Spreading the word about this diet.

I'm telling everyone I know about how much better I feel and how my blood tests are better.  This week, we're doing the blood test so that my daughter can find out what she reacts to, if anything.  She has chronic migraines, 15 or more days per month.   We've been taking her to a local clinic that specializes in migraines and they have pretty much reached the limit of things that they can do for her.  That leaves us with this diet as an alternative and if it doesn't work, Botox.   She really doesn't want injections of Botox to her head, so we're going to try the diet first.  Her kit came in the mail last week.  It has everything you need to send the blood work off, the order, the tubes and vials, the already addressed Fedex envelope to put it all in and send it off.   I hope we get some answers for her.

It's going to be interesting preparing foods from 2 different restricted food lists, so I hope there is some overlap in what she can eat and what I can eat.  It's a little daunting, but hopefully we can make it work.  

Finally, an update.

I've been on this diet since January 29 and mostly, I've stuck with it.  Over this past weekend, we had a party and there was a lot of party food and I ate several things I shouldn't have.  I ate milk chocolate and sour cream and onion potato chips, both of which, I guess, contained enough dairy to upset my stomach.  I'm back on the goat's milk this morning.  I obviously don't react well to cow's milk dairy.  Fortunately, goat's milk is good for making gravy and creamy soups and white sauce so I can have some variety in my recipes.  I'm at the adding foods back in to see how I react phase and right now my diet is not as restricted as it was.  I'm going very slowly because I feel good and my symptoms are doing really well.

On my initial symptom survey, my symptoms have gone down, down, down.  I don't think I have a copy of the initial, just after 2 weeks, when my symptom score was 55.  Then a few weeks later, 38 and then a couple of months later, 20.   Objectively, I'm feeling much better and I am subjectively as well.  At the rheumatologist, in March, my C-reactive protein (which is an inflammation marker) was 4.8.  I asked what it had been the last time and was told that it was 7.  This is a clear indicator that I am on the right track here with this diet.  (Read about C-reactive protein and its links to heart disease and Alzheimer's disease here.)

Getting creative with the recipes - how to.

I can hear you saying you have no idea how to make recipes out of the crazy mix of foods on your LEAP diet list.  There are ways of making recipes but it does take a lot of work  Most of the work has already been done by food bloggers around the world, it's just finding their recipes and modifying them even more - that's what you have to do. 


You'll have proteins, starches/grains, vegetables, fruits, dairy/miscellaneous, nuts, seeds, oils and flavor enhancers.  Those are your building blocks.  Some of these foods you're going to enjoy on their own, just plain, but some you won't and you'll need to find recipes for those.  I like broccoli, cauliflower, and all of my fruits on their own, but the rest of them, I needed to do some cooking.


One of my proteins is turkey so I did a search for turkey with the vegetables that I had (week 1), asparagus, cauliflower, pumpkin, lettuce and zucchini.  That got me a lot of thanksgiving recipes (turkey and pumpkin) but not much else.  Then I looked at my list in greater detail, found navy beans and found a turkey and navy bean soup.  It was tasty enough.    It helped get me through the first week.


Look at your list in detail.  Some of the things I would consider to be vegetables are in the protein list.  Some of the foods have different forms and you will want to consider those forms.  One of my fruits was an apple, so I got some apple juice.  I heated it up and put some cinnamon in it for my nightly hot drink.  (I used to drink hot chocolate every night.)  Consider all the different forms of the food.  Coconut has fresh coconut, coconut flakes, coconut milk, coconut oil, coconut sugar and coconut flour.  Just make sure that it is pure or what it is mixed with is something you can have.  Olives on my "fruit" list means I can cook with olive oil as long as it's pure.  Oats on my grains list means I can cook with oat flour as well as eat oatmeal.   Look at your list carefully.  Get a piece of paper and write down each food with all the forms of it you can think of.    Look for recipes online.  Look for food allergy or vegan recipes.  Search for things with quotes like "cookies without eggs" or vegan cookies.  Search for items you have in a list, like I did with the turkey and navy beans.  Get as many flours as you can and make your own blend to make bread. 


Use whatever flour you have, whatever fat you have, whatever spices you have and whatever milk you have to make a sauce for your meat and vegetables.    On the third week, when I was able to add in celery and carrots, I cooked turkey, celery, carrots and onions, then when everything was cooked, put in a little coconut oil and some oat flour, stirred it around, put in a little rosemary and then soy milk and it made a kind of gravy/soup with the other ingredients.  It tasted like turkey pot pie.  It was delicious.   If you need to get proportions, get a recipe for gravy and use those amounts or just use a teaspoon of fat, a 1/4 cup of flour and 1 1/2 cups milk.   You can experiment until you've got a good blend. 


Don't forget that you (I think all of us do) have vinegar and baking soda, two essential ingredients for baked goods rising without yeast and using fruit (applesauce or canned pumpkin) for an egg substitute.  Try making a Wacky Cake.  I made this one and it was really good.  I just left out the spices I couldn't have.  Fortunately, I do have cinnamon on my list. 


