On the Road Again

I am on day four of a road trip. The two biggest challenges I face are internet access and eating on the road. If you find yourself in this situation may I suggest vigilance.  I brought sprouted nuts and seeds to help get me going in the mornings along with a few berries.

I experimented with both kefir grains and a kefir starter culture. This meant two jars of milk andone for each method. I am sad to say the grains are not performing well (though this may be because they were frozen before the trip and need to be revived). Good news ... the culture starter is stellar. I started with one pack in a quart of milk in a mason jar and am using a bit of the kefir each day to start a new batch. I am working hard to keep them warm enough while "brewing" as December is cold almost everywhere. A cooler is a must!

For fast food I generally get a plain side salad (hold the croutons, cheese and dressing) and some kind of animal protein -- like a burger or chicken sandwich (hold the bun, cheese, ketchup and onions). Its fast cheap and decent. Try not to have expectations about the perfect meal. Enjoy the journey and fuel yourself the best you are able. Oh, and don't forget the water... Staying hydrated is half the battle.

Crazy Hungry

I used to get sort of crazy hungry. That doesn't happen anymore. It was like the food was controlling me. Stress or fatigue always meant reaching for sugary foods and refined carbohydrates. Then whatever I purchased I would compulsively eat until it was gone and I felt worse and worse. Interestingly the worse I felt the more I wanted to eat that junk.

Now I don't get psycho with hunger anymore. If I wait too long to eat I still get attracted to carbs. I have a few strategies that keep me on track
1) I absolutely do not eat sugar or grains, so if I wait too long to eat and get overly hungry I won't go
    really crazy with my choices.
2) I plan and bring snacks with me, snacks with fat that fill me up
3) I have a game plan for fast food places, things I can eat without getting off track. If I run out of
    snacks, I am hungry and far from home I have a plan.
4) I eat things that taste sweet, but are not sugar or artificially sweet. Stevia is my friend. Just
    bringing Sobe with me can make all the difference.

Be good to yourself and have a game plan!

Straight Up Sugar

Sugars are hiding everywhere... lurking in all those crazy processed foods that we love so much. (Beware... be very ware ;)
 

Sugars:
agave, agave nectar, barley malt,blackstrap molasses, blue agave,brown rice syrup, cane sugar, cane syrup, corn syrup, dastatic malt, dextrose (sweetener made from plant starch generally corn, rice, tapioca or wheat), diastase, evaporated cane juice, fructose, fruit concentrate, fruit juice, fruit juice concentrate (apple, pear, grape), dextrose, galactose, glucose, glucose syrup, golden syrup, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), lactose, malt, maltodextrin (sweetener, filler and binder from rice, corn, tapioca or potato starch), maltose, molasses, panocha, rice syrup, simple syrup, sorghum syrup, sucrose (half glucose and half fructose), syrup, treacle.

Sneaky Sneaky Grains

Watch out!! Hidden grains are everywhere, especially in processed foods. Single source foods are of course the most safe (you know, a zucchini, spinach, an egg). Here are ingredients that are of concern.

Grains, Grain Ingredients or Likely Grain Ingredients:
artificial colors, artificial flavors, baking powder, barley -flakes/flour/pearl, binders, blue cheese, bread, breading, bread stuffing, brewer's yeast, brown rice, bulgur, bulgar wheat, cereal fillers/protein/starch, cheese -grated (if anti-caking agent used), citric acid, coatings, colorings, colors, corn, corn starch, dextrins, dinkel, durum (it is wheat), dispersing agents, emulsifiers, excipients (in prescription medications), farro/faro (type of wheat AKA spelt or dinkel), flavorings, flours (barley, corn, oats, rice, rye, sorghum, tapioca, wheat), food starch, graham flour, grated cheese ((if anti-caking agent used), grain alcohol (ale, beer, bourbon, grain vodka rye, scotch), hydrolyzed protein, hydrolyzed plant protein (HPP), hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP), hydrolyzed wheat protein, kamut (type of wheat), malt, malt extract, malt flavoring (barley malt, malt vinegar), malt syrup, malt vinegar, malted milk, matzo, matzo meal, modified food starch (from wheat), modified wheat starch, maltodextrin, natural flavors, rice, thickening agents (dextrin, corn starch, modified food starch, etc.), mono-glycerices, di-glycerides (made using a wheat starch carrier), natural flavorings, oatmeal, oat bran, oat flour, oats, oils (wheat germ oil and others with gluten additives), preservatives, rye bread, rye flour, seitan (vegetarian protein made from wheat gluten), semolina, spelt (type of wheat AKA dinkel, faro, farro), semolina, spelt (type of wheat AKA dinkel, faro, farro), sorghum, soy sauce, spices (if anti-caking agent used), starch (modified food starch, edible starch), textured vegetable protein (TVP), triticale, vegetable gum, vegetable protein or starch, vinegars (white, or malt), vital wheat gluten, vitamin e oil, wheat bran, wheat flour, wheat germ, wheat starch.

