12 Jul Is An Elimination Food Diet Necessary?
You’ve come across a suggestion that an elimination food diet might be ideal for you, but is it really necessary? In this article, let’s talk about this a little more. Elimination food diets are a pretty common suggestion when you feel that there is a food triggering how you’re feeling. Some of the symptoms that might’ve brought you to consider an elimination diet are:
- Stomach problems {Bloating, gas, acid reflux, IBS, etc}
- Skin problems {Acne, eczema, skin disorders}
- Autoimmunity
- Migraines/Headaches
- ADD/ADHD
What Is An Elimination Food Diet?
This type of diet omits certain foods for a length of time and reintroducing it to see how you feel. To truly understand how your body feels eating a food, a break is usually needed. Typically this break is about 3-4 weeks. We see this so much in our patients. They’ve ate a food for a long time, but when they take it out for awhile and then reintroduce it, it’ll give them severe symptoms. They are like WHAT THE HECK?!
When we say the body needs a break from it to understand how it reacts to you, we mean it! You only know what you know, but when you take it out + you reach this new level – it’s mind blowing how you’ll react.
What Foods Are Taken Out?
What’s really cool about an elimination food diet is that it’s based on YOU! You can customized this whole process, but usually elimination diets avoid foods, such as…
- Dairy
- Wheat
- Soy
- Grains
- Legumes
- Refined Sugar
Even though these foods are commonly taken out for awhile, this doesn’t mean it’s forever. This also doesn’t mean that your elimination diet has to look like this. An elimination diet can be anything you want it to be. Unfortunately, this can be so broad it can seem overwhelming of where to start. Working with a provider can ease your concerns.
Are Elimination Food Diets Necessary?
From our experience, it’s not 100% necessary, but it is insanely helpful on your journey to personalized nutrition. BUT, please don’t forget that there is more to the story if you find yourself getting triggered by a lot of foods. Usually, this can indicate there is a gut issue. It could be microbe-based or problems digesting food. A trigger food is NOT usually the root cause if you dive deep enough – it’s a symptom of something bigger (majority of the time).
Getting help with a provider throughout this journey can make this process simple + give you confidence that you are doing things the right way FOR YOU! Feel free to schedule a call here with our team to go over what you’re struggling with + your health goals.