Be creative with google and fearless in the kitchen!  You can do it! 

Getting creative with the recipes.

It gets boring just eating plain foods, so I've been mixing it up a little.  This lovely dish is called cabbage hamburger gravy or something like that.  The buckwheat flour makes everything seem a bit gray and unappetizing, but it tastes pretty good and is filling, so I'll probably make it again. 

Also last night I made a cake!  It was good and it made me feel better about things.   I modified this recipe from Gluten Free on a Shoestring.  I can't use baking powder or chocolate chips, so I used baking soda/vinegar in combination and it worked out great.  I need to make my own powdered sugar and make a glaze next time I do it (because powdered sugar has cornstarch in it!). 


Anyway, I'm surviving.  I don't know if my symptoms are any better.  I was up 4 times last night using the bathroom and having to use my eye drops and mouth spray due to the Sjogren's.  I don't know if anything is better, but my elbow and shoulder pain have improved some. 

Day 8

I'm feeling okay.  The diet is not making me feel like I'm suffering.  I'm getting carbs in, so I don't feel like I'm getting carb flu or anything.  I am getting tired of the same foods and feeling a little discouraged, but really, I'm okay.  I was hoping for a miraculous improvement of all of my other symptoms, but that hasn't happened yet.  I feel okay, but I am still having stuffy nose/sneezing symptoms and dry, itchy eyes.  I don't know if anything is related to my diet at this point.  I'm eating a lot of avocado and hamburger meat, alternating it with oatmeal, the oatmeal cookies, bananas and peanut butter and applesauce, among other things.  Tomorrow, I'm going to cook a roast with cabbage and make a gravy to go on the cabbage.  I'd do it tonight, but my kids have friends over and I don't want to spoil their party with the smell of cooking cabbage.  It smells pretty vile. 


I found out this week that I have to have total knee replacement in April, and I'm pretty bummed about that, and yet tired of the knee pain, so I know it's necessary.  That has influenced my mood and the diet is not allowing me to have my main comfort food, mashed potatoes.


Maybe in a couple of weeks.

I guess this is beginning day 3.

I don't really feel any different.  I had hoped that the diet would have helped by now, but I remember when I went gluten free, I suddenly started feeling good in the fourth day, so I have some hope that tomorrow I might feel somewhat better.  I still have dry eyes, frequent urination, sore urinary tract, nasal stuffiness, constipation, dry eyes/mouth, sore joints (knees, feet, elbow, shoulder), etc.   No changes.  I hope that there is hope for me.  To try this and not get any relief will be very hard, because then I will know that I have to live like this for the rest of my life.  That's kind of depressing.   Today I plan to try and make a turkey/navy bean soup, which I hope I will like.  I've been enjoying some of the foods more than I thought I would.  I like the goat's milk and hamburger meat with onion and avocado is something that I first ate during my experiment with the AIP diet and I like it a lot.  I went to the store yesterday and bought 4 more avocados, more broccoli and strawberries.  I sat down and ate a snack of strawberries last night and enjoyed them very much.  If nothing else, it's good for me to branch out, since I always eat the same things.   I hope the soup is good.  I tried making a broccoli soup at the beginning and it was a disaster.  At that time, I thought the only oil I could have was sesame oil and the sesame oil ruined the soup.   Now I have realized that since olives are on my good foods list, I can have olive oil.  The world has opened up to me.  I may try and make the broccoli soup again this weekend with the olive oil.  


Today, I'm going to cook something for me (turkey and navy beans) and something else for the other people who live here.  They've been eating a lot of chicken nuggets and pizza rolls for the past couple of days because I have been only cooking for me.  It always takes a while to adjust. 

 

Okay, LEAP protocol second full day.

I slept reasonably well last night.  The elbow pain that I've had for the past week is gone.  Completely.  The shoulder pain is barely there.   The knees, of course, are still painful.  That is probably unrelated to my diet.  I'm not sure though, because I have heard that arthritis may be diet related or at least aggravated by diet.  We'll see I guess.  My nose is stuffy this morning.  My eyes are dry.  I feel constipated.  My bladder feels sore/tender and I was up 4x last night (as usual) to pee.  I'm hoping that will be cut in half because 4 times a night feels excessive.  I still don't, no matter how many times a night I get up, ever feel as tired as I always did before I went gluten free.  I was exhausted all the time back then.  Now I just get normal tired, if I have a reason to be tired.   It's hard to describe how exhausted I always was in my 20s, 30s and half of my 40s, before I stopped eating gluten.   


I don't know what I'm going to eat today.  Probably leftover turkey and hamburger, maybe some of the leftover broccoli and cauliflower.  I may also cook some navy beans or cabbage.   This is going to get repetitive very quickly if I don't go t the grocery again and get maybe some fish to eat.  I'm going to have to be creative, I'm afraid, if I am not going to start to feel bored and desparate.   Oh boy, it's only day 2.  I haven't even started eating yet.  I'm going to try not to think about it too much and concentrate on my project for today.  Wish me luck!  (nonexistent readers!)