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Today marks 12 full weeks since the beginning of this journey. That means so far, it's been a 3 month elimination diet and cleanse. During that time I tested many foods and lifestyle changes. Sometimes my reactions were surprising and sometimes things went just as I expected. I've noticed that lifestyle changes have as big of an impact as food choices and reconfirmed how important good, quality sleep is for my personal health and well-being. While some of my findings are common sense, others were completely new and bizarre. I still have more to learn and haven't completed my journey. I didn't cure all of my food allergies and intolerances and I still have lingering symptoms I'd like to cure. But I've made progress and I'm not giving up hope!

I recently reached out to the reddit community to see if anyone else had tried a similar remedy: to cure allergies and intolerances through diet. The response was very interesting and showcased several conflicting viewpoints (typical for food and health research!) The overall message was that if I was looking for a cure, I was bound to be disappointed! While I can resonate with the overall sentiment that this isn't a quick fix and you have to make healthy decisions for life in order to reap their benefits, I think there is a middle ground where I can at least KNOW what will have an impact on me, know what actually causes my symptoms and when and where I can cheat or push the limits on occasion. I believe this should be possible and I'm going to keep searching!

My strategy will change, though. Living on only raw fruits and vegetables during the first 3 weeks (no nightshade, legumes or starchy vegetables) had me feeling really great from a GI perspective, but it isn't sustainable for more long-term elimination diet testing because my face was falling off from lack of fat and I had no energy. Instead, I'm going to eventually transition to a 30 day rotation. I will have a baseline of foods and activities that leave me feeling my best and remove one specific food or food category for the first 2-3 weeks of a cycle. Then I'll use the last week of the cycle to introduce the food/practice and record symptoms.

I'm not quite finished introducing foods from this plan so I'm not ready to start the 30 day rotation quite yet, but I'll plan to start in the next few months (maybe after the couple of bachelorette parties I have this month :).

Things I learned:

I don't react well to tomatoes and peppers. This was a huge shock because I previously included these in almost every single meal. It's possible that these foods lead to more problems than I could have previously imagined.

Caffeine really does affect me more than I want it to so I'll have to continue to limit my intake

Sleep, exercise and not eating or drinking before bed are probably the most important lifestyle changes for me

Celery juice is very calming to the stomach and the throat, but I can't have it every day. Apparently I started to smell like celery. Phew. Poor John 😉

My body doesn't really like seeds.

I can have fattier meats but only in really small portions. aka - no bacon baskets in my near future 🙁

If I eat undercooked/unsprouted lentils, I'm going to have a bad time

My tummy loves lean fish, sweet potatoes, bananas, bone broth, cucumbers, and house pressed juice.

Nuts are good, in moderation

I'm not good at moderation. (I already knew this)

Things I tested:

avocado

chili pepper

olive oil

pasture raised meat

black beans

black lentils

peanuts

pork

hemp seeds

chilies

raw beets

bone broth

sunflower seeds

sweet potato

plantain

potato

eggs

tomato

cooked peppers

additional legumes

eggplant

raw zucchini

fresh fish

decaf coffee

caffeine

almonds

cashews

pistachios

pecans

carob powder

cacao nibs

chocolate

cooked food

sesame seeds

tahini

wine

alcohol

grain free beer

nightshades

lean fish

lean pasture raised meats

greasier meats (bacon, chorizo etc.)

non-GMO, organic King Arthur's flour

Things I still need to test:

note - it's not like I'm going to add all of these things back in full force if a don't react, but I still need to measure the impact to see if they are OK in moderation. And maybe I already tested these, but now I need to get more specific and studious about it.