As I mentioned in a previous post I was completing an elimination diet in hopes of discovering any obvious food sensitivities that were causing digestive upset, fatigue and allergy symptoms. I eliminated soy, wheat, corn, nuts, citrus, yeast, chocolate, alcohol, caffeine and nightshade vegetables. The diet also eliminates dairy, eggs, pork and beef but I wasn’t eating those things anyways. I was really nervous to start and I was super hungry the first few days. But I quickly found my groove and was enjoying the foods I was eating. I eliminated these foods for 3 weeks, though the actual plan is to eliminate them for 2 weeks. I wasn’t seeing a lot of improvement over the 2 weeks so I decided to extend for another to see if that helped. I did start to feel a bit better with my digestion but my fatigue and allergy symptoms were still happening. The plan then has you introduce foods in a certain order every 3 days. If you notice any symptoms you should continue to eliminate that food, but if you don’t notice anything you can start incorporating that food into your diet again.
Unfortunately I ended up on antibiotics for a UTI while I was on the diet which destroyed all of the good bacteria in my gut. It was really hard to tell if the digestive symptoms I was having were related to the antibiotics or the new food introductions. My acupuncturist said that it can take a month to get your gut back to normal even if you take a probiotic to help with the good bacteria. Because of this, I decided to pause my elimination diet and will try again in a month or so after we take our vacation. I will continue to be pretty strict about gluten/wheat and soy as I’m pretty sure I’m sensitive to those foods.
I did also find a medical practice in Austin that uses functional medicine but also homeopathy and other natural methods for treatment. The doctor recommended the FODMAPs diet (which I need to look more into) and also some testing as she feels that it is my gut that’s causing the issues I’m having. Joe and I are about to go on vacation so once we get back, I’m planning on pursuing those tests and possibly the diet. I’m getting pretty desperate as the symptoms are affecting my quality of life at times.
Below is a day of eating while I was on the elimination diet. It honestly wasn’t as hard as I originally thought and now that I’ve done it before I’m pretty sure I could do it again. At this point, I’m willing to try anything to help me feel better!
On this particular day, I was introducing citrus. So I got to have lemon in my water again…pretty exciting! 🙂
Breakfast: I had chia pudding pretty much every day of the elimination diet. It was filling and easy to make (as long as I made a batch overnight). One batch would last me about 3 days. If I forgot to make it, I usually just ate a big bowl of fruit with seeds and coconut. This chia pudding was made with sunbutter, canned coconut milk and maple syrup. Then I topped it with raspberries, bananas, coconut, pumpkin seeds, and molasses (for extra iron and calcium).
Lunch: I always have leftovers or pre-made food for lunch. I hardly ever cook anything from scratch. The kiddos and I usually do something in the morning and come back hungry so I need something ready to go. On this day I had brown rice, chickpeas, sweet potatoes, grilled zucchini, spinach, avocado and pumpkin seeds. I topped it all with coconut aminos (similar to soy sauce). Super yummy, healthy and filling.
I had a few dried figs after lunch. Normally I’d eat some kind of chocolate but since that was off limits, this satisfied my sweet tooth. My kiddos love these too.
Snack: Some days I can make it to dinner with no snack, but I was extra hungry this day. I had an apple with sunflower seed butter and a peach. I also had a plain rice cake a little later as well (honestly not my favorite but I needed something crunchy).
Dinner: Our meal this night ended up being a total flop, which I hate! That pile of mush is supposed to be an avocado pesto pasta. I used a gluten free quinoa/rice pasta. I totally forgot to rinse it with cold water and I put it back into the hot pot after I drained it. The extra heat turned it into complete mush. The flavor was fine but texture was terrible. I ate about half and had a salad on the side as well. Ended up throwing the rest out. 🙁
Dessert: Some days I need a little extra snack before bed and since I didn’t end up eating my whole dinner, I was still a little hungry later. I made some banana strawberry “nice” cream, which is just frozen bananas and strawberries blended in either a high-powered blender or food processor. Then I topped it with coconut butter which is amazing. The coconut butter hardens on the ice cream and it’s like the magic chocolate shell. I can’t get enough!