Gluten / Grain Free -- How long?

[jamiedolan]

HI,

I recently droped grains from my diet, about 5 days ago now. I have problems with joint pain, and low energy.

I have felt a little better with more fat and protein in my diet and lower carbs. Although, I am not always consistant about how long more carbs are, I have gotten better.

I am wondering how long it will likely take on the gain free plan to see some results. i.e. more energey is the biggest thing.



Thanks

jamie

[Mitra]

It depends whether grains are the cause of your low energy. If so, then I'd think you should be starting to see some benefits, by now, but moderate quantities of grains don't cause low energy for everybody.

[jamiedolan]

HI,

My digestion is feeling like it is a bit better than normal. So I think it might be helping in regards to that.

My energy today is a smide better and I slept better last night.

Is there something else I am missing that is important to energy?
low carb,
adquate protien and fat,
dump the grains.

Maybe I just need to watch the carbs more closely. Does keeping your carbs a little high zap your energy?

Thanks

Jamie

[Mitra]

Personally, with carbs too high I crash a few hours after a meal. But with very low carbs I lack stamina. I have more stable energy when my carbs are somewhere in the middle. But some people feel great with very low carbs. It does take up to two or three weeks for your body to fully adapt to burning fat rather than glucose for fuel, though. You can see changes quite fast if you're giving up an allergen, but the carb/fat switchover can take a bit longer.

Any food that you have an allergy to/intolerance of could sap your energy, not just grains. Not getting enough food could do it, or unstable blood sugars, or other allergies (eg airborne such as pollen). Or not getting enough sleep, stress, infection/illness - last year I had a low grade chronic infection in an old root canal filling, that left me tired and susceptible to lots of other infections until I had it fixed. No amount of playing around with my diet got rid of it.

Sorry, but there are so many possibilities that it's not feasible for someone to pinpoint it remotely. All we can do is throw out ideas, so you can identify which ones seem likely, and investigate/experiment.

[jamiedolan]

Personally, with carbs too high I crash a few hours after a meal. But with very low carbs I lack stamina. I have more stable energy when my carbs are somewhere in the middle. But some people feel great with very low

When I went very low carb, I always end up with intense cravings for sweets and carbs, and end up giving in, and my carbs are higher for that day than if I just ate a reasonable amount of carbs throughout the day.

Still proboly more carbs than I should have most days.

carbs. It does take up to two or three weeks for your body to fully adapt to burning fat rather than glucose for fuel, though. You can see changes

I need to keep a journal for myself and see how many carbs I am really eating, but I suspect it is still a bit high most days.

quite fast if you're giving up an allergen, but the carb/fat switchover can take a bit longer.

Today was fairly productive, and I almost feel like I had a bit more energy today, but in general I have up and down days. So I am not sure if grain free is helping yet or not.

I am proboly in a situation where some times my body is burning fat or fuel and at other times it is not due to the carbs being too high.

What does happen when you are eating low carbs (say 40 grams) and you are in "fat burnning mode" what happens if you eat a large amount of carbs at a meal, does it mess everything up for weeks till your body can stabilize again on low carbs or does your body recover back into "fat buring mode" a lot more quickly than that?


Any food that you have an allergy to/intolerance of could sap your energy, not just grains. Not getting enough food could do it, or unstable blood sugars, or other allergies (eg airborne such as pollen). Or not getting

My blood sugar tests have always been quite good. I have a number of enviromental allergies, (pollen, mold, trees, grass, dust, etc.). I normally take a mild antihistimine to make life tolerable.

Other than keeping your house and clean as possiable, what can you do about allergies? Do the allergies affect your energy level directly or is it more of the allgery meds affecting your energy level.

Is there any way to tell if you have other food allergies, or do you just have to guess and try one food at a time? And how long of a try do you need to give each test if you do go that route? I had never been able to target foods in the past that caused me distress (gi or otherwise). However, my digestion does seem to be better this week with no grains / gulten.

enough sleep, stress, infection/illness - last year I had a low grade chronic

I sleep enough. Most of the time, I find I need to be up around 10 hours of sleep to have the energy to survive the day, once in a while I can get less 5 or 6 hours. But most of the time I need the 10 and I get it eventually most of the time.

I don't feel like I am acutely ill or have an infection and my doctors have not said or detected such.

I am an anxious person, but not under alot of stress in general. So it is possiable that my general anxiety contributes.

infection in an old root canal filling, that left me tired and susceptible to lots of other infections until I had it fixed. No amount of playing around with my diet got rid of it.

How did you figure out that was the problem? Was there pain? My teeth have fillings, but have all been properly worked on and clean as of several months ago.

