That Does It!

My feet tell me when I've had too much of a food that doesn't agree with me. If I have too much wheat (especially bread) or sugar over the course of a few days, I get itchy welts on my feet.

And I know some dairy makes me feel bloated, and some protein powders make me feel tired, but I forgot how much until this morning. Because I was hungry yesterday, and had some chocolate whey in the house, I had a couple of serves of protein pudding with coconut last night. I've been waking up really easily all week, but this morning I struggled to get out of bed after 10 hours' sleep!

So I'm pretty sure I know what my body doesn't like, but I've decided I want some definite answers instead of just going on guesswork. Today when I was at Evelyn Faye I picked up a allergy food test:

Using a few drops of blood, the Allery-Food Check assessment will analyze your body's reaction to 96 different common foods through detection of food-specific IgG antibodies via ELISA methodology.

Allergic reactions to common foods such as milk, wheat, corn, soy, citrus, tomatoes and peanuts may be mistakenly attributed to passing viral infections or recurrent "colds". The relationship between the many common symptoms (including fatigue, headache, anxiety, as well as itchy runny nose and puffy eyelids) and the allergies that caused them may go unrecognized for years. Increased stress, recurrent infections or declining health may add to the burden of chronic allergies. Over the years, arthritis, gastrointestinal disorders, autoimmune disease, eczema, and migraines, to name a few serious conditions linked with food allergies, can develop into chronic conditions if the offending allergens are not discovered and removed from the diet.

The 96 General Foods to be tested:

Dairy:
Casein, Cheese (Cheddar) Cheese (Cottage), Cheese (Mozzarella), Whey, Milk, Milk (Goat), Yogurt.

Fish/Crustacea/Mollusk:
Clam (Manila), Cod (Atlantic), Crab (Dungeness), Halibut, Lobster, Oyster, Red Snapper, Salmon (Pacific), Shrimp (Western), Sole, Tuna (Yellowfin).

Vegetables:
Asparagus, Avocado, Beet, Broccoli, Cabbage (White), Carrot, Cauliflower, Celery, Cucumber, Garlic, Lettuce, Mushroom (Common), Olive (Black), Onion (White), Pepper (Green), Bell, Potato (Sweet), Potato (White), Pumpkin, Radish, Spinach (Green), Squash, Zucchini, Tomato (Red).

Grains/Legumes/Nuts:
Almond, Amaranth Flour, Barley, Bean (Kidney), Bean (Lima), Bean (Pinto), Bean (Soy), Bean (String), Buckwheat, Coconut, Corn, Filbert, Gliadin (Wheat), Gluten (Wheat), Lentil, Oat, Pea (Green), Peanut (Runner), Pecan, Rice (White), Rye, Sesame, Spelt, Sunflower, Walnut, Wheat (Whole).

Fruits:
Apple, Apricot, Banana, Blueberry, Cranberry, Grape (Red), Grapefruit, Lemon, Orange, Papaya, Peach, Pear, Pineapple, Plum, Raspberry (Red), Strawberry.

Meat/Fowl:
Beef, Chicken, Egg White (Chicken), Egg Yolk (Chicken), Lamb, Pork, Turkey.

Misc:
Cocoa Bean, Coffee Bean, Honey, Sugar Cane, Yeast (Baker's), Yeast (Brewer's)

Approximately 15 business days after receiving your sample, a report indicating your food reactions will be mailed to you. In addition, a customized 4-Day Elimination and Rotation Diet Plan may be sent as part of your results, depending on results.

So I am going to do the test on Monday and hope to have the results back in a couple of weeks. I think I will probably have positive reactions in the Dairy; Grains/Legumes/Nuts; and Misc sections, but I guess I will soon know for sure.

Filling Up

I don't eat oats very often at the moment, but when I do, I have steel cut oats.



These are whole oats that have been chopped into small pieces. They have a firmer texture than rolled oats (which have been steamed and 'rolled').

Because they are less processed, steel cut oats take longer to cook and require more water (see some recipes here). But this means they are also much more filling - gotta be happy with that!

On a related note, the last couple of days I've tried to convince myself that I would be OK with whey if I had it in hot things (pancakes, oats) instead of shakes, but this morning my stomach disagreed. So back to no whey for me.

67 days to go

Monday 28 July

After finally getting into a routine last week I slept in both days of the weekend, so found it a bit hard to get up early this morning.

After saying I wasn't having any whey at the moment, I realized yesterday that wasn't entirely true. I have a drink after training that contains hydrolyzed whey, but it seems that since it is so refined it doesn't bother my stomach. I did try some whey concentrate last night though, and my stomach definitely registered that (lots of gurgles and a slight feeling of discomfort). Not as bad as the cheese though.

Tried the whey again tonight, but with a dairy digest tablet, and it wasn't so bad. Still felt bloated and a bit gassy, but no real discomfort. I'd rather minimise my intake of dairy than pressure my digestive system by having it and 'helping' things along with tablets though.

69 days to go

After writing about agave syrup yesterday, I asked my husband to pick me up a bar of Loving Earth raw organic dark chocolate on the way home last night. It's sugar-free (sweetened with agave), gluten-free, dairy-free and low GI, but contains 72% raw organic cacao. I only wanted a small (40g) bar to have when my hubby and his mates were sharing their chocolate tonight. Needless to say, I wasn't very impressed this morning when I found out that hubby had eaten more than half of it on the way home, leaving me with just four squares! So I got another one from the health food store this afternoon.

I also tried having some cheese today after not having any dairy (including whey) for two weeks (apart from a bit of lactose-free milk on Thursday). I had 5g of Parmesan cheese (yes, I weighed it!) with my eggs this morning. About 10 minutes later I had a sore stomach and felt tired. Same thing happened to me last time I had dairy, on the day of the All Females, which is what prompted me to try going without it for a couple of weeks. I will keep experimenting to see what I can tolerate. I've still been eating mostly gluten-free - not difficult in our house since hubby is a celiac - although the bread rolls our guests were eating tonight looked very nice. I knew that once I started eating one I would find it hard to stop, so just concentrated on my steak and salad and looked forward to my chocolate instead.

Today I also had some pressure point treatment on my left quadratus lumborum, which was feeling a bit tight from posing practice this week, and sitting curled up on the couch yesterday.

Food Sleuth

This week, by choice, I've had no gluten and very little dairy (except a little homemade kefir (from lactose-free milk) on my quinoa/buckwheat porridge. Also no whey. This morning we went out for brunch. I had bircher muesli and fruit toast, two of my faves (but also trigger foods that I don't keep in the house). I then had some haloumi cheese from my husband's brekkie and a skinny flat white. Felt bloated after breakfast, then was a bit 'irregular' this evening. My mum told me when I was a baby I couldn't tolerate much milk, and I know I get bloated sometimes when having cheese, milk or cottage cheese. I'm OK with yoghurt and we only have lactose-free milk at home. But I've also noticed that a lot of my trigger foods seem to involve grains. More investigation required.