I have probably missed a few things, be vigilant!

6 flights of stairs

Who me? I walked six flights of stairs at work yesterday-- what?! My limit before all of this was two to three flights... which was not pleasant. So unpleasant... I basically decided never to do it again.

However, yesterday I needed a movement break from my desk job and ran down the six flights of stairs from my office to grab a Sobe at the gift store. Then I thought, "Hey, maybe I'll try a flight or two up and take the elevator the rest of the way." I figured I would get out of the stairwell when I could no longer breathe.

It wasn't until I finished the fourth flight that I even thought about it. I stopped briefly, recovered quickly and decided to keep going. Then I popped up the next two flights and got off on six hardly winded.

Just before thanksgiving I picked up a 28 pound turkey for a friend and did get winded before I got to my car after taking the elevator down. I thought about how I used to carry around 50 extra pounds all the time. No wonder I got winded on the stairs... apparently that was a lot of work!

These Tastebuds They are a Changin'

It's so challenging to get started with a new eating plan. Especially when we think it's going to be difficult or boring.

I've learned something though. If you change how you eat the things you like to eat change too... REALLY!  It doesn't happen in a week or two... but it happens.

When I talk about my diet people seem to think it's not something they would be capable of accomplishing. They say things like, "You're so good." or "I don't know how you do it." I have a big secret though.

I am not being good. I never suffer or sacrifice. My tastes have changed. I love what I eat now. Things I did not like initially, I look forward to now. Did I suffer initially? Yes!

At first I did not like what I was eating and did not feel well at all!  After two weeks I began to feel better. Slowly since my new foods became more and more appealing. I enjoy the food I eat now more than I ever enjoyed my food before changing my diet.

I spent endless amounts of time seeking out substitutes for wheat and came up with some good tasting things. However, nothing compares to how things are now. I have no desire to go back, none!

Winner Winner Dinner Dinner

At dinner my plate has a lot of non-starchy vegetables (Body Ecology recommends 80%). I generally like to make two different non-starchy vegetables for variety. Then I combine that with a little of one of the following (Body Ecology recommends 20%): starchy vegetables or grain-like seeds, or animal protein.

Examples:

• Broccoli, some green beans and a red potato.  
• Zucchini, yellow squash and a small piece of salmon or cod. 
• A quarter of an acorn squash with butter, cinnamon and stevia with spinach, red bell peppers and broccoli on the side
• Fajitas - made with all veggies or a meat with a mix of non-starchy veggies.
• Eggs with non-starchy veggies
• Curried non-starchy veggies with chicken or by themselves
  
  It's also really good to add cultured vegetables to each meal. You can find them at Whole Foods in the refrigerated section or make them at home. Just mix and match with the choices you like.... look at my post with all the choices available. Have Fun!

Peckish in the Afternoon?

I do tend to get just a bit peckish in the afternoon. I call this second lunch. I generally pack up something like a little bag of carrots, a couple of cultured pickles, a couple spears of red bell pepper. Sometimes I bring a few vegetables left over from dinner the night before.

Other ideas would be a couple boiled eggs or 1/2 an avocado with salt and pepper.

At other times I just save a little of my lunch and have that for second lunch.

Lunch Time?

 For lunch I typically have a big salad with lots of lettuce and a few starchy vegetable combined with a small portion of animal protein, like boiled eggs, a piece of fish (insert protein here).

 On some days I have vegetable soup made with a combination of starchy and non-starchy vegetables. I don't use the strong vegetables that I used to use for soup as I cannot tolerate them-- (onions, parsnips, etc.). I make soup from carrots, celery, a potato, then whatever non-starchy veggies I have on hand. For seasoning I use onion powder, a bay leaf, salt, pepper, and the secret ingredient a dash of Tobasco sauce or better Chipotle Tobasco. No, I am not one of those people who love Tobasco on everything... but in small doses it has a great way of giving soup just the right flavor, without going bananas with the salt.

Another option is cooked non-starchy vegetables with an animal protein. Pick the things you like.

I make this my biggest meal of the day.

Breakfast Ideas

I start the day with berries and water. If the berries are sour I sprinkle with stevia powder or use a miracle berry tablet.

When I started out I used to then wait about a half hour or so and then on a typical day have eggs cooked in butter and also spinach with a few pieces of red bell pepper cooked in olive oil and seasoned with a little garlic powder, onion powder and salt.

