I had never heard of FODMAP before but I have had IBS in the past. Seriously, I don't know what I did to cause it to come on or what I'm doing/not doing now to have it gone for such a long time. It first struck me when I was pregnant with my DD (24 years ago) and it would attack at the oddest times but mostly in the middle of the night. I would have attacks off and on for years again with no apparent trigger. But I have not had an attack for several years now and I don't know why. I agree I could never have a diet that restrictive. But I wonder if you tried cutting one of those items at a time and map the results. Perhaps it is just one of those things on the list that is your trigger, Andrea.

Andrea-- I've not heard of it either but I've long suspected that gluten intolerance is widely over reported/diagnosed (except as you say with celiac sufferers).

I did have IBS in the past, but like Allison, I'm more or less under control. I went through years and years of diarrhea (even during pregnancy which is quite unusual). After I started eating healthier (but not right away-- like a year later), I went from diarrhea to constipation. So, that has remained my battle....

I'm sure it's not the preferred method but can you spot eliminate foods-- just a few or a certain type and see if it makes a difference? Or would that just not even help if you've got that? Is there a diagnostic test or just food elimination?

Andrea - I have no useful anecdotes and never heard of FODMAPS before today. I have been really interested in the new info on gut health, though. We started messing around with home-fermented vegetables a couple of years ago and I would say there's been a notable decrease in random GI "incidents" among the family since then. Sauerkraut, kimchi, beet kvass - all quite low-calorie, cheap, tasty, and easy to make. Maybe an option is try adding them instead of what sounds like a draconian misery of an elimination diet?

dagmar, two scales that read the same? Never heard of such a thing. :D

I've never heard of beet kvass before. Intriguing. I saved a couple recipes and my have to try it.

Andrea, I've read some of that literature with interest. In the past few years I've had numerous painful bouts of what my internist said was "likely" unsubtyped IBS. What I've noticed is that the association, for me, seems to be mostly with increasing stress and/or with flareups of the immune disorder that I've had for a number of years. The same internist said she considered the IBS a co-morbid condition and that I could try various dietary approaches, including a fodmap restriction. I've previously tried a gluten-free diet for several months with no benefit; of course now the research suggests that the situation is much more complex as you pointed out. But as a longtime vegetarian, a fodmap elimination is daunting; that's a large amount of my daily diet being eliminated. Maybe after I survive the wedding (IF I survive)...

Allison, the book that turned us on to it is "Wild Fermentation". :) I'm a long way from being ready to go into the fermented meat realm, but we are having a lot of fun playing with fermented veggies. DH planted a whole range of weird stuff that will be headed for the crocks later this summer.

Oh my goodness, Becky! I may go crazy with fermentation! I just spent the last half hour perusing all sorts of books on it and looking into purchasing a fermentation crock. I think I'll start with the kvess first as the recipe for that calls for a mason jar. I'll have to figure out a way to make the whey overnight that will not involve my cats licking it up...

Interesting - I have IBS pretty much all the time. I'm at the end of a 14 day zegerid course right now and am still pretty miserable.

Allison ... so good to have a convert! Bwahahahaha! We have crocks in 1, 2, and 3 gallon sizes, and DH is trying hard to convince MIL to give up her 5 gal sauerkraut crock! :D My summer project is going to be kombucha. I've heard the trick is not to do it in glass where you can watch what it's doing - it looks pretty yucky right about the time it starts to get good. :p

ETA: My sympathies for all suffering with GI "instabilities." My mom dealt with it for a long time and saw significant relief after getting her gallbladder out. Life's not fun when your guts won't play nice. The GAPS diet might be something that could be of interest as well. I have heard a number of near-family/friend anecdotes that it helped quite a bit.

I have the stomach of a labrador retriever (though I don't generally eat bars of soap, kleenex, plastic bags, or any of the other things they find so tasty) so I can eat pretty much everything. Except raw onions. Total misery if one piece of those is hiding in a salad and I eat it. The human body is a strange machine indeed.

