Help! Restrictive diet is making me crazy!!

[lucypch]

My 9 month old dd has egg, dairy, wheat and peanut. I'm nursing so I have eliminated all of these things ever since she was tested about 4 months ago. I have lost slot of weight I always feel weak and supper moody. I get horrible headaches and I feel so unhealthy. I'm not a cook so all we eat is rice and chicken everyday. I'm sick of it. I just want to give up. I'm so unhappy and both my kids and hubby are getting the worst of me. I need ideas on how to get healthier with out spending too much time in the kitchen.
Thanks for letting me vent.
Lucy

[CoBabyMaker]

Are you getting enough fat and protein?  Toss out any notion you have of low-fat eating (if you do).  I add fat to pretty much everything.  Eat avocado, coconut milk, add EVOO to your rice, eat the chicken skin.  I've been making rice pudding a lot (with coconut milk).

I am off dairy, corn, soy, eggs, nuts, gluten and peanuts so I know it can be hard.  Use different spices for variety.  Here is a post with what we are eating right now:http://twofoothome.blogspot.com/2011/03/so-what-are-we-eating.html

Here is the rice pudding I like:

Spiced Chocolate Rice Pudding

• 1 cup cooked brown rice
• 1/4 cup real maple syrup
• 3 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 2/3 cup coconut milk
• pinch of sea salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp ground cardamom

Place everything into a pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 1o minutes, stirring occasionally. Cool slightly and enjoy!

Here is a rice recipe that you add avocado to: Green Goddess Rice

ETA: If you don't love cooking make double batches of things and freeze half.  Make things that can make two meals.  For instance, today I cooked a chicken in the crockpot with carrots and garlic.  I pulled the meat off and half went into a salad for dinner.  I put the carcass back in the crockpot and covered it with water to make stock so on Wednesday I can make soup easily with the carrots and garlic that is already cooked.

Hope that helps some!

Edited by CoBabyMaker - 3/21/11 at 10:04pm

[bodhitree]

It is really hard sometimes, isn't it? There's a real learning curve to figuring out how to eat well when so many of the typical staples are off limits.

Are you really only eating rice and chicken? If so, no wonder you feel bad! You need more variety in your diet. I agree with PP that fat and protein are important, but you might find it helpful to work on getting more variety of fruits and veggies in your diet too. Even if cooking isn't your favorite thing, you need to feed yourself well. Maybe a new cookbook or two would help. I just got "How to Cook Everything" and it has tons of very simple recipes for all kinds of things. "Make It Fast, Cook It Slow" is a simple slow cooker cookbook that is entirely gluten free. Of course, some won't work with your restrictions, but a lot will. And the Gluten Free Goddess blog has tons of recipes that would work for you.

Here are some meal and snack ideas to get your food mojo moving again.

Breakfast:

-gluten free oatmeal with honey, spices, and fresh or frozen fruit

-Breakfast potatoes (chop 1/4 of an onion and 1/2 of a red pepper, fry over medium-high heat in a few tablespoons of olive oil, add three leftover baked potatoes cut into cubes along with some salt and pepper, fry until brown)

Lunches and dinners:

-Tacos with corn tortillas, browned and spiced ground beef, lettuce, salsa

-Gluten free pasta with tomato sauce

-Burgers with gluten free bread, lettuce, tomato, etc.

-Broiled or grilled fish fillets with a big green salad

-Chili

-Soup and baked potatoes

Snacks:

-Celery with almond butter or sun butter

-Tortilla chips with hummus or salsa

-Apple slices

-Popcorn

-Coconut yogurt (So Delicious brand is yummy)

-Rice cakes with almond butter

Just a thought, you say "I'm not a cook" as if it were part of your identity or something you can't change. The fact is, with the restrictions you and your daughter have, you're going to have to cook in order to be able to eat. You can definitely learn to cook well and maybe even to enjoy it! It's not rocket science. You may even be able to turn it around and view the difficult situation you're in as an opportunity to learn to feed yourself and your family in a more healthful and delicious way. I know it's probably hard to see it that way right now, but for myself, I really think going through this crazy process and being so restricted is teaching me a lot that will be incredibly helpful, even after the restrictions go away.

