Saturday, 30 April 2011

Day 24

Day 24!!!!! I can't believe how quickly life goes! Especially when you have your head buried in text books! Law study is going quite well. I am finally making to the point of being able to do some past papers... actually applying what I have learnt... or am learning. It is amazing how much you have to learn. Hundreds and hundreds of cases to learn off by heart and learn how to apply. Even thinking about it makes me panic! Best not to think about it!

So, I am off home tonight. The off to the shops tomorrow and then the cooking marathon will begin. I hope to put lots more photos up of what I am cooking and also lots more recipes.

Having had my mum's guidance and inspiration I will hopefully be able to apply the SCD better than I could before.

It will be lovely to see my fiance tonight as well as my two beautiful cats and my step daughter-to-be! But still up early tomorrow to not get behind with my study... 2 weeks and 6 days til its all over... Aggghhhh!

I have decided to write my blog in the day time as I am awake enough to do it! So, will add dinner onto tomorrow's blog.

The sun is shining in England once again... this must be the longest summer on record... about 10 days now! and it's still officially spring.

I am still feeling healthy and full of energy on this diet. 6-8 hours sleep a night is fine and I can concentrate well. I am not feeling lethargic at all. I am tempted to buy a Paleo diet book for more recipe ideas.

Drugs: 2.4g Asacol, 2g Pentasa, 5mg Prednisolone, 1 sachet VSL#3
Food: Breakfast - Pitta bread (SCD - not nice) with melted cheese on, Lunch - Omelette filled with spinach and mushrooms and tuna Snacks: Shortbread (SCD) Drinks: Tea, Coffee, Orange Juice.

Friday, 29 April 2011

Day 23

Didn't get a chance to update yesterday...

Coming down off the pred has been fine. Symptoms even less yesterday than the day before.
I am off back to my home tonight... so we shall see how I cope on my own with this diet! I have done a shopping list and meal plan for the first few days when Iget back... there's a lot of cooking!

Drugs: 2.4g Asacol, 2g Pentasa, 5mg Prednisolone, 1 sachet VSL#3
Food: Breakfast - homemade pita bread with melted cheese on (yuk!), SCD shortbread Lunch: Chicken and vegetable soup Dinner: Cheese biscuits, Pork chop, Aubergine bake, Asparagus, Mango with pistachios and dates Snacks: Shortbread and the last of the lemon meringue pie! Drinks, Coffee, tea, orange juice

Thursday, 28 April 2011

Day 22

I am realising that my blog is quite dull! I follow the diet and keep getting better... LOL!

It isn't supposed to be a rivetting diary... more just a record of how it goes, as well as hopefully a resource for people on the diet to see ideas of what to eat and how the diet feels to be on.

The diet has felt great this week. With my mum cooking for me it has been easy. Nearly all cravings for junk food and chocolate have gone. I feel ehalthy in myself. Strangely my mouth feels healthier! An odd thing to say - but noticeable form my point of view. I guess it is the lack of refined sugars. I feel like this diet is healthier than my normal diet and I feel that it is doing me good.

I might keep my posts short and sweet til something interesting happens on this diet! Just record of drugs and food... dropped the prednisolone dose today and my gut doesn't seem to be complaining too loudly. It's been behaving pretty well today.

Best wishes to all SCDers xx

Drugs: 2.4g Asacol, 2g Pentasa, 5mg Prednisolone, 1 sachet VSL#3
Food: Breakfast - Cinnamon Bread and Fruit crumble and SCD yoghurt Lunch: Avocado and tuna, Pea and leek soup Dinner: Vegetable fritters and Chilli Snacks: Lemon meringue pie (only 1 slice left now!), Cinnamon bread (all gone now :-(  ) Drinks: Black coffee and tea, watered down orange juice

Wednesday, 27 April 2011

Day 21

Feeling a lot better today. I have been avoiding raw fruit and veg and I think it has made a real difference. I will carry on with that for a bit longer I think and then see if there is a link between that and the bloating and pain.

Loads less bloating today - phew!
 and generally feeling less pain and cramping etc...