Good luck to all those who are wrestling with gut issues or rediscovering their gut or trying to lose theirs - that's me! :lol:

Dagmar :dizzy:

If Fage Greek yogurt and soy sauce count as fermented, I have some fermented food almost every day. I like sauerkraut and pickles but it is very hard to find the real thing (fermented instead of vinegar'd) in the supermarket and, unlike Becky and Allison, I am not a homemaker who revels in the idea of canning, pickling, fermenting and otherwise "putting away" food. Guess I'll go the expensive route and get it from my local health food store, along with some fresh miso.

I do like pickles - my mother used to make an excellent pickled pumpkin after Halloween, using the regular pumpkin that we carved for our Jack'o'lantern. My grandmother made pickled beets.

I do not have the time or facilities or help needed to can or pickle anything. I do have access to a number of interesting pickled things at one supermarket near us. It's run by mid-eastern folks and they have a selection of pickled foods in a special aisle display near the produce. No recognizable brand names.

I am going to experiment with some of these this summer as cold snacks, rather than fruit.

Dagmar :dizzy:

Most of the recipes I've found so far for fermenting have you ferment and then store in the fridge and use within a few weeks. I'm going to go to the health food store this weekend and pick up a couple items to see how they taste to determine if I think I'll make them (like kumbacha). The one recipe that I know I'll try was jalapeños en escabeche (basically fermented vegetables--spicy!).

I've only once done any canning. Too much work! My Mom used to can all the time. I think I prefer fixing something and eating it NOW!

My DH is the canning whiz, not me! The fermented stuff is all destroyed by pasteurization and canning. The beauty of it is that it can be done in small batches and eaten fresh. It only goes to the refrigerator when you get it where you want it. Which in the case of the beets took 4 MONTHS because it was winter and they were harder to break down. It's not that time consuming to prep it, seriously. We can shred and pack 15 pounds of cabbage into the 3-gallon crock in less than 20 minutes.

Up 3 pounds since I started having all this GI distress, and I'm hardly eating. The bloating is fierce, and the fodmaps diet is not helping (not that I am doing a perfect job of following it, but still). Starting tomorrow, I will be adding real fermented pickles and sauerkraut to my diet (though raw cabbage is a no-no on the fodmaps list), and I also bought a new, high-end brand of probiotic at the health food store to try. You can imagine how p*ssed I am to be gaining weight at a time like this.

Maybe you should have a doctor check you out? Just to make sure there's no underlying illness.

Dagmar :dizzy:

Andrea, I hope you see some relief very soon. :( If not ... yeah, even I would head for the doctor.

Two major hurdles for me this weekend, but then an all-clear for quite a while. Tonight is a major, not-even-annual splurge - 7 courses of morel mushrooms. Yeah, I'm gonna eat it. All of it. Even the cream-based morel bisque. Link here, if you like: http://www.hollyhotel.com/events.html. And on Sunday will be our Indy 500 BBQ, which is more of a carnivore celebration but the dishes people bring to pass ... oh my. Shrimp bread. Broccoli soufflé. Artichoke/spinach/bacon dip. And beer, OMG the beer. <facepalm> Such is the stuff of life. :dizzy:

Weight right back up to where it was two weeks ago, rather than staying down at the new low. Probably cortisol-related from some stressed-out days, particularly Wednesday. I've accepted that there will be no steady downward trend unless I start weighing and measuring, which I don't want to do, because it triggers restriction and bingeing and more disordered thinking than I already am subject to.

But this is maintenance, staying about the same.

Andrea-- is your GI distress fairly new? Can you link any possible causes to it? Hope you find relief soon!

Becky-- I remember your morel feasts. Enjoy!

Saef... yes-- maintaining.... good for you....

Not sure what the weekend holds for me food wise. Though I'm pretty sure we're eating out tonight and tomorrow (mexican tonight and sushi tomorrow). I have both of those restaurants down so I should be okay though I'll likely spike due mostly to sodium. I know dh wants to do some sort of a cookout for Memorial Day so that may be the tricky day but he'll usually prepare something for me like grilled shrimp and veggies.

