Well, I have been doing my own version of an elimination diet rather than the McDougall elimination diet as planned. I honestly cannot be sure if the cause was some sort of stomach virus, the caffeine withdrawal, my gastroparesis, or the swine flu — I’m only throwing that last one in there for my mother’s benefit.
Starting on Monday night, my stomach started feeling just a little off, but I didn’t think anything of it. However, I had no appetite on Tuesday, which I attributed to the really bland elimination diet food — cream of rice with mashed bananas for breakfast and unseasoned vegetable soup for lunch. I couldn’t finish lunch. My stomach was doing this lurchy thing and hinting that if I kept trying to filling it with spoonfuls of broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, carrots, and green beans, then it was going to teach me some sort of lesson. Throughout the rest of the day, every move I made, just upset my stomach, leading to increasing visits to the powder rooms. I ended up staying home on Wednesday, where I attempted to lay as still as possible — and I don’t recall there being anything good on t.v. and eat nothing until late in the day when I attempted stale saltines and applesauce which were o..k…
I lost 5 pounds in 2 days. Not the way I wanted to. I continued on what I consider a “white” diet on Thursday with ginger ale, a plain bagel, a white potato, and white rice with some soy butter. I still had what I assumed was the caffeine withdrawal headache on Thursday night. My new gastroparesis medication, domperidone, which my mother picked up for me “across the border”, arrived while I was on “bed rest” so I took the first dose on Thursday too, hoping that it was going to have a positive impact after months of digestive deterioration.
This morning I didn’t have the caffeine headache when I woke and though I had some of the heartburn and some of the icky stomach feeling all day, while continuing my “white” diet, I feel slightly better. Again, I can’t tell if it’s because it’s the 7th day after giving up caffeine — some websites say caffeine withdrawal can last up to 10 days, but it didn’t seem so bad the first few days — or a regular stomach bug — which should be going away on its own by now, right? — or my gastroparesis — which now has the domperidone fighting it.
Of course, now that I’m under 190 on the scale, I’m tempted to just get back on the Maximum Weight Loss Diet once I can start eating correctly again to see if I can lose weight now or if I’m going to gain back that weight and slip back into the same stuck place I was before. I also have The McDougall Program 12 Days to Dynamic Health, which Dr. McDougall recommended to me as a push off point after the elimination diet.
I know I’m just trying not to think about that cream of rice and that vegetable soup. You know how it is when you get sick after eating something, you just need a long vacation before you try it again. Oy.
Well, I’m not going to think about it for another day or two. It’s going to be “white” diet until then.
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