How limited was/is your diet?

[Guest guest]

I have really been encouraged by reading the responses to the

thread " Struggling to find balance " . I am finding myself at the

beginning . . . again, and maybe even worse than when I first started,

because of the mistakes I've made.

If anyone else wants to post what their beginning diet was like and how

long they had to stay so limited, I know I would be encouraged further.

Thanks,

Orlinda - OR

Celiac - 2006

SCD - Sept. 2007

[Guest guest]

At 10:32 PM 1/22/2008, you wrote:

If anyone else wants to post

what their beginning diet was like and how long they had to stay so

limited, I know I would be encouraged further.

Orlinda,

I had been edging into SCD for a couple of months before I began it

formally. I was dealing with an " unknown " issue -- unknown

because the GP was too stupid to recognize that side pain + yellow skin +

itching & skin lesions = gallbladder disease. The skin specialist he

sent me to took one look, ordered and liver panel, and when it came back,

said, " Go directly to a surgeon, do not pass go, do not collect

$200.... " Two days later, I had surgery, only they overdosed me on

the anesthesia, and what should have been same-day surgery resulted in a

four day hospital stay because I passed out every time they tried to get

me on my feet.

I was too sick to make yogurt, although I ate some of what I'd made

before going to the hospital. The rest of the time I was using

acidophilus.

I determined that I could tolerate beef roast, pork roast, steamed

zucchini (first with butter, later with shredded cheese), and soft boiled

eggs.

Harry peeled and sliced zucchini and put it in bags in the fridge. We

kept a pan with water for the eggs on the stove. He also roasted, under

my direction, the beef and pork, and sliced it, and put it in bags in the

fridge.

It took me weeks before I wasn't sleeping all the time as my body detoxed

from the anesthesia and eliminated the sky-high liver enzymes. (Surgeon

later told me the enzymes were so high, he expected to find end-stage

liver cancer.) I would crawl out of bed, stumble up front, set the water

to boiling, check the SCD-list, put the eggs on to boil, scoop them, eat

them, and crawl back to bed. A few hours later, I would stumble up front

and grab a couple slices of meat, eat them, and stumble back to bed. A

few hours after that, I would steam some zucchini. Then I would sleep,

then have some more meat. Then more zucchini. Then more eggs.... and on

around the clock.

After about a month, I had to get back to work, and I had the energy to

make yogurt. I couldn't QUITE eat every two hours, but I could manage

every three. Same foods for the next month.

Sent my system into a tizzy two ways at Christmas -- Christmas dinner had

foods way too advanced for me. Christmas Eve, my parents took us out to

eat, and when my food wasn't prepared properly, I wasn't brave enough to

send it back. Very nearly missed the Christmas Eve candle ceremony that I

love.

Got back on track after Christmas. Began to add vegetables... green beans

and spinach. I was getting beastly tired of zucchini! Also added grilled

chicken breasts and other forms of cooked eggs.

Although I had almond flour in the freezer, I don't think I made anything

with it until around mid-February.

So, meats, veggies, eggs, yogurt. First four months or so.

Which is not to say that I was a perfect SCDer. I made mistakes, like

inadvertently getting hold of some bifidus in the yogurt, or using

pre-shredded cheese dusted in potato flour. Or substituting carefully

washed cottage cheese for DCCC because I couldn't find DCCC and no one

told me I could use yogurt cheese.

But considering that pre-SCD, I'd gotten to the point where we were doing

Some Kind of Meat Plus Rice Plus Cheese casserole 3-4 nights a week and

eating fast food the rest of the time, the limited menu was actually an

expansion of what I'd been eating. (I remember the evening Harry came

home with a pair of whoppers and fries for us, and I was carefully

grinding organic vegetables to put up for the Dachshund Duo to eat, and

we looked at each other and said, " There's something wrong with this

picture.... " It was around that time that I got a copy of BTVC and

began edging into SCD.)

Now I wouldn't trade SCD for anything.

Most of the time, we Keep It Simple: grilled meats and steamed veggies. I

make yogurt and crackers. Occasional desserts. Periodic forays into Fancy

Cookin'.

Make a list of what you typically ate in an average week or weeks

pre-SCD. I bet you'll find plenty of repetitions.... you're focusing on

what you can't have, rather than what you can have, and figuring out

creative things to do with those ingredients.

You CAN do it!

—

Marilyn

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Undiagnosed IBS since 1976, SCD since 2001

Darn Good SCD Cook

No Human Children

Shadow & Sunny Longhair Dachshund