h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Is the bloating due to reaction to yeast or to gluten, do you think?

I had a lean pocket thingy and a bowl of soup for dinner, and ended up so stuffed, I feel asleep at the computer...

...and I nodded off, too!

SC, I'm afraid it is the gluten. I steadfastly refused to accept that I have a problem with wheat. Because I didn't wnat it to be that. I clung to my tortillas and other yeast-free baked goods. But every single time I eat wheat, I bloat. So it is pretty clear that I don't digest it. The yeast makes my mouth break out, and I often have a rash on my trunk from it.

The good news is that rice pasta is delicious, so I can substitute it when I'm hungry for pasta. And I'm experimenting with other flours for baking. I also,thanks to you,discovered quinoa. I bought a box of quinoa pasta the other day. I plan to try it over the weekend. I love it as a side dish.

Hyp, that really sucks...

Have you tried surfing for the gluten free blogs? Some of the vegan cooks' blogs are also good sources for recipes for the wheat challenged, though why that should be, I'll never know.

Start here, and look at some of her (bittersweet's) friend's blogs on her blogroll.
http://bittersweetblog.wordpress.com/

I can get Bob's Red Mill products locally. My pantry now contains brown rice flour, white rice flour and a gluten free mixture called "All Purpose Baking Flour" that is supposed to work beautifully cup for cup in any recipe that calls for flour. It has flours from potatoes, sorghum, tapioca, garbanzo and fava beans. I also bought potato starch, golden flaxseed meal, tapioca flour, xanthum gum and sea salt.

For cookbooks, I have "Feast Without Yeast" by Bruce Semon and Lori Kornblum and "The Wheat-Free Cook" by Jacqueline Mallorca. I also have "The Splendid Grain" by Rebecca Wood and recently got a few cookbookswith traditional recipes that don't use funky, modern ingredients.

Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I'm trying to concentrate on all of the great stuff I can eat. The few recipes I've tried with the funky flours taste remarkably good. So that is encouraging.The texture is a bit different, but not unpleasantly so. The rice pasta is delicious. It is so close to the real thing that no one would know the difference. And of course this encourages me to fix fresh veggies and fruits instead of processed ones, so that is a plus.

A side effect is that I have a reason to cook again instead of just reaching for convenience foods. I like to cook, but it seemed foolish to cook just for myself. Syn is here on weekends. He's a good sport about trying new things. I made us a pizza a few weeks ago using the brown rice flour and ground almonds.It was pretty tasty.

I'm still wanting to find something that will make a decent sandwich. When I find that, I'll be home free.

Bob's Red Mill has some great products, I've always liked them. Have you tryed any of your alternative flours in a bread machine? For that matter, I had some pretty good rice flour bread, that was baked in a bagette shape. It doesn't taste *exactly* the same as the usual loaf, but still pretty good -- it did provide a good, stable platform for the tuna salad...

I think the incidence of yeast/gluten allergies is on the rise (mainly due to the additives that companies keep dumping in their products for shelf life and as fillers), and I'm waiting to see some enterprising bakery jump in with more choices. Living in the area of SF, you'd think there'd be a lot of stuff like that, but not that I've seen -- they're all major pushers of sourdough here! There was a good alternative/old-fashioned bakery in West Hollywood, called Erewhon, but that won't help you much.

If you try a recipe that rocks, I hope you post it in the Salon cookbook thread!

I've never seen a bread machine recipe that doesn't use yeast. And not just yeast, but the super yeast - the rapid rise stuff that is even stronger than the regular stuff. The xantham gum is supposed to make the dough sort of stretchy like yeast does, but it doesn't really. So far the flatbreads I've tried are too heavy for sandwiches. I'm looking. One of these days I'll find something. There is a reciipe forEnglish mugffins that I'm going to try this weekend. With luck, they will be suitable for breakfast sandwiches or a hamburger. I am soooooooo craving a hamburger.

And I still haven't tried the Irish soda bread. The reports I've had from people wo made it aren't good. No one has really liked it.

There's a trick to it, even if you're using wheat flour. A lot of the body of the bread develops after it bakes.

Marion Cunningham, the editor of the Fanny Farmer cookbook, says you should wrap the loaf in a clean tea towel, and let it sit for at least 2-4 hours, so it'll slice more like regular breads. she doesn't explain why, but it probably helps the outside get a tougher, less crumbly crust, so you can slice it easier.

I've been seriously doing the alternate day thing for about 6 weeks now. Lost the same 7 pounds I lost back in December but managed to put back on. Still about 10 pounds to go.

I realized I wasn't even breaking a sweat any more on my daily 3 mile walks. So I worked on running and can now run the whole way without reverting to a walk. Took me about 3 weeks to get there. Hopefully, the extra calorie burn will help. And I found an extra 10 minutes in my day since I cut the time from 50 to 40 minutes.

That's great.

I really should give the running a go. At the moment, it's a struggle to even manage a hundred yards. It's encouraging to hear that you managed to increase your pace over only three weeks.

I haven't intentionally been JUDDDing but I suppose that's what I've been doing over the last few months.
Haven't been able to step on the scales for a few weeks but I know I've lost weight because of how my clothes are fitting.

Onwards - and downwards

I'm glad things are working for you again, Witty. JUDDDD is a good plan. I just need to stay with it.

I'm bumping this up so I don't lose it. I've regained yet MORE weight and am totally disgusted with myself. If any of you are still out there, and still doing JUDDDD, please let me know. I'm getting back on the straight and narrrow with a couple of modifications.

