Non-wheat, low dairy, minimal red meat, low fat, possibly low carb. Ughhhh help please!

bbontheb

I have a few new dietary requirements that are proving difficult for me to learn a better way of eating for my medical issues. I have severe GERD, stomach/bowel issues/ibs so also need to have a low fodmap diet (I can have some veggies on the bad list). I'm borderline type 2 diabetic and Drs have recommended a low carb diet (?). Dairy except lactose-free mostly is off limits with the exception of very small quantities of hard cheese, sour cream. I don't really even know what things are low carb yet...very overwhelmed.

Is there an app/website that you can punch in all your requirements and it comes up with some snack or meal plan ideas?

Lately I've been eating one egg+egg white omelettes with tons of veggies for breakfast, chicken burgers with lettuce, tomato etc, canned salmon, rice crackers, lots of salads with egg/chicken, steamed green beans, etc. Cooking some turkey breast cutlets for today and tomorrow and prepping some salads but..........I'm lacking in ideas.

I think with all the necessities, I need to plan and prep more food at once for the week.

Any one else out there with all these types of requirements?

wimdroid

I don't have plan for you, and am no expert, but feel free to add me. Most of my meals answer to some of those criteria. You can maybe pick up ideas?

ShrinkingViolet1982

Sounds like you need guidance from people who have done #keto for awhile (without the high fat content).

kommodevaran

With so many restrictions, make sure you aren't cutting out anything you don't have to cut out, and that you eat a variety of all the foods you can eat. You have explained the reasons for lactose, low carb and "bad veggies", but why the ban on fat, wheat and red meat?

Rocbola

I had some pretty bad GERD go away. Dr. Michael Klaper has a good segment in one of his lectures available on youtube about GERD and how to get rid of it. I don't remember which lecture, but i think it was the one labeled something about the digestive system.

AliceDark

Oh, dear lord. I feel for you; that's quite a list! Do you have some way of prioritizing those restrictions in order of importance?

The one requirement I'm most interested in is your doctor's low-carb recommendation. "Low-carb" is kind of a buzzword right now, and it's not always well-defined. Did your doctor give you any more information, like a daily limit? (For some people, "low-carb" can mean "under X grams of carbs per day," whereas other people use it to mean "I cut out bread and pasta." It would be helpful for you to know what your doctor really means).

Generally speaking, carb sources include fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes, with some dairy sources being somewhat higher in carbs due to the sugars.

I would personally have a hard time hitting both low-fat and low-carb (especially with the no-dairy restriction), because really all that leaves you is lean meat and maybe some vegetables (depending on how you're defining low-carb). If you can include things like fruits and vegetables (keeping in mind your fodmap restrictions), it would be a lot easier.

jgnatca

You found everything you can eat. You are absolutely right that this is a very restrictive list.

The three macros are protein, fats, and carbs. All foods will be at least one or a combo of these three.

Your least restriction is around proteins and you have found them. Chicken, fish, and eggs.

How about pork and tofu?

To stave off boredom I'd look for recipes that are international and swap out the starchy carb with a salad, roasted veggies, or something spiralized.

One of my go-tos is baked tofu with baby bok choy in Teriyaki sauce.

You could have chicken in Italian tomato sauce with spaghetti squash.

Crustless quiche made with water instead of milk (sad, I know).

Salmon with roasted veggies and perhaps a little Parmesan.

bbontheb

kommodevaran wrote: »

With so many restrictions, make sure you aren't cutting out anything you don't have to cut out, and that you eat a variety of all the foods you can eat. You have explained the reasons for lactose, low carb and "bad veggies", but why the ban on fat, wheat and red meat?

Wheat is a high fodmap food and one of my biggest triggers for feeling sick/IBS. Wahhh. The fat and red meat is just from feeling so sick when I eat it (I throw up in the morning, get sick during the day with ibs, etc). Too much fat (say if I eat some bacon) or a couple meatballs, I can guarantee I'll be sick. I am not sure why nor do I know the point where one amount is okay and the next not...(will take any suggestions). Also, higher fat foods give me very bad acid. I've been on many meds for it as well but diet seems to be the only thing to really help it. I struggle with impulse eating though so it's very hard. I love bagels.......lol.

bbontheb

Oh I will pick up some tofu! Pork I haven't tested again but I will definitely . Perhaps smaller portions will help. I love bok choy and green veggies and also hoping to make fish a priority.

