Have you ever done or even heard of an elimination diet?
If you want to get to the root cause of symptoms that are holding you back and/or you want to create a great foundation for healing, that’s when to do an elimination diet.
The process goes like this:
1. Take out the most common foods and ingredients that cause symptoms that leave us in pain, inflamed, allergic, and with all manner of digestion and cognitive problems, for a period of time.
2. Slowly reintroduce those foods and watch what happens.
What might happen?
Your symptoms come back and it’s easier to see which was/were responsible for your symptoms.
Do I need to avoid those foods forever?
You definitely need to avoid them for a period of time. The good news is that many people go through a period of healing by eating what’s right for them, and are one day able to eat some of the triggering foods in moderation without issues.
What are the most common reasons a person chooses/is asked to do an elimination diet?
There is a suspicion that a food or foods are causing:
inflammation in the body that may present as arthritis/joint
body pain
seasonal allergies
digestion problems
skin rashes and irritations
autoimmune condition flare ups
GERD, heart burn
weight that won’t drop/stay on
mystery symptoms
hormone disruption
headaches, migraines
memory, foggy thinking, and other cognitive symptoms
So what are the top foods and ingredients that are taken out for a time? The most common are, but are not limited to, wheat and gluten grains soy sugar
But I Have a Healthy Diet!
I say the following to people several times a week: What’s healthy for others isn’t always what’s healthy for you NOW. What was healthy for you last year may not be healthy for you now!
Why?
Because change happens. Circumstances shift, stress heightens, hormones fluctuate. AND THAT IS OKAY.
We can learn to listen to our bodies instead of tell our bodies what should feel good.
To do that, we need to quiet the body’s alarm bells alerting us that something is not right. Those alarm bells are your symptoms. Once those alarm bells are quiet, we can really hear what what the body is saying to us. When we begin adding foods back into the diet in the reintroduction phase, we can listen for the warning alarms, respect our bodies, and not eat that food.
How might this actually look? Take a person with a mild to severe thyroid issue as an example.
Gluten can trigger thyroid issues. It’s also something most of us have consumed all our lives in daily foods. What’s more is that some other grains that don’t actually contain gluten are what’s called cross-reactive. These may also trigger similar reactions in your thyroid that gluten does. Taking a trigger like gluten and other cross-reactives out of the diet can dramatically change the health of a person with thyroid issues (and digestive problems, skin issues, foggy brain, and and and)
Wouldn’t you like to know what your body is really telling you? So let’s these foods out out for a period of time, and try reintroducing them carefully to see how it feels.
But there are so many elimination diets out there!
I frequently suggest two elimination diets in my practice. Both work well, but sometimes one can be better suited to a person’s mindset and what they can tackle at that moment.
When done well, these diets also help us add the foods that are nutritionally dense and health-BUILDING. Healing.
The differences in these two diets: Below, you’ll find the two elimination diets I suggest. The Kresser Institute’s Paleo Reset (don’t be put off by the word Paleo!) and The Wahl’s Protocol
I find that the Kresser elimination diet is best for the person with the mindset that says, ”I’m ready to get very serious finding and healing my health issues! Bring it on!”
The Wahl’s Protocol can be used in the same way! But it can also be a little more flexible. I’m a big advocate for meeting people where they are right now. A flexible approach might be what you can do at the moment and that’s okay!
Wahl’s is also is a good option for those with challenging feelings or histories with disordered eating. The focus of WP can be adjusted to filling your body with go much goodness that there is little space for anything else versus to control what goes in your body. Finally, there is a healthy focus on feeding the body on a cellular level and mitochondria health.
At the link above, you’ll find the explanation for this diet, how long, what to avoid completely, what to consume in a amount, wonderfully what to eat liberally!
You’ll also find some further modifications for people who may experience inflammation, joint pain, and gut issues insulin issues fatigue or who are very active and may require modifications to meet your energy and repair demands and common FAQs!
On to the next! Wahl’s Protocol Level One The main focus is three cups of GREEN vegetables (measured before cooking) three cups of vividly COLORED vegetables three cups SULFUR-RICH plants moderate FRUIT moderate gluten free GRAINS/LEGUMES/STARCHES highest quality meat and vegetables: grass-fed, organic, wild-caught
You’ll notice at the link above that there is more than one level. There are actually three levels, but many people can be fine with completing and sometimes living at level one. The protocol was originally developed by a clinician who was deteriorating with MS and the initial clinical setting studies with the Wahl’s Protocol were also on people suffering with MS. But now the protocol is recommended for autoimmune conditions, and anyone who wants to approach deep healing.
Find a link to Dr. Wahl’s excellent book here. I have a lending copy of this book at the 25-9 Daye Road, Taichung shop, Health Bestowing Hands.
Why do I say Wahls is flexible? While following it, you are able to increase the quantity of beneficial foods at a pace that suits your life.
Also, once you work up to the recommended quantity of healing foods, several things will happen.
1. You’ll already be eliminating problematic foods because you won’t have room for them!
2. With increased nutritionally dense foods, you will have been naturally detoxing the body even before you met the level one food goals as well as building up nutritional stores that may previously been low or empty.
Now for a big question~
Can I do these elimination diets while maintaining my vegan or vegetarian lifestyle?
The answer is, Maybe!
You’ll notice that several of the foods that are the most common triggers for symptoms are often heavyweights in the diets of vegans and vegetarians. That is not a knock on those lifestyles! And it may be that in your case that those foods are not your triggers. But they are for a large enough subset of people that these foods are the number ones taken out just in case.
For a full discussion click here for a full discussion by Dr. Terry Wahl’s. At that link she encourages, ”Nutrition is the foundation of the health we have or do not have. If you have health challenges, make sure the foods you are eating are increasing your health and vitality. Use food to create the best microenvironment for your cells. It is easier to do this as an omnivore, eating a combination of plants and animals, but it can also be done as a vegan or vegetarian.”
The good news is that after an elimination diet, there is the reintroduction phase. During this time you may see more foods pop up as triggers for you as you reintroduce them slowly into your diet. What I’ve seen with my own eyes time and time again is that if enough healing is done, one day some people can go back to eating those foods in moderation in the future. But adequate healing needs to happen first.