More later. I'm finishi8ng reports for a trustees meeting tonight and can't play on hootoo today. Heck of a thing.

*Raises hand*

I'm here.

I'm not here. Meaning I have also let this slip and gained back most of the pounds I'd lost. Currently have a bad cough (feels like I've bruised my ribs), so not intending to give myself diet irritability too.

It does work. All I need is the willpower to let my wife's few unsold cakes not be temptation to indulge.

Here but not JUDDDDing, though I might start again if I ever get rid of this extra fluid I'm dragging around.

Dang, Pimms. I sure hope that you get some relief from that soon. You never did experience the anti-inflammatory benefits of JUDDDD, did you? That surprised me a bit, but it goes to prove that we're all individuals and we all react differently.

Ti, I sure hope your new doctor can get a handle on the edema. It's gone on so long that we're all more worried about you than we normally let on.

So, it looks like Witty is more nearly still on schedule than the rest of us. Over on the Rights thread I mentioned the Gina Kolata book that I read a couple of years back. F96827?thread=4279114 One of the things she concluded after her study is that we all have a weight zone that our bodies like to stay in. If we eat freely, we'll hover around the top of the zone. If we eat more sensibly and exercise, we'll hover around the lower weight in the zone. But, according to her, it is hard to maintain a weight loss below that bottom level of our body's comfort range.

Witty, if this is true, you may be at the lower end of your natural weight zone. That could be why you're struggling to take those 10 pounds back off. I mean, you're running 5K every day and doing the calorie cycling, so it doesn't seem to be anything you're doing or not doing.

According to Kolata, we may have to settle with a weight that is higher than we think it should be. She thinks we set unrealistic goals for ourselves and then beat ourselves up when we can't achieve them.

Right. That is not why I've regained weight. I went off of the program and stopped exercising, both. But I'm going to get back on the wagon and do better in future. I'm feeling really positive about it all again. I'm convinced that I can do it.

I mentioned a couple of modifications. The thing is, I never had trouble with the down days. My problem was always overeating on the up days. I've been reading some books on addictive behavior and have drawn the conclusion that I'm never going to be comletely successful on JUDDDD or any other diet until I confront the addictive behavior. The up days sort of gave me permission to overeat. Not that Dr. Johnson says it's ok to go out and gorge yourself on up days. Quite the opposite.

So I was doing good down days, feeling virtuous as a result, and reaping the anti-inflammatory benefits of the diet. But I was still eating addictively on up days, which meant that I wasn't really developing new, healthier eating habits after all. Right, it was better than eating addictively every day, but still, it has to stop. The when I stopped the down days, it was only a matter of time before the pounds piled back on.

So, I'm going to use some of the techniques found in two books to address and hopefully get a handle on the addictive eating. One is "I can Make You Thin" by Paul McKenna and the other is "Eating Less: Say Goodbye to Overeating" by Gillian Riley.

The fact that JUDDDD worked for me at all in spite of the blow-out up days proves that it will let me manage my weight if I can manage the up days better. My arthritis greatly improved when I was JUDDDDing. It's worth going back on just to get some relief there. I also had more energy and a better outlook. I'm furious with myself for stopping it like I did.

I'm happy to be supportive, but won't be doing the whole cycling thing. I'm an Atkins girl, through and through. I keep trying not to be, which just makes me feel bloated and uncomfortable. So yeah. Atkins.

My problem is that most people don't understand my need to eat the way I do. They're offended that I turn down their corn/potato/rice/pasta dish, and waiters don't get why I want a double order of veggies rather than fries. Pain in the butt, really.

But dang. Two days back on it, and I feel a million times better. And I can breathe! (eating carbs makes my nose stuffy, and I get horrid post nasal drip).

MR, you know what's best for yourself. If the carbs make you feel awful, then I don't blame you for avoiding them. If others don't get it, then tough.

This is why I need to stay on JUDDDD forever. It makes me feel better. Period. Atkins makes MR feel better. We all have to find which path works for us and then do it and not let doctors or nutritionists or friends or mothers talk us out of it.

I've not come across JUDDDD, but it looks interesting.

I'm tackling the problem based on Gillian Rilley's book called "Over Eating" which is about treating food as an addiction. She provides strategies to tackle cravings and bingeing rather than proscribing certain foods and prescribing calorie counts. She's also worked with smokers. Her aim is to get one beyond the addiction. I won't try to summarise her book, but I do highly recommend it.

However, recently I have had that irritating mix of feeling hungry but not having any appetite for specific foods, almost the opposite of cravings. (Which is interesting, and which I hadn't realised until I typed it). So I have been eating a lot of bread and butter, and other easy to do low-nutrient, high-carb, high-fat things.

Today I decided that if I can't be a***d to cook, and am indifferent to what I eat, then I might as well eat healthily as unhealthily. I bought one of those single-person grill things and a load of veg, and a smoothie maker and a load of fruit. We'll have to see if that brings my appetite back.

Ben

I am tackling the problem by exercising. However, I have reached the point where this is not enough.

I have never managed to get the hang of dieting. I can give things up though. It's about time I gave up treaty things like biscuits and cakes and things.

Although I used to have a rule that if I made it, I could eat it, the theory being that I burn off some of the calories cooking and it doesn't happen that often anyway.

Also, I always find it easier to have an out when I give things up. This is why I haven't actually given up smoking. I'm just having a realy long break between ciggarettes.