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jmcbn

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So, what if sauerkraut agrees with me fine, beets are okay in reasonable (not plate-fuls) quantities, and broccoli leaves one doubled over in agony?  Is that a FODMAP thing or something else?

 

ThyPeace, which is sad because I really do like broccoli.

Could be what kirkor suggested, or it could still be FODMAPs.

Everyone's tolerance level of FODMAPs is unique, as are the foods that they tolerate (or don't!), which is why I'm reintroducing one food at a time over the course of a week, and allowing a little build up in my system. I suspect that I'm okay with fructans, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I'll be okay with ALL of them, or that I won't have issues if I have two or three fructans in one day.

I can look back at my smoothie days for instance, knowing that I bloated after every. single. one. and see now that they were made up primarily of polyols - my main reason for leaving that group til last...

It'll be a long drawn out procedure but oh so 'worth it' to me - more 'worth it' than any off-roading session for sure, because this is my day to day eating I'm talking about. Ultimately long term this is what will me feel good, or not.

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In the latest move to help tackle the UK’s growing obesity crisis, the Royal Society for Public Health is today calling for the introduction of ‘activity equivalent’ calorie labelling on food and drink, which show how much activity would be required to burn off the calories contained in food and drink.

The Royal Society for Public Health proposes these labels take the form of prominent pictorial icons alongside existing front-of-pack information and it is hoped this would increase consumer awareness both of the calories contained within food and drink and the activity required to burn off the calories individuals consume.

Full article (& link to download the full paper) here
 
I'm lucky in that my eldest son has been a witness to and a party to healthy eating since his brother was first diagnosed with multiple food allergies as a baby. He's also fairly inquisitive, reads a lot of my course work, & researches for himself about what is healthy and what is not. I'm also lucky that my youngest son can't actually eat a lot of the unhealthy foods because they make him ill, but also because his gymnastics coach is also big into nutrition, follows a Paleo diet and has completed at least one Whole30 (hugely influenced by my son) complete with formal reintros and as the boys are warming up and cooling down every evening he advises them on diet.

Many kids aren't in a position where they're in the regular company of people who care about what they eat. Many parents just don't know any better, and whilst it may be too late to educate the parents it's not too late to educate the kids.

I don't know if what the RSPH is suggesting will work to be honest but it's step in the right direction - we need to teach our children that we need to eat good food, we need to move more, and we need to (ironically) step away from the screens & get back to nature.

Go on, find your happy place.

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Ok, study night - and tonight I'll mostly be learning about food addictions & binge eating....
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Today was a day for squats.

Air squats, grok squats, wall squats (aka squat therapy done nose & toes to wall), goblet squats, front squats, back squats, o/head squats & progressive pistol squats - all before what was quite possibly THE most brutal spin class ever. I may have to crawl down the stairs backwards tomorrow  :wacko: 
 

Today was also a day for deciding what to do with the broccoli I've bought for my food trila this week and although I considered either a broccoli & potato soup, or just plained old roasted broccoli in amongst some other veg I opted for a broccoli & carrot salad. This is what I ate by the bucket load, and what I'd like to get back to eating - maybe not by the bucket load any longer, but at least the odd portion each week, and I think I'll be able to get a decent sized portion on board this way so as to assess for symptoms.

I vetoed a potato, bacon & broccoli soup because if truth be told I like it better with a generous helping of stilton added into the mix, but seeing as how we're being truthful I also like to limit my dairy in take to 'special' occasions, and since I'm not sure how the broccoli trial will go the occasion may not turn out to be all that 'special'....

 

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I'm curious to know what you learned!

I'll have to come back to you on that one saree - I had gotten ahead of myself having printed off the course work ahead of time and we were actually covering hunger hormones & food cravings, but watch this space...!!!

I have to say I am absolutely stoked with this module - each lesson is running alongside Whole30 perfectly so far, and the tutor is so engaging. It's making learning so much more like fun - and that's exactly how it should be.