So, maybe the diet is working??!! I am not sure on my plans for the future with it... if I manage to get drug free would I be tempted to reintroduce carbs and sugar? Probably... I was in remission and drug free last year... so I believe it can happen. But then again I can't have been completely better as a few drinks of alcohol and I relapsed. Is that because you have it for life (until theyfind a cure) or because it wasn't really better? Elaine claims that if you stay on this diet for a year after being drug and symptom free you can cure yourself of UC. That is something I would truly love to believe in, but it seems like wishful thinking... I would love to have the sticking power to find out though.

I am nearly out of cinnamon bread now.. so I can do some more baking tomorrow! A new treat to eat! Can't wait.

Prednisolone drops to 5mg tomorrow... hold on tight!

Drugs: 2.4g Asacol, 2g Pentasa, 10mg Prednisolone, 1 sachet VSL#3
Food: Breakfast - 1 slice of cinnamon and raisin bread and fruit crumble with SCD yoghurt, Lunch - Soup (pea, leek, chicken etc) Dinner: Cod fillet with cheese on, Spinach and bacon, Roasted peppers with anchovies and tomatoes. Drinks - Black tea and coffee and watered down orange juice.

Tuesday, 26 April 2011

Day 20! - 710 to go!

Gut being a lot better today. Still majorly bloated. I look like I have a beachball up my top. I will look like a pregnant bride. LOL! Well, it's not a church wedding so shouldn't matter!

Another day of studying today. Easier when the weather outside is cold. The summer is over in the UK! No, it's supposed to be sunny tomorrow. But it is very chilly today and windy. It's amazing how quickly it changes. That's probably why us Brits talk about the weather so much.

I am getting a bit bored of studying now but still have a large mountain of information to cram into my head. I woke up at 5.30am this morning.... I am not sure whether that was the steroids or worrying about exams... I started studying then though. Contract law today - so not a rivetting day!

Had a nice vegetable crumble today - I think the topping was almond flour and cheese... my mum made it so I am not sure. Could have butter in...
I am slowly working through the disastrous lemon meringue pie... stick it in the microwave and put SCD yoghurt on top and its not so bad!

Not much interesting to report I am pleased to say. My gut is not normal - but not ridiclously far off. Before when I made it into drug free remission it wasn't until I stopped the pentasa that all the symptoms went. It turned out it was causing some of them! Who'd have thought... so I don't expect it to get completely better yet.


I had a look today at the Paleo diet - it is a diet that tries to mimic that of the caveman I think. I would have guessed that the caveman ate grain... but apparently not. It has all sorts of claims, in preventing diabetes, inflammatory diseases such as UC, arthritis. I think it is pretty much the SCD. So, it might be a good source of recipes as it seems to have lots more books about it than SCD.

So, I am sleepy having studied too much today. 3 weeks til exams...

I am going to get an early night and read a vampire book...
Ciao..

Drugs: 2.4g Asacol, 2g Pentasa, 10mg Prednisolone, 1 sachet VSL#3
Food: Breakfast: 2 slices soft cinnamon and raisin bread (That stuff's soooo good), Lunch: Avocado with prawns and mayonnaise, Vegetable soup Dinner: Melted cheese biscuits,Vegetable crumble Snacks: Lemon meringue pie with SCD yoghurt, Even more cinnamon bread!!

Monday, 25 April 2011

Day 19

The last of the sunny days in the UK apparently - fingers crossed the weatherman's wrong! Had an entire swarm of bees round the house at one point today - having a rest whilst travelling through I guess. Maybe they were after me for eating all their honey!

Gut started with bloating and pain at 5am.... not a great time to be up... got to see the sunrise though.

I lied on my drug chart yesterday - I had forgotten to take the probiotics. Maybe that is where the problems came from.

Everything's calmed down over today though. I have avoided raw veg, though did eat a mango tonight - it's so slippery though! It can't be that hard to digest!

That cinnamon bread I made yesterday really is lovely. You can really fill up on it too as it has substance! I highly recommend it.

Big law topic to cover tomorrow so I am going to get an early night...

Sleep well.

Drugs: 2.4g Asacol, 2g Pentasa, 10mg Prednisolone, 1 sachet VSL#3
Food: Breakfast: 2 slices of cinnamon and raisin bread Lunch: Vegetable and bacon soup, Cheese omelette Dinner: Lamb kebab, stir fried vegetables, Mango in orange juice with pistachio nuts Snacks: Lemon meringue pie

Sunday, 24 April 2011

Day 18 - 712 to go!




