Today is Day One of my 1-2 week long elimination diet! I plan on posting updates a few times throughout the week because really want you to know what I’m going through and how I’m feeling, just in case you decide to do an elimination diet yourself one day.
Early Morning
7:00am: The first thing I typically do is eat a bit of granola and drink my coffee (pre-workout snack). Well, I couldn’t enjoy my granola because of some of the ingredients (mainly peanuts), so instead I created a new (peanut and gluten free) granola, which I really enjoyed.
Granola: gluten free oats, almond butter, molasses, almonds and walnuts
I’ll just go ahead and admit that caffeinated coffee is not supposed to be included in this elimination diet. However, I’m just not able to go from drinking it, to not drinking it, overnight! It’s almost like telling a nicotine addict that they have to stop smoking cigarettes, tomorrow. I can give up every other delicious aspect of my diet, but the coffee is here to stay. So you might think I am cheating, and that’s fine, I won’t deny that. I typically ingest about 300-350 mg caffeine a day (300 mg is the max for health purposes, I’m working on cutting back), but this morning I only made about 220 mg worth of coffee. So I am clearly trying to cut back for the purpose of this diet (who knows, maybe I’ll stick to it)!
As I went to take my Flintstone multivitamin, I noticed it has aspartame, which is not a part of this diet. I still took the vitamin because I’m not about to go buy a special vitamin for this diet. I’ve already spent $100 more on groceries this month!
Mid-Morning Breakfast
9:30 am: After my workout I ate my gluten free oats, using almond milk instead of water. I also mixed in pumpkin puree and almond butter. I typically sprinkle some Truvia on top of my oats, but since Truvia contains sugar alcohols, I bought Stevia to use instead. I really don’t like it as much as Truvia 
Mid-Afternoon Lunch
1:30 pm: I didn’t have to work today so I had the ability to put together a fairly substantial lunch.
I made a salad with organic spinach, organic chicken breast (marinated in rice and balsamic vinegar prior to cooking), butternut squash, and Daiya “cheese”.
Have you seen or tried this stuff before? It’s awesome!! I hear it melts really well too. It definitely tasted like cheddar cheese, in my opinion (I’m not sure Nick would agree though).
Here is my only problem with this “cheese”:
No calcium!! Ok, so it’s not supposed to be a replacement for cheese, but still, is it really that hard to fortify with a bit of calcium?! For once I’m begging for fortification.
I also had some of these veggie chips, which I purchased at Market District. These things are so addicting. They are made with a bunch of dehydrated squashes and green beans.
Late Afternoon
I’m getting most of my calcium from almond milk and cultured coconut milk. I chose the cultured coconut milk so I could get some probiotics and prebiotics each day (I typically rely on kefir and/or yogurt for these). Did you know that this cultured coconut milk has 30% DV of magnesium (great for diabetics!) and 35% DV of B12 (great for vegans!!!!)?! And, it tastes pretty delicious. Buy the original flavor if you don’t want a bunch of added sugars.
I also snacked on more granola, more veggie chips, a bit of quinoa, and some almond butter throughout the afternoon.
Evening Meal
7:00pm: I’m allowed to have fish on this diet, so I stocked up on salmon, cod, and tilapia. Tonight I had some tilapia. I simply baked it in the oven with a bit of EVOO on top, and some simple seasoning (garlic free).
I ate my carrots and broccoli with some balsamic vinaigrette. Typically I use blue cheese dressing, but there are ingredients in the blue cheese dressing that I have to eliminate.
Some Things I’ve Learned Thus Far
– I have two addictions; chocolate and caffeine. I will say, however, I am very proud of myself for surviving my first day with about 100 mg LESS caffeine than normal! And I’m feeling pretty good. As for the chocolate, I typically eat a piece right after dinner. I literally have nothing sweet to eat right now. It’s rough (especially since we have 5 bags of Halloween candy in the closet….).
– I miss condiments! Three times today I wanted to use a condiment, but couldn’t (Red Hot, blue cheese dressing, and soy sauce). I need to find something I can use instead of these.
– It’s really hard to get enough calcium without being able to eat dairy and soy! The almond milk is fine, but the coconut kefir is something I need to watch because I’m not supposed to have coconut on my low FODMAPs diet. I think the coconut flesh is worse, but coconut milk may still cause problems. So far, however, I’m fine.
Stay tuned for another update as the week progresses. I hope you are all having a wonderful week, so far!
