Today I started yet another special diet with the hope that it will help doctors figure out what's wrong with me.
To say that I don't do well on diets is a massive understatement because I have become quite fond of eating whatever I want, whenever I want. Anything less than that is just depressing. And, of course, it's not like any of these diets ever consist of cheese pizza and chocolate pudding. That would be too easy. Instead I get the shitty diet with stuff that I eat only when forced (like now). Blargh.
This time I am forbidden from eating any refined sugars in addition to the deadly high fructose corn syrup that plagues our food supply. That right there cuts out 40% of my diet. Gluten and all wheat-type products? That's another 25%! Dairy products and eggs? Say goodbye to the remaining 35%! One of my favorite foods, Snack-Pack Pudding Spoonibbles (which comes with cookies you can use to eat the pudding with!), consists entirely of sugar, gluten, and dairy. The new trifecta of evil...
So what can I eat?
For a minute I was a little excited because I thought I could still have French fries and potato chips, but I'm not supposed to eat cooked vegetables either (apparently steamed is okay). With that in mind, I've made up a list of crap that I'm allowed (given that I don't eat meat)...
If I get creative, I can create things like "rice with soy cheese on steamed corn mash" or "natural peanut butter on rice cakes with apple slices" or even go crazy and have "lettuce salad with pear, raisins and Vinaigrette." But that's a lot of work, so I pretty much subsist on baby carrots, almonds, apples, pineapple slices, and juice.
And that's just wrong.
Humans were never meant to live this way.
Without cheese pizza and chocolate pudding, we are not men, but animals!
Animals who try to make French fries out of steamed potatoes and fail miserably!
I would so totally kill for a piece of toast with butter and strawberry jam right now...
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I don’t remember reading anything about your symptoms. Do you have some links I can go read?
Hope you only have to follow it until it reveals the sneaky symptoms so you can eat pudding again. Otherwise I might have to concoct some kind of veggie soy pudding thing that will probably not be very good. Although I once put tofu in a blender with Fructose (the powdered, natural kind) and cocoa and it was fabulous. Creamy and delicious! Just a thought. You know, in case you can have tofu.
It’s a lovely combination of unknown allergies coupled with medication for my joints that isn’t working like its supposed to. In both cases, it’s my diet that’s suspect.
You might try the Omega Trail Mix at Trader Joe’s, that stuff is amazing. Also, if you’ve never tried edamame before? You gotta try some, it is SO good!
I used to go to Japan twice a year, so I know edamame! But it’s a vegetable, and so it’s already on my list. 🙂
Omega Mix is yummy, but I’d have to study the ingredients to be sure. Next time I go to a city with a Trader Joe’s, I’ll take a look!
add raisins to everything
Wow this is seriously getting to the sharp end where options are concerned. I can’t imagine how you’re going to manage this. I bloody hope it helps find out what the problem is!
Keeping everything crossed that Chocolate pudding is back on the menu v v soon ;o)
That is harsh! I hope it helps. Or maybe I hope it doesn’t that way you can rule food out as the culprit. (My friends Meg is vegan and on this glutten free diet as well. I can’t figure out what to make her for dinner.)
Can you do Cool Whip with berries?
Have you considered a fruit, raw veggie, rice, juice, nut and water smoothie?
All the goodness of all the foods you’re allowed to have in an easy-to-handle container.
Well hopefully, after that torture, they’ll at least find out whats wrong. Sorry you’re having to go through this.
Can you eat beans? What about if you cut up a potato, dip it in olive oil and then sprinkle it with salt and bake it in the oven. I think that makes pretty good fries. Or is baking not ok? Could you pan fry them just to crisp them up and then steam them? You need to come live with me because I had to be on a special diet before my radiation each time and I thought it would kill me at first. Eventually I got really got at being creative and actually making good food that you couldn’t really tell was “special diet” food. You should send me the exact list of what you can and can not have and I could try to come up with some stuff for you if you want.
I’ve done this diet before, and I’d like to offer you a little advice.
Invest in really good toilet paper. Possibly even the wet wipes. Something.. uh… soothing.
You’ll thank me later.
This post made me cry. Just the thought alone is…
Stop making me cry, Dave.
Man, that sucks. Don’t go nuts.. oh, wait. Sorry.
I recommend Juicy Juice. Love that stuff and have been drinking it since I had braces! Sorry about the ice cream…
Fruit.
Raw Vegetables.
Rice & Rice Cakes.
100% Juice.
Nuts.
Water.
Yep That sounds like the diet I just started. Does your diet include “spontaneous digestive distress”?
*Don’t ask.
Peanut butter on rice cakes with apple slices is “too much work”?? Yet you can type a blog entry?
Just before my oncologist put me on an entirely liquid diet…which I have now completely converted over too…I was on a raw food diet. I have to tell you that I never felt better. It’s extreme but I had more energy and a lot less pain. You would be absolutely AMAZED by what all those refined foods do to the body.
