Gluten Free Bread or Not on Refeed - Advice wanted

[mcbell]

Well I know I am officially ages away from refeed (self imposed, want to wait until I am back from my trip to the North Island, so shouldn't start refeed before the 23rd of July) but of course I am obsessed with reading the awesome refeed and maintenance diaries to prepare myself.

About 4 or 5 years ago, I did the "ketoslim" diet, which is a high protein super low carb diet - like no fruit at all. Anyway, I did it for a few months, had good results (ha! Good results compared to any diet except awesome Cohens), got down to about 62kg - but had quite good muscle tone, as was at the gym 5 days a week. Anyway, for my birthday that year, I teamed up with a workmate who had the same birthday and we had a "kids" birthday celebration at work - I am talking cheerio sausages, savouries, potato chips, my favourite biscuits (stripes and squiggletops) and my workmate even made fairy bread and ice cream cones with mallowpuffs stuck on them. Anyway, it is the first and only time I had ever actually experienced a sugar rush (and then the crash). After not having gluten for so many months, I overdid it on the fairy bread, and had some quite bad reactions.

At that time I was tentatively diagnosed (not properly as I went back to avoiding carbs and therefore gluten) with a gluten intolerance (I also have two coeliac nephews), and have for the last few years spent a lot of time avoiding wheat and gluten while failing to lose weight on diets (thank goodness for Cohens).

Anyway, I was thinking that bread and myself might not get along too well. In the few years since I decided I might be gluten intolerant (and dairy too - through airy fairy muscle testing) I have mainly avoided gluten. I would usually find that I would be ok in terms of reactions to gluten if I only had a little bit, and not every day. Trouble with me was my love of carbs so instead of having one piece of bread, and then not having any for a day or so, I would be the one standing there at the toaster putting the next two slices (of real gluten full bread) in. So before Cohens I was mostly only eating Gluten free bread (either Vogels white since they started making it, or the gluten and dairy free "bread company" loaves that they sell at Raeward Fresh). Still avoiding other gluten and wheat where I could also.

While I have been on "The Plan" I began with only eating rice wafers for my crackers, but have since branched out into saladas (my fave), vitawheats (ok, travel well) and recently ryvita (seriously, does anyone know how to make these taste good? I feel ripped off about the $4.67 I paid for them, and they look unappetising), and probably eat rice wafers maybe half the time. I don't think I have had any of my usual "gluten reactions" since I have been on the plan, but if it my intolerance is more about the amount I eat, maybe the cracker servings are small enough that I can handle that much gluten every day.

I was thinking I should probably just stick to gluten free white bread from Vogels, as "the bread company" bread is multigrain, when I get to refeeding time, and wait until maintenance to try out regular bread. The gluten free bread is quite small in size, but I don't know what kind of carb grammage it has.

What are everyone else's opinions on the matter? I think I am worried that I will have huge instant gain the moment I touch regular bread during my refeed, and therefore not get to try everything during the refeeding period (by having to go back two days, and/or then finish), or that having real gluten full bread will spin me out of control in terms of falling off the wagon/cravings/deviating etc.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I have tentatively discussed this with my consultant, but she seems to think as long as it is not "health bread", I should just choose whatever I like.

Sorry about the novel , hope you enjoyed reading, and I welcome any thoughts you might have.

[Rochy]

I'm even further away from refeed but I'll be watching yours with great interest!

I am pretty much exactly the same as you in both gluten & dairy. What I have noticed though is the dairy 1 plays up 'only' when I'm under stress & the gluten 1 seems to be related to how much I have. Pretty much stopped eating bread so didn't have too much of a problem. (Also possible I wasn't listening to my body as well as I should have been!)

Bread when toasted seemed to agree with me most of the time, untoasted, no way! (still didn't eat much)

I also started out just on rice wafers but now eat solely Salada with no adverse effects. I wonder whether yeast (in bread) may have something to do with it? Or just so much more flour in bread than crackers.

Both mum & I have been wondering about the bread thing. I might ask my consultant (when I next ring her?!) & get another opinion.

As far as dairy, I've also been eating yoghurt no probs, have you? But such low fat yoghurt will only have a tiny amount of lactose anyway

No help sorry

[mcbell]

Lovely to hear from you Rochy (I see your Mum is on the Cohens journey too - yay to both of you, I just wish everyone with some excess to shed could join us)!

