This was my fourth week on the FODMAP Diet. Well, not straight – last week, I went pretty off the rails while on vacation.

Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
An explanation

PROPOSED MEAL PLAN

This week, the meal plan was simple – we got back from vacation early in the week, I had some planned meals out, and really just wanted to concentrate on eating smaller meals full of simple things that I know wouldn’t hurt my stomach – and to me, that means Japanese (light).

My meal planning consisted of a breakfast: Strawberry Milk Overnight Oats (recipe coming soon), and simple “safe” veggie + rice bowls with a little protein.

I knew I wanted to batch cook some veggies – was craving bok choy, carrots & cucumbers – and steak nibbles sounded great. I made a 4-portion batch of veggies (recipe for this coming soon too) + steak bites and combined that with a couple portions of leftover rice I grabbed for dinner the day after we got back.

ACTUAL MEAL PLAN

Breakfasts

• Super plain oatmeal made in the microwave
• A planned breakfast out – steak and eggs.
• Strawberry Milk Overnight Oats.

Lunches/Dinners

• My first meals back were super simple: delivery chicken pho (the broth of which probably had garlic – oops – my FODMAP brain isn’t quite working yet).
• Dinner that first night was delivery chicken & rice.
• Fried rice grabbed at a grocery hot bar – and oops: I’m pretty sure it contained hidden onions. I tasted them but did not see them – and was in crisis mode needing food-wise.
• Dinner that night was chicken kebab with white rice grabbed from a local takeout place because my favorite go-to place for healthy reasonably-portioned meals had literally zero things I could eat. Good thing the kebab place was next door, and I was no longer starving to death.
• I made sure to batch cook the next day – had my veggies, rice & a little meat for 2 out of 3 meals he next day.
• Had a planned lunch out and tried to make the best choices possible: sushi over a bunch of dishes that would have me picking around my plate – and didn’t do too terribly. Had a (fake) crab + shrimp salad with mayo (which may have had a bit of non-compliant something in it), salmon and cucumber sushi, and sliced melons + strawberries.
• Went to a Japanese-themed game night with friends: had salmon & cucumber appetizers, killer homemade miso soup, a really good little gingery salad, Japanese curry (which may or may not have had 100% compliant sauce ingredients), and glutinous rice balls for dessert. And Frangelica on the rocks all evening. Mmmmm. Ate too much by far, but it was delicious.

Snacks

• I had a couple frozen pineapple things left, so snacked on those.
• Didn’t really feel like snacking otherwise – was still trying to reign in my overeating on vacation, while consequently overeating two days. Oops.

What did I learn this week?

You’d *think* I’d have learned to not schedule 2 big food days in 1 week, or to make sure I’ve get my butt to the grocery the day I get back from vacation, but no. Did not. Oops.

This week was all about mitigation and having fun with my friends without going completely and totally off the rails. I did fairly well, at least according to my GI system – it hasn’t been terrible this week. A little pain some days, and some poo issues – but nothing major, and nothing that kept me from living my life. Bonus: this was also a very low carsickness week. Not sure if carsickness is related to the rest of my gut issues or if I’m just a delicate Princess, but I was in and out of Ubers in the heat and really only got nauseous and spinny once. I’m counting that as a win, even if it’s unrelated!

Looks like I’ll be continuing on with FODMAP for at least two more weeks – I go see my doctor again on the 25th for an assessment. We shall see what happens then. In the meantime, I need to remember to update my symptom tracker app religiously – I’ve been a touch slack in pain reporting because I’ve been tired of worrying about or paying attention to it in the last couple weeks. I need to get over that for these next two – we won’t know if this diet has actually done me good unless I’m accurately reporting symptoms and trying my hardest to remain compliant.