I can use lactose-free milk however so that is a plus!

No, my Dr did not elaborate on the low carb. I will discuss at our next appt because I feel like it was too vague. Perhaps the start meaning breads and pastas....at least that would be good and fine tune it later on if needed.

Thanks for all the replies!

rheddmobile

Pork tenderloin is fairly lean, if you want to try that. How well do you handle legumes?

I'm type 2 diabetic and while I don't eat a lot of carbs, I don't eat a specifically low carb diet, and have managed to get my a1c down to normal levels and get off most medication. Ask your doctors for specific recommendations - the current ADA recommendation is 150g / day which is less than a typical American diet, but still nowhere near as low as a keto diet. If you don't have a testing kit, I recommend getting one and testing your blood glucose after specific meals to find out how many carbs of which kinds you can tolerate. For example, I can eat tons of potatoes with no issues but very little rice spikes my sugar. It's very individual. And certain things which are high carb such as fruit are good to eat before and after workouts when your sugars are low and need to be replenished. The amount of carbs you eat as a diabetic has to take into account your exercise.

Heather4448

My only suggestion is to DL the app 'Eat this much.' You can input ingredients/food that you can eat and it generates recipes. I think there are a few apps like that. In your case, it would definitely be worth a few bucks a month.

nvmomketo

Dr Bernstein's Diabetes Solution addresses a low carb diet for better BG control. That diet is pretty much gluten free as most gluten containing foods are high carb.

LCHF dairy is often lactose free - cheese, high fat sour cream, whipping cream and butter. Atkins is dairy free, at least at first.

LCHF diets naturally restrict sugars - often good for the stomach.

LCHF diets also limit fruits and vegetables... it could fit you.

As a lactose intolerant celiac, I find it fits my needs well.

jcummings6

If you are on Facebook check out the group "Nutrition Made Easier" it's ran by a bunch of men that are evidence based nutritionists and they might be able to give you some science based ideas of how to eat. I have a wheat allergy and I don't do a lot of dairy but I do some. Feel free to add me.

In my opinion (I do have some medical background) if I were you I'd try to focus on avoiding the wheat and dairy first since you are considered bordline diabetic. Start eating within a calorie deficit and shedding those pounds. When you are in a healthy BMI it will do wonders for your diabetic risk. Do your best with managing carbs for now but if you start restricting calories chances are you will be eating less carbs than normal anyway.

Lounmoun

Consult a registered dietician?

http://www.kalynskitchen.com/p/recipes-by-diet-type.html
http://allrecipes.com/recipes/1231/healthy-recipes/low-fat/

If eggs are okay then- hard boiled eggs, deviled eggs, egg salad, egg muffins, cloud bread
Stuffed tomato, peppers or zucchini with egg or meats. Lettuce wraps.
You can eat chicken breast, turkey breast, salmon. Tuna, tilapia, shrimp? Tofu? Meat substitutes?
Can you eat quinoa?
If you can eat zucchini maybe try zoodles or stuffed zucchini.

I find food ideas on pinterest. You might search for foods you know you can eat and see what pops up.

deannalfisher

I'd recommend getting a refer to a RD who can help you develop a meal plan - they are trained to work with people with all kinds of dietary requirements

lemurcat12

deannalfisher wrote: »

I'd recommend getting a refer to a RD who can help you develop a meal plan - they are trained to work with people with all kinds of dietary requirements

I'd agree with this. The difficulty is low carbing when having to be low fat also. Is the same doctor advising both, or are there difficult doctors who may not know all your issues? Do you have weight to lose? Do you have an understanding of the "low carb" advice? Often just "under 150 g" or some such is meant, which isn't really very low and might just mean eating normal amounts of carbs for you, but on a deficit (so less of everything).

Also, there are other things that seem to work for blood glucose control (although I think low carbing is a great option if there aren't other dietary issues). One may just be losing weight if you have weight to lose. Others are focusing on diet quality, like more vegetables and fruit, higher fiber carbs like legumes, not eating carbs on their own, but with some protein, stuff like that. This is why some turn around T2D using even higher carb plant-based diets. This is why with multiple restrictions it would probably be useful to get specific advice from someone experienced, like an RD.

kyubeans

Are you dairy free because of lactose intolerance? If so, I would suggest getting some Lactaid supplement. It supplies the lactase enzyme to help digest dairy products when you take a tablet with any dairy consumed. I've been using them for a year or more and it has changed my life. I even ate ice cream with no ill effects now which was impossible before. I don't eat a lot of ice cream but it has been very helpful for cheese, yogurt, and butter. Just a suggestion if you want to relieve yourself of one restriction on that long list!