Jozi was sick yesterday so I hope she's okay today. She had an accident over night Wednesday night and then dh came home to a horrible mess yesterday. She seems fine now and it is quite unusual for her, so I hope it was a brief illness. Perhaps she got overly worked up having dd and dh both home?? Who knows.

TGIF everyone! I have Monday off too! Do you?
My dd is flying to Chicago right now with her service dog for a conference. She gets very anxious traveling and flying, so praying all goes smoothly and she enjoys herself somewhat.

Michele~I don't know if you saw the post on Facebook that I put on your DD's page. The other day there was a post about a service dog named Owen--yellow lab. The photo showed him with a cat. He had been with his family when they were involved in a car accident and he got loose. The photo was to try and find him. I swear the similarities with him and your DD's dog--it scared me! He was hit by a car and killed. So very sad. But then I was relieved to hear it was in Illinois, not Texas.

Yes, I saw it-- freaked me out! I know that is one of dd's biggest fears. Her Owen wears a seat belt most of the time in the car. Weird that she is now on a place to go to Chicago.....

I think I'm giving up on this fodmaps thing. It is just.too.hard. and it has not resulted in any bit of improvement. OTOH, I had my first serving of naturally fermented sauerkraut last night, and a new probiotic this morning, and felt better than I have in nearly 2 weeks, despite a large serving of homemade gazpacho tonight (yes, full of vidalia onion, a fodmaps no-no). Michele, I have had this problem innumerable times before, dating back to childhood. I never know what will make it flare up (antibiotics always does it, and definitely NOT stress-related, but most episodes seem utterly random) and many trips to gastroenterologists have never yielded anything more helpful than "eat more yogurt and get some psychotherapy." This bout has been a bit worse than average, but definitely not the worst one ever- that one landed me in the hospital with dehydration from the nonstop diarrhea and cramping.

Becky, I love morels. *jealous* I had no idea there was such a posh hotel in Holly. Do you live nearby?

Gosh, Andrea, it sounds like what used to be called just colitis. (Not the ulcerative kind.) I had it in high school in ancient times. It was directly related to stress. The dr. prescribed a type of tranquilizer that was specific to the GI tract, and that cleared things up. I rarely have bouts of it anymore, but when I do, I look to stress levels.

As for diarrhea following antibiotics, yogurt alone isn't enough. One has to take the probiotic (Acidophilus) capsules. Yogurt just doesn't have enough of the bacteria. I'd think any gastroenterologist would know that, but...

Andrea, yes, I'm in Fenton, so Holly is only about 15 minutes out for us. We're members of the dining club; we try to get there a few times a year.

Everything that night was outstanding, as always. Even though I went in really hungry, I hit the 5th course and thought I was going to pop. Most of my main course had to come home with me. :D

I ducked the scale this weekend and today; my average was for all practical purposes back to my original starting point :rolleyes:. I've decided to take on a Give it 100 challenge - 100 days of deliberate exercise. Not saying they all have to be intense workouts - I'm just going to commit to going out of my way to do something each of the next 99 days in a row.

I've started taking probiotic capsules once weekly - I do think that subjectively, my bouts of GI pain and cramping are decreased despite no new relief from stress (a trigger for me).

Something I am learning about my body is that as I get older, the effects of chronic stress/cortisol increase are more severe. I develop a pronounced "spare tire", no exaggeration, that is not responsive to my standard calorie restriction. Over the 3-day I decided to get more aggressive and ate nothing but veggies, fruit, nuts and a bit of eggs and dairy, just to see what would happen. As expected, the spare tire deflated immediately and took about 5 pounds of water weight with it. The discouraging part is that I don't know what it will take to keep it off, while the stressors are still present. I can try to maintain this approach as long as possible, and slowly add back in a few healthy protein/carb sources like quinoa. I've never had this response to stress before but it is really marked, to the point that I don't fit my clothes at the waist.

