Can you see what's in this picture? That's a Guinness. And a soft pretzel. Both were mine. It's an old picture, but a continuing trend. I've been testing foods again! I started for a number of reasons. Traveling from school to school to my boyfriend's, six hours a week, got pretty draining. It was hard to remember to carry around food.
In a meeting with a fitness trainer, I discovered that my percentage body fat is pretty high. Since then, I've been logging my food and exercise into My Fitness Pal every day. Trying to stay gluten free and vegan on a 1200 calorie diet is HARD!
I hate labels. So do most nutritionist bloggers. Gena eats gluten. Telpner eats raw honey. The twins eat goat cheese (sometimes). They have all taught me the most important lesson about eating well. Restrictions are stressful, not healthy!
Our local pizza shop was happy to make me a mushroom onion broccoli pizza with no cheese. I ate two slices, scraping all of the toppings onto those two slices! It was insanely delicious. There's still spots of tomato sauce on my coat from that night. After that night? Not so delicious! I was blocked up for days. 
This week, I tried some gluten again. I wasn't sleeping well. For lunch, the only thing I wanted was COMFORT. So bagel with hummus and soup, it was! This is from my favorite local coffeeshop, where I have been grading papers and writing stories since 1998!
The soup was chickpea tomato - completely vegan and gluten free. It made my stomach feel full of warmth and life!
The bagel made my stomach feel full of death and rocks. It was clenched and angry for the rest of the afternoon.
In need of an easy breakfast, I picked up a tiny cup of Fage. Who'mI kiddin??? I was jonesing for the stuff! I ate it with raw honey on boatmeal. It was awesome.
But the rest of the day, I was sick.
In all of my cheating - ahem - testing, the only food that truly made me feel good was eggs. A couple mornings this week, I made veggie country mess. It's scrambled eggs, onions, garlic, mushrooms, an Amy's Sonoma burger, and whatever veggies I could find in the fridge. The eggs were as local as I could get. My boyfriend's neice has chickens. We bought a dozen from her. They were brighter than a Crayola crayon. And they woke me up brighter than the sun! 
Sooo... what does all this mean? Nothing's really changed. My bod's still weird and farty. When the shit doesn't hit the fan, I can always slam a cacao maca smoothie! That always gets things movin'!
Cacamacamessmoothie!
1.5 Tablespoon Cacao
.5 Tablespoon Maca
.5 Tablespoon Mesquite
1.5 cups Almond Milk
12 drops stevia
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15 comments:
I so hear you - I have been gluten-free vegan for most of the last 18 months, with few exceptions, but now am not so sure it is the way to go. While my belly wants nothing to do with gluten or dairy, things like eggs are a much more grey area for me. I did reintroduce them and had problems with them (turns out I am super intolerant to egg whites) but then I found local duck eggs which really work for my digestion. I eat them in grain-free baked goods which have more protein and keep me satiated longer and are nice and portable. I still question myself every time I buy duck eggs, though :( It is even worse with fish, though my digestion does really well with fish. Sometime I wonder if I do better on a gluten-free, dairy-free, low-grain diet based on veggies and fish then I did on gluten-free and vegan. Labels are hard - especially because while I came to a vegan diet for health reasons, now it is not just about health either, you know? Now I am vegan-leaning I guess, but can I even say that considering I bake a couple of times a month with duck eggs?
I was just pondering this very topic of labels when there you were blogging about it. My thought was, what do you call a vegan who eats eggs? I too get my eggs locally from my parents farm. Free good quality protein that I'm not going to pass up. I'm not committed to gluten free but try to minimize my wheat intake. So I guess I don't fit any labels, but then again I never really have. Labels can be useful for trying to explain to others what you do eat, but day to day, being able to relax the rules just a bit makes life a whole lot easier!
I've been a bad, bad gluten-free chick (not vegan) lately too. I've been missing bread mostly, so the other night I had pizza bread with sandwich toppings, and had horrible stomach cramps that night. Then last night I had ONE Pilsbury Grand Biscuit and again, I suffered with stomach cramping. I guess I just need to stick with gluten-free. The small amount of pleasure I get from eating gluten is not worth the pain I have to endure later. Ugh.
Labels are crazy making! It's so important that you just find what works for you. And sometimes that takes a lot of trial and error (an mistakes along the way). It's so nice for me to read your blog because I love to follow along on your experiments. It inspires me to keep moving in my own positive direction and finding what works for me. Right now I'm experimenting with very high fiber (in the 60-80 gram/day range) and lowering my sugar by eating less fruit. THank you my fitness pal! I never would have really understood what I was consuming without it!