Good to hear you will be watching my progress, I intend to start a refeed diary on here when I get there, because I have really enjoyed reading about the experiences of others - makes it less (or sometimes more!) daunting.

The girl who did Cohen's at my work (and therefore inspired me to give it a go) said that she thought that yeast might be her problem too as she seemed to gain (or maybe had digestive problems - can't remember) with bread, but was fine with wraps (not sure if she went with a specific brand or not).

I remember often I would have the worst reactions when I had dairy and gluten together in the past - and again too much seemed to be the main problem.

I used to notice the old gluten would play havoc with my skin on my hands (especially my right hand - like a flare up of excema like I used to get as a child), but these days my hands are so dry, I can't really tell .

A dietitian told me that I should never eat the gluten free bread untoasted - after I told him the original vogels rice and rye used to take at least two toastings to toast properly. After that, because they were thick slices, I used to slice them in two before toasting. Always tasted like cr*p as bread anyway. The new vogels white stuff although has a weird texture, and still tastes weird, is a great improvement on that rice and rye - but hey, they do charge almost twice as much as the rice and rye used to be (I don't think they make it anymore).

I did eat yoghurt a lot in the first few weeks on plan, but now I have yoghurt or cheese about once a week. I think I don't want to risk slowing my weight loss (as I am impatient ), and I find that if I have yoghurt for breakfast, I get hungry earlier, and I am greedy and don't want to use up any of my fruit allowance early in the day when I might "need it" later in the day. It is funny, I basically have eaten my full food allowance all through my plan, and I haven't even tried not having "dessert" (usually save 2 cracker and one fruit allowance to have with dinner) to see if I get hungry at the end of the day without it. I guess pre-Cohens I was always hungry at the end of the day and spending more time eating after dinner, that I haven't tried anything else at all - how boring.

I have another weigh in on Tuesday (weighing in weekly to monitor my progress at this end of the journey), so will plan a cheese meal (probably my first ever feta meal) for dinner that night as a "treat".

[Collie]

Honestly mcbell, if I were you I'd actually try the full on gluten bread on refeed. Refeed is very very tightly controlled, and the second you put something into your mouth that doesn't agree with you you'll see it on the scales by the next day......

I wouldn't leave such a huge thing to maintenance.....I mean your learning journey will always continue, but while on refeed, its very easy to determine if a single food has an undesired effect, whereas maintenance has a much wider variety of foods and it's more difficult to break down where the problem is.

And it's also not a bad idea to have to encounter the worst case scenario while on refeed......as in the repeating the same day thing......because it'll also give you an idea of what 'reset' will be like in maintenance too, you know you'll inevitably have to face reset..........we all do, and it's really pretty easy, you just have to know when to pull up stumps and go there.......

I think refeed is the perfect time to try it all, even if you are essentially extending refeed by a day or 2.......a pain in the rear end I know, but I reckon it's worth the sacrifice to get it right once and for all........

You'l also have the benefit of learning whether you can tolerate gluten based breads or not from very early on while you body is still 'clean' from the program........the moment I start consuming carbs........I tend to lose that clean feeling and immediately feel gluggy and clogged.........and I don't mean constipated, just my whole internal workings........

Just my 2 bits worth anyway......

[mcbell]

Thanks so much for your reply Collie - this is the kind of sensible words I need to read now (ha, 3 weeks in advance).

Sounds like it might be a good idea to get a loaf of white sandwich bread for refeed - I guess if it is a worst case scenario thing, I can move onto the gluten free bread to continue eating bread during the rest of refeed. No probs.

[Rochy]

Sound advice Collie! That makes a heap of sense

Just a question about bread, is it only white bread allowed on refeed or do you just prefer that mcbell?

[Collie]

Good idea.......and if it turns out gluten really doesn't agree with you, then you can always move to the other stuff in exchange.

I like going with the worst alternative first, because everything from there on should be better!!!!! Perhaps that's warped thinking?????? You know, it is very impending for you so don't think you're thinking too far ahead of yourself mcbell, i'd be exactly the same.....

[mcbell]

Originally Posted by Rochy

Sound advice Collie! That makes a heap of sense

Just a question about bread, is it only white bread allowed on refeed or do you just prefer that mcbell?

Well, in terms of egg and cheese toasted sandwiches, white sandwich bread is my favourite That is the old mcbell, who needs to remember that this is a lifestyle change, and I can't be planning on having toasted sandwiches and chocolate croissants on day one of maintenance! I suppose it didn't help that my partner had spaghetti and cheese toasted sandwiches for his dinner last night, and today's lunch - it didn't bother me, just put the idea in my head.