Sorry, but there are so many possibilities that it's not feasible for someone to pinpoint it remotely. All we can do is throw out ideas, so you can identify which ones seem likely, and investigate/experiment.

Thanks for your help in figuring out what is going on, any additional suggestions are welcome.

Thank You

Jamie

[Mitra]

I need to keep a journal for myself and see how many carbs I am really eating, but I suspect it is still a bit high most days.

It's hard to work out the effect of your diet unless you know exactly what you're eating. I'd suggest recording it all for a while (what you ate, and carb quantity at least), along with any symptoms you experience.

Today was fairly productive, and I almost feel like I had a bit more energy today, but in general I have up and down days. So I am not sure if grain free is helping yet or not.It sounds as if it might be helping - see how it progresses.

Other than keeping your house and clean as possiable, what can you do about allergies? Do the allergies affect your energy level directly or is it more of the allgery meds affecting your energy level.Let me know if you find the answer to this one :lol:. The only think I do know is that I feel much more tired if I suffer the allergies without medication than if I take antihistamines. The newer ones don't make you drowsy as much as the older ones did - for most people.

Is there any way to tell if you have other food allergies, or do you just have to guess and try one food at a time? And how long of a try do you need to give each test if you do go that route? I had never been able to target foods in the past that caused me distress (gi or otherwise). However, my digestion does seem to be better this week with no grains / gulten.Recording your food and symptoms might highlight a suspect. Otherwise it's down to some form of elimination diet. I'd go for recording your diet at responses for now, and only try the elimination stuff if you're not getting anywhere without it.

I don't feel like I am acutely ill or have an infection and my doctors have not said or detected such...

How did you figure out that was the problem? Was there pain? My teeth have fillings, but have all been properly worked on and clean as of several months ago.My tooth was slightly tender, and there was a sort of blister/sac on the gum next to it. I wasn't saying that was likely to be your problem, just picking a few things at random that can cause low energy.

For now, I'd record more information about what you're eating and how it affects you, and give your body time to adjust to the recent changes in your diet.

By the way, I always seem to be struggling with my energy levels, so I'm not claiming to have all the answers here! Things that are important for me are keeping on top of allergies, eating well (not too much, not too little, controlled carb levels, reasonable frequency), exercise (not too much, not too little, not too mild, not too intense), getting enough good sleep, not staying stressed. I'm a female approaching menopause, so that's a major source of energy fluctuations for me.

I hope you can find something that works for you.

[Mayflowers]

Wheat contains a substance that acts as a narcotic (from the Paleo Diet) and I for one have noticed the effects on myself mentally from wheat. I have withdrawals when I stop eating it. You're probably experiencing withdrawal symptoms. I had them for about 2 months along with actual depression which finally lifted after it finally wore off. I also had anxiety and panic attacks from wheat that ceased when I stopped eating wheat. I also get arthritic joint pain from rice.

[skwpt]

Hi, it's my first post here, but I may as well jump right in, since this is an area in which I have some personal experience.

A reasonably good test for food sensitivities (which are different from true food allergies) is the ELISA IgG test. It is done via a simple blood draw, where the lab looks at 96 known food allergens, including milk, yeast, gluten, nuts, foods from the nightshade family, and the like. I qualify my statement with reasonably good because the ELISA test can return both false positives and false negatives, but it is still a useful tool.

If you are concerned about wheat and gluten, you might also consider having an antigliadin test, also a blood draw.

I had both tests done a couple years ago (along with the very informative CDSA 2.0 (http://www.gdx.net/home/assessments/cdsa/)), and I went on both an elimination and rotation diet for 90 days.

Logging your food and looking for sensitivities is somewhat revealing, but it is most helpful only after you have eliminated all known sensitivities for a while, and only if you then consume the suspected food a few times in one day and then go back to your regular eating plan for the next 3-4 days. In other words, don't add more than one suspected food at any one time and give your body a chance to react to it. Many allergenic foods present with symptoms after as long as a 3-day delay. I can eat a bunch of peanuts or peanut butter today and not get the sniffles until Saturday.

From everything I have read, and what both my doctor and nutritionist told me, once you eliminate your known sensitivities and give your leaky gut time to heal, you can safely rotate some of those pesky foods back into your diet, as long as you don't eat them every day. The one food we are not supposed to desensitize ourselves to (if tests show positive for sensitivities) is gluten because of the damage the proteins can do to your intestinal mucosa, possibly leading to an autoimmune disease like celiac.

