This elimination diet meal plan is created to help lower inflammation throughout your body, and help identify food sensitivities and intolerances.
What is an elimination diet?
An elimination diet is an approach to identify food sensitivities. While there are many different elimination diets out there, I chose to follow Dr. Will Cole’s plan after reading the book, The Inflammation Spectrum. The goal of this plan is to find your food triggers that are possibly causing symptoms in you body such as fatigue, weight gain, irritability, brain fog and so much more.
Why follow an elimination diet?
You choose to follow an elimination diet if you have symptoms of inflammation in your body and you believe food could be a culprit of these symptoms. Symptoms could include; brain fog, memory issues, bloating, gas, fatigue, weight gain, hormone imbalance, irritability, mood swings, low sex drive, etc. “Every food you eat is either feeding inflammation or fighting it.” -Dr Will Cole.
My “why” for following this elimination diet
I have been struggling with adult acne, irritability, mood swings, fatigue and bloating off and on for about 2 1/2 years now. Many of these symptoms started after I got off birth control. They got better when I was pregnant with my twins, and then progressively worsened postpartum.
I had given up meat and dairy a few years back and while I followed a “mostly vegan” diet, the bloating was affecting me daily. Since then, I’ve reintroduced meat into my diet in hopes some of the the bloating and fatigue would get better. Some days I feel great and other days I feel lousy.
I had blood work done at my Functional Medicine Doctor office which showed everything is mainly “normal.” I took a food sensitivity test, testing the top 10 common allergens, and through this I found out I had sensitivities to bananas, eggs, almonds and peanuts.
I started my first elimination diet in which I eliminated these foods for about 2 months. Unfortunately, I only had minimum change in symptoms. Some of the bloating got better and I increased my energy (some days), but I still don’t feel my best. I knew I was still missing something…
Blood Sugar Balance
Knowing I was missing something in my health journey, I decided to learn about balancing blood sugar. I thought MAYBE it was a blood sugar problem.
After hearing great things, I bought Kelly LeVeque’s Body Love book to learn about blood sugar balance. It was SO good and I’ve learned a ton. I also took her Fab Four Fundamentals course to continue my learning on blood sugar and how it affects the body. Again, SOOO good!
I started listening to her podcast which introduced me to Dr. Will Cole and his elimination diet. It sounded like a guided elimination diet which explains how each food category could be causing inflammation in your body. Some of the symptoms he described are the exact symptoms I have been experiencing!
Which brings me here…
8 Week Elimination Diet Plan
After reading Dr. Will Cole’s Inflammation Spectrum book and taking the inflammation quiz, it showed I have inflammation in a slew of areas. The top two were in the brain/nervous system and the hormonal (endocrine) system. In order to see if food is at the core of these problems, I’ve decided to follow his 8 week plan.
What I’ll be eliminating for 8 weeks
- grains
- dairy
- added sweeteners (all sugar)
- inflammatory oils (vegetable oils)
- legumes (lentils, beans, peanuts, soy)
- nuts and seeds
- eggs
- nightshades (tomatoes, tomatillos, sweet and hot peppers, white potatoes, eggplant, goji berries)
- coffee (sob)
- alcohol
I think the hardest for me will be the coffee and grains! I’m a cracker lover and my husband is a BIG chip fan. He is not doing this elimination diet so I’ve got to keep strong and stay away from his snacks (and coffee!).
As I’m writing this, I’m on day 7 of this elimination diet. The plan suggests starting slow, eliminating one category a day, for 8 weeks then removing everything for 8 weeks. On Monday of this week, I gave up everything except for coffee. This week, I’ll give up everything…coffee included. =(
Week 1 Meals (eliminated everything except for coffee)
Below are the meals I ate during week one of the elimination diet.
Breakfast
- Coffee, Green Avocado Smoothie (repeated all week).
**For the smoothie I replaced the chia seeds with psyllium husk powder (for fiber) and used water instead of the macadamia milk.
Morning Snack
The breakfast smoothie filled me up through lunch, so a morning snack wasn’t needed most days. If I did get hungry, I grabbed roughly 1/4-1/2 cup strawberries.
Lunch
- Wild Planet’s tuna salad with mixed greens, brussels sprouts, carrots, sauerkraut and homemade salad dressing. (x2)
- Grilled chicken salad with sweet potato fries, brussels sprouts, broccoli, avocado and homemade salad dressing. (x2)
- Grilled chicken, sauteed mushroom with onion, garlic and coconut milk, steamed broccoli and cauliflower rice.
- 1/2 baked sweet potato, roasted mixed vegetables, avocado and sardines with lemon juice and sea salt.
- Leftovers
this …
Dinner
- Monday– Grass fed steak, sweet potato fries, roasted carrots/broccoli/cauliflower
- Tuesday- Oven baked salmon, cauliflower rice with coconut oil, salt and pepper, leftover roasted carrots/broccoli/cauliflower, sauerkraut
- Wednesday- Sauteed mushrooms with sweet onion, garlic, spinach and coconut milk over cauliflower rice, grilled chicken, steamed broccoli and sauerkraut
- Thursday- Grass fed burgers, carrot fries, leftover roasted vegetables, avocado, sauerkraut
- Friday- Random “leftovers” dinner- 1/2 baked sweet potato, mushroom and broccoli, leftover tuna from lunch, sauerkraut, sea salt and pepper.
- Saturday- I cooked a whole baked chicken (which will last 3 nights), sweet potato fries, green beans
- Sunday- leftover baked chicken, green beans/cauliflower rice/mushroom stir fry with coconut aminos.
Other Snacks
I didn’t snack a lot, but did have a few throughout the week.
- fresh strawberries
- 2 dates (afternoon treat)
- Epic bar- venison flavor (ate the day I had the mushroom meal for lunch. Lunch didn’t provide enough protein, and I was hungry a couple hours later).
- Barre Carrot chips (found at the grocery store. Only ingredients are carrots and sea salt!). I was super excited about this because I was craving chips.
How I feel after week 1
During this time I’ll be tracking energy levels, acne, bloating, cravings and sleep.
- Energy- my energy is up slightly more than normal. I started working out daily so that may have something to do with it as well. Next week will be interesting with no coffee. I AM replacing the coffee with green tea, to still get a little caffeine in. I’m using Pique green tea.
- Acne- MAYBE at the end of this I’ll show before and after pictures, but for now, I’m keeping those to myself. EEK! NO change in acne. Still having little white bumps all over my forehead and cheeks. Cystic acne is still present.
- Bloating– I didn’t feel bloated Monday-Wednesday, but felt bloated Thursday-Saturday. I snacked more those days, so I’m not sure if it had anything to do with it or not?
- Cravings- currently craving chocolate, cookies and salty chips. Trying to satisfy those cravings with fresh fruit and the carrot chips.
- Sleep- I’m feeling best when I turn the lights off by 9:30pm and get up at 6:00am. Going to bed past 10 kills me the next day. I feel old.
Week 2 Elimination diet coming soon! =)