Today I made soft cinnamon raisin bread from this website - http://www.scdiet.org/2recipes/bread01.html Scroll down the page and you will find the recipe. It's really good and moist. Even non SCDers will eat it!

The lemon meringue pie was awful so I won't put the recipe up for that. I should have eaten it straight away, as the middle was so gooey it soaked into all the pastry and the whole thing collapsed over night. The meringue lost it's air and went flat too and it tasted so much of honey - good for a sugar craving so it will get eaten! Worry not!

Gut is feeling pretty tender today - and I keep bloating up! I look 4 months pregnant! Is it the food? Will I stay like this for duration of this diet? I am weighing myself in the mornings and I have put a pound back on and I am eating like a horse! A very good diet if you want to lose weight obviously. The wedding dress has been fitted now so I can't put the weight back on! LOL!

So, a good day today. I enjoyed the baking, and it was roast dinner tonight followed by playing a bit of piano and clarinet! Music for fun!! A long time since that last happened...

Time to hit the books again now though... vicarious liability...zzz

Drugs: 2.4g Asacol, 2g Pentasa, 10mg Prednisolone, 1 sachet VSL#3
Food: Breakfast - Fruit crumble, defrosted berries and SCD yoghurt Lunch - Vegetable and bacon soup, Tuna and egg salad Dinner - Avocado, prawns and home-made mayonnaise, Roast lamb, courgette and leek gratin, roasted squash and parsnips. Snacks - Lemon meringue pie and Cinnamon and raisin loaf.

I can't believe I am eating like this and staying a low weight! No wonder I was losing weight when I was cooking for myself!

Saturday, 23 April 2011

Day 17

Tonight I baked a lemon meringue pie... I haven't tasted it.... but I will tomorrow. If it's good I will put up the link to the recipe.

Another day of eating a lot! Had some great little parmesan cheese nibbles that my mum made. She just put little piles of grated parmesan on a baking sheet and whacked them in the oven... with a few sesame seeds on top (supposed to be onion seeds but we didn't have any). They melted and then set into biscuity type nibbles. Very good with olives. Yum!

Gut gurgling a bit - but not too bad behaviour.

Missing my man, being away from home - but studying hard and lovely to see my folks.
Can't wait to be married...

Drugs: 2.4g Asacol, 2g Pentasa, 10mg Prednisolone, 1 sachet VSL#3
Food: Breakfast - bacon, fried egg, yoghurt and defrosted berries. Lunch - Chicken soup, Salad with boiled egg and tuna in. Dinner - Parmesan 'biscuits' and olives, Pork chop, Courgette and leek gratin, roasted vegetables with lemon. Snacks - Fruit crumble.

Friday, 22 April 2011

Day 16

I am busy revising for my law exams at the moment which is making my days very long! It is crazy how much there is to learn.

Being up at my parents is really helping as my mum is cooking SCD for me! What with SCD being more time consuming than normal cooking, it is really helping having my mum help out. It also means that lots of new flavours and ideas are being introduced because of her influence, which hopefully I can take away with me.

I found a few blog pages with recipes on today which look very tasty, so I am saving them all up for when I get home.

My symptoms reared their ugly head last night... and the red stuff made an appearance. This is not what I wanted as the diet seemed to have got rid of all of that. At least I now know what all that grumbling was. I decided that I was just going to eat omelette and chicken soup today.But when I woke up my gut was silent and has been behaving all day, so I just ate the normal SCD. It still seems fine - touch wood! It might have been because I lowered the prednisolone yesterday... that always seems to cause a moan.

I know that on the SCD you are supposed to introduce the foods gradually... but I figure that if the bad bacteria are starved then the probiotic levels will become healthy. The only reason to introduce the foods slowly is to give the gut a rest I think. I am hoping that as my symptoms have almost vanished, that it doesn't need too much of a rest. If I am wrong then I am sure the UC will let me know! It always does!

I am eating so much here that 4 pounds have already gone back on. My mum's theory seems to be to make me two lunches and then make sure there's a lovely pudding at dinner. Plus lots of nibbles. I may stay here a while as the studying is going well, the eating's going well, and having a break from hectic London is good for the soul once in a while.

We have also been working on my wedding dress which needs a couple of alterations. It is starting to really shape up! Very exciting!

Michael, my fiance, shovelled all the soil into our new veg patch today... so I will even be able to eat homegrown SCD food. Yum!

