Today marks my seventh day on the Autoimmune Protocol Diet(AIP). For those of you who don’t know, the AIP diet is a restricted version of the Paleo diet. The purpose of this diet is to take immune responsive(or potentially responsive) foods out of your diet and try to get your autoimmune diseases into remission. Here are the different foods I am not eating or drinking while I am in the elimination phase:
- Grains
- Alcohol Legumes
- Nightshades
- Dairy
- Caffeine
- Dairy
- Food additives
- Refined/Processed Sugars
- Eggs
- Refined/Processed Oils
- Nuts
- Seeds
- Fruit and Berry Based Spices
I’m slowly processing all of this food out, and I will be for the next few weeks. Once I complete eliminating all of these foods I will stay in the elimination phase for at least 30 days and I can take that time out longer if I feel I need too. After the elimination phase I will start to reintroduce foods back in to see if I have any reactions to them.
So far this first week was hard. I felt awful on Monday night after not having any simple carbs for a couple of days. I had a headache and a very upset stomach. I was very hungry al
l week so I was carrying around snacks like clementine’s and beef jerky I made at home. I’m slowly not feeling so very hungry all the time as the week goes on. I’m looking into different “fat bombs” that I can make to help with this diet and the whole process.
The beef jerky was ok, it’s going to be a learning process with smoking my own jerky but I look forward to the process. I have yet to make any bone broth, but I plan on doing that soon. I bought some at the store this week and it actually had a hole in it! I was thawing it in a bowl of water and lost all of my bone broth! It was so frustrating.
I did try some new stuff this week. I made an arugula salad with fennel and grapefruit with a lemon vinaigrette. It was actually pretty good. I wrote up a meal plan for the week to try and keep myself on track. It helped out quite a bit and I didn’t hold myself rigid to this schedule. I allowed stuff to be moved around if needed.
Another thing I’m doing is keeping a symptom journal. I want to know if the new diet is helping and if I have any reactions to new foods I’m eating. So far the worst thing with this diet is the hunger and the lethargy. I foresee that going away as my body gets used to this new diet. It’s used to having a lot of potatoes!
My goal with this diet is to help me feel better. I’m doing well on my medications. My bloodwork is coming back great and I have mucosal healing in my bowels as of Oct 2016, but most of the time I still don’t feel like I’m 100% well. My rheumatologist believes that there is inflammation going on in my body that science just isn’t good enough to see yet. But no one wants to put me on anymore medications. So what I have left is diet. I haven’t really given a diet a go since I was diagnosed with a fructose malabsorption. I figured it’s worth a shot.
Until next time!