On work days I packed up the eggs over the spinach in a thermal container and ate at work. Typically I ate half when I got there and the other half at mid morning. I call this first breakfast and second breakfast (you know like the Hobbits in Lord of the Rings).

Later I started building tolerance to homemade kefir. Now I still start with the berries, but then I have a cup of kefir and after that sprouted almonds and/or sprouted sunflower seeds.

At mid-morning I have another cup of kefir and then more almonds and/or sunflower seeds.

For a while I was having homemade vegetable soup and/or salad at breakfast.

Another idea would be bacon or gluten free sausage or just classic bacon and eggs... combined with some kind of sautéed non-starchy vegetable.

Food Combining

You know how some kids (and some adults) don't like their food to touch. I mean nothing on the plate can touch the other things on the plate.

Well, I don't let certain foods come together in the same meal now. 
Through The Body Ecology Diet I've learned this art. I know now that combining certain foods together really doesn't work well for me. I don't know why it doesn't work, but it doesn't. Maybe it's just because I don't tend to overeat when I eat this way. Or maybe it's something more complex... whatever! It has helped me both lose weight and control IBS symptoms. Yea!!

The biggest rule is not to combine animal protein with carbohydrates in the same meal. So I don't have eggs with home fries. Now I have eggs with spinach and red bell pepper.

There are a few foods that don't combine well with most other things. Like dairy is pretty much a stand alone, though I have done okay with berrries or sprouted nuts/seeds with the kefir.

I've recently returned to Swiss cheese, which has not sugar (lactose). Though I don't have it with anything else. The only dairy I have now is either kefir or Swiss cheese. I keep them very separate from other foods. Meaning that I wait three or more hours to eat dairy after my last meal and wait at least 30 minutes before eating something else after consuming dairy.

It may seem crazy and challenging... but really it's more crazy and challenging taking a bunch of medications and not being able to leave the house because IBS is acting up. It's all about choices.

I do NOT Snore (anymore)

       Horror of horrors... about a year ago, my daughter told me my snoring was waking her at night. Before you ask, no she does not sleep in the same room with her parents. Apparently my husband was too polite to complain. And my true confession, it even woke me upon occasion (not kidding).
       I have poled the house extensively, and since the weight came off, the snoring went away... I mean nothing. Nothing!!

Look Mom - (Virtually) No Eczema

Another benefit of my lifestyle change has been a marked improvement in Eczema. I have had eczema on my legs since I was pregnant with my daughter 18 years ago. It did not get better with just low FODMAPs. It improved about 50% after a few months on the Body Ecology Diet. It seemed to really start getting better when I added kefir to my diet.

Next, it took all of my bravery to stop using cortisone cream on it. At that point, it got worse again. I read in a couple of other people's blogs that there can be a rebound effect when cortisone cream is stopped. So I waited a few nail-biting weeks and then it started to settle down again.  It didn't completely go away so I tried one more thing.

It occurred to me that much of the Body Ecology diet is about getting rid of bad yeast for healing and that yeast is a fungus.  I tried using Nizoral (ketoconazole) cream on it. I also knew that the anti-fungal Nizoral shampoo really helps my scalp and the cream keeps seborrheic dermatitis away from my face. I figured chances were good it would help the eczema on my legs.

And the results are in...

Lab Values --Woo Hoo!

It's been a bit over a year since I started Body Ecology... and the results are in. This is the first year I did not receive a warning from my doctor about my borderline blood pressure and my high cholesterol. The first time in 28 years, my friends. My triglicerides went from 167 to 68 (normal is 40 to 100). That is the direct result from getting off sugar.

Based on reactions from friends and co-workers, most people think it is just nuts completely eliminating sugar from my diet. This is table sugar... note that I do get naturally occurring sugars from starchy vegetables and fruits, etc. But the lab values speak for themselves. It was horrible for a few weeks and is now effortless.

As soon as you can get yourself to do it... just bite the bullet and give that poison up!

Speaking of Sweet...

Speaking of sweet, you can turn fruit into a candy-like-food for your tongue for about 30 minutes at a time. Miracle berries come from a plant. They make tablets out of it. If you let them dissolve on your tongue, it makes some kind of coating that makes sour fruit taste super sweet. You can seriously bite into a lemon and it tastes like some kind of amazing candy.

I've read a small percentage of people can't get it to work. That can be due to a coating on the person's tongue and that can be remedied by brushing the tongue before letting the tablet dissolve. You can find these little gems at Amazon.

