Back to the Beginning Day 1 Elimination Diet

I've been feeling less than optimal.  I think I've gotten too lax with my food habits, so I've decided to do another elimination diet again.

I have a better understanding of what I'm doing now so my intention is to be more careful/strict and more observant.

I say "intention" because it's so easy for me to plot and plan on paper, but actual follow-through is something I don't have a great track record for.

But my intention for the next few months is to chart what I eat and how I feel.  Yeah, you'll probably find this boring so I know I'll lose a few recipe followers, but who knows... I may pick up some interested parties who want to see if they too have food intolerances that are affecting their lives.

Day 1:

• 1 T apple cider vinegar in warm water

Warmed some water and added 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar.  Vinegar is on the forbidden list for most elimination diets but I use raw, unfiltered, organic apple cider vinegar that has nothing in it other than vinegar made from apples.  I am DEFINITELY steering clear of other vinegars (white is made from corn, malt is made from barley and turns into like a sugar thing, etc).  Rice vinegar should be okay, too, but I take the apple cider vinegar to help get my Ph into gear.  (I'm generally a very acidic person... hopefully my new eating guidelines will change that.)

I'm big on wild-caught fish.  I won't buy farmed fish.  Ew and morally questionable.  Well, okay, eating ANY flesh is morally questionable, but for me and my situation, I settle for opting for ethically raised and slaughtered over the alternatives of being vegan or eating animals that were mal-treated.

• 4-5 oz of wild-caught salmon 
• 1 can organic green beans
• Coconut aminos
• Olive oil

I start a frying pan on high with a little bit of olive oil.  I rarely ever defrost any meat before cooking so I took three frozen solid salmon fillets and sprinkled them with salt and pepper.

When the oil is hot, I put my frozen fish in face down (skin up).    Then I cover the pan and reduce the heat to medium/low.

While that's cooking I open a can of organic green beans (read the label... mine had nothing in them other than green beans and sea salt), dump them into another pan and begin to heat.  Also, I think I'll stop referring to everything as "organic".  I think you know me by now and you can just assume that everything has the word organic before it.

After the fish is looking pretty cooked, I flip them over and drizzle a little coconut aminos in the pan.  I read the ingredient and although the brand I buy (Braggs) tastes sweet (they use coconut nectar), it's still coconut so I'm going to allow it.  I put the lid back on and let the fish finish cooking.

In the meantime, the beans have warmed enough so I just turn the burner off and let them sit.

When the fish is done, I remove the skin and place one fillet into my bowl, drizzle a little more coconut amino on top, and add the entire can of beans to my bowl (yes, I can be a pig that way).

I prefer to eat pretty big in the morning (usually about 2-3 hours after I've gotten up).  Then a medium lunch.  Then a fairly light dinner.

While I was making breakfast, Mom came in from the garden and asked me if I wanted some tomatoes.  I said no thanks and she got offended, "You always say no whenever I ask if you want some food."  I told her that was not true that I ALWAYS said no.  She said, "Well tell me what you eat and then I will know."  Ugh!  I hate this part of being on a testing diet.  I just told her that it changes every day and today I'm only eating fish and Brussels sprouts.  That's not true but it's infinitely easier.  Why people take offense because you don't want there food is beyond me, but I deal with it all the time.

So I'm going to show you my list for what I can and can't have in the first three weeks.  Keep in mind, you can look up the instructions for elimination diet from five different places and you will get five different lists.  Some allow legumes, others don't.  Some allow certain vinegars, others don't.  Etc.  So here's mine.  It's a combination of what makes sense to my intuition plus what I can handle (there are certain foods I hate).  Oh, and adding to the complexity of this is that I want to lower my carb intake.

