in praise of fiber
#249545 - 03/01/06 02:52 PM
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jaime g
Reged: 07/27/05
Posts: 961
Loc: new york city
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(first, of course, the disclaimer that what works for one person won't work for everyone.)
i've been feeling a lot better lately, and just wanted to share.
i'm an A who started as a D, and i'd spent about a month annoyingly (but not cripplingly) C.
first of all, i upped my SFS - i take fiberchoice, and went from 8g to 12g. but, i think, what's really helped, is IF.
i started this diet last summer. within weeks my D was so much better - basically gone, and only surfacing with stress or cheating. so much better. but only recently have i realized that *i don't need to be afraid of IF*. a few months ago i was scared of almost all vegetables - carrots, zucchini, and sweet potatoes were about all i felt safe about, and any veggie product with more than 2g dietary fiber on the label scared me. in the last few months, though, i've started branching out, and i'm amazed, in two ways - in what i can eat (raw spinach, tomatoes, berries, apples, sweet potato with the peel, peppers, figs, and that's only a start), and how much better i feel. i never thought i'd be snacking on dried figs, and the other day i had a salad. *and* my C's cleared up.
i just wanted to let you all know, because i know *i* was scared of IF, and i don't think i'm the only one. trust your instincts and listen to your body, but don't be afraid.
(if anyone has a similar story about IF from grains, let me know! still figuring out ow to tackle that...)
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jaime
ibs-a (mostly d) // vegetarian
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Well, unfortunately I am one of those ppl who is afraid of IF. Like you, I started out as D, and am now more C than anything. (so I call myself A) I too am not in terrible pain from C, but it is bothersome and gassy. I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate IF since I am doing well w/ regard to SF. I am just too scared! I ate a few strawberries today after having some french bread and am fine so far...I loved reading your post because it has given me hope!
Thanks for sharing,
Amber
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[Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate. - Sandra Boynton]
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I'm always shocked at how little IF some people [particularly D people] eat... of course I totally understand the fear, because I've been there myself. But once you stabilize, you really can branch out much more. Or at least that's been my experience.
Re: grains, I'm usually ok with a bit of brown rice (usually mixed with white rice) but whole wheat still kills me. Most/all of my IF comes from fruits and veggies.
ps glad to hear you're feeling so much better! 
Edited by retrograde (03/02/06 09:16 AM)
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Thanks for reminding us how important it is to include insoluble fiber in your diet!
Quote:
trust your instincts and listen to your body, but don't be afraid.
Best advice ever, Jaime!
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Just wanted to add that I do fine with brown rice now (even without any white rice mixed in). Yay!  I can also have a slice or two of whole wheat bread every now and then; it's just hard to find one without HFCS or dairy.
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Re: grains
#249711 - 03/02/06 12:15 PM
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Augie
Reged: 10/27/04
Posts: 5807
Loc: Illinois
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Do you eat an SF before or with the brown rice? Or can you tolerate an IF veggie and the brown rice at the same meal?
Same with the wheat bread?
Thanks.
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~ Beth
Constipation, pain prodominent,cramps, spasms and bloat!
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Are we still getting enough IF if we peel fruits/veggies? Or if we eat SF veggies?
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~ Beth
Constipation, pain prodominent,cramps, spasms and bloat!
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If I have brown rice, it's mixed with white rice (so I'd have it at the same time), and generally I'd only have mostly-SF veggies with it, like cooked carrots, beets or maybe some zucchini (peel on).
I don't eat whole wheat bread.
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I try not to peel my fruits and veggies whenever I can handle it. But then, I puree most of my fruits and veggies (cooked, peel-on where applicable). Probably 80% of my fruits and veggies are pureed... maybe more... and the only ones I eat not pureed are SF, such as bananas, carrots (cooked), potatoes, beets, mushrooms etc., sometimes cooked zucchini (with the peel on).
I find that pureeing F&V makes them much more tolerable, and I'm still getting the IF while making it much easier to digest. Honestly, as long as I eat SF with it, I can tolerate most F&V this way, peels and all (the only exception being the cuciferous ones - broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage etc. - still can't do those).
As a vegetarian I also eat beans everyday - happily I do ok with these. I started out only having them mashed but now I find I'm ok with them whole. So I get some IF there. I also usually have a few tbsps of nuts each day too - always very finely chopped.
