Elimination Diet

I know there were a few of us who had just started an elimination diet, or were going to soon. For those of you who are currently in the beginning stages of one, how's it going? Have you noticed any positives out of it so far?

I started mine Tuesday, and it is quite limited. I'll be honest, I'm a skeptic at heart and thinking "why did I sign up for this?!" a few days this week. Day 1 was the worst, with the caffeine withdrawl and probably a bit of hangover from 2 glasses of wine the night before (what was I thinking?!). However, the withdrawl was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I do feel I'm in a better mood and my joints aren't as achy (especially my low back), and I haven't had to use the Icy Hot on my low back this week. I also have not taken allergy medicine in the past 3 days because I haven't felt I've needed to, and it was getting pretty bad before I started. However, that could just be from eliminating the alcohol, caffeine and even cow's milk. I get to add chicken and rice (among some other things) back in this week, and I never thought I'd be so excited to have chicken and rice!

psychod787 wrote: »

Elimination Diet? Isn't that a really high fiber diet? 🤔

It's more like the Eliminate All the Things You Like to Eat diet. It's actually very low fiber since it cuts out all whole grains, most legumes.It's a low irritant diet, supposedly eliminating things that aren't easily digested and bother the bowel.

Theo166 wrote: »

I've been on one for two weeks. 1st was warm up where you empty out the fridge, 2nd week has been full compliance.
I haven't been logging well but I find I'm eating less and my hunger is also less. I shed a ton of water just after going to full compliance.
Macro wise I was high protein/fat while the elimination diet has cut them back in favor of increased fruit/veggies.

I wasn't trying to address a specific inflammation issue and can't yet identify any benefits yet besides increased weight loss. I am surprised that my hunger is reduced with the lower protein & fat, no dairy.

I have definitely been low on protein, and I'm feeling it. MY allowed proteins were sole (which you can't find), scallops (tried some-yuck), cod (ok), tuna (ok) lamb (ok, but hard to find and expensive). Today I get to add chicken-YAY! I may be eating chicken at every meal. It seems a lot of the phase 1-2 foods for me are seafood. I hated seafood as a kid, but luckily before all this I started trying to eat some more of it, and my kids really like fish and my daughter LOVES shrimp. I was allowed a couple kinds of nuts/seeds and a couple fruits/veggies and one grain (buckwheat), but have been able to meet my fiber needs.

This next phase I'm allowed more foods, but can only add in one per day. I said it before, but if I would've rolled my eyes at something like this and was only doing something like this based on the recommendation of my physical therapist. Sunday was my heavy lifting day at the gym, so kind of a test to see if this would really do anything for my after-workout aches. I did not have any low back pain, even after my heavy deadlift sets and setting a new 1 Max PR. Definitely can't eat like this forever, though, but supposedly this also "calms" the immune system down so when I do go back to eating some of those higher reactive foods (more sparingly), my body shouldn't react as much. We'll see.