Elimination Diet Reflections

It's been over two years since my elimination diet, and I want to share what I learned through that experience. 

Starting in late 2017 and throughout 2018, I felt like I was constantly getting sick. Anytime I caught a cold, I’d start to get better and a few days later catch another cold. I also struggled with major fatigue, a crazy sinus infection that caused horrible vertigo for about 5 months, and continuously felt like I was on the mend. My body was sending some VERY clear signals that something wasn’t right. 

During this time, I learned more and more about the importance of gut health. I remember when I first put together: 

1. Your gut health impacts your immune system, and
2. Food sensitivities negatively impact your gut health.

​Now don’t get me wrong – there are LOTS of things that impact your immune system and your gut health, but I had already been interested in taking steps to explore potential food sensitivities. I do want to mention that I am NOT a doctor – I’m not making any medical claims. I am only sharing my experience.

Long story short, I ended up trying out the at-home food sensitivity test from a company called EverlyWell. My results showed that I reacted to 33 of the 96 foods they tested. While I know there’s some debate about the accuracy or effectiveness of these sorts of tests, I decided to use these results as a starting point.

I removed all 33 of those foods from my diet for 30 days – this included foods like blueberries, garlic, gluten, dairy, and black pepper. I knew removing these foods was going to be challenging, but the fact that I was traveling for work every week added an extra level of complexity. 

Let’s move into where I’m at over two years later. While I’ve ended up keeping many of the “reactive” foods in my diet, I try not to eat them all the time or in large quantities. I feel like I’m able to make more balanced and informed food choices because of my elimination diet experience. For instance, garlic was on my list of reactive foods, and I found that too much garlic throws off my digestion. However, garlic is in all sorts of meals and it can be pretty tasty. Having it in small quantities doesn’t give me any noticeable issues, but I know there’s a chance that my gut may still react negatively to it. When I eat something with garlic in it, or anything I found I was reactive to, I try to be more mindful of the other foods I’m eating that day and try to avoid eating additional foods that will aggravate my gut.
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Were there any foods I decided to completely eliminate? YES. To my surprise, I’ve eliminated all foods with gluten. When I first started this journey, I was desperately holding onto gluten – I’ve always loved bread, pasta, and pretty much all baked goods. Foods with gluten were what I craved most the first week of my elimination diet. I finally got used to life without gluten. When I tried reintroducing gluten, I had horrible brain fog and could barely stay awake during the day. Because it made me feel so awful, I decided to remove it completely from my diet moving forward. The crazy thing is I don’t crave it at all anymore, and I think a big reason is because I know how it makes me feel.

What are some of the things I’ve learned through this experience? There are 2 key points I want to call out:

1. You may not react to certain foods right away. I remember going through my reintroduction phase and getting really frustrated – how did I know that I was feeling sluggish because of a particular food I ate two days ago? Maybe I slept poorly and that was why! But maybe I slept poorly because of that same food? I often had to reintroduce foods more than once, which made the process go on even longer. I’m so glad I know this now because I feel like I have a much better understanding of some of the consequences certain foods may have on me. And this leads into my second key point:
2. Be more mindful of how different foods make you feel. This is way easier said than done, but this experience has really helped me better understand the effects different foods have on my body and make more informed decisions. For instance, there are going to be times where I choose to have dairy. I just celebrated my birthday and I chose to indulge in the treats my husband and my friends made me. My skin has been suffering the consequences, but I also know it’s temporary and it was worth getting to celebrate with my friends and family. All those treats, however, were gluten free. I’ve deemed eating gluten to not be worth the brain fog, the sluggishness, or the inflammation. I’m so glad I’m in a place where I can make more informed decisions about the foods I eat and how they make me feel.

I'm happy to report that my immune system is SO much stronger than it was a few years ago. I also have a much stronger relationship with my body. I'm working with ​my body rather than against it.