 

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Thanks for the pointers to the sulfur/thiol and FODMAP stuff.  I am pretty sure it's neither one of those -- I actually feel better when I eat beans, for example, than I do when I don't eat them.  And the same is true with most crucifers as well -- except broccoli -- and many of the other things on those lists.  Beets slow my digestion way down, as does kombucha and a few other things, so I avoid them.  And broccoli gives me bloat, gas, and pain as if it were full of lactose.  It's far worse when it's raw and far better when completely cooked.  Never have been able to figure either one out, so I just work around them.

 

ThyPeace, and your classwork sounds very interesting!

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And broccoli gives me bloat, gas, and pain as if it were full of lactose.

Did you look at the infographic right at the start of my log (about half way down the page on this link)? Lactose is also a FODMAP. Broccoli and Beetroot fall under the fructan category, but the issue is the same - the body's inability to absorb/digest the sugars. 

From the link: "...This causes a variety of digestive symptoms, most typically: bloating, gas, cramps, diarrhea, constipation, indigestion and sometimes excessive belching.  In individuals with FODMAP-intolerance, a far greater portion of these sugars enter the large intestine unabsorbed, causing exaggerated symptoms.  In fact, some researchers believe that Irritable Bowel Syndrome is purely a case of FODMAP-intolerance..."

As I said previously an intolerance to FODMAPs doesn't necessarily mean an intolerance to ALL FODMAPs, but it could well be the underlying cause of your issues.

 

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Broccoli day 1

 

Breakfast was x3 eggs scrambled in ghee with smoked salmon, some cherry tomatoes on the vine, and a generous serving of broccoli salad (steamed broccoli, grated carrot, finely chopped fresh chilli, freshly ground salt & black pepper, and a generous helping of home-made mayo to bind), with a mug of raspberry & echinacea tea.

 

There was a small amount of noticeable bloat accompanied by some gas within about 10 mins of finishing the meal, but no cramps, diarrhea, or constipation. All symptoms were gone within the hour. I wonder if the broccoli had have been steamed a little longer would the symptoms have been less? Too late now to assess as I made the batch of salad yesterday with all the broccoli I had... I'll probably not try raw broccoli for now given this morning's symptoms, but I may well invest in another head to try it roasted.

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UPDATE

Worth noting is that on week days (except for days when I train before work) I have breakfast at around 6:45 and I don't then have lunch until around 1:30/2pm which is at least 6&1/2 hours. Today, an hour or so after breakfast, I started to feel hungry again & I honestly wondered how I would make it until lunch. I sipped on water when I got to the office and at around 10:30 that feeling of hunger left me. I wonder now if this isn't related to the absorption rate of the sugars in the broccoli and it's effect on my satiety levels - I'm thinking that perhaps it wasn't until it was fully digested that my body got the message that I had actually eaten enough?

I've commented often that when I was eating a combination of FODMAPs on a regular basis that I felt absolutely STUFFED to capacity, but yet still felt like I was hungry - with the mild bloat this morning followed by the feeling of hunger not long after it would certainly seem like the two are connected.

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UPDATE 2 BROCCOLI DAY 1

 

Ugh. The GAS!!!  :wacko: 

So, no more bloat, no stomach cramps, no constipation, and no diarrhea. But, yeah, to anyone who has been in my locailty during the past few hours I can only apologise, or deny all knowledge  :ph34r: 

Now I'm assuming that this is all from the broccoli, but to be completely sure (and against my better judgement) I'm going to do a re-test tomorrow and follow the protocol I did with both sauerkraut and beets. My brain tells me I'd be better leaving a day in between trials, but my gut tells me that that'd leave me in a rather tricky situation at the gym on Wednesday evening and since I'm not able to train tomorrow evening anyway, and since this is all about my gut, I'm going with my gut...

Watch this space (but maybe bring a nose peg!)

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I'm torn.

 

Yesterday I had the same breakfast as the day before except that I subbed mackerel for salmon. I had the same bloat, followed by the same hunger, which left me again around the same time later in the morning.

I had a BIG ASS Salad for lunch with chicken, cucumber, tomatoes, the greens from spring onions, and a huge dollop of mayo, followed by chilli with baby boiled spuds & mayo at tea.

