What is an Elimination Diet?
What is an Elimination Diet, and why should you do one? At Empowered Health, you will often hear us use the phrase “Food is medicine.” We believe this because the foods you eat can have a profound impact on your physical, mental, and emotional health.
One of the tools we use to help our members learn how food is medicine is the Elimination Diet. Not your typical diet, this procedure is used to identify foods that may be causing an adverse effect in your body by eliminating the foods most known to cause problems. After a period of time, they are then slowly reintroduced one at a time and observing whether that food is associated with any negative symptoms.
The elimination diet is not a treatment in and of itself, but a tool to help identify potential food triggers. Because of this, the diet is intended to last approximately 3 weeks and “eliminates” common food triggers like sugar, caffeine, dairy, red meat, gluten, and more. After the three weeks of elimination comes the food reintroduction phase, which is perhaps even MORE important than the actual elimination phase. During the reintroduction phase each food is added back into the diet slowly to observe any effects it has on the body. This allows participants to easily identify foods that trigger migraines, or even other common ailments like low energy, brain fog, and joint pain!
How do you know if you should try the elimination diet?
There are many reasons why you may choose to do an Elimination Diet or your doctor may suggest you do it. The primary goal is to determine if the symptoms you are struggling with could be caused or exacerbated by the food you are eating. These symptoms could be related to any number of chronic health conditions, including but not limited to:
- Diabetes
- Cardiovascular diseases
- Arthritis and other joint diseases
- Allergies
- Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)
You may also be experiencing other persistent symptoms not directly related to a specific health condition and have not responded to treatments from conventional medicine. These could include:
- Digestive problems
- Headaches
- Chronic sinus drainage
- Low energy
- Depression
- Mood swings
- Eczema
- Skin irritations
- Joint aches
- Asthma
- Weight gain
- Other undesirable symptoms
The question really becomes what if you could reduce your symptoms or lower the quantity of medications you are taking by changing how you eat?
This sounds pretty amazing, doesn’t it. The idea that a simple dietary change could profoundly impact your health and well-being. For many, this is true and you can figure out what changes to make by doing the Elimination Diet.
Ultimately, the Elimination Diet can help you gain peace of mind by knowing how your body responds to food and if food is aggravating or causing your symptoms. Click here to learn more about our Elimination Diet program.