The Elimination Diet Workbook by Maggie Moon MS RDN

Author:Maggie Moon, MS, RDN [Moon, Maggie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ulysses Press

PART THREE

How to Do an Elimination Diet

CHAPTER 8

Preparing for an Elimination Diet

On a bare bones level, the elimination diet will include five phases: assess, plan, avoid, challenge, and change. The assessment phase includes keeping and analyzing a food and symptom tracker. The planning phase involves preparing yourself, your household, your kitchen, and your grocery lists for what you’re about to do. The avoidance phase is when you are eating according to one of the plans in this book—the Targeted Elimination Diet or the Catchall Elimination Diet—and you are putting a lot of your preparation and planning into action. The challenge phase is when you start to reintroduce foods, one at a time, in to your diet to determine whether they are safe for you. The change phase is when you incorporate changes to the way you will eat for the long term, so that you can keep your symptoms at bay.

ASSESS: The process starts by keeping a food and symptom tracker. Record everything that passes your lips and any symptoms that develop. This is your baseline data. It should be an accurate reflection of your “before” diet, so eat the way you normally do.

ASSESS: Evaluate your food and symptom tracker. Look for patterns in the foods you eat, as well as in the types of symptoms you have. Identify what foods you eat the most often. Also, take note of what foods you eat before symptoms start to show up. If there are any clear links between foods and symptoms, make a note of these foods. During the elimination diet phase (the avoid phase), you’ll ban them from your pantry. Keep in mind that sometimes symptoms take hours to show up and sometimes they are chronic (e.g., fatigue), and remember that it may not be possible to identify potential triggers right away. If your symptoms tend to fall into groups, make a note of that as well. For example, if your symptoms are stomach cramps, diarrhea, and bloating, make a note that you have digestive symptoms. Or if your symptoms are itchiness, hives, and rashes, then make a note that you have skin-related symptoms.

PLAN: Pick your path. At this point, decide if you want to try the Targeted Elimination Diet, adding on any strong suspects from your food and symptom tracker review. Alternatively, you may opt for the Catchall Elimination Diet, which is more restrictive. This could be the right course if, for example, you have already tried the Targeted Elimination Diet but it didn’t improve your symptoms.

PLAN: Prepare members of your household. The changes to your diet will affect the people in your home, so talk to them about what you’re doing and why, and tell them how it will change the eating dynamics at home for a while. Talk about why you need to eat special meals that are different from everyone else’s, why you’ll have special foods in the pantry and refrigerator for the next few weeks, or why you need to eat at home and not at restaurants for the time being.

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