Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Two Days Down, Three to Go!! -- Countdown to SIX MONTHS STABLE!!!!

Awright! I made it through another day, no D. That means three days to go to a full SIX MONTHS D FREE!!

Bless you Heather!!

Okay, more do's and don'ts. NO RED MEAT!!!

In six months, I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I've eaten red meat. I had one small lamb chop (maybe 2 oz of meat total and that's stretching it), two bites of steak another time, and one SMALL hamburger patty. And on ALL THREE occasions my tummy started rumbling and grumbling and I had to take an Imodium or I wouldn't be about to celebrate six months!

So what have I been eating. A LOT of freakin chicken!! White meat only of course. When I first started out in January, I asked Andy to poach it for me, which is very easy in the microwave (DON'T ask me how, okay). He'd poach it in chicken broth seasoned with salt, pepper, onion powder and oregano. When my tummy was so sick it tasted SO GOOD! As I got better, he started marinating and grilling it for me. He got it a little too spicy once -- he had an oops with the hot sauce!! He also has a couple of other standard ways that we like it, his mom's recipe for sauteed chicken breasts which has a little more fat of course, and a broiled skinless chicken breast with LOTS of paprika (YUM). Plus when we order Chinese, I get steamed chicken with mixed vegetables, sauce on the side. I get three meals out of that.

But you can only eat so much chicken. Unfortunately, I only like certain types of seafood. Anything with too strong a fishy taste or too icky a texture makes me gag. So I eat A LOT of canned tuna. Another one of my staples. Once I got stable enough to handle the mayo (or substitute of your choice), tuna salad became a regular meal. I like grilled fresh tuna too. Just had some last weekend. Salmon as long as it's not too strong. Flounder or sole. Shrimp and lobster (but not too much at once because it's so rich). And that's about it on seafood. Love sushi but not the strong flavors or chewy ones.

What's that leave? Egg whites, tofu, nuts. Thank goodness I'm okay with peanut butter. PBJ's have become a constant. Oh yeah, white meat turkey. Love it. There's a deli right near us that roasts their own. We buy a quarter pound and that's TWO meals for me!

But NO RED MEAT!! No beef, no pork (or bacon or ham -- WAH!!). Not even veal. Aside from ethical objections, a veal chop triggered me once. I ate too much and it was just too greasy. No lamb. No hotdogs, bratwurst, chili dogs, bologna, salami, pepperoni, NOTHING!!

How do I do it? Easy. If I cheat, I get sick. I don't want to get sick so I don't cheat, it's that simple. Is it always easy? No. Especially when Andy buys himself a steak and cooks it at home with me looking on forlornly (he doesn't do it often). But I still won't cheat. Like Bev says, "Ewww, dead cow carcass!" I guess it helps that I was semi vegetarian for quite a while.

But mostly it was Heather's books that finally convinced me to give up red meat for good in January (other than those minor examples I gave above). And now that I think of it, that's probably the single biggest factor in getting stable this time.

So I repeat, Bless you Heather!!

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Laura
Keep it simple!

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