The Elimination Diet

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FOOD IS THE MOST POWERFUL TOOL FOR CHANGING YOUR LIFE

Whether you have experienced the power of food yourself or know one of the millions of people who have changed their diet and healed themselves, from stomach upset, migraines, eczema, unexplained weight gain, or chronic fatigue, you have a feeling this diet will help you. Chances are, you are right.

After lecturing across the United States and Canada, seeing thousands of clients in clinical practice over the last decade, and earning two degrees in nutritional sciences, I have seen no other thing help people more than the Elimination Diet. They can be at the end of all hope, seeing numerous specialists and taking countless medications, and come back from the brink. All by changing their food.

REMARKABLE RESULTS

Every day the Elimination Diet helps people like Sally feel good again. Some of the remarkable success I've seen in my own practice by changing food alone:

• Jim, 81, let go of arthritis pain
• Christy, 48, got rid of her migraines and back pain
• Penelope, 2, healed her intestines
• Marian, 58, let go of carpal tunnel syndrome and felt 20 years younger
• Joan, 42, had her eczema disappear
• Siblings Charles and Katie, 7 and 9 respectively, improved their autistic symptoms
• Daniel, 44, lost 30 pounds and lowered his blood pressure
• Julie, 17, stopped vomiting after meals
• Linda, 53, experienced clear thinking for the first time in years
• Alex, 25, let go of his embarrassing gas

… and the list goes on.

It doesn't matter if someone comes in with constipation, obesity, MS, or high blood pressure, doing the Elimination Diet drastically alters how their body functions. The results never cease to amaze me.

Logically, it makes sense. Certain foods are chock-full of potentially harmful particles that are not digested well and can easily confuse and excite your immune cells. When we remove these foods that are the most likely to irritate us, many diseases will calm down.

I am not the only one witnessing these profound results. For decades, researchers have been documenting the power of using food to improve a long list of conditions. Here are just a few examples:

• A study published in the journal Clinical Allergy revealed that 91 percent of rheumatoid arthritis sufferers benefited from eliminating foods such as grains, milk, nuts, beef, and eggs.
• Research published in The Lancet determined that 85 percent of migraine sufferers could become headache-free by following an elimination diet. Wheat, oranges, eggs, tea, coffee, chocolate, milk, and corn were some of the foods linked to migraines.
• J. C. Breneman, a pioneer in the area of food allergy research, found that symptoms of gallbladder disease could be eliminated in 100 percent of the people who followed an Elimination Diet. This research, published in the Annals of Allergy, showed that eggs, pork, onions, fowl, milk, coffee, oranges, corn, nuts, and tomatoes could cause the vast majority of gallbladder irritation.

The Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM), the educational organization that has trained some of the most cutting-edge physicians practicing medicine today, teaches the importance of elimination diets in all of their training programs. (I was fortunate enough to study there as well.)

During one of their courses, I heard many statements from esteemed faculty about how eliminating problem foods can help patients heal. Dr. Catherine Willner, a neurologist with the Mayo Clinic, mentioned that her MS clients might benefit from the removal of gluten from their diet. Dr. Mark Hyman, author, clinician, and the current chairman of the IFM board of directors, shared that he had instructed his nutrition staff to put patients on an elimination diet before he would see them in his office. He claimed that 80 percent of them got so much better that he only had to do some fine-tuning from there.

And at another educational seminar, world-renowned thyroid expert and Phoenix-based naturopathic doctor Alan Christianson said that he had seen elimination diets completely change the course of his patients with certain types of thyroid disease.

All of these practitioners (and countless others) were seeing the same things as I was seeing in clinical practice. And why wouldn't they? Most of the common unnecessary symptoms plaguing people today are happening because something is irritating the body. And for more and more people, foods are the primary irritants.

IS YOUR BODY IRRITATED?

When your body is irritated, there is only one way it knows how to respond: It gets inflamed, and sends chemical messengers and immune cells to attack whatever is causing the irritation.