For three weeks can have:

• Any veggies other than corn or nightshade family, with root veggies in moderation (carbs)
• Fish (not including shellfish)
• Turkey (not a fan)
• Chicken (maybe... I may see how it goes without chicken first)
• Rice (but I am watching my carbs so rice will be limited)
• Fruit other than citrus (watching my carbs so fruit will be limited; I may also avoid bananas and test them later)
• Berries
• Apple cider or rice vinegar
• Olive oil
• Coconut oil
• Spices/herbs (no cayenne or other peppers)
• Herbal tea (I'm going to stick with single ingredient teas to be on the safe side: peppermint, dandelion, etc)

This does NOT sound like much but three weeks is a small fraction of my lifetime so I will try.

I feel like it's important to rotate foods also so I'm not eating any particular thing every day.  That's a tough one for me, but there's where planning ahead can help.  And planning ahead appeals to the OCD tendencies in me.

The jury is out on nuts, seeds, legumes, and certain grains (amaranth, millet, buckwheat, etc).  Since there's so much differing opinion, I am going to try to eliminate them and add them in during the testing phase.

I realize this doesn't leave me much food (other than veggies) which would make it a lot hard to rotate my foods to ensure I'm not eating the same thing every day.  So I'm going to start on my meal plan and see what it looks like.

A word now on vitamins.  I'm not big on taking supplements.  I'd prefer to get what I need from food, but I realize there are things I probably DO need to supplement my diet with.  The problem is, I'm not 100% sure what's in all of these things and/or where they're derived from.

So I'm going to treat them like the foods... and re-introduce them later during the testing phase.  Except for my omega-3 fish oil.  It's make from cold-water fish, rosemary (preservative), and natural lemon flavor.  THAT, is the only culprit that concerns me.  I'm avoiding citrus... and my oil has lemon flavor.  Sigh... I'm going to go ahead and risk it.  Besides, if it turns out I'm sensitive to citrus I'll have a five-day crying jag.

If I do the elimination diet for three weeks and the symptoms that I expect to disappear do disappear, then I can probably say lemon wasn't the culprit anyway (or natural lemon flavor... whatever that is).

Regarding salt... although I use only non-iodized Himalayan pink salt, I probably could stand to reduce my intake so I will try very hard.

Lunch was a leftover piece of salmon that I'd cooked when I cooked my breakfast salmon and some sauteed spinach.  BTW, the salmon looks weird because this was actually upsidedown... this was the skin side and after I removed the skin I also scrape away some of the brown meat... leaving the fish looking a little ratty but I don't care.

• Spinach
• Coconut oil
• Salt and pepper
• Salmon (as above)

Sad to say but today was the first time I'd ever tasted cooked spinach.  It was WONDERFUL!  It was so wonderful, in fact, that I made some again for dinner.  I ate the spinach while I was preparing my salad.

• One head red leaf lettuce
• Half an English cucumber
• One carrot
• One avocado
• Three radishes
• One celery stalk
• Two onion slices

I have no desire to be THAT low on carbs, so the carrot was a nice addition.

The dressing works better if you spoon it over your salad, scooping from the bottom to get some of the garlic bits in each spoonful.  

• Olive oil
• Apple cider vinegar
• Salt & pepper
• Three garlic cloves
• Pinches of oregano, marjoram, parsley, basil, and thyme

I wanted sunflower seeds in the salad but the only ones I had were roasted in canola oil.  Ew.  I'll have to remedy that (tomorrow hopefully).

Oh, speaking of seeds (and nuts... and maybe even lemons and garlic and vinegar and legumes and other grains!).  I'm not sure if I want to test them.  I do start to get a little overwhelmed by everything.  And I'm used to nuts and seeds taking the place of meat in some of my meals (meaning I don't generally eat fish or meat at every meal, yet never feel satisfied with only veggies).

Well, we'll see.

I did run out to the store (for the lettuce and radishes) and I decided to spoil myself.  I had the choice... a tiny piece of grass-fed bison for $17 or four containers of berries (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries) for about the same cost.  I chose the berries.  That's part of tomorrow's breakfast (along with, most likely, that third piece of salmon).

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