Ah the trials and tribulations of the stomach afflicted... I think what makes it difficult is that what works for me tends to change over time. While I've been gluten-free for 2 years now, everything else has changed. I used to eat eggs, now I don't. I tried vegan for about a month, now I eat chicken and fish weekly. Dairy? Sometimes. Aside from the gluten, it's all a mish-mash, depending on what my body's doing lately. (which, if I can be quite honest, and with you I can :), lately all my body's been doing is being constipated no matter what I eat! Or don't eat...)
i've never been tested for gluten allergies but i feel crappy when i eat breads and pastas. my interstitial cystitis symptoms flare up and i have no energy. i've been slacking with the food prep but hope once growing season starts that changes.
yay for growing your own! i have echinacea growing indoors and out, i've started peas, spinach and kale seeds, soon i'll start lettuce, then lots more once the danger of frost pasts. i'd love to try corn but don't really have the space. you may be zone 6b, and if your frost dates are like mine, you may be able to follow the plant guide i put together!
spring planting guide
*passes
=)
I will definitely have to try this...is the mequite essential to the recipe? or can it be optional? I have all except for the mesquite; dang. Also- do you make your own stevia extracts? or what store-bought stevia do you prefer?
Diggin' the Guinness picture. I would frame it.
Hi,
I discovered your blog recently and this is the first time I am commenting:)
Just to let you know that a few months ago, after hearing some rumors, I contacted Guinness and found out that their beer is not vegan.
This is what they said:
"isinglass, which is a by-product of the fishing industry, is used as a fining agent - i.e. used during processing to clarify beer. There should be little residue in the finished beer. Findings are removed (by sedimentation and centrifugation) so some Vegetarians do consider that Guinness is suitable for them."
My husband was devastated to say the least :)
take care,
Alex
to amalee: a vegetarian! why are people afraid to use that term these days? it's OK to be a vegetarian.
i really hope you don't eat gluten if it makes you sick!
why are you trying to eat only 1200 calories? that doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Hey Bitt - Read the last entry, that will clarify the 1200 cals. ;-)
I am also a severe IBS-C sufferer, I keep things gluen-free (mostly grain free really - buckwheat seems to the one thing I can tolerate), dairy free, and sugar free (honey seems to be the easiest on my belly) b/c that's what make me feel best health wise. I also don't eat red meat, but I do eat fish (and occasionally chicken) because I need the protein and vegan alternatives - soy and legumes can be pretty rough on my tummy. Nuts are okay in moderation - but as you say they are pretty fatty (good fats, but still lot of calories), and if I eat too much of them they also act a bit like cement in the gut. I had avoided eggs, but recently figured out that it is really the yolks that are constipating and fart inducing (TMI?) - so I do eat egg whites occasionally. My philosophy has always been you've gotta do what works best for you, screw the diet labels. Being "vegan" isn't what's most important - feeling good is! So, maybe forget the dairy and give fish a try for some lean and easy on the tummy nutrition? Good luck and perservere!
Thanks everybody for your comments and suggestions! They are so so helpful. I really appreciate it!
Weirdly, I can't reply to the comment you left on my blog about grains/blood type diet/standing workstations/yogurt, so I'm leaving you a wee answer here and it's also kinda relevant to your post. My boss recommended the blood type diet to me a few months ago because she's a big fan. It didn't work for me, I'm AB and it told me to avoid corn, buckwheat, seeds, tropical fruits and that was about it. I think I know now why my boss loves it so much, she's O, and the diet recommends basically a paleo diet (meat, fish, eggs, berries and other low sugar fruits, greens, veggies, no grains, sugar and minimal dairy). That's what I've found works so well for me. I knew whole grains and beans were the biggest part of my problem when I did the low fibre thing last year, but processed grains are flavourless and full of nothing but antinutrients and carbs (and while the gas isn't as bad as with whole grains, the constipation is no better with white rice). I have to say, I don't miss the blandness of wholemeal bread, oats or brown rice at all- a big heap of kale, salmon and spices is bursting with flavour, nutrition and serious anti-inflammatory action. I've totally be sold the paleo thing!
I think yogurt is pretty cool, and while every day consumption mightnt be good for calcium balance (it's also got plenty of sugar, even the unsweetened stuff) it's a good source of probiotics and a decent post workout snack. Good luck with finding your balance:)
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