Surprising Benefits of the Elimination Diet

Just recently there seem to have been many more people speaking up about cutting out foods that may be causing them problems. I have tried eliminating foods for a couple of weeks now and have noticed these results already, somewhat unexpectedly. When you have read my person experiences list below, please see the “Who Should Test” list of symptoms at the bottom of this blog and compare. It is with hindsight that I realised I ever had symptoms of food intolerance at all as they take a couple of days to show themselves up.

My list of experiences from 2 weeks elimination.

• Respiration – not needing to stop a few times when carrying heavy shopping and not being out of breath afterwards.
• Clearer hearing – not needing subtitles on the TV and being able to hear what people are saying, even those who mumble.
• Weight loss without any restriction, with white fat cells disappearing while leaving muscle intact.
• Loads of energy – being able to get up after 8 hours sleep and not feel tired at all during the day.
• Thyroid function – as someone supposedly without a functioning thyroid gland, I felt so awake and energetic that I forgot to take any Levothyroxine for a few days and did not notice.
• Clearer body messages – thirst, hunger, symptoms and dislikes all came through very clearly.
• Feeling free of the fear that cancer was genetic and because it killed both my parents and most of my grandparents and knowing that I can avoid food groups such as sugars and keep my immune system working well.
• Being able to find both alcoholic and soft drinks that make an evening more enjoyable, without effecting mood, energy, weight or other symptoms.
• Realising that you don’t miss certain foods thought of as “addictive” after about 3 days, such as cheese. Realising it is the food’s effect on you that causes cravings, not your “addictive personality”.
  

  Turkey steaks fried without oil are really tasty – with salad and swede mash.

• Having a healthy and balanced blood sugar level at all times, which helps regulate insulin.
• Disappearance of muscle ache after activity and reduction of join or general aches and pains.
• More muscle strength.

Hindsight can be very useful when used with new information and understanding. As a child, I remember hating the taste of milk, orange and coconut and had a constantly runny nose, bad acne and weight fluctuation. I also had no working thyroid, hearing loss and undetected Dyspraxia and ADHD. Now I am waiting for my eyesight to improve too! For example:

• There is great news for parents: how changing the menu can save your children from autism, acne, hearing loss, weight gain, thyroid diseases, asthma and a constantly runny nose, among other childhood symptoms.

My interest in immunology, allergy, food intolerances and sensitivities started because my grandfather, a Harley Street GP, was also an allergy specialist who had articles – particularly about asthma – published in the Lancet. I found one of his articles and various citations in the books that started to emerge.

I remembered how my mother, living alone in a house in Surrey while my dad was at work, would probably take in sugar to feel better, which inevitably contributed to depression. How my mother had a ‘siesta’ after lunch everyday and realising that in the decades before she died, we still thought that diets meant resisting sweet things and having low fat and low calorie foods instead of cutting out food groups that cause symptoms.

There are some surprising benefits for the household budget too:

• Lower shopping costs – without buying processed foods of any sort, I seem to be spending less on every shop, while buying same amount of meals. This saving is made through no “peripheries’ too.
• Quicker shop – there are no dilemmas about what to buy. Everything I need is there.
• Not falling for so called foods or drinks promoted in the confusing jungles of choice known as “health food”, “natural” or “organic” shops, which are also often more expensive.
• Knowing what to buy from the local individual shops instead of supermarkets.
• Easier choices in restaurants to have foods that do not contain troublesome food groups.
• Food variety – when you are eating natural foods, you can be more creative in the kitchen combining different ingredients together while cooking. I have experienced a new inspiration for trying different ways to cook food.

What are the 42 safe foods? The foods listed below under their food group are the 42 foods that you can eat as much of you like, when you like while still losing weight, because these are foods you are least or unlikely to have any intolerance, sensitivities or allergies to, making them safe. The funny thing is, these are most of my favourite foods! These are according to Dr John Mansfield in his book The Six Secrets of Successful Weight Loss.

Meat:Turkey, venison, lamb and duck
Fish: Cod, haddock, sea bream, sea bass, mackerel, swordfish, monkfish, plaice and skate.
High carbohydrate vegetables: parsnips, swede, turnips, sweet potato and lentils.
Vegetables: Spinach, green beans, courgettes, marrow and peas.
Fruit: Apples, peaches, pears, persimmon (sharon fruit), pineapple and plums
Salad: Avocados, lettuce, celery, chinese bean sprouts, water cress, olives (green or black) and cucumber.
Nuts: Macadamia, cashews and pistachio.

Of course olive oil is included as a cooking agent, but by following the suggestions on the packages I discovered that all the meats tasted best and were softest and quick to cook fried without any oil and with fat removed during the cooking process, particularly turkey that previously I had either overcooked or had come out dry, even with cooking oil.

The weird thing is, although ordinary people do want to be slim and healthy, we don’t listen to each other or talk about our health in a non-zealous way, which actually puts our friends and families off our latest discoveries. My father, who had an ongoing, active interest in natural medicine, nutrition, health and diets went all evangelical about each new concept he discovered. In his book by Gary Null Ph.D I found a very illuminating paragraph about the effects of casein, the protein in milk, on autism and ADHD, for which million of young people are medicated with Ritalin, especially in the United States.

As a person with Dyspraxia, who has hearing loss – which may be “hereditary” according to my DNA haplogroup U2(e2a1a) – a symptom I have struggled with and wearing a hearing aid tuned to help – is “auditory processing” where I can’t hear what people are saying, especially with background noise, other talking and distraction. It was believed that my hearing was worse in the middle frequencies, where human speech falls, and my hearing aid was adjusted accordingly, plus a directional microphone was added. Since avoiding dairy, my hearing seems to be much clearer. It could also be the effects of yeast and simple carbohydrates as these food groups also have links to Autism.

Just as a supposition, a thought: It has been mentioned that perhaps those with autism have more DNA from Neanderthals than other people. There are links there to the hunter gatherer diet and being intolerant to food groups that have only appeared since the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago. DId Cro Magnon (modern man) spread across Europe, making it harder for hunter gatherers to find the food they needed and cause them illness and death as a result. Do those with autism have genetics that make them intolerant to foods containing yeast, corn, wheat, grains, dairy and other foods that were brought in with farming? These food groups are linked to Cancer too, so is that a modern illness that is wiping out people with specific genes, who also have certain “wayward” characteristics that make them harder to control such as creativity, team working, solution finding, imagination and instincts? Just supposing of course.

If you wanted to speed up the process and get an accurate reading of what foods you ought to avoid, there is the ALCAT test (as introduced in Rudy Rivera MD and Roger Davis Deutsch in their book Your Hidden Food Allergies Are Making You Fat) list of what conditions you could eliminate by avoiding foods your body disagrees with. This list is from Cell Science Systems website in the USA. Both companies are linked from this blog.

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