There was absolutely no gas in the evening. None. 

 

The previous day I'd had pulled pork with braised kale & courgettes for lunch and I'm wondering if the combination of the broccoli and the kale was the culprit as they are both cruciferous, and whilst I eat kale on a regular basis I've rarely (if ever?) eaten it in combination with broccoli.

So today I'm taking a break. Today I stuck with scrambled eggs, peppered mackerel, spinach & tomatoes for breakfast. I have no bloat, and I feel suitably satiated. Lunch will again be a chicken salad, and I'll have chicken & roasted veg with mayo for tea.

Tomorrow I'll try broccoli again without the kale (I'm training before work so the bloat will not be an issue), on Friday I'll try kale without the broccoli (in the evening, after training), then on Saturday or Sunday I'll try the broccoli/kale combo again and see how I go.

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This happens to me with broccoli (and cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage, etc.) but I love those veggies too much to give them up.

Sprouts will be coming up in my trial pretty soon - I used to LOVE spiced roasted sprouts, parnsips & bacon with fried egg on top!!  :wub: 

I caught up with that lesson on food addiction and binge eating last night. It was mostly how to spot those suffering and how to help them overcome their issues, and I have to say I think you're already doing a lot of what is recommended - identify your triggers, do what you can to avoid those, changing your response to & therefore your consequence of your triggers, avoid spending time with 'enablers',  document each situation when it arises noting things like the weather, emotional state, sleep levels, stress levels, what you ate, how you felt after, identify something positive in your actions as a focus for moving forward etc etc etc....

The big thing is that food addictions & cravings can be in part due to deficiencies in micro-nutrients so if you can stick with a nutritious, balanced, wholesome diet (did someone say Whole30?) which will help keep your hormones balanced (this is quite key) you are less likely to find yourself in a position where you will want to binge - and as you've discovered I'm sure it's also much harder to binge on healthy, wholesome, nutritious foods, so it's important to keep those unhealthy choices out of harm's way.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is the recommended route to take - not looking back to see what might have been the cause, but looking forward to make sustainable change. Set SMART goals, let go of the negative thoughts, self-hate & guilt, and reward yourself (non food obviously) when you reach those goals - and as you continue to improve and eat well you'll be building new & improved neural pathways with better habits, healthy memories, and positive outcomes, replacing the old ones that lead you down that destructive path. 

 

Sadly, from the signs/symptoms of binge eating I have learned I now recognise that the friend I mentioned earlier in this thread is in fact a purger - I thought she was just restricting. I just have to consider now what to do with this information given that she is very clearly still in denial  :( 

 

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I caught up with that lesson on food addiction and binge eating last night. It was mostly how to spot those suffering and how to help them overcome their issues, and I have to say I think you're already doing a lot of what is recommended - identify your triggers, do what you can to avoid those, changing your response to & therefore your consequence of your triggers, avoid spending time with 'enablers',  document each situation when it arises noting things like the weather, emotional state, sleep levels, stress levels, what you ate, how you felt after, identify something positive in your actions as a focus for moving forward etc etc etc....

The big thing is that food addictions & cravings can be in part due to deficiencies in micro-nutrients so if you can stick with a nutritious, balanced, wholesome diet (did someone say Whole30?) which will help keep your hormones balanced (this is quite key) you are less likely to find yourself in a position where you will want to binge - and as you've discovered I'm sure it's also much harder to binge on healthy, wholesome, nutritious foods, so it's important to keep those unhealthy choices out of harm's way.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is the recommended route to take - not looking back to see what might have been the cause, but looking forward to make sustainable change. Set SMART goals, let go of the negative thoughts, self-hate & guilt, and reward yourself (non food obviously) when you reach those goals - and as you continue to improve and eat well you'll be building new & improved neural pathways with better habits, healthy memories, and positive outcomes, replacing the old ones that lead you down that destructive path. 

