Day 5 and a surprising find

[Dee41]

For a bit of background:

I'm 41yo, have 4 kids 5.5y and under, own and work in a business with long hours (12h days), have hypothyroidism and PCOS. The littlest one was weaned in January at 18mo, and also started sleeping through the night at that point (finally!), and all the stuff I'd been putting down to lack of sleep/breastfeeding (headaches, daily dizziness, hair falling out leaving bald patches, skin breakouts, extreme tiredness, always cold, really bad anxiety) has actually become even worse so I can't blame it on the baby any more! Had some blood tests, apart from borderline iron levels (and this is good for me, I often have low iron and mild anaemia) everything checks out fine. I'm not really overweight, but have always been shall we say sturdy :), my BMI is 24. I've not been losing weight, actually probably gained about a kg in the last few weeks. I don't weigh myself much (too much baggage there), and generally go by how my clothes feel.

I decided to do Whole30 mainly to help me cut out coke and sugar and see how much of an effect that would have on the above symptoms. I'd been getting through the days using coke (about 2 cans per day) and sugar (biscuits, chocolate etc) to see me through, often not having time or energy to get proper meals when work is busy and stressful. When I'm home with the kids (3d per week) I do better, because we do actually cook from scratch 95% of the time, and grow a lot of our own fruit and veg, but even on good meal days I find myself snacking on sugary things all the time as well. 

This is day 5, and I've been 100% compliant, cut everything out cold turkey. I expected massive headaches for the first few days, but I've felt fine - still tired but no worse than usual, but no headaches and also no dizziness! Can't remember the last time I went 5 days straight with no dizzy spells. Anyway, as part of tonight's dinner I had 2 sausages - work finished late, I was starving, and it never occurred to me to check the label on the sausage packet until after I'd eaten - stupid really, but of course there was wheat in the sausages.

So yes, I have to start again, but the point of the story is that I'm now bloated, with painful stomach cramps and burping. This NEVER happened to me before in response to meals of any sort! The rest of the meal included 2/3 of a roast cauliflower, 2 grated carrots and 2 sautéed red onions (small ones) all mixed together with a tahini/lemon/olive oil dressing and a spoonful of compliant mayo. This exact veg mix I'd eaten for 2 meals 2 days ago as well, so it shouldn't be that.

For the rest of the day's meals:

M1: leftover roast chicken breast from the night before, broccolini/onion/capsicum/mushrooms/chard sautéed in olive oil, compliant mayo.

M2: big salad with lettuce, capsicum, cucumber with olive oil/balsamic dressing, half avocado, 5 olives, large can of tuna (145g, think that's 5oz)

I have eaten the above meals at least once before during these 5 days with no stomach troubles.

I'm only drinking water (almost 2 litres per day), with occasional half cup of green tea (maybe once every 2 days). No snacks.

I'm generally not hungry between meals, except when the gap goes over 6h (which has happened 3 times, usually work related). 

 

So what is going on with these stomach cramps and bloating? The obvious thing is to say wheat in sausages, but I've never had a reaction like this before, and I was a huge carbs eater! The only other thing I can think of is that maybe I went too long without food (it was 7h between lunch and dinner) and just overloaded an empty stomach. And probably ate too fast because I was super hungry.  

Thank you if you've managed to get this far!

[ladyshanny]

Sorry your stomach is wonky! I would say perhaps that it is a limitation issue on the cauliflower/brocolini - cruciferous veggies are known to cause cramps and bloating, especially if you've eaten a lot of them in a shorter period of time. try eliminating the cruciferous veggies and see how that goes. 

[Dee41]

Thank you very much! I felt back to normal by the following morning so tested your theory and ate the rest of the cauliflower mixture for breakfast (without the pesky sausages!  ) - similar problem, but a bit less intense, presumably due to a smaller portion of cauliflower compared to the night before. I do love brassicas in general, but have been eating more of them this week than usual. 

Thank you  

[ladyshanny]

11 hours ago, Dee41 said:

Thank you very much! I felt back to normal by the following morning so tested your theory and ate the rest of the cauliflower mixture for breakfast (without the pesky sausages!  ) - similar problem, but a bit less intense, presumably due to a smaller portion of cauliflower compared to the night before. I do love brassicas in general, but have been eating more of them this week than usual. 

Thank you  

Glad you discovered it and glad you're feeling better!