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Remember folks, I'm not your usual dieter. Restaurants do not carry foods that are friendly for FODMAP intolerances (fructose, lactose, more classes of starches and sugars that bother those with IBS innards). As a gastroparesis patient (I have poor motility throughout the digestive system--long story) I am supposed to eat small meals, small particle foods (well chewed or mushed or liquified), and limited fat and limited fiber. This is tough. I regulate my bowels via my calendar and my scale. Cute, eh?
I went with a friend to the local vo-tech cooking school for their Friday buffet meal, a French menu this time. Although French cooking has a lot of onion and garlic, cooking it tames the FODMAP somewhat; also, I can have small amounts of FODMAP foods, but at some point too much will send me over the tipping point, so I have to make choices--where will I spend my FODMAP allocation this time? For sure I pick out the onion and garlic pieces from any menu item.
The bread was not French bread, unfortunately. If it had been, I could eat it because, like sourdough, it is made with a bacteria and yeast starter that eats up the sugars before baking. Otherwise, what products are no-no for me.
I hoped there would be fish, but there was only bouillabase soup so I ate clams and such but spit out all the stringy bits. The broth was fabulous. They had well-cooked beef bourgignone and I ate some of that, chewing well. Strangely, they had wild rice instead of regular white rice so I could only have a bit of that (fiber content). I skipped the pork dish with apples--too chewy plus apples are a no-no. Had to skip the green beans and asparagus--fiber and FODMAPs. Salad was an interesting melange of olives, beets, crumbled tuna, eggs, and more. It was nice but had to leave the dressings alone and the lettuces became a chewed mound on my plate as I ate. There was thin-sliced cured salmon served separately and I ate a lot of that--low fiber, good flavor, and soft texture! I meant to try the scalloped potato dish after I ate a lactase pill, but the other vultures had already eaten it all up. Sigh. There was a fruit plate and I was able to choose pineapple and strawberries--I returned the pineapple fiber to my plate after chewing. I ate the flavored whipped cream off a couple desserts.
For me, this meal was a triumph. I did not feel like a martyr, as I so often do at restaurants. My companion was good-natured and was not put off by the chewed messes on the edge of my plate. Getting out is important; so many people with motility diseases are house-bound. I am not a feeding tube patient, which is a blessing, I assure you.
I only ate a small meal the night before and only had coffee in the morning before the noon outing to the buffet. I ate almost nothing for the rest of the day, although I did have gum drops--I have cravings because my stomach empties the glucose (water soluble) long before the residue of a meal leaves the stomach and blood tests show that I am low in glucose. How do you like that, my friends?
It's now the next morning. I am still not at all hungry and probably won't have much hunger today. This is not unusual--the hunger/satiety switch in my digestion computer is broken probably.
Well, folks, enjoy your digestive systems if they are functioning well. And if you know someone who has a motility problem, whether it is irritable bowel or severe reflux or esophagus problems or stomach problems or faux blockages in the bowels or whatever, please be thoughtful. "Invisible illness" patients really resent insensitive comments like "Oh, you're so lucky that you've lost so much weight!" I've dropped a lot of pounds since stomach surgery and resultant diagnoses. It has been an awful ride.
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150.4 lb
Lost so far: 26.6 lb.
Still to go: 0.4 lb.
Diet followed reasonably well.
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losing 1.4 lb a week
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