How to Do an Elimination Diet and Why
So I’ll get right to the nitty gritty with this one:
An elimination diet is basically a test or tool used to figure out whether certain foods are causing certain physical discomforts or symptoms.
There are three common myths about elimination diets:
1. Elimination diets are used to lose weight and reach fitness goals
2. Everything that you eliminate at the beginning of an elimination diet should remain eliminated for the long term
3. An elimination diet is the best or most accurate measure for finding the food (or foods) that are causing your problems
Like many other things within health and wellness, I think elimination diets are commonly mistaken for lots of other things. So, here’s the simplified version with accurate information. There are four main parts to an elimination diet that I’ll detail here.
Part 1: Creating a Plan
Ideally, you should work with your primary care doctor to learn about what foods might be causing some issues. They’ll likely ask you to track your meals in a journal or planner of some sort, detailing what you eat AND how you’re feeling (aka the symptoms) throughout your day for a week or so. Some questions to ask yourself are:
- What foods do I eat most often?
- What do I find myself craving?
- What do I eat to feel better or minimize discomfort?
- What foods can’t I live without?
From this, you create a plan to eliminate the things that are causing discomfort or problems.
Part 2: Implementing the Plan
This is where you put the planning to work. More often than not, the elimination diet should last for two weeks. The foods that have been temporarily blacklisted cannot be eaten, point blank period! Not alone or as ingredients in other things. This will require a LOT of discipline (if you need help with this, check out the self discipline series), but it’s a non-negotiable if you really want to get to the bottom of what the issues are. A lot people notice that symptoms are worse during the first week, so if that’s the case for you, know that it’s normal. But if you’re still struggling beyond that or if the symptoms become severe for more than 48-72 hours, talk to your doctor right away.
I did an elimination diet for red meat and pork and your girl lived for cheeseburgers back in the day. So yes, it was hard. But now that I’m four years on the other side of that, figuring out that red meat and pork were causing my issues was worth it. I’d do it again a million times (and yes, I wrote a blog about that and you can find it here).
Part 3: Shifting Gears
If you find that your symptoms haven’t improved during the two week period, you should talk to your doctor about trying other foods or a different combination of foods.
If your symptoms do improve, shift to really challenging your body with the eliminated foods, one group at a time. And of course as you do this, continue to keep a written record of how you’re feeling. Challenging involves adding a new food group every few days and few (meaning 3-4) is the keyword because it takes about 3 days to determine if your body is going to have an adverse reaction to the food again. If a food doesn’t cause symptoms of discomfort during this time, it likely isn’t an issue and you can eat it regularly again (yay!)
Part 4: Create the New Normal
The last step is to create a diet, along with your doctor, to prevent your symptoms. Here are some things to keep in mind about elimination diets:
1. This test isn’t the end all, be all. Like I said earlier, a common myth is that an elimination diet is the best or most accurate measure for finding the food (or foods) that are causing your problems. While it is a good measure, it isn’t perfect. There are lots of other things (more environmental stuff like stress) that can affect the overall result.
2. Elimination diets aren’t excuses or passes for poor nutrition. You should still make sure that you’re getting adequate nutrition with the diet change. When I did the diet with red meat and pork (and eventually cut them out of my diet long term), I stepped it up with salmon, beans, and other protein and healthy fat-rich foods to compensate.
3. If at first you don’t succeed, dust yourself off and try again *Aaliyah voice*. You may need to try several different iterations of this diet to figure out what the problem food is, and that’s okay. Keep trying!
That’s it! I hope that this gets you one step closer to reaching your wellness goals without the guesswork and as always, thank you for journeying with me.