Nah not really a preference, I had a wee chat with my consultant last time, and she showed me her refeed programme and had a wee read out loud to me about the bread requirements - and it said as long as it was not "health" bread, which we interpreted to mean bread with lots of seeds in it. I guess wholemeal would be okay though too. My partner eats that Southern Plains Country grains from Couplands (well you can buy it from Supervalue and countdown as well as Raeward Fresh these days) which I take would be inappropriate for refeeding, so my immediate next thought was just for sandwich slice white bread - but wholemeal could be a better option - might not contain so many bleached ingredients or preservatives maybe. It might pay for me to post a thread closer to refeed to ask what kind of bread people used in refeed, or do a search on that - not that I am already obsessed by the idea of refeed yet or not.

My consultant wasn't too helpful on the subject (no offence intended), as she preferred her crackers and didn't want to give them up (so maybe didn't try much bread during her refeed), and still prefers crackers over bread more than a year into maintenance. She is lovely, I must add, don't want to give anyone the wrong impression!

[mcbell]

Originally Posted by Collie

Good idea.......and if it turns out gluten really doesn't agree with you, then you can always move to the other stuff in exchange.

I like going with the worst alternative first, because everything from there on should be better!!!!! Perhaps that's warped thinking?????? You know, it is very impending for you so don't think you're thinking too far ahead of yourself mcbell, i'd be exactly the same.....

I am pretty excited about the next stage of cohens, not because I am too starving or skinny, but because it will really represent a milestone for me, and will hopefully be the beginning of mcbell actually maintaining weightloss for more than a week or so, and hopefully the end of unhealthy eating for me, and a continuing love of life, and of this body and of excitement about fitting into clothes with little numbers on the tags and having so many different styles looking great on me, and being excited to go to work to wear my nice clothes that look good on me....... end rant - that kind of thing should really go in my diary.

3 weeks to refeed (approx) and therefore about 6 weeks to maintenance. I really don't mind that time seems to be flying by at the moment, every day is a good day and I can't wait for the next good day - fingers crossed I haven't just jinxed my good mood! Seems so close, but also, so far away. Not really sure if any of that made sense.

[Collie]

Awesome mcbell, love to hear that...

And on the bread thing, my recollection from first refeed was that the yummy and more complicated style bread......hence health....(or should I say healthy) breads are not allowed on refeed. Can't remember about the wholemeal, but I think they're trying to get you to have the worst case scenario about it, so as to see the reaction from your poor little body when it gets hit by such a food......I guess if you can tolerate that stuff, the other would be better again. Have no idea though, I don't really eat any of it.

No, I'm not ever really prepared to give up my crackers.....and considering I was allowed up to 9 crackers by the time end of refeed came.......I was ecstatic with that outcome.....hopefully same thing this time and it'll be fine too.

For refeed reference.......3 crackers = 1 slice of bread!!!!! So all in all, assuming I wanted to, I am supposed to be allowed 3 slices of bread a day in maintenance, oh well that was last time. It might be totally different this time round!!

[mcbell]

Originally Posted by Collie

Awesome mcbell, love to hear that...

And on the bread thing, my recollection from first refeed was that the yummy and more complicated style bread......hence health....(or should I say healthy) breads are not allowed on refeed. Can't remember about the wholemeal, but I think they're trying to get you to have the worst case scenario about it, so as to see the reaction from your poor little body when it gets hit by such a food......I guess if you can tolerate that stuff, the other would be better again. Have no idea though, I don't really eat any of it.

No, I'm not ever really prepared to give up my crackers.....and considering I was allowed up to 9 crackers by the time end of refeed came.......I was ecstatic with that outcome.....hopefully same thing this time and it'll be fine too.

For refeed reference.......3 crackers = 1 slice of bread!!!!! So all in all, assuming I wanted to, I am supposed to be allowed 3 slices of bread a day in maintenance, oh well that was last time. It might be totally different this time round!!

Wow, I am impressed by the number of people on here who "don't eat a lot of bread", I ate far too much of it, whether it was gluten free or not! Love the carbs. Although haven't really missed it too much on plan - still like the smell of it, but haven't been tempted by it. Hopefully that means that my tastes have changed - for the better.

