Why Eliminating Food Isn’t Always the Answer
What my experience with AIP taught me about symptoms, triggers, and why more restriction isn’t always the answer
I used to treat food like it was evidence in a crime scene. When you’re struggling with autoimmune flare-ups, it’s easy to start seeing food as the prime suspect.
The boiled eggs, once part of my morning breakfast, now cause me hives.
The potatoes I enjoyed in all forms for lunch now cause stomach pain.
The bourbon, which I sipped during my evening meals, now gave me a stuffy nose.
Okay, maybe that last one I could easily avoid. The point is that when certain foods seem connected to symptoms, it’s easy to start fearing food in general. While elimination diets can be useful, they can contribute to a new problem. Fear.
I discovered this firsthand after a few weeks into the elimination phase of the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP), when I started to feel extreme fatigue. It wasn’t until I reached out to a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner (NTP) that I realized why.
I had unintentionally reduced my carbohydrate intake and subsequently, where I got my energy from. Following a few recommendations from the NTP, I began slowly increasing my carb intake, which provided the nutrients I needed to overcome the 2 p.m. slump.
Looking back, the reason I found myself eating low-carb was that I wasn’t actually tracking what I was doing. No, I don’t mean counting calories and tracking macros. I was reacting to the symptoms (e.g., fatigue) rather than looking at the patterns (e.g., a low-carb diet).
This meant I wasn’t collecting information. I was building a case against food without enough evidence. When every symptom leaves you wanting to eliminate another food, that’s a pretty good sign that what you really need is better information.
What that experience taught me was that nutrition isn’t about avoiding certain foods, but consuming enough of the nutrients our bodies need. More importantly, it taught me that symptoms don’t tell the full story. Patterns do.
Before we dive into this, there are two things I must disclose. One, I became an AIP Certified Coach after experiencing significant improvements in my energy levels and a reduction in joint pain. Secondly, I don’t believe that AIP is the right approach for everyone, which is where I want to start.
AIP might not be the right approach for you if:
You have a history of disordered eating and/or an eating disorder. Because AIP requires an elimination phase, if you have a history of engaging in disordered eating or eating disorder behaviors, working with a healthcare professional is really a non-negotiable. I say this as a person with a long history of disordered eating who invested in a health coach to ensure I had support to prevent me from falling back into those disordered eating habits. If you have a history, I’m not saying you shouldn’t ever do AIP, but I am saying you shouldn’t do AIP alone.
You’re solely focused on weight loss. Even though the dietary changes you’re making could result in weight loss, the goal on AIP isn’t for you to lose weight. When you approach AIP intending to lose weight, you can become so fixated on the number on the scale that you ignore the real intention of reducing your autoimmune symptoms. Even if you do lose weight, it doesn’t mean your symptoms will improve if you’re not addressing the actual root cause of your symptoms.
You fear reintroducing foods will reignite your symptoms. What is often not talked about enough when it comes to AIP is the fear of reintroducing foods. That fear has led to women eliminating foods for not weeks, not months, but years! When you struggle with terrible symptoms, it’s understandable that you don’t want to take the risk of them returning. However, you deserve to live a life where you’re not fearing food.
What I believe would be more supportive for those who fall into the above categories is to focus less on the food and more on what might be triggering your symptoms in the first place.
When you’ve spent enough mornings wondering what your legs are going to do when you get out of bed.
When you’ve gone to bed and woke up in the middle of the night in so much pain you were tempted to call 911.
Avoiding food can start to feel safer than understanding your symptoms.
When we just look at symptoms, like cravings, brain fog, and muscle pain, we are focusing on the outcomes. However, what we aren’t focusing on is the cause of those symptoms.
Is it really a discipline problem? Or, is your body asking for something different?
Is your memory failing with age? Or is lack of sleep taking a toll?
Is pain weakness leaving your body? Or, does your body need more protein?
This is the reason why tracking not only your symptoms, but also your triggers matters. When you’re only tracking symptoms, you can falsely assume they’re solely the result of your dietary choices.
However, when you start tracking your triggers, you begin to notice the patterns of what happened before your symptoms. Whether you’re someone with Celiac Disease that accidently ate gluten, or a stressful evening talking about family finances is making it difficult for you to fall asleep.
The lesson that I want you to take from this is that it’s through looking at the patterns that the symptoms you’re experiencing start making sense. Otherwise, you’re simply just guessing what might be the problem rather than using actual data to validate your conclusion.
Because the goal isn’t to fear food. The goal is to understand your body.
That’s exactly why I created the Feel Like Yourself Again Without Another Elimination Diet guide, because you don’t need another set of rules. Instead, you need a simple tracker that will allow you to see the patterns that are triggering your symptoms.
Remember, the goal isn’t perfection, but pattern recognition.
If you’re tired of treating every symptom like a mystery and every meal like a risk, start here. Download Feel Like Yourself Again Without Another Elimination Diet! No opt-in required.
And, once you do, reply to this email or drop a comment below. I’d love to help you not just download another guide.
You deserve more than another list of foods to avoid. You deserve to understand what your body has been trying to tell you all along.
Tomesha