Concerning my weight I continue to lose weight since changing my diet. I excluded wheat for about 4 months but tried oats, potatoes, gluten free mixes that I made myself. But somehow my weight continued to decline. Even before stopping wheat I constantly had to monitor it. Usually in the past I monitored my weight since I am a small frame person. But I realize how easy it is to lose weight more now than before.
I have urticaria and eczema. I was also looking to get relieve for my hives.
Dear Anette,
Recovering lost weight is not easy! It is not generally appreciated that any diet that excludes some foods is likely to mean your overall intake of energy foods (as calories or kilojoules) is decreased. This is because you have to keep yourself busy making sure you have not made diet mistakes. You walk the fine line of excluding what you need to, at the same time as making sure you are eating enough overall energy. Everybody has their own cluster of symptoms. Many food sensitive people have to deal with urticaria and eczema. Hives is not reported so frequently, but hives respond to the same diet. The other idea that helps hives is to remember is to reduce the temperature of your shower or bath to as cool as you can manage, and drink your fluids cool too, so the hives will not flare up as much.
You will find the article on eczema interesting even though it suggests you reduce, only as far as you want to, all highly flavoured foods to a level that means your eczema is tolerable. http://foodintolerancepro.com/category/eczema/eczema-and-diet/
The benefit is that if you lower the highly flavoured foods you may tolerate more wheat.
Do learn about the steroid creams that can help eczema and use them. The benefit of doing that is another reason you may not need to be as strict about wheat exclusion. Read all the detail in Tolerating Troublesome Foods to keep reminding you of all to watch. Where skin is concerned you will notice the importance of using perfume-free skin products. You may be better with the soap-free wash as well.
The diet information I have provided is often very helpful for eczema as per the link above.
Urticaria is different. People often report that their urticaria improves a bit with the low chemical diet, and they note that when they eat high chemical load foods it gets worse, but the diet result is never as useful as it is for eczema.
An important idea is that the diet is in the person, not a particular diet for a particular symptom.
Keeping your weight up is not easy! The rules are so different from what all your friends are doing they can even make you feel guilty! It helps if you plan to eat at all meal times and have snacks that mean you have five meals, and perhaps a supper too. You are on the right pathway using potato. Cook more that you would have at one meal and fry the rest on a thin layer of butter and oil at another meal. Learn how moist you want the potato to give the nicest patties. They taste great with fried eggs.
Still use all the high protein foods so you keep up your muscle tone as well as your curves.
Rice is important. Make “fried rice” with allowed ingredients, and use leftover rice to make creamy rice or baked rice custard. Buy the plain microwave rice packs so you always have them handy. You can heat them if you are awake late or during the night and eat with milk and sugar. You can make bread and butter custard with your gluten-free bread. One patient made hers in a shallow dish so all the bread browned nicely while cooking.
You do need to do some gluten-free cooking once a week. Make a rich butter cake as the increased eggs make it taste richer and it will keep for a week in your refrigerator. Make a butter icing to hold the moisture. Yo-yo biscuits also last a week. It may sound strange but you have to keep them for yourself. Others can buy what they can eat. You can buy commercial biscuits that you have in your house for others.
Keep testing your tolerance of wheat. See Wheat: The delightful wickedness of having wheat on a wheat-free diet
http://foodintolerancepro.com/category/food-intolerance/the-delightful-wickedness-of-bread/
If you do not need to exclude milk you can make yourself yummy milk drinks. Add full-cream powdered milk and sugar and very dilute de-caf coffee to make a high nutrition drink. There are quite a few important recipes in Are You Food Sensitive? with a chapter on implementing the low chemical diet.
Overall think of all the meals you really like and write lists of foods to buy. In a way you have to think of yourself as being on a high protein, high energy diet like sports people are as you need to keep ahead of your occasional losses. Try to plan ahead for times when you know you will not have your food available. Eat before you go out, and always carry rice cakes or rice crackers in your car. It is amazing how many you can chew through while driving for any time.
Most food-sensitive people are fussy about food so are happy not to eat food that is not to their liking. Read http://www.foodintolerancepro.com/category/food-intolerance/whats-smell-got-to-do-with-it/
But this means you have to go to more trouble managing your own food intake to suit your particular preferences. I have met many people who feel apologetic about not wanting to eat as others do. Make the change to think of yourself as a food-gourmet who learns how to put foods together to suit what is right for you, not what others have.
Anette, thank you for supporting those dealing with having to exclude wheat. You are right in reminding everyone that wheat can be tolerated in different forms. Tolerance can be affected by how well the wheat is cooked or toasted, or what time of the day you have, it and all the other ideas, especially the Total Body Load idea, that I have carefully included in my book Tolerating Troublesome Foods. There I have included three pages of factors that can alter your tolerance. See Chapter 5 for the Best Guess Food Guide – http://www.foodintolerancepro.com/tolerating-troublesome-foods/ from my site and from AmazonKindle
https://www.amazon.com.au/Tolerating-Troublesome-Foods-Investigating-intolerance-ebook/dp/B00I7DS87O.
Remember everyone is different in what they can tolerate, and not only that, this tolerance can change over years.
Of course this discussion is not for those who have been diagnosed with coeliac disease. They need to completely exclude wheat in all forms.
Yes, it is normal to feel deprived when you have to exclude wheat. It is up to you and just how severe your symptoms are how small the amount of wheat you test will be. There is also the idea that if you give your gut a rest by excluding wheat for three months it may improve your tolerance. It is amazing how much better life is if you can eat, perhaps about one slice of bread per day. Keep testing what will make your life better by having a small amount of wheat in the one way you like it most.
Weight management is always an issue if you have always had a “light frame”. Overall you are dealing with a type of grief reaction of having to change your life. You will feel lots of strong feelings until you work our how the reduction of wheat fits into your life in an ongoing way. I wish you well. Joan.
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