My consultant had the same cracker allowance of 9 by the end of refeed - I am not sure if she told me how many she had on plan - you can guess from my diary that my cracker allowance is 5 - which I presume is at the low end, because I am meant to be a petite person due to my lack of height.

Will do some research about the bread before refeeding actually begins. I am a bit scared though, I was a real carb/bread fiend, and I hope that I don't go back to those ways, or that bread doesn't start a binge!

[Collie]

My hubby did it a couple of years ago and he is 6'2" and only had 6 crackers.......who knows how the good old doc arrives at that.....

Here's the thing though mcbell, the fact that there was no bread made me truly think twice about doing Cohen's at all in the first place back in 2009. I really hesitated.....but finally came to the conclusion that whatever else I'd tried wasn't working so well for me and what did I really have to lose???

I was a total bread fiend too. Could never get enough of the stuff. I'd often just eat it plain when it was fresh and soft and had a crispy crust.......yummo, but I also must admit that from day one, I never missed it.....at all.

what I do remember though is that I had constant tummy upsets, pain, gurgling, gas.......the doc said I had IBS.......actually it was just bread.....and milk too.

I've never even considered for one minute that I should reintroduce them into my diet once on maintenance, and until i fell pregnant last time (and ultimately did reintroduce them back into my diet for the 'sake' of the pregnancy) they were never even a consideration on maintenance. They won't be this time either.......crackers are my best friend!!!!!

[Not2Much]

I had a variety of breads in my refeed (lucky I have a big - err...not as big as Collie's - family), so they're always open to test new bread. BTW - they ask whose birthday it is when there's white bread - think it's cake.

I started with Low G.I. brown seeded bread - it's not really SEEDS, more like a mix between brown and wholewheat bread. We've been told to use shop-sliced bread - white, brown or wholewheat. I had my bread allowance every other day (not for dinner, as this didn't work out really well for me), as it wasn't something that I had particularly missed or enjoyed.

When I got to 2 slices, my tummy was seriously upset. After that I used a small sized wholewheat bun that weighed +/- 50g a few times that I counted as 2 slices (with banana and cinnamon) - OMW!

I am really glad that I tried a variety, as Murphy's Law would have it - on my first meal AFTER refeed, I ordered Escargots in cheesy garlic sauce, which they served with a white bun! I mean really, who does that?!

All in all, Mcbell - you're gonna be fine - and you're gonna love refeed!

[mcbell]

Originally Posted by Not2Much

I had a variety of breads in my refeed (lucky I have a big - err...not as big as Collie's - family), so they're always open to test new bread. BTW - they ask whose birthday it is when there's white bread - think it's cake.

I started with Low G.I. brown seeded bread - it's not really SEEDS, more like a mix between brown and wholewheat bread. We've been told to use shop-sliced bread - white, brown or wholewheat. I had my bread allowance every other day (not for dinner, as this didn't work out really well for me), as it wasn't something that I had particularly missed or enjoyed.

When I got to 2 slices, my tummy was seriously upset. After that I used a small sized wholewheat bun that weighed +/- 50g a few times that I counted as 2 slices (with banana and cinnamon) - OMW!

I am really glad that I tried a variety, as Murphy's Law would have it - on my first meal AFTER refeed, I ordered Escargots in cheesy garlic sauce, which they served with a white bun! I mean really, who does that?!

All in all, Mcbell - you're gonna be fine - and you're gonna love refeed!

Thanks for your insight Not2Much - I am sure I have read your refeed diary, and had grated baked apple you suggested the other day - can't wait to try one of your pizzas (if that was you)! Mmm, banana and cinnamon sounds fantastic - I recently (pre-Cohens) became a convert of banana and peanut butter on toast - I wonder if it will be as awesome as I remember it? I might just have to limit myself to a half slice serving the first time I try it, I do remember it was quite filling (not that it stopped me having at least two bits at a time)

Right, so I guess I should probably look for brown or wholewheat in the supermarkets - I know burgen do a "low GI range", I wonder if they have something suitable.

Oooh, yes, I am excited, even though it is weeks away! Really looking forward to getting back into some exercise and building lean muscle in maintenance!

[mcbell]

Yeah, so it turns out I was thinking of MH76's pizzas:

http://newyouforum.com/forum/album.p...pictureid=3818

which must have been posted in someones refeed diary - I have read a lot of them. Sorry for any confusion

Can't wait to try to make a pizza like this - might be Tuesday nights meal!