Since the New Year I've definitely felt a change for the worse. The bloated, bagged-up feeling that I used to have before being diagnosed seems to have made a return. The two main changes to diet I can think of are:
- I'm now eating loaves made with the Juvela fibre mix - could the gluten-free wheat starch (within the Codex limit) be a cause?
- I've almost cut out sweets and chocolate since before Christmas - not deliberately, it's just happened. I feel as though I'm eating less fruit too.
You'd think this second point would be a benefit, but perhaps not so. I found an interesting piece on the causes of "bloating" today which actually described what bloating was (and wasn't) and presented a good few sides to the argument of what causes it. Many articles go on to promote some kind of colonic cleansing treatment when I'm just wanting to know the facts or the research that has been undertaken.
Anyway, the article above noted that "There are a number of reflexes that help to control the intestine. Glucose (a type of sugar) entering the small bowel tends to speed up transport along the small intestine, whereas fat in the small intestine slows it down." So maybe the obvious change to the Juvela fibre mix is not the cause and I should revert to having chocolate bars now and again.
This is where it's frustrating, from a scientific viewpoint, trying to figure out whether or not changes to diet have an effect on me. The time it takes for food to have an effect, being uncertain as to whether you feel better or worse over periods of time and the impact of other factors (viruses and other foods predominantly) make it difficult to draw any conclusions. There is no quantitative indicator (like weight) that you can turn to and say, "that measured 6.7 last week and now it's up to 10.3 so that pie supper evidently didn't do me any good."
As it happened, later in the afternoon I decided to have a chocolate bar. An hour later, having had stomach grumbles all day, I felt better and less "bagged-up." Coincidence? Placebo? Who can tell? Maybe I need to make sure my diet still has high-carbohydrate, low-fat food in the mix.
