Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives NSD and diet-related; CascadeChris' NSD Journey

I am going to start journal of my Non Starch Diet experiment. I hope to use this to review my progress, and it would be wonderful if someone else gained insights that helped them also. Comments and discussion are welcome within my journal.

FYI, my AS symptoms are not severe; I would describe them as moderate, but I do have pain in my mid back and it is bothersome. Most of all, the progressive nature of the condition has motivated me to be proactive now to avoid further future problems. I am very sympathetic to those who deal with worse pain and immobility than I do.

Below are a few journal entries which I have made over the past few days. In the future, I intend to make entries into the post topic each day.

10/12/2014
Began the Non-Starch Diet (NSD) this evening.

10/13/2014
Breakfast was almonds, yellow SunMaid raisins, red apples with almond butter, and Tuna fish

Dinner was steak strips on salad, with shitake mushrooms sautéed in olive oil, and steamed broccoli. Salad dressing was light application and Trader Joe's Tuscan Italian. I began testing all foods for starch using iodine. Everything checked out fine.

Snacks throughout the day were almonds and raisins.
Drinks were only water.

Bowel movement was more difficult this evening. Straining, and small, loose stool. Wondering if it is from all the protein. Also, I rarely eat red meat, but starting the NSD, I may have to add a moderate amount of red meat to my diet to have enough good food options . Sometimes red meat has caused me some constipation. I have not had IBS for many months prior to tonight.

Note: I did get a flu vaccine and TDAP vaccine today, which needs to be considered as I monitor how my AS feels. I know that when I have the flu my AS symptoms minimize, and I have read that can happen as it re-directs the auto-immune response from my normal symptoms to fighting the flu virus.

10/14/2014

Slept until about 7:30 this a.m. This is good as I usually have to get out of bed about 5:30 am due to a back ache in my mid-back. I am a little skeptical that it is from the past 24 hours of my NSD test - it just seems way too soon. I wonder if it was due to yesterdays flu vaccine.

Hello Chris,

I moved your post to the Diet forum as diet related and will get more views from those that follow NSD diet here.


I had some constipation issues at times as well with changing diet. What helps... eating walnuts, raisins and eating natural sauerkraut (cabbage, water, salt... will typically state on label has beneficial bacteria).

If still problems with constipation.. I could tolerate the orange laxative... cannot recall the name since 10+ years since I took it.... add it to water and drink it.

I grilled a lot of meat... honestly in States I only ate red meat at most once a week. Ate lots of chicken, fish, turkey (burgers), pork and even lamb at time.

I loved stir frys... I replaced rice with bean sprouts and grilled my meat first and added veggies afterwards and a soy sauce I could handle.

I noticed results with diet within days... after a month I dropped my NSAID. I think I had a jump start because was on azulfadine prior that is somewhat antibiotic with its properties. If you GI is healthy... it would not surprise me if see fast results, have seen it posted before.

If you have questions keep coming back.

Best to you

Tim

Thank you Tim for your feedback and tips. I like all the food items you mentioned, so I am going to add those to my shopping list.

For journalism purposes: laps in the pool today, and it felt pretty good. I can certainly feel the place in my mid-back that hurts, but it is such a low level of pain it is more like an acknowledgement that something is wrong. It is a 1 on a 10 scale.

Hey there,

I started NSD 30 days ago today. A little disconcerting since I've read that many of the benefits are seen within a few days. Then again, I have a mild pre-AS case that surfaces for about 1 week per month.

So far, I have not noticed a difference but had given myself 2 full months to try this out. I did have this pain 2 weeks into my diet, it was slightly less mild than usual.

The diet itself isn't that hard when you get used to it. I hope it works for us both!

For some it has taken up to 1/2 year or even year to see results. I think it is individual process... could be how strict with diet, how aggressive with supplementing and other alternatives (fasting that seems to help many for example) and the state of your intestines prior to starting.

I had taken NSAIDs for 7+ years with AS and prior to that with sports injuries for at least a year... I also drank quite a bit of beer that can also be destructive to intestines if you believe in the leaky gut theory.

For some the diet never works.. we are all different. You can obviously use diet as complement to your medications. First goal should be getting out of pain.

Best,

Tim

ajohnson, do you have any symptoms between when it "surfaces"? What is it like when it surfaces?

10/14/2014: Today's food journal
Breakfast - Apple with pure raw almond butter, and yellow raisins

Lunch - Apple, almonds, raisins, and homemade pickles, all tested with iodine and they all checked out fine. Also, strips of high quality steak from last nights salad.

Dinner - Another apple, grapes, pickle, pumpkins seeds, bowl of blueberries, walnuts, and a small bowl of sauerkraut based on Dotyisle's comment of it being good digestion.

Snacks - Apple and handfuls of almonds

I really am not prepping (m)any dishes at this point. I am just eating raw foods. I enjoy food and prepared dishes, but I am lucky in that my palette does not demand variety or exotic prepared tastes. My poor wife would go crazy if she had to eat like this - she doesn't like to have the same thing twice in a period of several days.

Woke up this morning at 5:30am due to my standard back ache. It was not severe, but it is enough to keep me from sleeping and make me get out of bed. Seems like yesterday morning there was less of an ache. So that isn't exactly the direction I was hoping my night pain to go, but I certainly haven't lost resolve.

I am cooking a salmon filet this morning. Just salmon rubbed with a high quality extra virgin olive oil, baked in the oven. I am really lucky in that I live in the pacific northwest, and just last month a caught and vacuum packed 5 salmon, so I have a supply of salmon filets I can pull from out of the freezer.

If I don't get some improvement in my night pain by end of the week, I am thinking I will try a fruit fast of a few days.

I am really hopeful that I can get the pain to subside, and then I want to start adding some things back into my diet. For instance, before this past Sunday (10/12) when I started my strict NSD and no dairy diet, I would have shakes every morning which included a non-sweetened, plain, whole, and organic pro-biotic yogurt, and some fruits (mostly blueberries, mango, pineapple, peaches, grapes). I think those were great for my GI tract, but for now the dairy is a no-no to give the NSD the best chance for success.

Here's a photo of my baked salmon. Hope the photo hosting works and you can see it. Yum!

You want to be careful with apples. Are you testing them for starch? I have found raisins and grapes at times have too much sugar for me and it has caused issues.

Your wife's approach to diet is actually a very wise one. I met with a nutritionist about a yr ago who told me consuming the same foods over and over can set you up for food allergies and intolerances. If I had chicken on Monday then I shouldn't have it again for a few days. Unfortunately for us that is very hard to do as we have so many limitations as it is.

lulu12 - thanks for the tip. I just tested the apples and they are indeed starchy. They are one of the only items I didn't test with iodine. But when I just did the test, they slowly turned blue. I assumed they were safe based on some other things I read, but that isn't the case.

On the positive side, I am really thankful for this interactive food journal. I get tips from those who I have traveled this road before me, and I can look back and see what I ate and when. Thank you very much.

OK, so today's diet has been:

salmon
walnuts
blueberries
pumpkin seeds
pickles

I have not had dinner yet, but that was breakfast, lunch, and snacks.

I have tested everything but the blueberries, so they are next to meet my iodine dropper.