Here's the simplest and most reliable way I have found to determine whether or not I have a sensitivity. I ask myself what foods I can't live without. Dairy and bread are at the top of the list, along with natural nut butters. If someone told me I could never eat carrots again, I'd shrug and say no biggie. But take away my beloved dairy, and I want to cry like a baby. Apparently, many of us become somewhat dependent on the very foods that make us ultimately feel back.

A really good book to read on narcotic effect of grains (and a little about dairy) is Dangerous Grains (http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Grains-Gluten-Cereal-Hazardous/dp/1583331298). There is nothing wrong with grains for many people, but I know they are bad for me, and this book was very enlightening.

When I cut grains out of my diet, 3 days later I am a new person. My joints go from stiff, swollen and painful to limber and youthful. That is, I hobble up and down the stairs like an elderly person to doing ass-to-floor squats with 120 pounds on the bar. :D But boo hoo hoo sometimes I just want to wolf down a whole baguette dipped in olive oil!

[skwpt]

Oops, I forgot to address the question of the OP, or "how long?"

How long depends on how sensitive you are.

Do you feel better without it? Then why go back to eating it?

If you have celiac disease, the answer is never again.

If you find you really miss it, and your antigliadins are on the high end of the normal range, you'll just have to see how you feel when you eat it and experiment with how much and how often.

I know it's hard. Breads and grains make eating so much simpler, but once you cut them out for a while it gets easier and easier to not eat them, and eventually you find you don't miss them as much as you thought you would.

That happened with me and dairy. After about my second month without it, my spouse asked if I wanted cheese on my omlette. When I said no, he replied, "Who are you and what have you done with my wife?"

[jamiedolan]

Thank you very much for the nice response.

I have been eating gluten free for over 6 months now, since around the time I first made this post. I am very careful of what I eat, I do belive that there have been 3 or 4 time when I have eaten out that I may have been exposed to some gluten containing products.

I also avoid corn and rice for the most part, but am not strict about avoiding them. The bread was kind of hard at first, but not too bad. What is worse is that I have been following a total gluten free diet, so I avoid even things like soy sauce. So it makes eating out nearly impossiable. I miss being able to grab a pizza once in a while from papajohns which I wouldnt really want to eat on proteinpower anyway. I also really miss having chineese food once in a while. I highly suspect that my local chinesse restraunts use wheat based soy sauce, but I have never been able to communicate well enough with them to find out for sure.

Now I make 90% + of the food I eat from scratch. I do eat some processed things like protein powders and protein bars. However the majority of the time, my diet is meat, vegetables, fruit, nuts. I buy whole pigs, cows, lamb, chickens, and store hundreds of pounds of meat in my freezers, This is the only way it is affordable for organic pasture raised meats. I buy as much fresh produce (fruit and vegetables) as I can, and get the rest from the freezer. I try for organic produce, but not a lot of good organic product is available in my area.


Dairy has felt quite hard to give up, well not that I couldn't do it, but I just haven't wanted to I guess. I haven't had the feeling that dairy causes me problems but I could be wrong. I switched to eating raw milk, cream and cheese, which many people swear are much healthier for you espically if you have food allergies.

I will have weeks where I eat very little dairy, but have never strictly avoided it for more than a couple days. I have never been able to notice any difference connected to dairy. I know I should do a trial of no dairy for longer than 2 days, but have not done it, I've only limited my dairy.

I did look into lab tests, and I talked to 2 of my doctors about them. They said I can have the celicac test done, but I would have to start eating gluten again to make it accurate. My digestion has been a lot better since I have been off of gluten, so I don't want to eat gluten again and start my digestive nightmare all over again. If you have ever had the "stomach flu" or food poisioning, you know what I lived with every day for over 10 years, now that is 90% + better since I am gluten free. I think the higher protein and lower carb also helps some as well.

I asked my doctors about some of the other food allergy testing and they didn't know enough about them to be feel comfortable with ordering them, even though my insurance was suppose to pay for them. They didn't really think it was going to be worth it to have them done.

Elminating the tomato family of (nightshade) vegetables from my diet has been mentioned several times by various sources, I have not done this trial very well either, and I feel it is something I should try, but again it does feel a lot harder than the gluten elmination was.

Althought my digestive improvments are very noteworthy, I was very disapointed that the gluten free diet did not seem to improve my fatigue and joint pain very much at all. I also was disapointed that in general following protein power for the last couple months has not seem to make much of a difference. The only other health issue that did get better on protein power was my heartburn lessened a lot.