Til tomorrow, toodle oo...









Drugs: 2.4g Asacol, 2g Pentasa, 10mg Prednisolone, 1 sachet VSL#3
Food: Breakfast - Summer fruit pancakes Lunch - Caramelised fennel soup and cheese omelette with salad Dinner: Salmon with courgette and leek gratin, apple and pear crumble (coconut and almond flour topping).

Thursday, 21 April 2011

Day 15

Today is the first day on this diet of having a happily full belly all day! My mum's cooking s doing the trick. Standing on the scales last night was a bit of shock as another 3 pounds had disappeared... so hopefully all this eating will pay off. Though even before I started eating today my gut was being very noisy... is this the die off? Is the UC making a come back? It has definitely not gone... though the symptoms are mild and livable with. It is gurgling away int he background. Let's hope it stays there. In fact, let's hope it just buggers off! My pred dose came down today... so let's hope that doesn't give it an excuse to get lively.

This morning I had pancakes for breakfast. I have slightly varied the recipe from the books as they say put honey on at the end and I am not a fan of honey particularly... so I would rather put more in the mix and have sweet pancakes. They can be a bit dry so I added defrosted frozen berries to it today and it was lovely. I didn't use baking soda as we didn't have any, and I thought they would be falt like French crepes... but they still were thick... maybe I put too much batter in. I will try with less mix tomorrow morning. Here's the recipe:

Summer fruit pancakes:

110g almond flour - 1 cup
4 eggs
3 tablespoons honey
1/4 teaspoon salt
Half a cup of defrosted summer berries - or whatever you like

Mix all this together, melt some butter in a pan, and cook! Prob about 4 pancakes. I had 2 pancakes for breakfast and it filled me up. If I have fruit smoothie for breakfast then I am just too hungry!

Had an apple before lunch. Then my mum made a great lunch. We had chicken and lentil soup - with celery (what a great flavour for soups) and carrot in. We followed this with a turkey salad. The salad was more interesting as the turkey was cooked in a moroccan spice and the salad had anchovies in it and red onion. So not the vacuous salad that it is easy to fall into the trap of.

That totally filled me up and it was a surprise when dinner came round! I started dinner with a guacamole and crudites. Carrot and celery crudites. Guacamole was a mix of avacado, tomato, lime juice, coriander and olive oil.
Then we had burgers (just mince and seasoning) with an aubergine bake which was soooooo nice. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
3 aubergines
3 cloves of garlic
tin of chopped tomatoes - watch out for additives
fresh basil
grated cheddar cheese

Directions:
Slice aubergines lengthwise and put on an oiled baking sheet. Oil on top too and sprinkle with crushed garlic. Bake at 180C for 15 minutes.
When done, get a shallow dish. Put 1/4 of the tomatoes in the bottom, then a layer of aubergines, then tomoatoes, then cheese and basil. Keep adding layers, finishing with tomato, then basil, then cheese on top. Bake at a lower temperature - say 130C - for 35-40minutes.

The flavour of this was so good. I cannot recommend it enough. I don't think I will be eating anything else tonight!

Drugs: 2.4g Asacol, 2g Pantasa, 10mg Prednisolone, 1 sachet VSL#3 probiotics
Food: as above

Wednesday, 20 April 2011

Away from home

Tonight I drove to my parents' new house! A different house, with all the familiar furniture in...
 very strange. Good house though. Can't wait to see it in the light.

My mum has offered to help me with the cooking whilst I am here which will be great as I might get some new ideas. What with it being Easter weekend, we had to plan out all the food til Tuesday, when the shops will be open properly again. Luckily my mum is good at making lists and planning menus, so we are all set for the next few days, and everyone will be eating the same as me - more or less.

So, today at home I was finishing off bits of food... started with left over almond bake from yesterday for breakfast. Then caramelised fennel soup (from the Eat Well Feel Well book) for lunch ( I def need to have more soups on the go so I don't have to eat the same two for a week!). An apple as a snack and some cheese. Then for dinner I made Michael and I a small bit of lentil soup, followed by mushrooms cooked in nutmeg with spinach, followed by chicken salad, followed by oranges. Wow! That should have filled me up. But by the time I had driven 3 hours to my parents I was feeling a bit wobbly... so quickly baked an almond flour, coconut and honey mix to see me through.

