Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Re: Sand or anyone who can help!!!!

I stopped going after every bite pretty quickly - I'd say within a few days to a week. I got stuck at 3 or 4 times in quick succession for quite a while - at least a month - but I could kind of plan for that.

I was a terrible coward about food when I first started out. I didn't do the What To Eat When You Can't Eat Anything Diet as Kerry suggests, but it took me months to try mayonnaise or Smart Balance Light or any store-bought sweets (I still only eat soy and rice ice cream and Duncan Hines cake mix as store-bought sweets). I have yet to attempt soy pizza. It took me ages to attempt a bagel and I still consider them an occasional food rather than a staple. Basically, if it wasn't in Heather's EFI and it wasn't on the Recipe Board, I didn't eat it for a long, long, long time. And I was cautious even about those recipes as far as fat went for a long time. I now consider myself very fat tolerant, but in the beginning I avoided it as much as possible.

Breakfast was a problem for a long time - my tummy is incredibly touchy then. I spent a lot of time eating dry Chex and corn pops mixed. Discovering applesauce with acacia as a morning starter opened things up a little, but I still do best with a very low fat neutral breakfast - lately I've been eating Heather's Brown Sugar Banana Bread - it's low fat and has pretty much nothing but soluble fiber and sugar in it. I have to coax my digestion into getting up and running with simple foods first thing in the morning.

I know this sounds terribly boring, but it really wasn't. One thing I discovered was that what Heather says about spicy food not bothering most IBSers was absolutely true for me. I could eat her Italian Tuna Lemon Sandwich, Guacamole, Smoky Eggplant Hummus, and Barbecue Pizza almost from the beginning, despite their spices and IF.

I've really rambled on, but here are three things I'd consider key:

- Super-loading on SF - at least a 2 to 1 ratio of SF to IF+protein for quite a while. And that's without counting my SFS
- Avoiding store-bought and restaurant-bought stuff for quite a while. It was largely fear - I just didn't feel confident reading labels - but in retrospect I think it helped
- Fear of fat

Also there's one thing that's kind of idiosyncratic to me, but that you might consider. I cannot tolerate whole wheat at all. I'm not sure about other whole grains, but in general I avoid them, even in small amounts. For example, I won't buy Whole Foods Sourdough bread because one of the ingredients is whole wheat flour.

I hope some of this helps. Take care.

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[Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate. - Sandra Boynton]

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