At my last doctor's visit he told me to stop taking calcium supplements and to eat more yogurt, cottage cheese, and dark leafy vegetables. So for the past couple of weeks I've been having cottage cheese and fruit for my breakfasts. Last week I bought a carton of cottage cheese and it was simply inedible. I've never tasted anything so tasteless. When I hear of people saying something tastes like eating cardboard I can totally understand now. It was a brand carried by several grocery stores here so I figured it was a good brand. I always get either low or non-fat and this was low fat. I had to throw it out! I'm eating a different brand today (and one I've never bought before) and it is normal tasting. I wonder if the batch I got on the other brand had omitted the salt. That's the only thing I can think of that would cause it to be tasteless.

I actually prefer the low salt cottage cheese-- the regular tastes way too salty to me. Did the doc say why you should stop the supplements? I'm sure real food is always preferable, but what if you don't get enough?

JayZeeJay, that's very interesting. Please keep us posted as you deal with it.

Allison, I've eaten cottage cheese, fruit and a little muesli & wheatgerm + milk for breakfast for years - until last week. I stayed in a B&B in London and had breakfast with a Swiss German both mornings. She, of course, ate muesli the Swiss way: cut up an apple finely, add a little muesli and mix round with yoghurt. Like the good Dr Bircher-Benner said originally. I'm doing this now and I'm very full. I don't really need a mid-morning snack so I'm discussing with myself whether I need to keep my metabolism revved or whether I need protein to build muscle or what I should do. In the meantime, my tummy remains too large.

(Bit rambly that, I know. I'm on the phone and Rather Over-Tasked).

Michele~he wanted me to stop the supplements because of new studies that link heart disease with calcium supplements. It's better to get the calcium naturally.

I just checked the carton on the icky cottage cheese. It was actually 2% milkfat. The one I like is 1%. I wonder if that is the difference.

Silver~I love muesli and yogurt, but I usually add berries. I'll have to try apples.

Funny - I was just talking about cortisol to a friend offline and she said 'Hey, that is what they are talking about on 3FC right now.' I've been working like crazy the last few weeks and have been popping in to read but haven't commented, haven't read since last week when I was reading about fodmaps.

So here is where I am. I've been on a great exercise program since 1/8. I've followed the program religiously with two breaks - I was sick for 10 days during Phase One, I missed a week while on the road for work during Phase Two. My strength has increased, I can tell that. My calories have averaged 1850-1900 for this time period, with some higher days and some lower days. My weight is exactly the same and my clothes actually fit worse than when I started. My belly feels huge. I have been bloated and icky for months, I have IBS symptoms. I've been tested several times in the last few years, as recently as lat October, and have no ulcer, celiac or gluten insensitivity, no hpylori misbalance, nothing. I was fussing to my friend about this and she says "I think you are discounting the effects of cortisol." I've been reading all morning and I think she is right. What I don't know is how to fix it. I worry and fret and stress all the time. I made a 47 out of 56 on a perceived stress test. Which makes me stressed. LOL I need to learn how to not worry all the time and see if that helps.

I read Andrea and JayZeeJay's posts and they resonate so strongly in my head. Are we all in about the same place?

I'm probably in the same boat, too, Shannon. I'll do some extra reading on it to be sure. But stress is huge for me and I don't foresee it getting better for the next couple of months. This weekend was stress-free and I managed to get over 8 hours of sleep each night. If I woke, I fell back to sleep fairly quickly. And then there was last night. Every work night this happens--I wake around 2 or 3 AM and lie awake worrying about this or that, sometimes falling back to sleep just before my alarm goes off. It totally sucks and makes the rest of the day horrible.

While I admit my exercise hasn't been optimal my diet has been pretty good. But no weight is coming off and that spare tire around my mid section drives me up the wall. I can't wear form fitting shirts at all.

DD thinks I might benefit from IF. She's been doing it, one day on (500 calories) and one day off (unlimited calories) and after a week she was down 5 pounds. Of course she's out of school right now and spends a couple hours at the gym each day (lifting mostly).