When this attack is going on within the body, symptoms such as fatigue, brain fog, and joint pain can be experienced. You might feel kind of like you're getting the flu, but the lousy feelings never really go away or they seem to come and go mysteriously.

What's likely going on is your body is fighting a battle every time you eat. It's possible that the foods you're eating are being mistaken for dangerous compounds like bacteria and viruses. Could that be why you are walking around with gut pain, brain fog, anxiety, headaches, back pain, and a few extra pounds? Yes. In fact, every common disease that people are suffering from has this inflamed state—better known as inflammation—at its core (you'll learn more about inflammation later in this chapter).

To create healing, we must look to food first. This is not a new concept, but rather a time- and research-tested approach to unnecessary and frustrating symptoms.

THE NEW OLD MEDICINE

Before the introduction of pharmaceuticals, doctors/teachers/medicine men/wise women from all corners of the earth knew that foods created a response in the body. They knew that certain foods promoted mucus, while others cleared it. They knew there were particular foods to avoid when you were feeling anxious, and others to eat to feel calm. And more important, they knew that each person reacted differently to all foods.

Even the designated father of western medicine, Hippocrates, famously stated: "Let thy food be thy medicine." And yet you'd be hard-pressed to find a practitioner of modern medicine who asks you the most basic question: What do you eat every day?

It baffles me that the most influential action we can take to improve our health is often ignored by modern medicine. We can change that with the Elimination Diet.

It is time we look to diet as being at the root of health and wellness in our society. And there is no better tool to examine the effect of our diet on our health than the Elimination Diet. Allergists have been using elimination diets for centuries to determine which harmful foods were causing severe breathing and skin conditions. More recently, Functional Medicine doctors have recognized that they play a much broader role in health care. The success they're reporting in treating autoimmune disorders, intestinal issues, and other chronic health conditions is helping the diet to finally get noticed by mainstream medicine.

I've been implementing this dietary program in my own practice for ten years to help people with laundry lists of symptoms. I have never seen anything produce greater and more profound changes in people's lives. More important, the changes happen fast: if not within the first few days, then within the first few weeks. Research articles reflect that others have seen these same speedy results.

The migraine study referenced earlier from The Lancet reported that headaches disappeared within the first five days in the majority of cases. The previously mentioned research of Dr. J. C. Breneman revealed that discomfort related to gallbladder disease improved within three to five days of starting an elimination diet. In "The effect of diet in rheumatoid arthritis," published in Clinical and Experimental Allergy, symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis were shown to improve after 10 days of eliminating trigger foods.

In my clinical nutrition practice, more than 80 percent of people who go on the Elimination Diet feel better. Within three to five days, many experience relief from symptoms they've dealt with for decades. Within twelve to fourteen days, they feel like they have a new lease on life. For a small investment of time, you can get a return of living life on a completely new level. Is it your turn to feel better?

THE BENEFITS OF THE ELIMINATION DIET

Because I have been trained in Functional Medicine, the diet shared in this book is closely related to the diet recommended by the Institute for Functional Medicine. After reviewing hundreds of articles and getting feedback from thousands of participants, this updated diet has been designed to help the highest number of people suffering from a large range of disorders.

Both historical and modern texts were referenced, industry experts were interviewed, and countless scientific articles were read to determine which foods would be taken out and which foods would be added on the program found in this book.

Perhaps most important of all are the life-changing results of all the people who have gone before you. These individuals have paved the way to getting better fast, and they've experienced incredible benefits by following the Elimination Diet. Let's explore these real-life benefits a bit more and see what people have had to say about their experiences.

The Eight Benefits of the Elimination Diet

Benefit #1: A Clear Mind

Symptoms/conditions eliminated or reduced:

In their own words:

Benefit #2: A Calm Gut

Symptoms/conditions eliminated or reduced:

In their own words:

Benefit #3: No Pain

Symptoms/conditions eliminated or reduced:

In their own words: