Gastography

This was my second week on the FODMAP Diet. Week 1 went fairly well, despite eating more meals out than anticipated (foolishly, if I was paying attention I would have remembered), and being bummed that no garlic or onion were to be had.

Week 1
An explanation

PROPOSED MEAL PLAN

This week, I didn’t meal plan heavily. I know I’ve got at least two if not three dinners out, and I didn’t feel like shopping too heavily in advance of our vacation next week, so I bought the bare minimum and will be eating a lot of pantry foods. This proposed meal plan is what I have come up with on the fly.

Breakfasts

• Overnight oats with peanut butter and strawberries

Lunches/Dinners

• The salmon burgers I didn’t eat
• The rest of the chicken/tomato sauce/olive mixture I made
• Maaaaaybe the rest of the baked sweet potatoes from last week if I can find a way to dress them up so they’re not so plain
• I grabbed some wholegrain rice pasta from the grocery
• Steaks with smashed baby potatoes and green beans as a nice dinner for the hubbs
• Zoodles(?) with chicken and frozen green beans & carrots

Snacks

• I have Marmite-flavored rice cakes left over
• A stab at a compliant Dole Whip

ACTUAL MEAL PLAN

Breakfasts

• Overnight oats with strawberries and pumpkin seeds
• Overnight oats with peanut butter, strawberries and pumpkin seeds – and I need to doctor these up a bit next time; the weirdo French peanut butter in a tin can I bought because the kid on the package was mildly disturbing may be – dare I say it – too bland for my taste. I love my no sugar added peanut butters, but this was less satisfying somehow. Maybe because I’m making my oats with water instead of unsweetened plant milk?
• Went out for a scheduled (weekly) breakfast date on Wednesday – had steak & poached eggs with a side of fruit instead of the fried potatoes & onions. Brought my own hazelnut milk for my Americano(s).

Lunches/Dinners

• Finished the chicken marinara-ish mix off by Monday.
• Made steaks with smashed potatoes and green beans for dinner Monday.
• Scrounged leftover potatoes topped with Kewpie mayonnaise for lunch Tuesday because I was woefully unprepared with the proteins when I crashed through the door in dire need of lunch.
• Delicious and super easy Japanese style zoodles with poached chicken.
• The last of the baby potatoes I boiled up for dinner Wednesday with more poached chicken and Kewpie mayo.
• Lunch out Thursday – ordered a side of chicken breast, a side of turkey ham and a side of confit potatoes.
• Dinner out Thursday, too – had more chicken breast and plain rice.
• Friday dinner was planned out as well – Brazilian steakhouse with 2 vodka sodas

Snacks

• Had a fresh strawberry juice while out
• Made a really good dessert from a lemon-flavored coconut yogurt mixed with strawberries and this really good vegan (and compliant! The only freaking thing that didn’t have dates and/or almonds in it in seemingly the whole restaurant!) granola.
• The third and final bag of organic popcorn – with butter and nutritional yeast topping.

What did I learn this week?

HaHaHa. I need to plan better. I know winging it is no way to meet my macros, and I need to not be lazy the next week I’m home. Which won’t be next week – let’s see how I handle this business while on vacation. Spoiler: I’ll be eating sausages and I know I won’t be able to completely not eat sauerkraut. At least it’s fermented? Maybe? Hoping I won’t be undoing any good I’ve done in these two weeks so far.

This was my first week on the FODMAP Diet. Last week it was the IFM Elimination Diet, but after 1 week and a chat with my functional fitness doc about my bloodwork and the strong reaction I had to cabbage (boo!), we decided to switch over to this diet to see if we can get things to calm down in my GI system.

The good news: Yay! Coffee! I can have a vodka soda!

The less good news: Garlic and/or onions are in literally everything I make and in most of my favorite foods. Italian and Mexican are going to be tricky. Also: it’s the start of mango season and mangos are high FODMAP. Guess I won’t be subsisting on mostly mango and chicken salad lunches like last year. Boo!

Proposed Meal Plan

Breakfasts

• Overnight oats with peanut butter, blueberries & pepitas

Lunches/Dinners

• Baked sweet potato with ground chicken marinara, olives and baby spinach
• Ground chicken marinara with olives, baby spinach and zoodles
• Salmon burgers with a carrot/cucumber/sesame salad
• Salmon fillets with green beans, rice/quinoa mix and chive sauce
• 1 weekday breakfast out, 2 weekend lunches out, 1 skipped weekend breakfast

Snacks

• Rice cakes with tuna salad

Actual Meal Plan

Breakfasts

• Overnight oats – remembered everything but pepitas
• Overnight oats and I remembered the pepitas

Lunches/Dinners

• Ended up eating out pretty much every day – or eating rice cakes with tuna salad, which turned out well. I ended up grabbing Marmite-flavored rice cakes because it sounded weird, and was pleasantly surprised. They make a great base for tuna salad. Not so much for peanut butter, but maybe that’s good – I don’t need to eat so much peanut butter anyways.
• I only ate 1 of 2 salmon dinners – chucked the other (boo).
• Only ate 1 serving of the chicken & sweet potato, and that was on Saturday.
• Ended up eating out more than anticipated, which shouldn’t have been as big a surprise as it was. I know my life.
• Also ate popcorn with nutritional yeast for dinner one night, because hubby was out and yolo single life.

Snacks

• Single servings of the rice cakes, some leftover grapes, and an errant blueberry or two.

What did I learn this week?

So. I thought I learned last week to not schedule every meal and to not make 99999 recipes requiring tons of ingredients.

My meals this week *were* simple, but I completely forgot about the standing lunch date I had planned for Thursday and the birthday party brunch I said I’d go to Friday. Oops.

So, I didn’t end up making everything and I still have some ingredients left over for next week, so it isn’t all a bust. A macros bust (somewhat), but not a FODMAP meals bust (quite).

I also learned that limiting myself to 1 vodka soda is hard with my wine group (I ended up having 3 spaced over 6 hours), but was easy in a big group setting where I could buddy up with the other non-drinker (I had 1). Overall, I’m pleased with that.

For next week, I’m not planning anything special – since we are heading off for vacation the next week, I’ll be making food from the pantry and eating up the rest of my batch-cooked food (that hasn’t spoiled). I will buy some more berries for breakfasts, and I’m kind of craving a Dole Whip for dessert – I bet I can make a compliant version. If it works, I’ll actually have a recipe to share next week. Fingers crossed.

Also in the realm of things I need to keep better in mind: storage. I only have a limited amount of Tupperware containers, and don’t want to buy more – planning a bunch of things to batch cook doesn’t work out super well, unless it’s enough for mains + sides, and I can chuck them in the 4 divided meal boxes I have.

I kinda want 4 small icy treat containers, though, that can double as individual overnight oats holders on weeks I don’t make anything.