it for a few weeks and I put him back on meat he looked and felt so awful.

[Gentleheart]

Thanks for all the input! I have already begun my clean diet. It makes sense to just clear everything out first, rest awhile and then start adding back those things you don't think you can live without to see how each one flies. Otherwise the healing process can take a lot longer it looks like to me.

I'm an author and I've been trying to write a cookbook for years. I guess now I will have to start over since all the rules just changed for me! It might be a challenge to make simple clean foods fun and tasty enough for a tastebud-jaded generation like ours, but it can be done!

I became a vegetarian, vegan in fact, for 5 years in my endless quest to feel better. In ignorance of my actual celiac/multiple allergy condition, I eliminated the eggs and dairy I was allergic to, but didn't hit the gluten. The next 5 years I went on Mercola's grain free diet, managing to eliminate the gluten/grain, but eating lots more organic eggs and dairy as a result. Maybe this time I'll get it right! What an odyssey!

[Green12]

Finally, I figured out that i was eating enough walnuts every day in my trail mix to feed a small nation.

Bully4You

I didn't feel better until I cleared out all packaged, processed foods (even the gluten-free stuff) and just ate as whole a diet as possible, foods in their natural state, good quality meats, fats and oils, vegetables and fruits, steamed brown rice, etc.

[BRUMI1968]

Bully4You

I didn't feel better until I cleared out all packaged, processed foods (even the gluten-free stuff) and just ate as whole a diet as possible, foods in their natural state, good quality meats, fats and oils, vegetables and fruits, steamed brown rice, etc.

I agree. I have been home-making my trail mix - so I just shut out the walnuts for a while. If you've never had it (and are a millionaire) walnut butter is AMAZING!

[covsooze]

'cleaning' up my diet is something I'd like to do, as, although I've seen some progress in the 6 months since being gluten-free, I've still got a lot of issues - primarily fatigue and achiness. I agree that it's sometimes difficult to tell whether our health problems are due to cc or other intolerances, or simply down to our bodies needing time to heal, or a combination of all 3. I think 'going simple' is probably the key to finding out.

However, I don't know where to start. I need loads of calories to keep me going, crave carbs like they're going out of fashion, and can't tolerate eating large amounts of fruit and veggies. I can stand eggs (although am not allergic to them) so omelettes are out of the question. Nuts, beans and pulses irriatate my stomach if eaten anything other than rarely and in small amounts.

So the thing I struggle with is, if I do simplify my diet, what could I actually eat to fill myself up on?

What do the rest of you eat for breakfast and snacks (which is what I find particularly difficult) ?

[Guest Robbin]

Breakfast is a hard one for me too. I have had to cut out most everything and eat primarily meat and vegetables. I guess it is mostly like Adkins, but I do eat pears and bananas. I eat eggs occasionally and although I like them and am not allergic, I limit them because I noticed I feel better when I don't eat a lot at breakfast. I usually drink a cup of coffee and have a banana or some bacon and then eat an early lunch around 11:00. Most grains bother me and after feeling better off them, I miss them less and less. It is a good tradeoff when you feel so much better.

[wozzy]

I think I might need to do something like this as well. Lately, I'll get extremely tired after eating (more than is normal), even if it's food that I know is gluten-free. Maybe I need to go off of lactose again. Whenever I'm cooking for myself, I don't use lactose, but if I go out to eat or something, I usually let it slide. I think I'll just start paying attention to what makes me really tired and I'll stop eating it. I got tested for all kinds of food allergies, and I was told I'm allergic to oats, pecans and lactose...and of course gluten.

But it's hard to tell if I'm tired from my diet or from my sleep disorder (which could either be sleep apnea or narcolepsy...we're not sure yet).

I can't cut too many more carbs out because with cycling, I just won't recover (like yesterday when I only ate half a potato).