Healthy special diet and eating disorder

Question
Hi.  I would be grateful for your feed back and opinion on my diet please.  I was diagnosed with IBS 9 years ago.  Last year my doctor tested and diagnosed me as borderline Coeliac and an intolerance to dairy.  All this may be a result of various eating disorders over 24 years (I am now 41).  I was put in touch with a nutritionist but over the past few months I have found the limited (though varied) diet exhausting to keep up with and have resorted to chewing and spitting "bad foods".  I am now always bloated and have put on weight?  Here's a normal days diary:  07.30 half grapefruit: 11.00 4 strawberries: 13.30 100g organic soya yoghurt+tablespoon blueberries+tablespoon raspberries+tablespoon seeds: 15.30 apple: 18.00 turkey+salad+3x trufree crackers+soya spread: 20.30 8x nuts.  Plus 8 cups of green lemon tea through the day and a camomile tea at bedtime. Weekends are pretty much the same except I'll have a jacket potato with my dinner and maybe a steak instead plus maybe a bag of crisps and popcorn.  Oh, and 3 glasses of wine.  Come Sunday night my weight has gone up by 6-8lbs!  What am I doing wrong.  I want to lose the 7lbs I've put on over the past 7 months.  Is it the C&S causing this problem?  Please help because this is ruling my life.  Any help and advice you can give would be much appreciated.  Thank you.  Kind regards.  Helen

Answer
Celiac disease could very well be contributing to your weight.  If you are very sensitive to gluten, you may find foods you would never have thought of bother you.  I am sure you are staying away from breads and pastas, but gluten is also found in salad dressings, gravies, chocolate, beer, hard liquors, and many processed foods.  Terms such as flour, self-rising phosphates, bran, bread crumbs, farina, semolina, malt, cracker meal, wheat germ, gluten, wheat starch, graham flour, bulgur, durum, modified food starch, gelatinized starch, vegetable gum, vegetable starch, and wheat bran all signify gluten is present.  Chewing "bad" foods then spitting them out may still be contributing to problems because, try as you might, some gluten will still be swallowed.  Dairy, berries, fat, and popcorn may all be contributing to problems because of the IBS.

You have two gastrointestinal problems which would both seriously limit food choices alone, making having both a nightmare.  The best way to try to escape the boredom from your diet is to try new foods.  The best way to do so is to try new recipes.  If you like to cook, I suggest finding a cookbook specifically for persons with Celiac disease.  If you do not like to cook, try finding new products at a healthfood store.  Celiac is becoming much more common as doctors look for it more so finding cookbooks or new packaged foods may not be as difficult as you think.  The internet is also a great source to look for recipes.  (www.celiac.com has a lot of information and recipes.)  Even though your doctor diagnosed you as "borderline" (a term I have never heard used with celiac disease before), the stricter you are with your diet the better your symptoms will probably become.  I have a professor who has celiac disease and who I had eaten with several times before I even knew, so once you are more familiar with what foods you can and can't eat, the less you will feel limited.

I know it is hard, but I often tell people to look at a change in diet as an adventure instead of a hassle.  Look for pictures of foods from recipes created for a celiac or IBS diet to help get you excited about what you can eat instead of dwelling on what you can't.  I hope that helps at least a little.  If you have any more questions, please contact me again and I would be happy to answer them for you.

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