[kjbrown92]

I agree. I wasn't "a cook" either. In fact, my husband wrote the song "Fishsticks Five Nights a Week" when we first got married, if that tells you anything. When my son was an infant and off soy and dairy, I learned to cook like that. Almost 3 years ago, when he and my dd2 had food intolerance testing and came up intolerant to 20-30 foods, and put on a rotation diet, I really needed to learn how to cook. Now I can make taffy, fudge, rolls, chicken marsala, etc.

Rice: there's rice flour, rice cereal, rice, rice noodles, rice milk, etc.

Chicken: When you roast a chicken, make gravy out of the drippings (thicken with tapioca starch and sorghum flour), and then use the carcass to make 48-hour bone broth (high in calcium and other minerals, and delicious). You can make chicken marsala and chicken mirabella in the crockpot. You can make stew. You can make spaghetti (rice noodles) and meatsauce. There's a recipes thread on this forum that has lots of ideas.

[lucypch]

Things have gotten worse. DD was still breaking out so I've cut out all high histamine foods. So there's even less obtains to eat. This has made me very depressed even thinking of weaning her so that I can eat. I'm really hating food at this point. Imy husband is cooking all the food now because I was having a hard time. We argue almost everyday about food. He will accede toy bring home something that we can eat and there goes the evening.
All I've been eating are nuts, seeds, apples, pears, watermelon and for meat only beef. There's a couple more things but this is the majority. I've been looking for a list of foods I can eat but all they write are foods to avoid. Akkkk
Lucy

[lucypch]

Sorry last post I had automatic spell check that messed up a lot of words.

[changingseasons]

Have you ever tried eliminating all nuts? And seeds?

[mytwomonkies]

I'm so sorry, I feel your pain!! When DD2 was a baby we were having major issues and I was literally eating lamb, rice, and squash for 3 meals a day and a pear here and there. It was really hard! But, I guess the restricted diet helped heal her little system and eventually I was able to start adding things back in.

My first advice would be to make sure you're taking a good multivitamin or even still take a prenatal, you want to make sure you're getting all the nutrients you need! Also, do you drink any kind of dairy substitute? I did really well with Living Harvest hemp milk and it has a lot of nutrients. You could also use it with some rice protein and make a smoothie. We eventually got to the point where I could eat pretty varied as long as I avoided the top 8 allergens+oats (including gluten, even avoiding gluten cross contamination).

If your LO is still having issues with what you're eating you can try switching foods out instead of just eliminating them. For instance, beef is a more allergenic meat so maybe you could try lamb or bison instead. Maybe instead of apples and watermelon you could try peaches and berries.

I would cook up a huge pot of rice so I could keep it in the fridge and that would usually last for a few days. And I went through a TON of olive oil and sea salt.

I hope this is helping! It was really hard for me but we pushed through and I'm happily still nursing my 20 month old. Everything seemed to get a lot easier once we hit that 12 month mark. PM me if you need any more tips or encouragement, I would be more than happy to try and help!

[mytwomonkies]

Originally Posted by CoBabyMaker 

Are you getting enough fat and protein?  Toss out any notion you have of low-fat eating (if you do).  I add fat to pretty much everything.  Eat avocado, coconut milk, add EVOO to your rice, eat the chicken skin.  I've been making rice pudding a lot (with coconut milk).

I am off dairy, corn, soy, eggs, nuts, gluten and peanuts so I know it can be hard.  Use different spices for variety.  Here is a post with what we are eating right now:http://twofoothome.blogspot.com/2011/03/so-what-are-we-eating.html

Here is the rice pudding I like:

Spiced Chocolate Rice Pudding

• 1 cup cooked brown rice
• 1/4 cup real maple syrup
• 3 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 2/3 cup coconut milk
• pinch of sea salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp ground cardamom

Place everything into a pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 1o minutes, stirring occasionally. Cool slightly and enjoy!

Here is a rice recipe that you add avocado to: Green Goddess Rice

ETA: If you don't love cooking make double batches of things and freeze half.  Make things that can make two meals.  For instance, today I cooked a chicken in the crockpot with carrots and garlic.  I pulled the meat off and half went into a salad for dinner.  I put the carcass back in the crockpot and covered it with water to make stock so on Wednesday I can make soup easily with the carrots and garlic that is already cooked.

Hope that helps some!

That rice pudding sounds AWESOME! I'm always looking for snacks my girls can enjoy, I'm definitely going to try this one!

