Acacia timing plus spacing your meals and IF
#288910 - 11/03/06 10:33 AM
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line415
Reged: 09/09/06
Posts: 976
Loc: New Jersey
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I was just wondering what most people do in the following two situations:
1. If your mornings are difficult (as mine are with d) and you eat mainly SF with breakfast, how long after would you say it is still safe to add IF and consider it an add on and not eating by itself? For example, if I need to go out, I would prefer to eat just SF (oatmeal, soyfee, acacia) for breakfast, feeling more confident that I won't have an attack. Then maybe an hour or two later, once my stomach has settled and I'm feeling stable for that moment, I sometimes want to have IF (ie., a piece of fruit)but then I wonder if too much time has elapsed and I need to eat another SF with it. I'm often not that hungry to be eating all that much, but if I haven't had a bm yet, I want to eat the IF to have one before let's say, going out again for the afternoon. Do you think it's generally safe to eat the IF alone at that time (or would you also consider if you have had a bm already?...sometimes after I have one, I'm nervous to eat IF b/c I feel like the IF did it's job for the day!!)
2. Similar question with Acacia and eating. I am taking three teaspoons of acacia per day, each with my meals (breakfast usually 8:30-9:30AM, lunch usually 1-2PM, dinner unsually 6-7PM). Here's a scenario I'm curious about: this morning I had oatmeal, soyfee/acacia for breakfast at 8:30ish, as I had to go out and wanted to play it safe. (By the way, had normal BM while out...yay  ) Then I came home around 11:15 and wanted to eat/drink again. I guess I was hungry, although my usual lunch wouldn't normally be until 1 or 2 o'clock. So I made a berry/banana smoothie and had a plain bagel with it but I was stumped on whether I should add the acacia or wait to eat it with a snack around 1 or 2 o'clock as usual. Because it had IF (the berrries), I added the acacia just in case and now I will probably just have a safe snack this afternoon without the acacia. Problem is...I'll probably skip the IF with the snack b/c I'll be worried about having no acacia with it, yet I know I can use food as the SF to pair it up with too.
I hope I'm making sense. I KNOW THESE ARE VERY INDIVIDUALIZED QUESTIONS, but I was just curious what you all do. Maybe I should divide my Acacia dosage into 4 on days like this? Does it matter if one day you have 3 doses and another day you have 4 doses as long as it adds up to the same amount? It makes sense b/c I know the goal is to keep the sf in your system at all times. I guess I'm just not sure I trust the SF foods as reassurance as much as I trust the acacia with them. For example, I have never had a smoothie without acacia but maybe the bagel would have sufficed to balance my gut out. Thanks for any suggestions.
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Originally IBS-D for a million years!
Then IBS-A, Now a transformed slightly C
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I tend to think about Acacia and SF foods in exactly the opposite way. I take the Acacia to make sure I have enough gel in my gut but never rely on it to cushion IF foods. Kind of funny, really.
Anyhow. I don't eat IF without SF until after lunch and don't really like to do it even then. SF is supposed to cushion the IF, make the gel, *and* get my digestion going smoothly and I just never feel like my digestion is up and running full bore until after lunch. If you want to have fruit for your morning snack, you could try half an SF fruit (half a banana, say) and half an IF fruit (half an apple for example). You don't overeat, but you still get some SF cushion with your IF. (I tend to have something like Pumpkin Apple Spice bread but then I love sweet stuff.)
I think a bagel is plenty of SF to cushion a smoothie especially since the smoothie also had banana in it which is itself SF.
To me the simplest way to think about all this is:
Consume Acacia throughout the day for its gelness.
Eat SF with every meal and snack to cushion the IF.
Eat just SF early in the day to make sure digestion gets up and running smoothly.
BTW, oatmeal is actually half SF and half IF. The IF is one that a lot of IBSers can tolerate without trouble (although I can't early in the day), but you are getting some IF from that.
HTH.
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[Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate. - Sandra Boynton]
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Your stomach totally empties within an hour or two after eating, so I'd say don't eat anything IF by itself at this point. If you're just getting started and are worried about attacks, I'd really make sure you're getting SF with IF. It is amazing what a difference it makes. There are foods that if I eat them without SF first, I am a wreck (like an apple), but if I eat it with even just a little SF, I am totally fine.
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IBS-D and STABLE!!!!
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I was going to post a new post...but not now. I have a question kind of related...
