My New Diet

This past year has been a rough one for my digestive system.  It got so bad this summer that I could hardly go anywhere before noon because I had to stay close to the bathroom.  I was trying to not aggravate my stomach and was having peppermint tea and honey for breakfast, an apple and some almond butter at lunch and then usually a salad and maybe some chicken for dinner.  Like clockwork, I would wake up every morning sick.  I felt nauseous all the time.  And I mean ALL the time.  It sucked ass.  I was crabby because I felt crappy every day for almost a year.

I finally went and saw a gastroenterologist who ran a bunch of blood tests and stool samples.  I know this is TMI, so if you want to skip to the bottom to get the results I totally understand.  There's only so much poop talk you can take.  Well, not if you're me.  I was raised by a Naturopathic doctor so we're all about the poop.  Anyway, I had to poop in this weird plastic thing and then put it into little vials.  That part's okay, but then you have to carry it to the lab in your plastic grocery bag.

I got to the lab and tried to hand the bag to the woman.  She recoiled like I was trying to hand her a bag of shit.  Oh wait, I was.  Apparently, it's bad manners to hand over your bag of poo.  They put on their safety gloves and then they hold it at arms length and THEN they check to make sure you've labeled your poo correctly.

Dog poo bags are much fancier than human poo bags.  

So, after my barrage of tests they found...nothing.  So my fancy pants doctor basically said that after all these tests, if they don't find anything they call it IBS.  Irritable Bowel Syndrome.  Which is sort of a catch all for any stomach disease that isn't already classified.  And according to Dr. Stomach (not his real name, duh) most stomach diseases aren't classified and the digestive system is kind of an unknown.

He recommended I try the FODMAPS diet.  Now you guys know I am an experienced dieter from my elimination/allergy diet days.  I smirked at him like, 'Sure.  Give me the handout.  This'll be a piece of cake.'  I'm sure Dr. Stomach had the last laugh that day.

I got home and read the print out.  Then I read the internet.  Then I downloaded an App for my phone so I could figure out what to eat.

Basically, you avoid stuff with the initials of FODMAPS.  Fructose, Oligo saccharides or something like that and I think the P is for Polyols.  Crap, if you want science go google it yourself.  I'm not here to talk science, I'm here to talk poop.

This is an incomplete list and though it says you can have bananas, it doesn't mention that you can't have ripe bananas.  Or that you can only have two pieces of celery before your stomach bloats up like the Goodyear Blimp.

I can't give you a list of what I can't eat because it's too damn complicated, but it's the hardest diet I've ever been on, especially for eating out.  I can't have dairy.  Unless it's lactose free.  I can't have wheat.  So far, so good, right?  I haven't been eating wheat or dairy since May of this year (totally fixed my migraines btw).  So...what's the problem?  Oh oh oh..what's the problem you say?  I can't have garlic.  I can't have onions.  I can't have honey.  I can't have almonds, unless it's less than 12.  I can have sweet potato, but only half a cup.  Brussel Sprouts?  Sure, if you only have 3.  Avocado?  No can do.  Mushrooms?  Nope.

So eating out is hard BUT there is a bright and very shiny spot in all of this.  I can have steak and red wine and baked potatoes and butter.  And that's pretty much my IDEAL meal right there.  Also, I can have bacon.  So maybe this diet isn't that hard after all.

Steeeeeaaaak.  Oh how I love you.  

After two days on the FODMAP diet, my stomach problems cleared up and have only come back when I have tried to re-introduce some of the other foods.  I have been told that in time, I should be able to eat more variety and I'm almost done with a month long course of probiotics from my dad that were expensive enough that I'm sure I'll have Super Stomach when I'm done.