Elimination Diet – Day #1
I recently visited a naturopath to address of a few personal issues (of which I’ll spare you the details) and after my second visit, I walked out of Dr. Ravinder Gill’s office with a “Personal Health Plan”. Sounds simple right? Wrong. This “plan” consisted of taking homeopathic and other supplements at different times, on different days, in different quantities. For someone who loses their keys every week, this will be a challenge to remember.
She also presented me with my Elimination Diet. WHA?! These are 2 words a foodie NEVER wants to hear. Especially when that foodie has a food blog. I must have had “Is this for real?” written across my forehead, because Dr. Gill immediately asked “Are you sure you’re ready to do this?”. I thought to myself – I’m a wine drinking, carb-craving Italian, with one hell of a sweet tooth. But health comes first, so my response was “Of course I am”.
ELIMINATION DIET
For the next THREE WEEKS I must omit the foods below to help us identify any food sensitivities.
- NO dairy
- NO wheat / gluten
- NO sugar – including fruit! Apples & berries are OK every now and then.
- NO alcohol or caffeine
Take a look at the chart in this post for a breakdown of the above food categories.
I’m well aware of the health benefits from avoiding the above….it just hurts cuz they taste SO good. I had hoped wine, given its health perks, would be OK. But it wasn’t my lucky day. So for the next 21 days I’ll be documenting my journey right here. Two reasons for this:
- I’m held accountable for sticking to it.
- You will be introduced to some of the healthiest restaurants & recipes. I’ll do all the searching:)
A few deep breaths and a hundred dollars later, here I am….the first day of my challenge.
DAY 1 of the Elimination Diet
Keith (who’s joining me for the first week) and I decided we deserved a little indulgence before we dive into this diet. It doesn’t get much better than this…
Piece of Dufflet's cherry cheesecake
Aside from indulging in Dufflet Pastries delectable cheesecake this afternoon, we ventured to Kensington Market and popped into one of the few Vegan restaurants I had previously discovered. Click here for my review of Urban Herbivore.
So day #1 turned out to be pretty easy, but something tells me that slice of cheesecake helped. Not off to a good start :-S
Me. Myself. And Food 
Hey Danielle – The blog is great! Full of good info and very witty 😉 I’ve enjoyed checking in and look forward to following your continuing food adventures!! Oh, and best of luck with the elimination diet… as long as you can have some pie everyday I’m sure you will do fine.
As a guy who works out in order to eat, I’m saddened by this. Still, I have heard wonderful results from ppl who have done full-on elimination diets (caffeine too, no?).
Anyway best of luck and thanks for your research re places to eat. I have to say, if rice were out too (blasphemy for a Chinese guy) I wouldn’t last more than a day!
Good catch! Coffee is definitely on the “Avoid List”. Being a non-coffee drinking, this one escaped me. However I do feel the pain of those that love their cup of java.
Just to give you some motivation…my mother (who used to drink ~3 cups a day) did this diet 6 months ago and she’s “off” coffee by choice. She rarely drinks it (nor does she crave it).