Intolerances identified!

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Lola2248
Lola2248 Posts: 126 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
So I have been trying for over a year to lose weight.

I have tried eating 500 calories less, 600 calories, 700 calories less than recommended - ranging from 1200 to 1800 calories. I exercise 3-4 times a week, hour long sessions, one with a trainer. She and I were baffled as to why I am not seeing much movement on scales and inches... my body is changing shape but not getting smaller.

So I decided to get blood tests done. I have found out that I am intolerant to:

Wheat
Yeast
Beef (Don't eat red meat so that doesn't bother me)
Coconut (I Cook regularly in coconut oil)
Egg whites
Egg Yolks
Cows milk.

Also borderline intolerance to:

Peanuts
Brazil nuts
Lamb (Again, don't eat lamb so that is not an issue)
Gluten.

I am now going to undertake some research in eliminating these items slowly. Hopefully, this can help in my journey to get healthy and fit.

If anyone has any experience or websites/books they can suggest, it would be much appreciated. Thanks

Replies

  • SeptemberFeyre
    SeptemberFeyre Posts: 178 Member
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    I recently got an allergy scratch/skin test and learned blood tests can be a lot less accurate. I do have an egg intolerance, though not allergic, and if I eat too many eggs, more than two a week, I get a severe 8 hour stomach ache which is soooo painful. The reason is I don't make enough enzyme to digest the protein in the egg, so can only eat minimal eggs to go along with the minimal enzyme I produce. I guess what I'm saying is...if you are truly intolerant to these things in the list above, you will most likely have some symptoms such as stomach or digestive probs when you eat wheat/gluten. Good luck to you :)
  • VisofSer
    VisofSer Posts: 130 Member
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    I have only general advice on this. All inflammation related issues seems to be helped by taking fish oil. Addressing the omega 3:6 ratio has a large range of benefits, but reducing inflammation is the big one here. Take 2-4g/day of a good fish oil such as Carlson's and see how you respond. It was the only response needed to manage my wife's onset of IBD and her symptoms only flare if she doesn't take it for a few weeks.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,389 Member
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    Please keep in mind that those blood tests are in no way accurate. Often they give a positive if you just ate that kind of food. If you don't have any digestive or otherwise problems with those it's very unlikely that you're intolerant.

    What does intolerant actually mean? If you can't digest certain foods they end up in the loo again, meaning you don't even get those calories. If they cause bloating, stomach cramps or other things then cito still holds true.

    Thus the most important question is how you log your food intake. Do you use a food scale and weigh everything you eat in grams? If not then the reason why you're not losing any weight is right here as cups are extremely unreliable, and so are weight indications on food packaging. Some examples?

    A cup of strawberries: How do you measure the strawberries? Do you smash them into the cup or keep the gaps between the fruit pieces?
    Is a cup up to the rim or only 3/4 of the whole cup?
    How much is a half avocado? If you just pick an avocado entry from the database and log a half you're not logging properly as you don't know how big the avocado was of the person who made that entry
    1 tablespoon of cooking oil: is the oil just below the rim or is it forming a tiny hill? With oil it's easy to get huge amounts of extra calories this way
    I had an oven fish dish the other day. According to the packaging it should have been 200 grams, but it was actually closer to 250 grams! That's a lot of calories I didn't expect.
  • CattOfTheGarage
    CattOfTheGarage Posts: 2,750 Member
    edited June 2016
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    Intolerances identified! Set phasers to Kill!

    It's good if you have found out Intolerances, though I personally would take advice from a GP about how to confirm the finding - I don't think there's any way to be certain about that kind of thing without a proper exclusion diet (though I am not a medic).

    Also, no intolerance can stop you losing weight if you are eating less than you burn. On the contrary, an intolerance might make your digestion less efficient, and that would make you lose weight faster as you are not able to absorb as much energy from your food.

    If you are not losing weight, you are either eating more than you think or burning less than you think (that's what's happening with thyroid problems, but for most people it's due to overestimating exercise calories). Yes, some Intolerances can make you retain water, but that will just make your baseline weight a little heavier - you will still lose weight if you consistently eat less than you burn.
  • Lola2248
    Lola2248 Posts: 126 Member
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    Thank you for all your input. Yes I have consulted my doctor. I already knew I reacted to bread and eggs, but ate eggs because of the protein. The blood tests have shown extreme reaction to the cows milk, eggs and wheat, and lesser with the beef, coconut, lamb, gluten and nuts.
    yirara wrote: »
    Please keep in mind that those blood tests are in no way accurate. Often they give a positive if you just ate that kind of food.