Beth I think I eat more IF than you do and I'm a D!  Just my 2-cents 
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Honestly, for breakfast, my cereal is usually cream of brown rice or GF mighty tasty cereal (brown rice, corn, buckwheat and sorghum) along with 1 T of flax! And papaya or strawberries with the plain brown rice powdery cereal. I only take 2 grams Citrucel beforehand. 
For lunch, I've been eating one piece white rice bread,but then one piece millet/flax bread...and pureed unpeeled zucchini and also a peeled apple or nectarine. Sometimes I leave half the skin on the nectarine.
For dinner, I usually have an IF veggie and sometimes I keep the peel on half the potatoes. Sometimes I have millet with squash. I think I may be overdoing the IF since I don't take much SFS.
Any thoughts? Thanks Laurel.
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~ Beth
Constipation, pain prodominent,cramps, spasms and bloat!
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maybe, if you're still not feeling good, try making it more IF from fruits & veggies and less from grains, but still keep it high? it seems that fruit & veggie IF is less upsetting for some people.
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jaime
ibs-a (mostly d) // vegetarian
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Any suggestions on how to substitute the foods? Which ones should I eliminate and what to replace them with? It seems the GF product options are more IF in nature with the cereals/breads. 
Should I peel the fruits?
Thanks for any feedback/thoughts.
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~ Beth
Constipation, pain prodominent,cramps, spasms and bloat!
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i don't know about GF eating - hopefully someone else can speak to that - but in terms of peeling fruits, i'd do it step-by-step. i started out eating apples peeled. then i tried a baked apple with peel, making sure to chew carefully. then i ate a whole apple, but with half of the peel. then i went to a full, with-peel apple. and all of this after eating some SF. if at some point i started to feel iffy, i'd have stopped there, but it didn't bother me, so i kept going.
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jaime
ibs-a (mostly d) // vegetarian
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Beans
#249819 - 03/03/06 08:15 AM
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Johnny T. Reb
Reged: 07/09/05
Posts: 987
Loc: Lake Linden, Mich in the U.P. IBS-C
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Beans, beans good for your heart.
The more you eat, the more you fart.
The more you fart, the better you feel.
So eat beans with every meal!
Laurel, Right you are! Last friday I went out and ate at a
new Mexican restaurant with some friends. I had a grilled
chicken salad which had a lot of black beans in! I thought
uh oh,but it tasted so good, I then thought ah what the heck
, I'm just going to enjoy this. I had the whole weekend to
recover just in case. Much to my pleasant surprise, I didn't
feel bad on saturday, and the BM's were much better than
usual. True, I did fart a lot,but that's beans for you.
Coming to you from the Chicago Public Library on Lincoln Ave
-Bob
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<img src="http://www.math.mtu.edu/~rwkolkka/BritPicA.jpg">
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Beth, Berries, berries, eat lots of berries! Also, leave
more skin on your larger fruits. I see you're posting this
morning, you must be ok. That's good . Hope to see you
later today! -Bob
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<img src="http://www.math.mtu.edu/~rwkolkka/BritPicA.jpg">
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you do get more IF than I do!
I'm not really sure what advice to give... my knee-jerk reactions would be,
1. definitely increase your SFS -- but I know you've had so much problems with SFS so I'm not sure if that's a viable option at this point
2. as jaime said, stick to SF grains and get most of your IF from fruits and veggies... but I know that eating GF can make that a lot more complicated than it sounds, as you said
3. listen to your body and figure out what works for you... but that just sounds downright consdescending in light of all the trouble you're still having...
So, I'm afraid I'm not much help... {{HUGS}}
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Beth, have you considered buying a breadmaker? They're a bit expensive, but pretty easy to find used (particularly online, like on eBay), and they do seem to pay themselves off in a while, considering that you can make a whole loaf of bread for quite cheap (especially since you're already spending a lot on GF breads and other products, right?)
Anyway, I just recently bought one (and I love it) and it came with *tons* of GF bread recipes, a lot of which looked really IBS safe to me in their SF:IF ratio. Maybe that might be a way to try to get more SF grains in your diet?
Also, is regular cooked rice ok for GF? (Sorry if I'm showing my ignorance  ) If so, I practically live off basmati and jasmine rices (which are white)... I have rice for dinner almost every night and I never get bored of it.
