My Elimination Diet Plan

Even though Mardi Gras was at the beginning of the month, this weekend was my Fat Tuesday. My friend Renee and I took a little road trip to Hershey, Pennsylvania, to stay at the Hotel Hershey and enjoy a day of chocolate themed spa treatments at The Chocolate Spa (thanks to our wonderful husbands who treated us to gift cards for Christmas). We literally bathed in chocolate while snacking on chocolate and enjoyed invigorating cocoa scrubs and luxurious chocolate massages between relaxing in cool aromatherapy rooms and toasty warm quiet rooms. It was the perfect way to indulge and relax before cutting myself off from everything. I feel refreshed and full and ready to begin my elimination diet today.

My day started off with a nice icy glass of Ensure with a side of VSL #3 (my probiotic), Cymbalta (my fibro medication), and strong cough syrup (because I have a crazy cough right now and this cough syrup is finally doing the job). For the remainder of the day, I will alternate bottles of Ensure or Boost, water, and sugar free gum. My day will be the same for the next three days. The goal is to drink about 7 bottles of Ensure a day to get the right number of calories for my weight with one or two more on more active days. It's important to drink a ton of water to help flush the system and prevent constipation which is why I start my day with a glass of water and drink a glass of water between each bottle. Ensure is packed with nutrients but completely lacks fiber!

I know, from previous experience, that my body tends to react to new foods in about 8 hours, but the reaction to a new food can take as long as three days. So, when I introduce something new, I will eat it all day, with every meal that day, then wait three days to gauge the reaction. This week I will not introduce new food, but will incorporate my Vitamin D supplement (my Vitamin D levels are low) and multivitamin on Thursday.

Next Monday, I will start to incorporate foods while reducing the amount of Ensure I drink until I feel like I'm eating enough and getting enough nutrients to stop drinking it. Luckily, I think it tastes good otherwise this might feel like torture! As I test new foods, if I don't react, they will stay in my diet. If I do react, I will try them once more at the end of the incorporation just to make sure it was the food causing the reaction and not something else, like a cold or strenuous workout, etc. As I continue to add new foods, I will decrease the amount of Ensure.

I'm kind of designing this plan myself based on what I know I can handle, what my body needs (potassium! protein!), and what foods commonly cause reactions. In the past, I think the categories of food I used were too broad. For example, there are so many different kinds of dairy! Reacting to pasteurized yogurt with sugar in it does not mean you will react to unpasteurized cheddar! To be the healthiest I can be, I feel like I really need to take it slowly.

For now, I've come up with a reintroduction schedule to cover the next 3+ months. Starting Monday, I will add the following foods one at a time, every four days, in this order:

• bananas
• brown rice (made with water)
• olive oil
• eggs
• cruciferous vegetables
• chicken
• berries
• sweet potatoes
• nuts/nut milk (w/o added ingredients)
• citrus
• corn
• fish
• tree fruit
• lettuce
• grass-fed pork
• melon
• allium vegetables
• quinoa
• grass-fed beef
• one-seed fruit
• gourds
• seeds
• herbs
• coconut/coconut oil
• honey
• decaf tea
• peas
• oats
• white rice
• beans
• buckwheat
• chia
• white sugar
• pasteurized skim milk

There will be more to add to this list (butter, wheat, grain-fed meats, tomatoes, peppers, salt, brown sugar, spelt, etc.) but that gets me through the middle of July to Jenn and Ryan's wedding which will be followed by our summer vacation. I don't think it's a good idea to test new foods during such an important event and what should be a fun and relaxing week!

I'll keep you posted on my progress! With me luck!