Just remember you can make yourself sick with too much lemon. If not for common sense that prevails after a time, I could probably pack away an entire bag of lemons. I once had to physically restrain my child from the lemons in order to save her from herself. Okay, okay the physical restraint part my be a bit of an exaggeration, but I am telling you she REALLY wanted those lemons.

Here's a link to a Wikipedia article about it, if you'd like to know more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synsepalum_dulcificum

One Good Sweetener Deserves Another

A little something sweet is critical to success. If you're running around craving sweets all the time you'll never stick with it. If you don't stick with it, you'll eat something to make you feel lousy. If you feel lousy you'll want to eat more sweets-- that's how it works. It is so worth making the effort to convert to natural low/no calorie sweeteners we are lucky to have access to these days.

 Another good sweetener is Lakanto, which is also known as Monk Fruit. It's nearly calorie free and delicious. Stevia is great for tea, kefir and other beverages and for sprinkling over berries. Monk Fruit is nice for more solid foods like butternut squash with butter.

Sometimes Lakonto is combined with a sugar alcohol called Erythritol. This is the one sugar alcohol that does not tend to set off people with IBS. I have yet to find a use for this combination. I get the sense it would be good for baking as it's quite granular and seems to take a lot of heat in order to dissolve. It's just that I no longer do any baking. If I think of something, you'll be the first to know.

When combined together Stevia and Monk fruit often make an even better sweetener. I put them together in kefir and Coconut Kefir "cheese" (a fermented food, that I use as a dessert, made with the soft meat from young coconuts), I also like those foods with cinnamon and (alcohol free) vanilla.

Sprouted Nuts and Seeds

The Body Ecology Diet recommends eating only nuts and seeds that have been sprouted. This involves soaking them in water for 8 to 24 hours. I have read that this makes nuts and seeds easier to digest. It seems to work for me, though does involve a bit of extra effort. If you want to try some before putting in any effort, pick up sprouted almonds at Whole Foods --they are quite delicious. Whole Foods has other sprouted nuts and seeds; however, I do not care for them.

Unfortunately, if you buy them already sprouted they cost about twice as much as garden variety nuts. Thankfully, making them takes only a bit of extra effort. I buy raw nuts and seeds, soak overnight, let them dry out for a few hours, and then roast on a low temperature until they are crunchy again. They get a little sweeter after soaking. I generally skip the salt, as I do not find it necessary even though I really love salt.

Detox

The first two weeks I followed the Body Ecology Diet, I felt simply awful. It was truly a detoxification of sorts. I was filled with overwhelming fatigue, headache, muscle aches, the list goes on and on. The book advised this was likely to occur. After the first week I was ready to give up, thinking, "It just isn't worth it!"

I decided to give it another week... hanging on by my finger nails.

At the end of two weeks I started to feel just a little wonderful. Weight was falling off of me. It's gotten better and better ever since. Join me, life is just easier this way.

Stevia, Stevia the Wonderful "Food"

Stevia comes from a plant. In the past I dismissed it as being rather bitter and well, mostly disgusting. If you give up sugar completely, stevia grows on you quickly... I promise. Please be aware there are different kinds of stevia. The quality really varies.

For the best, look for liquid stevia suspended in glycerin (alcohol is not recommended). My absolute favorite is Better Stevia. I buy it on Amazon, though I have found it in some healthfood stores. It is stupidly expensive, but hey, it lasts a long time.

If you buy the larger quantity (8 ounces), find a little bottle with an eye dropper to use for manageable serving sizes as it tends to come out too quickly from the larger bottle.

      

Magical Foods

Once I discovered magical probiotic foods, I really started to heal. There are many foods made in old fashioned ways that are loaded with probiotics. Not the level of probiotics that you take in a pill... I mean seriously loaded.

I began with cultured vegetables. I bought some at health-food stores (check the refrigerator case). My favorite cultured vegetables I can by are Bubbies pickles. These are pickles made the old fashioned way. Not made by pickling with heat that kills probiotics. Rather the cucumbers are slowly pickled on your counter. All cultured vegetables are sour as the probiotics grow by "eating" the sugars that are in the vegetables. I had to grin and bear it in the beginning and then they really grew on me.

Once I started liking them I started adding in more and more and learning how to make them myself. They start off as a kind of healing medicine and become something you never want to live without. I now love Kombucha*(fermented tea originating from China), Kefir (fermented milk similar to drinkable yoghurt), Coconut Kefir (fermented coconut water from young coconuts), Coconut Kefir Cheese (fermented coconut meat from young coconuts). I hope to discover many more in the future!

*Note the Body Ecology folks do not support the use of kombucha, as they have not researched it thoroughly and have concern that it may contain too much yeast that is harmful. Having said that, I love it and feel it brought me to the next level. Time will tell.