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Photo courtesy of Ella Olsson and Pexels.com

Changing directions again – this time to the FODMAP Diet instead of the IFM Elimination Diet.

First, let’s recap this first week on the IFM Elimination Diet.

Proposed Meal Plan

Breakfasts

• Pumpkin Oatmeal Pancakes
• Overnight oats made with water instead of almond milk

Lunches/Dinners

• Quinoa salad with chicken, grapes & almonds
• Baked chicken with cabbage
• Coconut chicken with cilantro lime cauliflower rice
• Walnut-crusted fish with cilantro lime cauliflower rice

Snacks

• Fresh berries with coconut mango cream
• Roasted beet hummus with savory seed crackers

Actual Meal Plan

Breakfasts

• Pineapple
• Overnight oats made with water + pumpkin, tahini, almond & pepitas
• Pumpkin pancakes didn’t happen because I vastly overestimated my desire to wake up Monday morning and make pancakes.

Lunches/Dinners

• Quinoa salad with chicken, grapes & almonds – with added broccolini and green beans I had from last week instead of baby spinach because I couldn’t find baby spinach in my local grocery.
• Only 1 of the 4 proposed servings of chicken cabbage bake because the cabbage killed my stomach on Monday for dinner
• 1 serving of quinoa/rice pasta with chicken and tomato sauce for lunch one day because I had an epic fail and my quinoa somehow managed to take twice as long as it should have to cook. Monday was full of fail, guys. Lunch and then dinner. Whomp, whomp.
• Rice bowl with chicken & basil.

Snacks

• Fresh berries with coconut mango cream. You guys. This was awesome.
• The beet hummus didn’t happen because the crackers were a no-go; couldn’t find xantham or guar gum where I am.

What did I learn this week?

I (re)learned that my body hates cabbage right now. It doesn’t always, but for now it does. This week was slightly difficult (no coffee), but overall not too bad. I ate my breakfasts before meeting up with friends for coffee dates, drank herbal tea while out, and ate a bunch of food at home. The cabbage was an epic fail, and my gut was suuuuuuuper cranky all week, but overall it wasn’t a huge hardship.

So, Why the change? After chatting with my doctor about this first weeks’ goings-on, we decided to switch tactics and go for the FODMAP Diet. According to the labs the doctor ran, there’s something else going on in my gut and we need to work on reducing anything that can ferment in my gut and continue causing inflammation. So, no cabbage – no cruciferous veggies – no beer.

FODMAP Diet

What’s the deal with the FODMAP diet, and how does it differ from what you were doing? This diet varies a bit – some things that were out before (beef, pork, caffeine, soy sauce, corn, eggs) are in, and some things that were in before (hummus), are out. I will also need to make modifications to this diet because I know cruciferous veggies are a trigger right now, and I still can’t do dairy.

Note: The guidelines below are super-simplified and the literature available about the FODMAP diet isn’t always 100% clear on what’s actually in vs out. A bigger list can be found here: https://www.ibsdiets.org/fodmap-diet/fodmap-food-list/

Week 1 Meals

Breakfasts

• Overnight oats with peanut butter, blueberries and pumpkin seeds
• 2 scheduled breakfasts out – have either something gluten-free with no onions, or a fruit plate

Lunches/Dinners

• Salmon burgers with carrot/cucumber/sesame salad
• Sweet potato with chicken meat sauce, olives and spinach
• Baked salmon with rice/quinoa mix, green beans, chive sauce and lemon
• Zoodles with chicken meat sauce, olives and spinach

Snacks

• Fruit
• Rice cakes with tuna salad

Beverages

• Coffee – consider bringing my own milk, since the soy at the coffee shop probably isn’t good, the coconut milk at Starbucks has sweeteners, and almond and cashew milks are a no-go
• Teas (some sources say weak teas only; I plan to just avoid fruit teas that contain apples or cherries

Emergency ‘I’m In A Social Situation And Don’t Want To Bounce To Go Eat At Home All Sad And Alone’ Food

• Order the fruit plate for breakfast
• Order a salad with no cheese; oil & vinegar dressing
• Go for sushi and have rolls
• Return to traveling with ‘purse nuts’
• Consider returning to having ‘purse milk’
• Grab some rice cakes at the grocery – if by some miracle they have squeezy peanut butter, grab that too
• Consider traveling with a bigger bag 

Meal plan for the (first) week in hand, let’s see what happens with this diet. I should be on it for the next month – my next doctor visit is right after we get back from vacation in 4 weeks. Hopefully that’s enough time to at least get somewhere in the healing process.