    The tests were done in a morning on an empty stomach, to ensure no spikes in any particular foods were present for this very reason :-)
    CattOfTheGarage wrote: »
    If you are not losing weight, you are either eating more than you think or burning less than you think (that's what's happening with thyroid problems, but for most people it's due to overestimating exercise calories). Yes, some Intolerances can make you retain water, but that will just make your baseline weight a little heavier - you will still lose weight if you consistently eat less than you burn.

    yes, I think this was my problem around a year and a half ago. I now rarely log my exercise calories, but do have a fit bit which syncs to MFP. I do this for the geek in me liking the reports, but do not eat back the calories. I eat under 1500 calories a day, and weigh my food. So I do not think that I am eating more than I think, nor do I think that I am overestimating exercise calories, as I do not estimate exercise calories at all.

    I am hoping that the exclusion, for some time, of cows milk, eggs and wheat are going to boost my energy and make me feel better :-)

  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,389 Member
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    Lola, you've not confirmed yet how you weight and log your food. Are you using a food scale or just guessing?
  • CattOfTheGarage
    CattOfTheGarage Posts: 2,750 Member
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    Yes, if you have an intolerance then a different diet might make you feel better, and that makes everything easier! But I'm going to bang on about the fact that you can't maintain weight if you're eating less than you burn, any more than you can defy gravity.
  • Lola2248
    Lola2248 Posts: 126 Member
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    yirara wrote: »
    Lola, you've not confirmed yet how you weight and log your food. Are you using a food scale or just guessing?

    Food scale. I used to estimate, but now I weigh everything that goes in my mouth.
  • Colorscheme
    Colorscheme Posts: 1,179 Member
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    Scratch test is the only accurate thing. I am allergic to eggs though and I know I don't need a scratch test for that because well...anaphylaxis and hives. And I've had it since I was born. It sucks.

    My sister had one of those blood tests done and it said stuff like intolerance to shrimp and maple but she can eat both those things fine.
  • SeptemberFeyre
    SeptemberFeyre Posts: 178 Member
    edited June 2016
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    The only problem with the scratch test though, is it only shows allergies and OP is having problems with intolerances. I'm still a bit skeptical on how well the blood tests work tho...my friend's son had it done and it showed problems with certain foods he had no problems with whatsoever, but I guess it might work for some.
  • RodaRose
    RodaRose Posts: 9,562 Member
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    http://integrativemedicine.arizona.edu/resources.html
    Elimination Diet Guidelines

  • EvgeniZyntx
    EvgeniZyntx Posts: 24,208 Member
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    Please read: https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/igg-food-intolerance-tests-what-does-the-science-say/
    See at the least there conclusions; these tests are mostly bunk. Sorry.
    Conclusion

    At present, there are no reliable and validated clinical tests for the diagnosis of food intolerance. While intolerances are non-immune by definition, IgG testing is actively promoted for diagnosis, and to guide management. These tests lack both a sound scientific rationale and evidence of effectiveness. The lack of correlation between results and actual symptoms, and the risks resulting from unnecessary food avoidance, escalate the potential for harm from this test. Further, there is no published clinical evidence to support the use of IgG tests to determine the need for vitamins or supplements. In light of the lack of clinical relevance, and the potential for harm resulting from their use, allergy and immunology organizations worldwide advise against the use of IgG testing for food intolerance.
  • Lola2248
    Lola2248 Posts: 126 Member
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    Update

    So I have cut dairy, eggs, yeast, gluten, wheat from my diet. Wouldn't say I feel miraculously better, BUT the other day I was so badly prepared I grabbed a salad my OH had made, which had pasta in it. Ate it, no problems. Then an hour or so later I had stomach ache, and a bloated, empty stomach feeling I realised that I hadn't had since I had started the elimination diet.

    Either I tried it too soon, or I simply can't eat that type of pasta. Obviously I will try it again, but it has been great to have intolerances identified and then seeing that they do make a difference to the diet if they are removed :-)
  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
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    Look into a mostly vegan diet (your choice on meat) as a blue print for all the intolerances you stated. With whole grains that aren't wheat based, like quinoa and millet (neither has gluten), you will cut out almost all those foods that may be making you feel the way you do. Just make sure to look into any possible nutrition deficiencies that you may have when eliminating certain types of food from your diet.

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