[lucypch]

I'm eating cashews, almonds, almond milk as sub for cows milk. As well as sesame seeds, flax seeds and pumpkins seeds. Should I not be? Her eczema still looks bad. It's now been two weeks on low histamine.
I am going to get some protien powder. I do have vitamins but I always forget to take them.
Lucy

[deminc]

Well, I thought usually seeds and nuts are among the first few to go for elimination diet. You should just take them out for a week and see if it makes a difference.

But most importantly, I think you need to write out a list of food that you CAN eat, and just start cooking more, no matter how much you hate it and find it hard - and I don't mean it in a snarky way. I only really started cooking because I was so miserable on a restricted diet and I needed to EAT. If you think that low-histamine is not helping, you can start adding some food back. Choose those that are not in the top 8 allergens, plus perhaps tomatoes and citric food.. Please get started on some chicken or pork rib broths. They are the easiest and can be so nourishing when you're feeling low and tired.  Garnish it with fried onion, add a dash of balsamic vinegar (if you can have it)if you like that, deep fried basil leaves are also great (fry it in a microwave, voila!) Cut up a whole lot of potatoes into wedges and bake them with garlic and rosemary and you have snack food for a day.

Bake a roast with honey, salt, herbs and garlic, and you're good for a few meals. Toss the meat with olive oil, dash balsamic vinegar and salt, or make a brown sauce out of the drippings. My small son is off ketchup, but he can use Annie's honey mustard sauce. You have to start looking beyond the cuisines you are used to and learning how to recreate flavours with other ingredients. I actually really like Jamie Oliver's recipes and adapt from there and I will try any cuisine as long as I can get the ingredients and they fit our needs.

Two things helped me - one is keeping protein food that are easy to thaw and quick to cook in the freezer like frozen mince and chicken drumlets. Another is keeping slabs of meat or whole chickens and planning two days ahead in brining them. One is fast. Two is great for putting in the oven and then taking the kids out to the playground. When you cook, think flavours and texture rather than cheese or wheat. Have a sort of rotation plan - soup noodles today, rice tomorrow, roast and potatoes the next. Alternate the vegetables and cuisines. Learn to use herbs and spices.

It took me a long time to get here and I really got here cursing and swearing on some days.But with a preschooler and a school going boy, I can't afford to let this department slide. And the two eat ALL the time. 

Originally Posted by lucypch 

I'm eating cashews, almonds, almond milk as sub for cows milk. As well as sesame seeds, flax seeds and pumpkins seeds. Should I not be?

 

[eatyourveggies]

I was in the exact same position as you. My daughter had horrible ezcema and I was nursing her.

I had to eliminate a lot of foods, lost weight, etc.

But we got through it. It IS tough, but I knew that not nursing my daughter would make things worse. My daughter has so many allergies, that she wouldn't have been able to tolerate a formula.

We found out that via blood test that she is allergic to all tree nuts, sesame seeds, flaxseeds, quinoa, millet, dairy, melons, brown rice, chili peppers ETC but the biggest for us was gluten. She has celiac disease and so do I. Once I cut out all forms of gluten, she stopped reacting to my breast milk.

She's 4 years old now and I didn't have to wean her. The key was to find out what she is allergic to.

For us, the light at the end of the tunnel was finding her holisitic medical doctor that was able to help us figure out her allergens and get us both on the right track.

[mytwomonkies]

Originally Posted by eatyourveggies 

I was in the exact same position as you. My daughter had horrible ezcema and I was nursing her.

I had to eliminate a lot of foods, lost weight, etc.

But we got through it. It IS tough, but I knew that not nursing my daughter would make things worse. My daughter has so many allergies, that she wouldn't have been able to tolerate a formula.

We found out that via blood test that she is allergic to all tree nuts, sesame seeds, flaxseeds, quinoa, millet, dairy, melons, brown rice, chili peppers ETC but the biggest for us was gluten. She has celiac disease and so do I. Once I cut out all forms of gluten, she stopped reacting to my breast milk.

She's 4 years old now and I didn't have to wean her. The key was to find out what she is allergic to.

For us, the light at the end of the tunnel was finding her holisitic medical doctor that was able to help us figure out her allergens and get us both on the right track.

What kind of blood test did they do for allergies?? DD2 has an allergist apt May 10th and I'm trying to know what to expect. DD1 had food allergy testing done at her GI, they did the IgG blood test. They all came back normal, the only problem was she wasn't eating any of the foods they tested for. Wouldn't that make for a false negative?