I started out protein power at 40 carbs a day, did that for atleast 3 weeks, then I read the PP book again and decided that I could proboly move into the next stage and push my carbs higher. So I made sure to keep my protein up where it needs to be, 120 grams a day and I added in some more carbs, mainly from apples and berries. I do find I get a little boost and feel a little better when I am getting the additional carbs from fruit (and some from the raw milk). So at this point I am eating somewhere between 60 and 100 carbs most days. For the most part, I am only pushing up to the higher end of the carb range on days that I am alot more physically active, so I think that helps, but am not positive on exactly how that works.

Thanks again for your help and suggestions.

[skwpt]

It's really too bad you haven't found profound relief by changing your diet and eliminating gluten. I wonder if you have a systemic inflammation problem.

Another useful test your doctor could run is C-reative protein (CRP), which is a marker of inflammation (and pending heart disease, too).

Another decent read is The Inflammation Syndrome (http://www.amazon.com/Inflammation-Syndrome-Nutritional-Arthritis-Allergies/dp/0471478814/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206053851&sr=1-4). I believe you are following the recommended diet, for the most part (it's been a while since I read it), but there are supplements that might help you. For example, I assume you are taking at least 1 Tbs of cod liver or fish oil a day. You might want to consider cutting out the dairy to see if you feel any improvement in your joints.

Kudos to you for eating as much grass-fed beasts and organic produce as you are. I made the organic switch with produce a couple years ago, but it is challenging to find grass-fed meat that hasn't been finished with grain around here. And raw milk is illegal in my state.

I don't have the freezer room for whole animals, but in a few weeks I am taking a 2-hour road trip with several large coolers to visit a ranch that sells 100% grass-fed cattle and lambs and pigs. Once in a while I luck out at Whole Foods, and I can't believe how much better it tastes.

[jamiedolan]

I've never had a CRP come back high, althought I am sure that I run at somewhat high SED rate.

I've taken fish oil alot of the time. Now that I am eating grass fed meats, I don't always take fish oil, as I assume with grass fed meats I am getting my fatty acids in natural amounts.

I know I still have some dietary issues that I need to clean up like my love of dairy. I really want to move to being 90%+ meat in my diet and do a lot less cooking of the meat. I had some porkchops today that were medium-rare and they were quite good.

Large freezers are cheap to buy and operate. at 25cuft (thats huge, will hold nearly 2 good size cows) can be bought for around $550 and only costs about $4 a month to run.

Buying a whole cow save you tons of money!

Thanks for your suggestions.

Jamie

[deirdra]

Jamie - could you be allergic/sensitive to the protein powder? My reaction to whey is even worse than casein & soy, so I've had to give up protein powders, but this has provided great relief from my respiratory symptoms. I know there are protein powders made from eggwhite, but it is easier/cheaper to just eat eggs, which I tolerate, and get the benefits of the yolks too. So now I'm eating ~99% "real" food. It is kind of sad that I put real in quotations, when that used to be the only kind of food available, but real food is in the minority at typical supermarkets these days.

skwpt - welcome to the forum, your posts are very informative. I found that LC got me to within 15 lbs of my ideal weight, but dealing with allergies/intolerances has been THE key to achieving my ideal weight and maintaining it effortlessly (as long as I avoid certain foods and rotate others) - after 35 years of yo-yo dieting, I've now been maintaining for 19 months!

[jamiedolan]

Jamie - could you be allergic/sensitive to the protein powder? My reaction to whey is even worse than casein & soy, so I've had to give up protein powders, but this has provided great relief from my respiratory symptoms. I know there are protein powders made from eggwhite, but it is easier/cheaper to just eat eggs, which I tolerate, and get the benefits of the yolks too. So now I'm eating ~99% "real" food. It is kind of sad that I put real in quotations, when that used to be the only kind of food available, but real food is in the minority at typical supermarkets these days.
months!

Hello Deidra;

I have considered that I was allergic / sensetive to the protein powder. Several people here encouraged me to look into the possibility of a dairy problem. So I have done some periods of cutting out dairy, as well as switched protein powders several times. I have not used protein powder for a couple weeks now, I switched to using a soy based bar for a couple weeks (I hate to use soy based stuff, but these bars didn't seem to bother me).
I still feel like some food is bothering me at times. Last night, I felt like I really had a histime reaction to something, but haven't been able to nail it down. I had spaghetti squash last night, with grilled chicken. I used a organic spaghetti sauce that was soy & wheat free.
I am starting to wonder if solanaceae in quality cause me a problem, i.e. the tomatos and peppers.

Do you find you have a delayed reaction or do you find your reaction is fairly quick after you have eaten a food your sensetive to?

Thanks
Jamie

[Jazzy]

Just want to say thank you for this thread....it's
very, very interesting.

Jazzy