Goodbye Peppers!

The pepper phase of the elimination diet has come and gone, and the tomato phase never got a chance. After 3 days of intense stomach aches, one where I almost threw up my dinner, I decided to discontinue with testing nightshade vegetables. The day after this decision, I felt 50% better. The day after that day, I felt 100% better.

Now I'm grappling with the idea of not having any spicy food for a while. I can certainly live without bell peppers, potatoes, and tomatoes, but its the cayenne, paprika, chili powder, jalepenos... etc that are causing some heartache. I just love spicy food! Indian, Thai, Chinese, and Mexican will all be a challenge to eat now.

This is not what I was expecting at all when I started this diet. Because of the range of symptoms I had this week, I'm hopeful that nightshades were the biggest problem (which makes sense because I'm sure in my normal diet I had some form of pepper every day). I'm hopeful that dairy, gluten, and yeast won't be an issue. And Phase 3 continues.

After taking a few days off, we will start Monday by testing beans and then tree nuts (excluding peanuts) later in the week. I'm looking forward to some different sources of protein and some almond butter (sunflower seed butter is not all its cracked up to be.)