Elimination Diets - Simple Steps To Start

Why do an elimination diet?

Elimination diets are used to identify food sensitivities and intolerances.

Elimination diets work a lot like a science experiment to help you identify foods that lead to a wide range of bothersome symptoms. 

What’s a food sensitivity vs. food intolerance?

According to the American Academy of Allergy Asthma & Immunology, “A food intolerance or a food sensitivity occurs when a person has difficulty digesting a particular food.” For simplicity, we’ll use the word “sensitivity” throughout this article.

Unlike food allergies—which involve the immune system—food sensitivities occur when the gut reacts poorly to specific foods and ingredients. These reactions generally unfold in a couple ways:

• Inflammation: Certain foods irritate gut tissues, leading to symptoms throughout the body. For example, the amines naturally present in red wine can expand blood vessels, triggering migraines in some people.
• Indigestion: Other times, the digestive tract fails to properly break down certain foods. For example, you’ve probably heard of lactose intolerance. Some people’s intestines don’t produce enough of the enzyme lactase to digest lactose, a sugar present in dairy. The result: gas, bloating, and diarrhea.

What symptoms can be addressed by an elimination diet?

A growing body of evidence shows that food sensitivities can lead to a wide range of unwanted symptoms. For example, food sensitivities have been linked to:

• ADD/ADHD
• Bloating
• Brain fog
• Depression
• Diarrhea
• Fatigue
• Headaches
• Obesity
• Pain
• Rashes
• Stomach aches

And much more.

Wow, that’s a big list! You may wonder: If food sensitivities involve the gut, how do symptoms show up all over the body—in the skin (rashes), brain (headaches), or joints (pain)?

Here’s why. Our gastrointestinal (GI) tract does a lot more than just digest and absorb food. Surprisingly, the GI tract also has its own independently working nervous system (aka the enteric nervous system).

Therefore, the GI tract is rich in neurotransmitters, hormones, chemical messengers, enzymes, and bacteria. Indeed, it’s even home to 70 percent of your body’s entire immune system!

Food sensitivities may also contribute, directly or indirectly, to many other problematic aspects of digestion: microbial imbalances, motility issues, detoxification abnormalities, and intestinal permeability.

This explains why problems in the gut can show up all over—in the form of migraines, chronic pain, eczema and other rashes, and brain fog, among many other symptoms and health problems.

So it makes sense that, if you’re suffering from food sensitivities, following an elimination diet for a few weeks could be the most profound dietary change you’ll ever make. For some people, the results can feel nothing short of miraculous.

What are the benefits of an elimination diet?

Elimination diets help you to collect and analyze empirical evidence, using experimentation and observation based on what happens in your body as you change what you eat. If your headaches disappear after you’ve removed certain foods only to suddenly resurface when you reintroduce chocolate, that’s a powerful clue.

Without an elimination diet, you can only guess about causes and their effects. 

Are you bloated because of the onions you ate at lunch? Or was it the beer? Or is the bloat from something non-food related, such as eating too quickly?

This guesswork gets even more difficult when:

• Symptoms show up outside of the gut. Did you wake with a migraine because of the wine you had with dinner? Or are you just dehydrated? Or maybe you didn’t sleep well? Similarly, was that skin rash caused by something you ate—or was it caused by contact with a perfume, detergent, or some other irritating substance?
• You can eat small amounts of certain foods without symptoms. For example, one square of chocolate might not cause problems, but when you eat half a bar? Your body rebels.
• Symptoms are delayed. You eat some red pepper and feel fine. Then days later, your joints are achy and swollen. Yep, it’s possible.

An elimination diet helps you pinpoint the true source of such problems, once and for all.

Is it a food sensitivity? Or just normal digestion?

Occasionally people assume they’re sensitive to certain foods when, in reality, they’re merely having a quite normal bodily-response to foods that tend to result in gas-production during digestion.

These include Brassica vegetables—such as cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli and kale—as well as beans, legumes, raw onion, and raw garlic. Rather than eliminate these foods, you may only need to prepare them differently and/or introduce them slowly to allow enough time for your digestive tract to adjust. You may also want to take a probiotic supplement that contains Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG, which is one of the most studied gut bacteria strains. Look for a supplement that contains at least 1 billion live cultures.

What are the side effects of an elimination diet?

Whenever you dramatically change your diet, your body is likely to have a few things to say about it—and this can be especially true with elimination diets.

Though some people truly feel amazing pretty quickly, other people feel worse before they feel better.

Why? An elimination diet involves a rapid and dramatic change. It’s like jumping into high-intensity-interval-training after being out of shape for years.

This is especially true if you go from a heavy intake of caffeine, sugar, and highly-processed foods to a zero intake of these foods and beverages.

As a result, you may initially notice withdrawal symptoms like headaches, fatigue, irritability, or skin flare-ups for a few days to a week.

What are the most common food sensitivities?

Based on data we’ve gathered from the thousands of clients we’ve coached, we can say pretty confidently that the following categories tend to cause the most problems:

• Gluten
• Dairy
• Eggs
• Sweeteners (example: sugar)
• Soy

Example of Some Elimination Diets

The whole foods elimination diet

Highly-processed foods house a wide range of additives that can trigger gut irritation and sensitivities in many people. These include food colorings, sugar alcohols, monosodium glutamate (MSG), and sulfites, among others.

By shifting to a diet rich in minimally-processed whole foods, you can naturally reduce or eliminate those food chemicals while boosting your overall health. As an added bonus, minimally-processed whole foods tend to contain fiber and other nutrients that nourish the digestive tract.

Eliminate just 1 food or food category

If you’re pretty sure you already know which food causes your problems, this is a great option. Let’s say, for example, from past experience, you know that you feel pretty horrid whenever you eat dairy. Then, on this type of elimination diet, you’d eliminate just dairy for 3 weeks. Then you’d reintroduce it to see how you feel.

Eliminate up to 4 foods

This is another great option if you’re pretty sure you know what foods bother you. To do it, only eliminate 1-4 foods that you think might cause problems for you.