My yoghurt maker is on the go downstairs...

My mum worries that by cutting out carbs there is a vital bit of nutrition I am missing... I may go back to the hospital to run the diet past them and see what they think.

It' s hard to impose this diet when you are a guest. It makes you feel fussy and neurotic... and this is only at my parents' house! But the idea of not taking so many drugs and not getting moved up to the next level of drugs is going to keep me going. It's only two years after all... and if it works... when I am 70 I will be thanking myself now.

It's 1am... very tired now.
 Must sleep...

Drugs -2.4g Asacol, 2g Pentasa, 15mg Prednisolone, 1 sachet VSL#3 probiotics
Food: as above

Tuesday, 19 April 2011

Today's food

So... I will come back to adding more info about UC and why I chose the specific carbohydrate diet at a later date. I will add this to the pages at the side.

For now I will update with what I am eating and how it is going.

I have been really organised with food since I started the diet and have been spending a lot of time in the kitchen, though the last 2 or 3 days have been less labour intensive as I could live off portions saved from previous cooking.

I was all out of fruit smoothies and pancake mix this morning so I polished off the last of the banana and walnut muffins I made a couple of days ago, and then had bacon and fried egg. I will put the muffin recipe up soon... but it was a mix of almond flour, honey, banana, egg, walnuts and baking powder whizzed up and baked.

On this diet I always seem to get very hungry at about 11am. Plus my stomach is burning so much from the steroids that I need to eat just to calm it. Thinking about it, 11am isn't so strange considering that the steroids mean I wake up and bounce out of bed at 6am at the latest! Though now I am down to 15mg pred I can feel that wearing off today... my eyes feel heavy... quite a relief! Though I will miss my super human constitution...

So, at 11am I heated up some lentil soup that was in the fridge. The recipe is from one of the three recipe books I bought when starting this diet. I have only done a handful of recipes from this one so far but I have been very impressed. It is called Eat Well Feel Well and is by Kendall Conrad. The soup is the egyptian red lentil soup. There seems to be huge amounts of garlic in the recipes from this book I have done... but once cooked it doesn't seem to over power the dish. I bunged a couple of tablespoons of SCD yoghut on top which tasted great. I recently got my yoghurt maker through, and this was the remnants of my first batch of 24 hour fermented yoghurt. It's really good.

At about 4pm I started getting peckish but didn't want dinner, so I experimented by mixing almond flour, coconut, honey and some smashed walnuts together. Put it in a flan dish, firmed it down and slammed in the oven for about 15 minutes. Tastes good. Even my fiance agreed, nibbling the crumbs from the edge of the plate... frightened to eat too much and deprive me! Bearing in mind he wouldn't go near the banana muffins, that was quite a compliment! (though I think he would have been pleasantly surprised).

I ate so much of that I was stuffed, so didn't eat dinner til about 8.30pm. I cooked some chicken - cut into small pieces - and whilst that was cooking prepared a salad of lettuce, cucumber, red onion and mango. Chucked in the chicken, seasoned with salt and pepper and ate a huge bowl of it! Like a mixing bowl of it.

I am realising on this diet you have to eat a lot. I have lost half a stone in 2 weeks... very unintentionally. So I am going to make very greedy portion sizes. It is after all very similar to the Atkins diet.

Then I ate a chunk of blue cheese! Now I am full...

So, that's my day today. My gut is just beginning to gurgle... Jeff is waking up... I will explain that in a later post. But still very low symptom.

Day 13 on the specfic carbohydrate diet complete... only 717 days to being cured... ;-)

Ta ta!

Drugs: 2.4g Asacol, 15mg Prednisolone, 2g Pentasa, 1 sachet VSL#3
Food: as above

Monday, 18 April 2011

An introduction to ulcerative colitis

For anyone reading this that doesn't have, or isn't aware of what ulcerative colitis is, I would like to give a short description of my experience of it. Anyone wanting more scientific information please google it. There is a wealth of information online about it.

Basically ulcerative colitis is an autoimmune disease. There seem to be a lot of them around these days - such as asthma and Crohn's, not to mention the increasing amount of allergies and intolerances. For some reason, which noone seems to know, the body's immune system decides to turn on itself, or react to substances which are harmless - mistaking them for enemies. 

