I've discovered a great new diet!

The secret?

Become allergic to almost everything you eat!

I've been having reactions to things I used to be able to eat. At first I thought it was contamination issues, but now I just think it's my body being even more stupid than usual.

These days I can't eat (among other things) ice cream, chocolate, canned refried beans, or corn chips. Even the chocolate chip cookies I made and the Betty Crocker gluten free brownies caused a bad reaction: extreme nausea followed by massive burning stomach pain and less than pleasant bowel movemnents. Oh yeah, and insomnia. Love that one. I haven't had problems with insomnia since the first couple years that I was sick, and I have not enjoyed it's reappearance.

Because of all the bad reactions, I've pretty much lost my appetite- I'm almost afraid to eat anything packaged for fear I'll have a bad reaction. While annoying on one level, it has been beneficial on another. I've stopped snacking on junk food completely and am truly eating healthier, and in less than two weeks I've already lost 5 pounds!

Last week I eliminated eggs from our diet to see if they were causing the problem. I've had problems with eggs in the past, so I decided to eliminate them first. I had hoped they wouldn't be the culprit because it's hard to do gluten free baking without eggs- egg substitutes are usually a starch, which throws off the delicate balance of gf flours and starches and liquids. Unfortunately, I ate some gluten free eggless muffins last week, and they still gave me problems.

The muffins had milk in them, so this week we've eliminated all dairy products, and I've been doing great! No reactions at all. However, this is a problem because we really like cheese and yogurt and ice cream. Maybe eventually we'll be able to add them back in. Not sure I can do the cheese substitute thing- soy cheese just sounds too disgusting and completely unappetizing.

LMS has been having some poop issues as well (they improved a bit when she went gf, but there's still something not right). I didn't notice an improvement last week, but I've seen a little this week. Hopefully I'll start seeing a lot of improvement in her soon.