Elimination Diet Eats

Date: April 8, 2015

Author: astottler

It’s been over a week now that I’ve avoided dairy/gluten/all nuts including coconut. So what have I been eating? I’m sort of obsessed with rice cakes, which is really a good thing given I have about 4 things of them right now (oops). Also-mangoes are officially in season! As are blueberries-YAY! So here’s a few snapshots of the past week.

BBQ chicken salad-BBQ chicken from Trader Joe’s, avocado, corn, tomato, tortilla chips, red pepper, and a simple lime/olive oil dressing

Chicken with ketchup, roasted broccoli. Super basic.

Chicken, roasted broccoli, and a sweet potato with non-dairy butter (Earth Balance).

Papaya+ Sunbutter&J rice cake.

Salad, chicken, microwave brown rice and quinoa.

Guacamole salad with chicken.

My pre-long run meal, which has kind of evolved and morphed in the best few years. In theory, it is banana+egg pancakes. But it has to be microwave friendly. And I always used to add cocoa powder but chocolate hasn’t been treating my stomach well (I’m a hot mess clearly). And then I started throwing in oats for more carbs!

First meal back at the dining hall-turkey burger, salad, steamed veggies. This was pretty much the only stuff friendly to my super restrictive diet…

Hummus salad with chicken, plus a fruit bar. I like finishing on something sweet!

Breakfast-an egg+veggies, a pear with sun butter.

I really liked this fruit bar from Trader Joe’s! It was chia and flax seeds for a little texture and staying power!

Hummus salad with egg.

Dining hall meal-roasted cauliflower, quinoa and yams, lentils, and chicken curry over rice.

Easter egg+mango. Classic.

Typical dining hall meal.

More eggs, shockingly. This time in the form of egg salad! FYI-egg salad over plain lettuce is super boring. To create this, I got to be the super cool person who brought back a big bowl of mayo and mustard from the dining hall. Yum?

Any favorite gluten/dairy/nut free foods I should try?

WIAW- Elimination Diet

Date: March 31, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Wednesday! I’m not technically linking up to WIAW because it got kind of complicated, and I honestly don’t know where I’m supposed to link up, but why not have a full day of food anyways?

Now that I’m on an elimination diet, things are a bit different around here. It may be a prolonged elimination diet because I don’t particularly want to add something back in that I suspect will make me sick right before my race, so we shall see.

So-what have I been eating? A lot of rice cakes. Somehow I never realized how delicious they were?? Also a lot of weird things because as it turns out, the dining hall isn’t necessarily too weird-restrictive diet friendly. Out of 8 salad dressings, all but ONE had wheat.

Here are Monday’s eats. I am happy to report that today mid-morning was the first time I felt totally normal after my flare up, so I didn’t have to be as careful today about how much I ate without my stomach hating me which is a good place to be! Things were mostly better Monday but a little wonky.

Breakfast:

1.5 brown rice cakes with sun butter, plus the world’s largest blueberries and a few pieces of dried persimmon.

Lunch:

Tupperware meal! Chicken, green beans, and mashed sweet potatoes, made with Earth Balance instead of butter.

Snack #1:

Dried persimmon+1 gluten free jo-jo.

Snack #2:

I’m so glad these are gluten free because I love these things!

Dinner:

This is the part where I’m glad snack #2 included protein, because every-freaking-thing has wheat in it in the dining hall!

Salad with grilled zucchini, mushrooms, and balsamic vinaigrette+garlic swiss chard+quinoa with sundried tomatoes and yams.

This is where I’m a weirdo and made an interesting dessert concoction. One of the special desserts that night was chocolate coconut rice pudding, which was almost ok for me to eat, but I’m cutting out coconut because it’s a tree nut 🙁 So i mixed together some brown rice, chocolate soy milk, raisins, and sun butter.

Totally normal.

On the running front, I got my 12 miler in on Sunday! I was really worried about how it would go-I was basically sick all week, and I was worried the run itself would send me into a tailspin because my 11 mile run sort of started my last flare up. I made the decision to slow it WAY down and not let my heart rate get too high. I walked some hills, and I took some nice salty crackers to calm my stomach and give me some electrolytes (it was pretty warm!). It worked like a charm! I felt like I had a long run hangover after my 11 miler, and felt much better (but of course tired) after 12. I wasn’t worried about pace because I had shown myself during the 11 that I was capable of a faster pace, and I just wanted to get the miles in. I ran on one of my favorite trails, and actually reached the end for the first time! Unfortunately, the last mile that I had never run before was, as I suspected, straight uphill. My achilles tendons were so sore the next day. WHEW.

Have you ever been on a specific diet for anything? Any tips?

What’s New?

Date: March 27, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! First I’m going to cover our final day briefly and then talk about some life updates.

We started the morning with the continental breakfast again, and then I headed out to run. I technically had 6 miles on the schedule, but had trouble finding a trail so I decided to settle for 5. But then the trail ended earlier than expected and it ended up being 4.5. I’m realizing I’m not taking this training cycle or race too seriously so I’m ok with it. We found a bike path that went near the square and through vineyards.

Then, we went to Cornerstone Gardens for lunch.

Asian chicken salad with mango for me. For dessert, my family split a balsamic strawberry parfait and a strawberry torta, which was warm cake with strawberries baked in the center.

Then, we walked around the gardens a bit.

This picture shows a really cool display-a wishing tree. People write wishes on sparkly tape and tie it to the tree.

After the gardens, we returned home.

Ok-onto the life news. After being sick a fair amount last quarter, I thought I was better, or at least mostly so. However, I had another incident of the really sick feeling Monday night. I was planning on going to Crossfit, but halfway there I turned around and decided I wasn’t up to it, which I was extremely bummed about. If I had to guess, rich cake combined with my long run set it off. I spent the next few days feeling yucky on and off. It’s partly why I shorted my runs. It’s not a consistent sick feeling, but it’s kind of unpredictable. I feel pretty good right now, and I’m REALLY hoping I’ll be ok to do 15.5 tonight, but I really won’t know until tonight. After a rough evening Wednesday, I decided I should return to the doctor. He thinks it may be diet related, so I get to go on an elimination diet to try and identify a common trigger. The three things to cut out are dairy, gluten, and nuts, and I’ll add them back in a week at a time (minus nuts because of my allergy). As a result, things may look a little different around here for a while. I’ve been mostly avoiding dairy although definitely not completely lately, and I need to be more careful with nuts, including coconut which I have a mild allergy to but usually don’t avoid. So I’ll keep you guys updated on that and hope something works so that I can be back to 100% soon!

A foot update-today I visited my dad’s physical therapist so that he could check out my foot (plantar fasciitis). He thinks I shouldn’t run so much, and I’m considering cutting back for a while. I know I want to do the Giant’s Race in August, but I would consider doing the 10k instead of the half and focusing on other things instead-more on that in a second. He told me that my calf on my bad foot is pretty weak, and I walk badly on that foot-one of those things has caused the other so that’s something else I need to work on.

In terms of happier news, I will probably be focusing on spin a lot more in the coming months! I think I will be teaching more regularly at the gym I sub at, but in addition, I got hired at another place to sub! I’m extremely excited about this because it is the gym that I’ve always gone to, that I took my first spin class at, and that I learned to love fitness at. It’s a chain gym, and I always felt that if I was teaching there, I’ve met my spin teaching dream. Ahhh! Additionally, I still need continuing education units in the next year, so I see lots of workshops in my future!

What’s up with you?