Wednesday, July 13, 2011

No sugar, no dairy, no grains...so what do I eat???

That was my initial reaction when I was told last week that, in order to help get rid of the persistent thrush my breastfeeding daughter and I have been passing back and forth for the past 2 1/2 months, I needed to make a drastic change to my diet. The American diet is so full of carbs and sugar, it's ridiculous! The idea with this diet regarding the thrush is to "starve" the yeast so they can't grow and multiply. So, in addition to medication, sterilizing and washing everything, probiotics, and other supplements, I decided to go ahead and try the new diet.

My midwife gave me the guidelines, and here is what I can eat:
  • Veggies (excluding potatoes)
  • Meat
  • Eggs
  • Most nuts (no peanuts/peanut butter)
  • Berries 
  • Citrus
  • Green apples
  • 1 serving of a whole grain per day (brown rice, quinoa, whole wheat bread, etc)
What can't I eat?
  • All dairy products (this is the hardest for me)
  • All processed food
  • All refined sugar
  • All white flour
  • All simple carbohydrates in general
So, rather than feeling defeated by my limited diet, I decided to take it as a cooking challenge! I have been making lots of yummy recipes and have found that, because I was cooking a lot from scratch already, it wasn't such a huge jump for me to modify our diet. I knew I had been eating too much sugar but lacked the motivation to kick the sugar habit. This was the motivation I needed. DO I still crave sugar? Absolutely. But thankfully, I can still eat berries, which are my favorite fruit and very much in season and sweet right now, which helps to curb my craving. I have also been using a no-sugar/carb sugar substitute called Xylitol to help sweeten things like iced tea, salad dressing, and my "quinoa pudding" breakfast I made.

I am excited to be able to post several new recipes I have tried that are part of my diet and all of these will be ones I will continue to make even when I am allowed to have dairy/sugar/grains again. Because of this diet, I have learned so much more about food, nutrition, and how the body processes what I eat. I am planning to keep a mostly low carb diet. And an added perk? Shedding some baby weight! I have lost 6 pounds in the past week!

Stay tuned for recipes!

1 comment:

  1. Wow, I'm excited to read the upcoming recipes based on this new diet! I've been feeling that I need to do something similar (or at least sugar & gluten free), so maybe this will give me some motivation. Hope it works to kick the thrush for you!!

    ReplyDelete