Diet Time

Today I finally saw a dietitian. Probably something I should have done years ago instead of bothering with doctors, but as the saying goes - you live & learn.

I found out that I am intolerant (& no I didn't smack her out for saying that).

My symptoms are textbook for some sort of food intolerance, the trick now is to find out what.

To do that I have to go on an 'elimination' diet. In a nutshell that means unprocessed fresh meat (cooked but not too brown or burnt) & rice. Thankfully I am allowed to eat cashews (I am guessing without salt but havent' checked that closely). No milk, no wheat, no fruit (except peeled pear), very few veges, no fabric softener or strong smelling soaps/perfumes/aromatherapy stuff etc, flavourless toothpaste.

As we are going away in a couple of weeks, the Dietitian (hereafter called V) told me to start cutting back on thinks like the coke, the milk, the bread/wheat products, etc slowly to ease the withdrawal & then start on the strict diet as soon as I am back home.

After two weeks of nothing, I then get to add things in but only one 'group' of food at a time & then I have to wait anywhere from 3-7 days (longer if I have a reaction to it) before adding the next group (& there is about 10 groups of food to add back slowly).

I love rice but I will probably be happy to never see another grain of rice again in a few months time.

However despite all this, I am actually looking forward to this. V was so enthusiastic & so positive that this is exactly what the problem is & how much better I am going to feel on the diet but told me many times that I can't stay on the diet (apparently people feel so good, they don't want to 'challenge' themselves & possibly make themselves sick again. I can fully understand that sentiment right now).

However before I start cutting back, there are a few things I need to clear up.

* I have about 2 1/2 bottles of wine (including our anniversary champagne which we didn't drink on our anniversary) to share with my husband.
* Easter Eggs - It would just be too cruel leaving them there & not being able to have even a little bit.
* Some flavoured cheeses & various little snacky things that would just be too tempting to leave lying around.

I'm sure there's more goodies lying around & no doubt I will find many more once I am actually committed to this thing.

Off on a tangent now, I took home 1/2 a shopping bag of mandarin's from my parent's place on mothers day. They were finally ripe enough to make juice with today & I made over 2 litres of juice, leaving a few small mandarins for eating & after throwing out a few big ones that had gone kind of woody. The juice tastes delicious but with a mouth ulcer it is just too painful to drink ATM, so I am hoping that Cheetah really likes mandarin juice (as DH & Little Bear don't). He seems to so far.