Now there are a few theories why this happens - but I will get to those at a later blog.

For sufferers of ulcerative colitis this reaction takes place in the lower intestine. From what I understand the body feels like it's under attack - as it would if a dirty nail infected with tetanus had punctured the skin - and the blood produces a substance not dissimilar to kitchen bleach and pours it on to the offending substance. But alas! There is no substance there... so the foolishly mistaken blood pours it onto the healthy tissue. As you can imagine, this has catastrophic results on the tissue and produces the ulceration and bleeding of the gut associated with this disease.

What I found most fascinating about this disease (and it is a chronic disease i.e. a life long friend) is that because the gut has no nerve endings in it, the sufferer is - at least at first - unaware of the amount of devastation occurring within their body. Yes, there are gut cramps, and the blood and worst of all mucus... and the 20 toilet visits a day ( I will avoid talking too much about this for my own modesty! - I am British after all), but none of this prepares the sufferer for what they see on the first flexible siegmoidoscopy...

I remember thinking, 'if my arm was damaged like that i.e. skinless, I would be in absolute agony!' How can an organ of the body be in that much distress and not making itself known more violently. That's not to say it goes unnoticed. Far from it! But considering the damage that is being done, invisibly, away from easy investigation, the sufferer can be relatively unaware.

I feel that I should again state that this is my experience and I am aware people have had a worse ride with disease than me. I am only two years on from diagnosis and only on my third flare. I have noticed more pain with this one so I realise that this stubborn and characterful disease may have more in store for me yet!

So, that is an introduction to the basics of the disease. I would like to spend another couple of blogs talking about the effects of ulcerative colitis and the prospects for it's sufferers before moving on to possible ways to treat it of which the specific carbohydrate diet will be the focus.

I will sign my blogs with which drugs I am on and what I have eaten that day.

Current drugs: 2400mg Asacol, 2g Pentasa, 15mg Prednisolone, VSL#3 probiotics (one sachet)
Todays menu: Breakfast - 3 banana and walnut muffins with SCD yoghurt, Lunch - caramelised fennel soup, Dinner - Beef chilli with salad and blue cheese. Various banana and walnut muffins munched throughout the day to stop the stomach burning caused by the Prednisolone.

Sunday, 17 April 2011

An introduction to me and my blog

Hi. A bit about me to start with.

I am a musician... well I was... am I still? A classical clarinet player. Playing with orchestras and teaching in schools. Last summer I decided to retrain as a lawyer. I am currently studying for my degree and teaching clarinet and saxophone.

Two years ago I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. After not a great start with treatment I managed to get referred to a brilliant hospital and was relatively quickly in remission. I weaned myself off all medication. Then at Christmas I had a couple of drinks... and back to square one. I was gutted!

This time has been different though... the magical steroids did not work! They improved things but they didn't make the symptoms go away. The hospital said to go back to them... which I really didn't want to do as I knew the next step was immunosuppressants. So, I started googling.

Eventually (a couple of weeks ago) I stumbled upon a website, www.ihaveuc.com and loads of people on it were talking about the specific carbohydrate diet. The diet is based on probiotic levels in the gut. This grabbed my attention because I am aware that trials have been done with probiotics and the results are looking good.

So, I decided to give it a go.

I am now on day 11 of the diet and it is going very well. Most of my symptoms have totally gone! My energy levels are high - though that might be the steroids... and I am surprisingly enjoying cooking all my food from scratch.

Since the diet is a bit of an experiment, and there may be many people out there who would like to know what the diet feels like from the inside I thought I would start this blog. I plan to write in it how I am feeling and how the diet affects my health and my life. I also plan to add recipes - like my delicious coconut flapjack that I invented yesterday.

The book for this diet says that if you do this diet for two years you will be cured and then be able to eat any foods and remain symptom free! I wonder... its hard to believe that right now.

Join me as I tackle living in a world of convenience food and alcohol, whilst avoiding just that. I have many food trials coming up... such as mine and Michael's wedding - dinner at a beautiful restaurant (how will they take my diet?) plus no champagne or wedding cake for me :-( - my honeymoon in Costa Rica (I am most worried about the airport food!) - a residential training weekend - could be interesting - and many more tricky times.

I am looking forward to the challenges. How hard can it be to limit your food when you are on a dream trip to Costa Rica? Let's find out...