I know it sucks to give up foods you love but the pay off is better health. Trust me, I know how you feel.
I’m still trying to figure out how I can liquefy pizza…
i will take one for the team and eat cheese pizza for you today. extra cheese even.
Good luck, Dave. I hope you are the very least feeling better, and that they come to a definitive conclusion sooner vs. later!
I’m a little concerned that there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of protein sources on your “allowed” list.
Have you ever been tested for celiac disease? It’s a simple blood test and it would tell you right away if gluten is a problem. It certainly sounds that way!
I know I’ve always teased you about there being no food in your food but this is so extreme. I’m sorry you have to go through it. 🙁
Restricting food intake? Sounds inhumane. I would cry. After all, if God didn’t want us to eat junk food, he would have never created Nabisco.
Crikey. I hope they figure it out fast. And I hope you still can eat SOMETHING when it’s over.
Okay, don’t hate me here, and I’m still your friend….but I must disagree…..Actually humans were made to eat these food. I’m afraid we’ve all talked ourselves into bad habits….me included. It’s time for a new thread to be woven in your life. Good luck!
Oh, man. Food allergy tests as an omnivore are hard, but as a vegetarian it’s just downright cruel. Just get through it, I guess… AND THEN PIG OUT!!!
Brown rice will change your life, making Britt’s suggestion moot.
If you’ve been eating a lot of prepared foods it might be hard breaking the addiction but it’s totally worth it. Takes a couple weeks. Look into a modified macrobiotic diet (don’t get weird with the umeboshi plums and mirin and stuff, but a simple 40/30/30 brown rice/vegetables/other stuff mix is pretty easy to do).
That sucks, man. I can’t imagine what it would be like to not only be limited in those terms, but to already be limited by being a vegetarian has to make it even tougher. I guess now’s as good as any to take up heavy drinking and recreational drugs.
no french fries! not even baked fries! wow. granted i don’t know squat about molecular changes to potatoes during cooking but it seems to me that if steaming them is ok then baking them (sans any oils) should be ok as well. but then again i’m not a doctor.
the next few weeks aren’t going to be easy for you at all but i too hope that it will help your doctors determine what is going on with you and fix it.
till then, since hello has so generously offered to take one for the team and have some extra cheese pizza for you, i will cover the fries for you. cheeks i’m sure will love to handle the chocolate pudding.
Well damn it, Vahid took what I wanted to say. But I’ll second it with my concern about low protein options as well.
Pauvre petit. 🙂
Wow, that totally sucks. I really do hope they figure out what is going on and you’re not on that diet for the rest of your life.
Gah! I wish I had read this before teasing you about the cupcakes and chocolate pudding. 🙁 Sorry you have to go through all this. It sucks when you have food allergies they can’t pinpoint right off. You should see what I look like when I ignore my food allergies. Never mind. It’s a really gross disgusting look for me. No one should ever have to see it. Hope they figure it out soon so you can have pizza!
I just read that diet soda/artificial sweeteners can cause kidney stones. Mostly diet soda. Could this possibly be a culprit?
Wow. That’s quite the drastic change. Good thing you had those potato skins and sorbet at the HRC last week.
No pudding? That could make someone go crazy. I suggest a Dave Toon with a Shinning theme, where Lil Dave goes crazy, holding a spoon in his hand.
You know I’m totally against diets, lifestyles are ok but diets; bad. Of course I say that while on a diet haha.
I just weighed in today at 175, that’s ten pounds less than I was about a month ago. That’s not as fast as I would like to lose it but its a start.
One thing I’ve noticed since changing my diet is that I cannot eat as much anymore. High protein, low carb and lower fat. It seems to be working for me but might not work for someone else.
I hope this works for you! Everyone’s body is different and we never really know how we will react to these dietary changes. Best of luck!
Dude, can you eat avocodos? if so, you can make chocolate pudding out of avo/cacao/a few dates/water/blend and it tastes like chocolate pudding!!!!
I swear it does!!!
M
Betsy, they also think global warming is linked to kidney stones. I don’t mean my comment as a slam, it’s just that they really don’t have a lot of conclusive evidence that doesn’t conflict with some other evidence about what causes kidney stones, and they’ve been trying for awhile. If diet soda were linked, I’d guess it’s because of the caffeine/potential for dehydration (much like global warming).
Once they figure it out, will you be able to eat normal food again?
My wife has been doing something similar. Her stomach has been crazy and for years she told herself she was lactose intolerant, but now that might not be the case.
She stopped eating meat and thought that might be it, but then decided it wasn’t.
Now she seems pretty sure it’s gluten, which as I’m sure you know, sucks. Apparently gluten is what makes bread, pasta and tortillas good. Who knew?