 

Sadly, from the signs/symptoms of binge eating I have learned I now recognise that the friend I mentioned earlier in this thread is in fact a purger - I thought she was just restricting. I just have to consider now what to do with this information given that she is very clearly still in denial  :( 

 

 

CBT has always definitely been more helpful to me than traditional therapy - I have always loathed spending SO much time with a new therapist, rehashing my past - if you weren't depressed walking in, you sure would be by the time you left! CBT has the added benefit that you can pretty much do it by yourself once you have the basics down. The trick (for me) is actually practicing it in the right moments.

 

So sorry to hear about your friend. I have always assumed that in order to stop purging, I would have to stop binging first. But I am finally accepting that it must be the other way around. The first thing that must be done is take purging as an option off the table. If you binge, suffer the consequences. This was always unthinkable to me before - there was NO WAY I was going to binge, or even overeat (or at its worst, let's face it, even eat a normal-size meal) without purging. But as long as I left myself that "out," it was always too easy to continue my maladaptive behavior. It's only now that I'm approaching it from the opposite direction that I'm having (what feels like) sustainable success.

 

I don't want to get ahead of myself - I haven't B/P'ed in 20 days (!!!), which is huge for me, but I know it's too early to be calling the game.

 

Thank you so much for sharing this information. And good luck with the sprouts!

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She knows that I know.

I was at the gym this evening and since she and I finished training at around about the same time we caught up in the changing rooms whilst I had a quick postWO bite, and she prepared to shower.

It was just the usual chit-chat. You know the sort..... what have you been up to? how's training going? how are the boys? how's work? what are your plans for later? etc etc so when I mentioned that I was heading home to study she asked how my course was going. I told her I was really enjoying this module and said that most recently I'd been learning about food addiction and binge eating disorders, and how to spot the signs. She started to blush, and when I went on to mention a few of the signs (specifically the chipmunk cheeks, the 'beer' belly, the callouses on the knuckles of the hands known as Russell's sign, and the poor dental hygiene/oddly coloured teeth - all of which I'd previoulsy noticed on her but just hadn't done the maths) she went practically beetroot, dropped eye contact and very quickly moved the conversation on.

I'd assumed the calloused knuckles were just weathered from all the outdoor cycling she does; the chipmunk cheeks I'd asked her about on a couple of previous occasions wondering if she had a gum infection or something that was making her face look so swollen since she's currently wearing braces; and the teeth - well she's attending the same orthodentist as me following my recommendation and since I got my braces off I've been obsessed with other people's teeth so I just knew hers weren't in great condition. Other than a dentist nobody else would probably even notice. Individiually these signs meant nothing, but combined....

So now she knows that I know.

Maybe now she'll go home & think about it, and know too that if she wants to talk that I'm here for her.

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Wow. Good for you for being there for her, and yes she is lucky to have someone like you in her life. Eating disorders are a beast. As a nurse I have treated the patients medical problems stemming from eating disorders, but I always had a really tough time because psychologically I didn't GET it. It's tough. Good for you for not challenging her in any way and really showing her kindness and grace. It's probably exactly what she needs.

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I didn't sleep so well last night. I kept going over the last lot of months in my head, thinking back to when exactly it was that things started to change with my friend, conversations I've had with her about diet, situations were others have been eating & she has sipped on some water, the fainting... I've known all along that there was some kind of eating disorder going on, but I was SO sure it was anorexia. All those times she told me she was eating, she was (in hindsight) being completely honest, and quite possibly trying to tell me in her own way. I guess I understand her a little better now, and knowing what I know now, hopefully I can offer her the kind of support that she very clearly needs - it must be such a lonely way for her to be  :( 
 

I had to really force myself out of bed this morning to get to the gym. I could have quite happily stayed in the warmth of my duvet, but I knew I'd feel better once I'd been so I gave myself a mental talking to, threw back the covers and made it there for my usual time. I was a little easier on myself than usual, it has to be said, but tomorrow is another day.

Broccoli trial day 3 - and I've just eaten a delicious dish of roast chicken, cherry tomatoes, cold baby boiled potatoes (I normally keep these back for meal 3 but I'd run out of cucumber and I needed to add 'something'!), a huge helping of the broccoli/carrot/chilli salad, and an extra dollop of mayo. There is a tiny amount of bloat so far, but nothing too uncomfortable - let's see how the afternoon pans out...