...What if no SF is around and all I have is Acacia and the salad? Is it safe to just take a tsp or more of the Acacia (how much) and then eat the salad? What if you don't have any SF food around? Like McDonalds...(one example)...everything is so high fat - I'm not going to buy a burger just to eat the bun before my salad (get real). But don't just address this one example - its just an example.
Do I always have to eat SF after Acacia too? If I have SF, do I even NEED this Acacia? If I only have the Acacia - must I eat the (*#)!) rice? 
Help. Sometimes I just want the Acacia and then dig right into the nuts...not good? I don't DO this...but I wonder... 
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Originally IBS-D for a million years!
Then IBS-A, Now a transformed slightly C
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Remember Acacia is to supplement the quantity of SF fibre you're supposed to have in a day. If you eat enough SF throughout the day you may not need a SF supplement. If you do take a SF Supplement, you shouldn't rely solely on that for SF.
Salads are usually hard for most IBSers to handle, so it would probably be best to have a small salad at the end of your meal. also most fast food places have some kind of grilled chicken option. Try that instead of the other high fat foods. Most salads in any restaurant are very high in fat because of the dressings so be careful with that too.
Have you read Heather's book IBS the Frist Year? there is lots on info there. It's here on the website too but sometimes it's better to have a book in front of you.
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Why shouldn't you rely on Acacia as your main source of soluble fiber? It not like white flour, white rice and white potato is all that nutritious...when I went to eating all that solulble fiber I went from IBS-D to C FAST...I was taking 1 teaspoon of acacia with each meal plus a cup of white rice first before anything. Talk about major blood sugar problems...from now on I'll eat some very lean protein first...if I didn't eat salads NOW, I'd be IBS-C! Sometimes I wonder what kind of IBS am I ? I can eat lots of hard boiled eggs...not a problem...I'm not rushing to the bathroom with D (anymore) and I don't struggle with C as long as I eat MIXED meals...balanced meals...all these "rules" created so much stress about eating - I think they made my IBS worse! So now, when I'm hungry I take a tsp of acacia and eat a small mixed meal that INCLUDES soluble fiber and not more than 6 grams of fat or so...becaue I have bile salt D...mainly watching the total fat content is the important thing for me...and not the fiber part so much. I've done alot of experimenting.
I always order chicken salad when I'm out. I eat 1/2 the chicken, no dressing and I ask for a side of white rice, I've never ever been at a restaurant that couldn't give me a side order of boiled or steamed white rice or a simple baked/microwaved potato (but now on low oxalate diet must stick to rice).
Well, I have read all the books. And following the advice by the book left me bloated, gassy and constipated...I wasn't getting enough fat in my diet - my skin was horrible (now I make sure I take fish and flax oil daily)...and giving up egg yolks was a nutritional mistake I'll never make again (just gotta boil them). Like I said - I don't think I have REGULAR IBS that's in the book. My IBS started after my gallbladder removal. I'm starting to think that for folks like US - sure, get a good mix of foods, but mainly keep that total fat content to 25% of meals (not less). Fat encourages bile production and bile irritates the intesinal lining / like mine/ if you make too much / like me. I'm still figuring it out. I think for me, its alot less complicated than everyone else. EATING doesn't cause me any gastro or colonic discomfort at all. But eating too much fat or going to extremes in diet / like too low fat or even too much soluble fiber - BAD NEWS. MODERATION for me is what works. The Acacia is just a way to round out my diet...
Thanks for reading all this. No, there is no book on Bile Salt Diahrea. Maybe I'll write one. I'm on Welchol and that is a medicine that binds to bile - so I don't have the D. There's another one called Questran - but THAT IS constipating.
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Originally IBS-D for a million years!
Then IBS-A, Now a transformed slightly C
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You're supposed to have about 30 something grams of fibre daily (both SF and IF) so that would mean taking alot of the supplement. There are healthy SF food which are not breads and pastas like carrots, quinoa, sweet potatoes, beets, mushrooms, etc. Also the acacia helps you to be able to eat more IF foods with less problems.
When you were C were you eatiing enough IF? Heather does say to have IF foods with meals with caution, but some people ignore it and don't eat any IF or very little and that causes people to get C. I'm an A and I have salads, and plenty of other vegetables and fruits with my meals. Those together with the acacia help keep me regular. Have you incorporated any other IF in your diet other than a salad? Also why you were eating a very low fat diet, Heather says to keep your fat intake to about 20-25%?
Edited by Gracie (11/04/06 09:39 PM)
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