FWIW, I think that if someone is already stressed, restricting calories too much just adds more stress. The same goes for exercise--too much exercise no longer reduces stress, but just adds to it.

Hey there guys. I think I'm getting ready to join you over here, even though I'm not springing loose "those last few lbs" but instead about 30lbs of baby weight. I'm trying to wean off my one last daytime pump session this week, so next week I will have my lunch break back at work and I will no longer have an excuse to not work out. I told myself this week I would suck it up and not eat any junk food Tues-Thurs, but then already today I broke down and ate an entire bag of trail mix which had M&M's in it.......which was 6 servings of 150 calories apiece. :o

:wave: Jessica! You'll get back in the groove. I hear you about the trail mix - I have been there, done that too!

I have a good friend who just was diagnosed with hypophysitis - she's actually on cortisol replacement therapy! Hard to imagine; I wish I could donate mine! ;) Currently, I don't think of myself as among the stressed. I finally have a job I really like and I am gradually learning to let stuff go. Unfortunately, the "manana" attitude has oozed into my fat loss project. :lol:

Allison - I've tried IF. It didn't help me a bit. I was doing 2-3 days a week super low with a 24 cycle of no food, the other days as normal. Didn't do anything but make me grouchy.

Jay - I'n beginning to agree with that.

Welcome, Jessica! The trail mix will kill you, man. BTDT myself.

Becky - I wish I could give your friend some of mine. :)

Allison, Bircher-Benner recommended grating apple and mixing it all the night before. I haven't done this but may do when I'm back at home. I usually have berries too but the apple could have lots more fibre (hence the full feeling). Will check.

I like to think I'm fairly relaxed but my eating pattern indicates otherwise. I keep moving relaxing things into my life and annoying things out (as much as possible). I'm also delegating where I can. But the fact remains that there's a lot to do which only I can do.

Currently on a week's tour of duty with two people in their late 80s, two houses and gardens and a sick 14 y o. Springboarding from a return business trip to London of a few days and an urgent proposal which materialised to fill the relaxation period I'd allowed.

I know that when my head starts to buzz all is not well. It's a good system and I pay full attention and act on it. It's gone off a few times recently.

IBS flare is definitely over now, but weight is parked at 128 since last week.

I'm not sure what I think about the whole stress/cortisol/weight gain issue. It seems to me that we almost define stress in reverse: "that state of mind which leads to negative consequences." If we have exactly the same situation (bad job review, too many demands on our time, fights with spouse, etc) but we maintain inner equanimity, then it's not a stressful situation. If you take that one step further, we sometimes blame external circumstances on negative physical phenomena, whether or not they are in reality related: migraine headaches this week? Must have been the bad job review. IBS flare? Too many things due at the office. Weight up a few pounds? Clearly from the family infighting. I know elevated cortisol is a Real Thing, and it can lead to all kinds of physical badness. Trouble is, so can a lot of other things.

By early mid-morning I'd got petrol, gone to market in the rain to get a dozen eggs and bought a bedside lamp in a charity shop. Plus quite a lot of talking about logistics. Called into a cafe for a cup of coffee and this is why I'm posting. Did not look at or buy or eat any of the cakes and pastries freshly baked there in front of my eyes. Just said "white coffee, please" and went to a table. Win.

Kudos, Silverbirch, for enjoying a cafe without falling into their fresh pastries. I used to think that caffeine was the addictive draw to Starbucks, but have shifted to think the coffee is just the entry drug to get one to their scones.

By-the-by, prepare yourself to be SHOCKED. The number one news feed on my computer this morning reported that a Murdoch Aussie newspaper printed a picture of Princess Kate's bottom. Perhaps it's worthy of celebration that there's no news of greater import in the world.

That seems like it could be right-- but no one gets to equanimity through wishful thinking or internal pep talks. An active meditation practice can get you there, but it means a change in attitude.

As long as someone is doing the same things over and over--working long hours, taking on more than they can handle, running the treadmill of achievement in the eyes of others--they haven't really changed their attitude, and their stress isn't going to be anything else but stress.