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Have you ever found ~anything~ that actually works to bring you relief, when you have clearly overdone the FODMAPs? I am going back to the green list, giving it time, and drinking lots of water... Just curious if you have figured out anything else. As we have discussed, digestive enzymes really seem to make no difference.

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As in immediate relief? No. I just have to ride it out, which can take sometimes 2 days or more depending on how bad I'm feeling - the swollen tummy in particular can take longer to subside.

 

I'm hoping that having excluded the culprits for so long, and doing this slow reintro process that I'll eventually get to a place where I'll have a pretty clear idea about what & how much I can eat of any given food.

At that point I'll probably think about probiotics as they seem to be the way forward from what I've read. That said fermented foods can contain up to 100 times more probiotics than a probiotic supplement so I'd prefer to go down that route. GOOD supplements can be pricey too!!

I was eating sauerkraut pretty much daily at one point before the summer, and I may be able to get there again, but I'm thinking that it might be best to introduce a little variety since a lot of the prblems seem to stem from a build up of foods in the system. I seem to be *ok* with coconut given that it's a polyol (and I suspect that that's where my biggest problems lie), and there is a coconut yoghurt alternative available here (Coyo) with live cultures which I might look at including from time to time - it's about twice the price of a good quality natural greek yoghurt though. And I might just have to start fermenting my own low FODMAP veg (carrot & ginger is apparently pretty good) or brewing my own kombucha... Scoby Doby Doo...!!  :P 

 

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So the end of Broccoli day 3 looms and there has been a limited amount of gas along with the bloat. Nothing major, but something nonetheless. I'm loathe to make a judgement on this one until I finish up with the broccoli & kale day on either Saturday or Sunday. Kale forms a big part of my food cycle and I've been eating it without issue right since the start. If broccoli is going to throw a spanner in the works then it might just have to sit on the sidelines for now - but I'm not calling it a fail just yet.

In other news I just had a grocery delivery & I'm a little excited. When I was placing my order earlier in the week I was searching for cayenne pepper & the search brought up the much-talked-about-on-this-site Frank's Original Hot Sauce. I rarely step inside a supermarket, and when I do, or even when I shop online I'm shopping from a list, and so this is the first time I've come across it. Now it may well have existed here for an absolute eternity and I've just lead a very sheltered life but I just had to get some to try. I see the chilli & lime is also compliant - and reasonable too!! Here's hoping it lives up to expectations.... 
 

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Lactose is a FODMAP?  See now, I thought FODMAPs were about fructose, rather than lactose, which is a different sugar.  I will have to research more.

 

As for finding something that helps, I actually have.  This may be TMI, but then, well, if you're suffering from it, maybe not.  When I am suffering, I think that drinking water helps quite a bit.  What helps when I have major gas and pain, though, is to lie down.  Being horizontal allows the gas to shift out of the "stuck" places and move along.  If I lie flat on my back for a few minutes, then on one side, then the other, and then repeat, I can usually reduce the total time of unpleasantness significantly.  Probably everyone is a little different on where the gas gets stuck, so everyone will be different in terms of what positions work.  I also think that down dog, up dog/seal, bridge pose, and numerous other yoga poses are great for moving gas along.  I'm pretty sure that's what they mean when they claim that yoga "helps with digestion."

 

ThyPeace, do it in private so you can really fart.  Because, you know, the more you get out of your body, the less pain you'll have.

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So I must have missed why you are testing kale? Or did I misunderstand that part? I thought it was pretty safe because it's on the green list... I eat organic baby kale and/or spinach DAILY.

Much of what you are talking about with the probiotics, sauerkraut, fermented veggies, etc -- he talks about that stuff a lot in Brain Maker. Did you get to read that one, too? I hoped he was going to get more into explanations of IBS, FODMAPs, etc... But not so much. Still, a fascinating book. I've been trying to read through it again ~ with my highlighter this time.

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