Good luck. I would also suggest visiting some low carb or keto sites. My doctor actually recommended DietDoctor.com as a good place to get started for low carb (for my blood sugar issues).

lemurcat12

kyucifer wrote: »

Good luck. I would also suggest visiting some low carb or keto sites. My doctor actually recommended DietDoctor.com as a good place to get started for low carb (for my blood sugar issues).

As OP is low fat and has dietary issues with too much fat, this is unlikely to help.

baconslave

kyucifer wrote: »

Are you dairy free because of lactose intolerance? If so, I would suggest getting some Lactaid supplement. It supplies the lactase enzyme to help digest dairy products when you take a tablet with any dairy consumed. I've been using them for a year or more and it has changed my life. I even ate ice cream with no ill effects now which was impossible before. I don't eat a lot of ice cream but it has been very helpful for cheese, yogurt, and butter. Just a suggestion if you want to relieve yourself of one restriction on that long list!

Good luck. I would also suggest visiting some low carb or keto sites. My doctor actually recommended DietDoctor.com as a good place to get started for low carb (for my blood sugar issues).

I'm so glad that lactase enzymes have made your life easier.
I just have to say though, for the OP's benefit, that not everyone responds that way. My 13-year-old son has been lactose intolerant since he was 5 (after a terrible c.diff infection.) Some people are so sensitive to lactose that even the pill won't always help. He can do low/no lactose and aged hard cheeses without a pill (butter, parm, sharp cheddar, swiss). Mid-grade lactose products (soft cheeses (mozzarella or monterey jack), sour cream, cream sauces) are ok with the enzyme pill as long as it isn't more than 2 days per week, one meal per day. If he consumes more often than that...he has reactions. High lactose things like milk or ice cream, however, no pill EVER will allow him to have those. He'll throw up within the hour and have digestive distress for hours, guaranteed.

shaumom

Oh so sorry to hear it has been so difficult! And sympathy from someone who has been in a similar place! Feel free to message me, if you like - I'd be happy to talk about any resources I found for meals, foods, substitutions, any of that!

I do have a different set of health issues, but my own diet is also very restrictive (although I've been able to add some in at this point). No eggs, no dairy, no gluten, no sulfites, few nuts or beans, many fruits and veggies on the bad list, and the opposite of yours in meats - I can have buffalo and beef, but poultry and pork cause reactions. :-P

I've been doing this for about 8 years now, and one thing I discovered is how many small nutrients can be very vital for the creation of certain enzymes used in digesting food. The problem ends up being where you get low in nutrients due to limited food supply, so that you can't make enough of these enzymes, and when that happens, you start reacting to the foods that these enzymes help break down and it limits your food supply even further, argh.

I had to work my way back up from this problem and it is SO much better to just jump on that from the beginning so it doesn't get so bad, you know? Do you have any vitamins you can take? If so, I'd highly recommend because of this.