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I wish I just had a normal case of IBS and what worked for most of you would work for me. This intolerance of SFS and the GF eating is throwing a big kink in the process. I find the GF products tend to have IBS triggers...either as fat or too much IF.  Honestly, I don't know how to modify this diet to get more IF from fruits/veggies than from fiber. Brown rice and fiber is considered more healthy for most...and that's why the GF foods tend to have them.
That's what the consumer seems to want...plus the taste from the fat.
Believe me, I'm trying to figure out what my body likes...but it isn't saying anything but "I hurt no matter what you put in me"!
I have to figure out this whole peeling vs nonpeeling thing too. I've read where people have found success with both methods...which makes it confusing. Especially when I probably have other things triggering me in the meantime which would cause pain mo matter if I peeled or didn't peel.
I feel I am a lost cause with this whole thing, and loss of hope scares me.
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~ Beth
Constipation, pain prodominent,cramps, spasms and bloat!
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What brand did you buy? Was it expensive? I can't believe it came with GF recipes. Did you buy it on line?
Yep, regular rice is fine. You eat the white basamiti type, right? I'm afraid if I ate rice every night, I'd be very C. Rice is binding for me, I think. Or at least I'm leery because of the whole BRAT diet for diarrhea.
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~ Beth
Constipation, pain prodominent,cramps, spasms and bloat!
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Yep I eat white basmati. Keep in mind that the BRAT thing, prescribed for D by doctors, is pretty much the same as the WTEWYCEA diet, prescribed by Heather for both C and D - the basis is SF, which, as the basis of this diet, is beneficial for both C and D. And if you think you're eating *too much* IF, maybe upping your white rice intake would be a way to balance it out, especially since you're not doing ok with SFS and are having trouble finding other tolerable (GF) SF grains? (Just kind of shooting in the dark here...)
The breadmaker I have is a Cuinsinart Convection Breadmaker (CBK-200C). I bought it at Williams and Sonoma (in Canada) for about $100 on sale at xmas, but looking around the internet it seems it's the same price in the US. (Here is it at Amazon.com: web page; it's also the same price at Williams and Sonoma online: web page). And according to my user's guide, the GF setting is actually exclusive to this model, so go figure
It came with a huge recipe book, including 6 GF recipes. Generally the GF breads in the book contain rice flours (white and brown), soy flour and other bean flours (garbanzo, garfava), buckwheat, rye, semolina, sorghum, amaranth, quinoa, potato starch and flour etc.... It also notes that you can use any commercially available GF bread mix in this machine using the GF setting.
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Hi Jaime, I'm trying that right now with whole grains. Due
to travelling down here and the anxiety that goes with it,
like wandering aimlessly in front of some terminal at O'Hare
trying to get a cab, with a pretty cold wind chill to boot,
it worsened my C. Other than eating too much SF at dinner
last night along with a piece of cappacino cake(Oh, I was a
glutton ),I've been increasing my whole grain intake.The
BM's have gotten a bit better today. Hopefully, this will
continue. It doesn't surprise me too much that you had
success, as it is in accord with the theory I put forth this
past summer. Glad to hear your C cleared up! I'll bet if you
keep eating this way, your C will not return in any bad way.
-Bob
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<img src="http://www.math.mtu.edu/~rwkolkka/BritPicA.jpg">
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Thanks for the link, Laurel. You are such a sweetheart!
Quote:
Generally the GF breads in the book contain rice flours (white and brown), soy flour and other bean flours (garbanzo, garfava), buckwheat, rye, semolina, sorghum, amaranth, quinoa, potato starch and flour etc....
This is the problem. I can't find a bread recipe without the IF flours. Rice, potato starch, and quinoa are fine, but I can't find a recipe that doesn't include at least one of the others.
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~ Beth
Constipation, pain prodominent,cramps, spasms and bloat!
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Yeah you're probably right... I guess bread is a real tough one for GF/IBS-safe eh? Still, most of the recipes seems to be almost half and half for SF/IF... and I'd imagine that there's quite a bit of SF in bean and soy flours too. But, I know, it would be a pretty big investment for a "maybe this will be ok"....
*hugs hugs hugs* I wish I could be more helpful
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Beth, I think you should try the breads with some of the IF
in them. I doubt you'll get any worse, and they hold the
promise of making you feel better. I think Laurel has a very
good idea. In fact, now I'm thinking about getting a bread
machine myself. How 'bout this,if the bread machine does'nt
work for you, I'll buy it from you. -Bob
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<img src="http://www.math.mtu.edu/~rwkolkka/BritPicA.jpg">
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