BellaOnline Forums Health and Fitness Allergies & Colds Losing weight with food allergies

If you have food intolerances, it can be a real battle to lose weight as I have found out. Food intolerances mean that your body treats certain foods or food additives as if they are the enemy and reacts with symptoms such as nausea, bloating, intestinal problems, congestion, skin rashes, and others. Obviously, if your system is always messed up because of these offending foods it's hard to lose weight. The trick is to find out what foods are causing the problem. The best way to do that is to keep a food diary, writing down everything you eat and any symptoms that develop. Once you identify the problem foods and eliminate them, you have a fighting chance of losing weight.

I read one time that we could identify "trigger" foods if we kept a record of how we felt a certain length of time after we ate. I found this to be excellent advice! What I can't figure out is why on earth I seem to crave the very ones that give me the most problems.

I found that to be true as well. I can't eat wheat but when I first stopped eating it I craved it all the time. I think after a certain amount of time the craving disappears, especially when you realize how badly it makes you feel. I did fall off the wagon, so to speak, when my husband and I went on a trip in the fall. We stayed in a bed and breakfast where they made fresh wheat bread without dairy or eggs. Our room was near the kitchen where the bread was rising in a bread machine. The aroma was irrestible. Of course, even though I knew better, I had to try it. It had been more than a year since I had eaten wheat so I had to refresh my memory on how bad the experience was. After that, I really don't think much about wheat anymore. It also helps that there are so many alternatives available these days. It makes it easier to eliminate certain foods.

Ahhh...fresh bread who COULD resist that? But you are so right that we pay the price for indulgence. It's so darn easy to forget what certain foods do to us. I'm allergic to almonds and could eat them by the handful if they didn't break me out in a horrible rash! I will catch myself reaching for a piece of candy from and right at the last minute before I eat it the thought will strike me to check and see if there are almonds hidden somewhere in the chocolate.

Yesterday after I posted to this thread, I made a big pot of homemade soup. It smelled so good and (of course) I ate some along with the rest of the family.

I keep forgetting how tomatoes trigger inflammation and this morning it took me a while to work out the stiffness. Or was it the potatoes? I believe that both have the capability of causing inflammation and joint pain. I wonder if that is an allergy or if they just have inflammatory properties?

I believe tomatoes can cause arthritis-like symptoms. I have a cookbook by a nurse who suffered with those type of symptoms until she discovered she had a food intolerance to tomatoes. After eliminating tomatoes, her joint stiffness/soreness disappeared. It's amazing how food intolerances in different people produce different symptoms.