Elimination Diet: Wrap-Up

Today marks the official end of the elmination diet. It feels like its been over for a while after we added bread and dairy, but it wasn't.

This week I added corn. Corn is pretty easy to avoid in its basic form. No popcorn, corn tortillas, corn bread, etc, but corn syrup and corn starch is in almost every type of packaged food! I'm proud to say I have had little to zero servings of packaged food for the past 3 months. We have had things that are in packages but needed to be added during this diet, like icecream, but we read the labels all the way through to avoid corn in any form.

I didn't miss it much, but the nachos we made this week with corn chips were delicious!

So what happened to our diets and bodies over the past 3 months? It has been quite an intersting experience. Was it worth all of the trouble? Would I recommend it to anyone else?

Here are the noticable benefits/effects of the elimination diet:

• We both lost weight.
• I learned what foods I need to avoid.
• We are more appreciative of foods that most people take for granted (if you don't have any grains except quinoa for a month, rice tastes pretty amazing).
• I have fewer stomach aches.
• We both tried new foods, like adzuki beans and collard greens.
• I realized we don't need packaged food, bread, or any animal products to eat delicious meals.
• I learned that refined sugar makes my sugar levels unstable and leads to more "crashing" between meals.

It was some of what I expected and some of what I didn't. I never thought I would find I couldn't eat my favorite foods and I didn't expect to feel so much better without sugar. I thought Aaron might lose weight but I had no idea how much. I was hoping that I would have less stomach aches, and I'm happy it worked.

So to answer the above questions: YES it was worth all of the trouble and YES I have already reccommended it to people. However, I honestly reccomend it as a last resort, because it takes a certain kind of desperation to stick to such a strict diet.

I will now start to add some things that weren't added back at all, like mushrooms and olives.

Next I will try the things that I think I shouldn't eat just to be sure: coffee and tomatoes are first on the list.

We are starting to resort back to some of the foods we ate before (like nachos and sandwiches) but overall our diet has changed for the better. I am more focused on vegetable or legume based meals instead of grains, dairy, or soy products. I think Aaron and I will do a mini-version of this diet whenever we aren't feeling right, probably after the holidays!