Advice on managing the endo diet

[ClaireK1987]

Hi Ladies,

I'm looking for your advice on the endo-diet.

I've been trying to follow this the best I can for the last couple of weeks, but it is very restrictive. If I have the occasional but of dairy or gluten I feel really guilty and stressed out about it-I'm a bit of a perfectionist who always wants to do things 'perfectly'.

So I was wondering if just limiting rather than eliminating gluten/dairy is still likely to be effective? Do please share your thoughts and experiences, I'd really appreciate it!

Claire

[Vickal]

Hi ClaireK1987, I know what you mean it can be very restrictive. I’ve had the same internal discussion with myself and decided to be good Mon-Friday and allow myself a few weekend treats. The way I see it is I’m setting myself up to fail by trying to be 100% good all the time and also making myself pretty miserable knowing I can never have some of my favourite foods. I still feel guilty when I do have a weekend treat! But I have dramatically reduced my intake of ‘bad’ foods by doing this.

Have you tried giving up one thing at a time? I tried gluten for a few months but found it had no effect whatsoever and it was really hard especially as a lot of gluten free foods use soya as a replacement which is also something to avoid. In the end I decided not to bother anymore with gluten free. However I’ve found that cutting out sugar has helped.

I don’t know if my way of approaching this is right but I feel more comfortable doing it this way. As I see it it’s your body and you can make the rules. Being good 80% of the time is better than not trying at all surely?

Another thing I do is try to eat more of the recommended foods not just concentrate on what I can’t have. I don’t know about you but I feel so much better when I’m being good but life’s for living so I’m not going to punish myself by never allowing a treat.

xx

[ClaireK1987 in reply to Vickal]

Thank you for this supportive and helpful message. I think an 80/20 balance does sound more feasible and manageable. Will try this and will try to stop beating myself up so much! Claire x

[bexter73]

The biggest difference I found was in giving up red meat and sugar. I admittedly find it harder to keep on track with the sugar but I've not eaten red meat in months and found that my bloating reduced considerably at the same time. I've also given up coffee totally although now have about a million cups of peppermint tea a day! Like you I stress out if I eat something I think is not on the endo friendly list but it's got to be about give and take. I refuse to totally give up wine for a start!

[ClaireK1987 in reply to bexter73]

I'm with you on the wine front! Thanks for these tips- really useful. When people say they've cut out sugar- do you mean in all forms (e.g. in fruits) or just refined stuff (e.g. cookies)? Claire x

[bexter73]

Hi Claire I've not given up sugar in all forms fruit etc I still have. Just tried to cut out the Haribo addiction I had!