Re: food ideas - just some random ones.
- To get a crust on you meat without oil. One thing you can do it add a teeny bit of water to a frying pan, so it's like 1/8 of an inch or so, and cook the chicken on that. Let the water boil down and the chicken brown for just a teeny bit as the water is gone, then turn the meat, add a teeny bit more water, and do it again. Do it over and over and It'll slowly brown the chicken and you get a nice little crust, but it doesn't need oil to do it.
- I would HIGHLY recommend starting an herb garden. This seriously saved my life. I just went and bought as many edible herbs as the gardening nursery had - or seeds, when I had less money - and planted them. in pots or outside, doesn't matter. Since you may have a really limited diet in terms of main ingredients, it is SO much better when you can add lots of seasonings to it, you know? Add variety that way, so the flavors aren't the same. And if you grow the fresh herbs, you don't have to pay through the nose for them every time you want to use herbs. You can also just blend up herbs into a paste and marinate chicken with, or mix into a grain like rice, if you can have that, and so on.
- Quinoa and amaranth - they are not grains, but seeds. They are actually also a full protein. And I think they are lower in carbs than actual grains are so they might do better for your diet. Quinoa you can use like rice. Amaranth, it's more a porridge from the grains, or you can use the flour.
- App - Monash university makes an app for the low FODMAP diet that was pretty good. I think if you look up app low formap, and their name, it'll come up on google. What I liked about it is that it designated WHICH type of low FODMAP molecule each food had, so it helped you to see if all of them are a problem, or if certain ones only are. I found it very useful.
- Raw foods recipes can be pretty useful for salad ideas to add a little flavor.
- For onions/garlic substitutions - you might want to explore something called asafetida. It is used often in Indian cooking and it is a powder from a specific root that actually has a REALLY strong onion/garlic type smell. Really intense when storing(people put the container into another container to store, it's so strong) and cooking, but fades some during the cooking process. But if you can tolerate it, it can help with flavor if onions/garlic are part of the FODMAP you can't have. There is also something called black salt, or Kala namak. A salt that is very sulfurous and can help give that same flavor, too. http://theepicentre.com/spice/asafetida/
- soups are great - any veggies you can have, just cook those suckers up with water, salt, and some herbs, and you've got soup. You can use it AS soup, and add some chicken to it, or you can blend it up and use it as a base to make a sauce for pouring over grains or chicken or even other veggies.
- Oh, a nice sauce I believe you can have - you get red bell peppers and roast them. Then take some of them and add a hot chile pepper or two (like jalapeño size) and maybe an herb or two if you want. Citrus juice and salt can be added to taste. Blend them all up together and pour over salmon. Can be mixed with broth of some kind to make a more liquid sauce.
- spring rolls I think you should be able to do - these have rice wrappers that you wet for 15-30 seconds and then wrap around a filling - usually veggies, or veggies and chicken/meat. I think the wrapper is about 11g of carbs for the brown rice ones: these ones (https://www.amazon.com/Star-Anise-Foods-Vietnamese-Servings/dp/B006UQUAQC). there are white rice ones as well.
- If you like soy sauce, Coconut Aminos, by Coconut Secret, are made to a be a substitute. Similar taste, but a bit sweeter. These have not been tested to see whether they are low FODMAP or not, so as some coconut products are on the good list and some are not, I believe these are a 'try and see if it works for you' type of product. I find this online or at health food types of stores
- If your low carb eating still allows for some grains (wasn't sure HOW low carb you have to be), some grains to consider: corn masa (corn flour that is processed so you get more nutrients. Used to make tamales and corn tortillas and it is awesome), millet, sorghum. Teff is so so unless you have it as injera bread (make traditional recipes, as modern ones add wheat) - and fermented into this, it is soft and awesome - rolled up around a meat mixture or savory vegetables.

That's all I've got for foods off the top of my head, but truly, feel free to message me and I'll see if I can remember other stuff.


Also, a quick question - were you ever tested for celiac disease? (when you were still eating wheat regularly) And if you were, did they ever I ask because

1. It is often misdiagnosed as IBS
2. It can cause GERD in some folks.
3. it can cause you to feel horrible when you eat gluten, and with that, wheat is going to be the biggest issue, as it's present in larger amounts, typically, you know?
4. And lastly, the damage caused by it can impact certain organs after time (due to inflammation and nutritional deficiencies), and two of the most impacted (according to my GI doc who specialized in celiac disease) are the liver and gall bladder. And the gall bladder is used for fat digestion, so if you have problems with gall bladder function, you can have HUGE problems with trying to digest fats.

So with all of that and what you have described, you can see why I asked, you know?

Also, if you WERE tested and were negative, just in case it applies- there is a 20% false negative rate on celiac testing. The only way to check on it after that is to follow a very strict GF diet, that avoids not only gluten but also gluten cross contamination during cooking and from any products used. It might be worth your while to see if doing that might help - like, some canned goods (even meats) and some crackers (even corn or rice based) can still contain gluten, so might be worth checking. For some celiacs, they cannot seem to heal and get better until they are completely gluten free - but it takes, at minimum, 6 months to heal up. Can take up to 2 years. So it can take a while on a strict diet to figure out if it helps, unfortunately.

ugofatcat

Have you seen Kate Scalata's blog about the FODMAP diet? She has lots of recipes and grocery lists: http://www.katescarlata.com/