The hunger

I am very hungry and poor after starting my low disaccharide diet on Saturday.

A quick lowdown on disaccharides: starches and complex carbohydrates in foods are broken down into smaller sugars by enzymes. Eventually, these single sugars are absorbed into the body. Disaccharides are two single sugars that are linked together. Disaccharide intolerance is when your body can’t break apart the disaccharides into single sugars and absorb them.

I developed disaccharide issues about six weeks after I had the youngest. I was crook as Rookwood for about 18 months – while working full time editing Woman’s Day – until a gastroenterologist finally worked out what was wrong.

I lost 10kg in the first six months alone. I looked great but felt terrible.

The specialist had trouble concealing his excitement when he told me I was intolerant to lactose, sucrose, maltose AND starches. Most people are only intolerant to one, I had the whole shebang.

After the drudgery of spending years avoiding most foods, my ability to break disaccharides into single sugars returned … and so did my spare tyres.

A harrowing divorce shed the spare tyres again, but the weight has piled back on during menopause. And I don’t feel great, although definitely nothing compared to the dark days of my initial diagnosis.

I figured it couldn’t hurt to try the diet and see if I feel better or lose weight as a result of giving up carbs and sugar.

The list of things you can eat on low disaccharide diet is pretty brief: cheeses that are low in lactose, blackberries and blueberries, grapes, cherries, kiwi fruit, avocado, celery, cucumber, kale, lettuce, mushrooms, parsnip, capsicum, spinach, zucchini, tomato, eggs, tofu and meat/seafood that’s not processed, cured or smoked. Oh and some herbs, but they don’t fill you up.

Following two very expensive trips to the supermarket over the weekend (protein and berries ain’t cheap), I’ve cooked sang choy bao, steak with mushrooms and grilled zucchini, and Thai beef salad. The rest of the week will feature roast chicken with zucchini and capsicum, followed by lamb steaks with baba ganoush and salad and lactose-free grilled haloumi.

Snacks are a slice of cheddar, a handful of grapes or some berries in lactose-free, sugar-free vanilla yoghurt.

I’ve stuck to it for three days now, so hopefully I can keep up the good work … with the occasional topple off the wagon. I reckon since I’m not in the throws of disaccharide intolerance hell, it’s a nice-to-follow diet rather than a mandate.

I don’t feel better yet and I’m not thinner, but I will give it a bit longer before drawing any conclusions.

I’m not the only one on special food. Charlie the Moodle has been very unwell since I got back from gallivanting in Indonesia.

After three nights of racing out of bed at the sound of him scratching urgently at the laundry door to be let out to do gross, terrible things on the balcony, I took him to the vet yesterday.

Almost $220 later he’s on antibiotics and outrageously expensive dry dog food that’s supposed to be good for gut health.

I am not looking forward to cleaning the balcony and had to apologise profusely to Harry the plumber who turned up unexpectedly yesterday arvo to investigate a possible leak and had to tip toe across the warzone to get to the balcony drain.

Mortifying.

Anyways, don’t you wish diets just lasted for one day and then you were done with them. This whole months and months caper is very dull.

Song of the day: Eric Carmen “Hungry eyes”