My Food IS My Medicine

When I started seeing results, from my simple first step of 80% non-starchy veggies and 20% animal protein or starchy veggies... my thinking began to change. I thought... my medicine will be my food. I will stop trying to make everything tasty and comforting and spend a few months healing myself.

I read that if I stuck with it my tastes would change. I decided to SIU (suck-it-up) and at least temporarily give up some of my comfort foods and add in foods I found less appetizing.
I took a couple of big steps.  Grains and table sugar were eliminated from my diet.You read it correctly... no added sugar (glucose, fructose, sucrose, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, rice syrup, tapioca syrup... nothing!)  With the goal to keep natural, calorie-free sweet tasting foods in my diet, I shunned artificial sweeteners and used only stevia as a sweetener. I will point out I truly detested stevia at that time. This was no small sacrifice.

Sobe Lifewater helped me make that first big leap. It was the one stevia sweetened thing I found that tasted okay, note it also has erythritol. It gave me something sweet at least. I like the Strawberry Dragonfruit, Fuji Apple Pear, and Black Raspberry varieties best. I admit they were a total crutch, but hey, it got me there. Now it serves as an occasional treat.

Starting Small

I spent a long time thinking of starting the Body Ecology Diet. I just could not bring myself to begin.   My friend, who got over her chronic fatigue with the diet, suggested starting small. I picked two small ways to start:
1) First, I bought the Kindle edition of the book so I would have it available on my smart phone. My friend suggested reading the book slowly as it is a bit challenging.
2) Second, I tried the most basic aspect of the diet.  I made 80% of my plate non-starch vegetables and 20% either starchy vegetables or animal protein.
It was an easy way to start and it got me going. It seemed manageable and after that point I decided I would think of my food as medicine... But, that's another thought for another day.

Believe It!

It's tough to get motivated to start a new diet. I worked toward motivating myself to lose weight for seven or eight years (I'm not kidding). It wasn't until I started believing that it could really happen that I got ready to move forward. Getting my IBS under more control with low FODMAPs really helped me see that changing my diet could change my body.

I decided to find an old picture of myself and put it in a place where I would see it frequently to get me started. I think this could work using a picture of someone you would like to look like one day. In my case I have pictures of how I used to look that showed how I wanted to look again.

I chose a picture from when I was 18. I knew I wouldn't look 18 again, but figured my body could look similar... after all it was MY body.

So I posted this picture onto the screen saver on my smart phone. Every single time I pushed my phone on I was confronted with this picture-- that's a lot of motivation!

Next I made a catch phrase for myself that I used like a mantra. It seems rather silly when I say it out loud or type it, but never-the-less, I said to myself (often), "I want to be a tiny little mother".  You know... those tiny little old ladies that are so cute people say "Awwww, I want to be like her someday", whenever she leaves the room.

When I look back on this time, this is the only difference between my success this time and my many failures or temporary successes of the past. I imagined, I visualized, I believed.

My Body Hates Sugar

One thing I learned from following a low FODMAPS diet last year --My body HATES sugar in pretty much any form. Many who do the FODMAPs  elimination diet find they can add some of the FODMAPs categories back into their diet. Not me, I failed every challenge. I am okay with that fact. Once I accepted that sugar just isn't for me it all got easier.

So... I've changed

It's been a year since I've blogged... a very busy year. In the past 9 months I've lost over 50 pounds with help from a combination of low FODMAPs and the Body Ecology Diet. I did not set out to lose, I wanted to feel better and lower my blood pressure a little as it was going in the wrong direction. After tweaking my diet one more time the weight started coming off and rather easily.




Lisa in Spring 2012

Lisa in July 2014

What a differnce a year makes, 2013

 

It's just so fun in 2014

My daughter sent me pictures of myself from a couple of years ago and I recognized that my appearance has actually changed. Today I will share.

Day to day I feel better and yet feel like I look pretty much the same. New clothing is a big perk, and I've had to get a new wardrobe 3 times this year. Not to mention healthy blood pressure and a healing gut.

I think I will start blogging tips again. First one... if you've already done an elimination diet with IBS Free at Last and are ready to try more, look into the Body Ecology Diet. There's a website; though I enjoy the book the most.  I keep it on my smart phone with the Kindle App.

 

My sister once told a crowd at a gathering, "Lisa is food intolerant." It's not far from the truth. I spent years attempting to find the key to resolving my IBS symptoms. I gave up dairy nearly 30 years ago and gluten about six years ago. That really helped, but then thankfully I stumbled across a reference to the FODMAPs research in April of 2011. That's when my life changed. I never thought I could feel so good. I never dared to dream.

To Cheat or Not to Cheat

... that is the question.

I've seen a few friends and family members go through the elimination diet. Some don't really find out what they can and can not eat. If you do the elimination diet half way it doesn't really tell you anything. By reducing FODMAP content in your diet you may learn that there is something to it... but you won't know what you eat safely, what you can't and where you can fudge in the future without feeling lousy.

I had a co-worker who bought the book and said she was seriously on it, then three days later she was eating pizza for lunch. She said, "I'm still doing the diet, I'm only eating one piece." A couple days later it was, "Just half a bagel with a little cream cheese." That doesn't cut it!!

The thing that really helped me was carrying around two lists. One list with everything I could eat and another of everything I couldn't. I found it helpful to break them out by food category (fruits, vegetables, grains, etc.) When you try an elimination diet I suggest that you are very careful.... it may just change your life for the better.