Elimination: Finding Foods You Align With

Bio-individuality tells us that everyone is different. What works and is okay for me, may not be okay for you. And in fact, what is okay for you today may not be okay for you in six months or a year. There are no hard and fast rules. In fact, you’ll get to be a bit of a detective to find the culprits. Or a scientist if you’d rather. =)

Everyone should give an elimination diet a try. You might find that your “everyday okay” is really a lot worse than you realize. If you’ve been eating foods that don’t agree with you your entire life, the change can be dramatic.

Greater health, boundless energy, and crystal clear mental clarity might be as simple as eliminating a few of foods from your every day eating plan. It’s definitely worth the time and effort, though many of us will never try one due to feelings and thoughts of restriction, and deprivation (aka resistance.) So always keep in mind, that you DO NOT have to give ANYTHING up permanently. In fact, you always have the choice to decide that even though a food gives you trouble, it’s worth the risk and trouble. The ability to mindfully choose, being completely aware of the consequences, is true food freedom.

So, if you want to give an elimination diet a try, here are a few ideas to get you started:

1. Start with baseline measure of how you feel. On a scale of 0 to 10 rate the following areas of your life:
   • Energy
   • Mood
   • Sleep quality
   • Ability to focus
   • Mental clarity
2. Eliminate the most common causes for three weeks. These include dairy, soy, gluten, nuts, and eggs. Occasionally, people also have issues with corn, alcohol, and/or artificial sweeteners. So, it’s up to you to decide how far you want to go there. It may be easiest to reserve these for a second three week round if you’re not feeling better.If you’re wondering what you can eat, because you’ve eliminated all your typical fare, there are still quite a few options.
   • Minimally processed beef, chicken, pork, turkey, wild game, fish.
   • Vegetables
   • Fruit
   • Non-gluten grains – think brown rice, or quinoa.
   • Beans and lentils
3. After three weeks, reflect on how you feel. Three weeks is the magic number. That’s about how long it takes for the antibodies your body may have been producing to get cleared from your system. So, after three weeks, figure out how well you feel. Revisit those same areas of your life reassessing how you feel on a scale of 0 to 10:
   • Energy
   • Mood
   • Sleep quality
   • Ability to focus
   • Mental clarity
4. Now, you can start adding back one food at a time. Just pick one of the foods you’ve eliminated and eat it. Just eat it at one meal and make a note about how you feel over the next 48 hours. This includes mood changes, fatigue, inflammation, sinus or stuffy issues, allergies, anything. If you still feel good, eat it one more time. Remember to measure how you feel.
5. If you had a reaction, drop that food and continue with your eliminations until you feel better again. Avoid adding another questionable food until you’ve recovered from the previous one. A few days is usually sufficient. Foods you have a reaction to you now know you should consider staying away from in the long term to continue feeling well. As always, you get to choose whether you allow that food item back into your life. If you have an emotional attachment to it, consider using EFT Tapping, NLP,  or even Hypnosis to remove those anchors and free yourself from that food.
6. Repeat the process of adding foods back into your diet. One at a time, continue adding foods back into your diet, and see what happens. Always record how you feel after eating it. Keep a log just for your elimination diet. This might be the most important journal you ever keep.
7. If you want to get fancy, check your pulse and blood pressure. Just before you’re about to add a new food, take your pulse and blood pressure. Then, eat the food and check both again. Any food that makes it go up or down either significantly is likely a food that doesn’t align with you.

If you’ve never tried an elimination diet, you owe it to yourself to go through the process. Most people have foods that are a part of their daily lifestyle that are quietly making their life much more challenging than it needs to be. The wrong kinds of foods can affect all aspects of your life: your digestion, skin, mood, mental clarity, focus, energy, and sleep.

If you’ve found yourself struggling with life, one troubleshooting measure you might consider is an elimination diet. Give it a try and see what you find out. Experiment on yourself. It’s the only way to know for certain. It might seem like a daunting task, but after just a few weeks you might find a way to improve your life and your health dramatically.