The ever-changing diet

Woohoo, summer is here! Hard to believe it finally made it as we’ve been battling with endless rain here in the northeast.  I say that as I look outside at the puddles gathering in the street, but hey we had a nice 4th of July weekend anyway.

I wanted to give you a quick update on my latest diet.  After meeting with a great naturopath to discuss some chronic issues I’ve been dealing with, we decided the best path for me would be to do a true elimiation diet to find out what food allergies I might be dealing with.   As she asked me what kind of diets I’d tried, I realized as I was answering her that I’m not very good at following rules.  I can’t say I’ve EVER really done a diet completely.  The closest I could come was that I’d gone totally dairy free for 3+ months.  So I realized the only way I would ever do something so restrictive as an elimination diet was by doctors orders (especially a dr. I respect as much as Dr. Layton).  So here I am, day 2 of my elimination.

So what does that mean you ask?  It means: no gluten, no dairy, no soy, no refined sugar, no corn, no caffeine.  I think that’s it.  So what’s left you ask…lots of fruits and vegetables!  Luckily it’s summer (as I mentioned earlier, woohoo!) and I think I can do it. 

I’ll be checking in more regularly sharing my meals and experience.  So far so good!  Wish me luck, only 20.5 more days!  After three weeks off all this stuff I start adding foods back, one at a time, every 48 hours to see if I have a reaction.  See, the idea is to get all reminants of the foods out of your system, so then when you add them in (and as Dr. Layton says, when you eat wheat, REALLY eat wheat..pasta for breakfast, loaf of bread for lunch…), if you have an intolerance it should show up, whether its through a lack of energy, digestive issues, skin irritation, congetion, whatever.  Won’t that part be fun!

So, here’s what my meals have looked like the last two days:

Monday: breakfast- grapes and rice crackers with peanut butter

lunch: salad with tuna fish

dinner: shrimp and scallops with a grapefruit kale salad (raw kale with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, lime juice and chunks of grapefruit)

Tuesday:breakfast: strawberries with cashews

lunch salad with hummus and carrots/rice crackers

dinner: steak and something

So, as you can see, I’m not starving by any means.  I’m kind of surprised I’m not going through withdrawl since my weekend meals consisted of wheat, sugar, caffeine and soy…just filling up in case I was going to miss it! =)

Happy summer,

Jess