The Elimination Diet

See if this sounds familiar: You've just read/watched/heard about some nutrient or food group that is going to wreak complete havoc on your body and shorten your lifespan if you continue to consume it. And this wasn't just any old piece of alarmist media, it comes straight from the mouth of (insert trusted media journalist, internet guru or talkshow doctor here).

What should you do?

Let me get this disclaimer out of the way first. This message pertains only to people who are not removing foods because of religious or ethical reasons. If, for example, you are completely opposed to the handling of animals for food and as such have chosen to be vegan/vegetarian, I'm not touching that one. I respect anyone's beliefs and think you should stand your ground accordingly.

But for the REST of you...and believe me, that's a lot...

Let's pick on a good buzz topic: gluten.

However, you can insert anything here: dairy, red meat, etc.

We will also need to do some simple mathematics.

Suppose you are a somewhat overweight individual who consumes an average of 2000 calories a day. You have just read a highly inflammatory book about the terrors of gluten. You sit and examine your diet and it looks something like this:

Bagel with cream-cheese for breakfast (Bruegger's?)
Turkey and cheese sandwich for lunch (Panera?)
Spaghetti and meatballs for dinner (Olive Garden?)

If the aforementioned book got you all unnerved, you would take a diet like this and change it to:

2 eggs for breakfast
Chicken salad for lunch
Pork chops and broccoli for dinner

After 1 month of dietary changes like this, you lose 10lbs. You make the somewhat safe assumption that gluten was to blame and you're never having another piece of bread, cookie, cracker, pasta again.

However, you've forgotten a slight detail. Without even remotely cracking a calorie count, by eliminating all gluten products from the first mealplan you have cut back on your calories by 500-800 a day. It's very safe to assume that you have lost weight not because of lack of gluten but because of a decrease in total calories. Had you taken the first mealplan and cut back on portion sizes to net the same total intake the results would have been...about the same.

But wait! That same gluten bashing book also said that I would have less soreness, bloating, and overall crankiness if I pulled it out of my diet and when I took it out I FELT SO MUCH BETTER!!!

This is, in many ways, anecdotal at best. And here we have the PLACEBO EFFECT.

If you trust the source of your information and you convince yourself that if you follow THAT PLAN, you will feel/look/perform better then there is good reason to assume that you will. In addition, if you were to carelessly eat a piece of bread one evening on your gluten-free diet you may tell yourself through every bite "I'm really going to feel like crap because of this bread". Then guess what...you probably will feel like crap. And yet again, you will blame gluten for all of your life's miseries.

Life/Diet/Health, my friends, is all about BALANCE. Unfortunately, some people hear that word and they equate it to walking on a tightrope with their eyes closed and a hard breeze blowing against them.

Let me clear the air of one more thing too. There are SOME people who have legitimate allergies, which have been tested for, diagnosed, and advised with. If you have Celiac disease, by all means, stay away from gluten.

I can also safely say that it's more likely we all have a threshold. For instance, I might be able to tolerate 8-10 ounces of dairy products a day. You, on the other hand, might only be able to tolerate 4-6 ounces. This is closer to reality.

Make rational decisions with your food, if you feel the need to experiment with different portions and intake amounts of different food groups and nutrients, by all means DO IT.

But playing the elimination game not only can have negative physical ramifications but can screw with your mental perception of food as well.

Need guidance? We can help.