Let’s All Meat wishes everyone a Happy New Year! And with the new year means a fresh start for everyone. Today marks the beginning of various New Years Resolutions, from eating better to exercising more. In today’s blog post I want to focus on the former: Those wanting to improve their diet to get healthier. A great way to do just that is the Elimination Diet. What is that? I’ll explain, along with detailing its benefits.

New Year Means Fresh Start With The Elimination Diet

What is the Elimination Diet? It’s a way of eating that reduces the number of food groups and/or items a person eats. According to Healthline this diet is great to determine if a person has any food intolerances and/or allergies. I did this diet a few different times over the last five years for those same reasons. After a few years on a Keto Diet I discovered I couldn’t digest green leafy vegetables as well as I could years ago. I removed spinach from my diet which helped a ton. Yet, eating broccoli and cabbage also caused some issues. So I gave those up too. Finally, my digestion improved greatly!

Another reason to try the Elimination Diet is to determine if you have a food allergy. I also had to do this personally. About eight or so years ago I ran into an issue with severely itchy eyes. I thought it was a case of dry eyes so I used eye drops. Unfortunately, this was only a temporary solution as my eyes would itch at different times at the day. Upon discussing this issue with my mom she asked me what I ate. At the time peaches were in season (I wasn’t on the Keto Diet back then) and I ate them. My mom informed me that my grandfather was allergic to peaches and so was one of my aunts. So I was probably developed that allergy. And I was able to resolve my itchy eyes after I stopped eating peaches. Unfortunately, my allergy evolved and I break out in hives if I even touch the fruit. So I have to be careful, especially in the grocery store.

So How Do You Start This Diet?

Since the new year means a fresh start with the Elimination Diet how do you start? Well, there’s a couple of ways;

• Remove one or a few food items or groups at a time
• Eat meat only and then add one food item or group at a time

Going with the first option takes more time but isn’t as severe. And when I mean “severe” I mean jarring to the senses. Some people don’t like making drastic changes to their way of eating and need to start slowly. If you’re this way then I suggest removing one food item like sodas, or one food group like processed foods. Do this for a week and then you can remove another food item or another food group.

However, if you want to totally reset your eating habits, your body, and your digestion then I suggest just eating meat only. This is the hardcore option because you only eat meat and drink water. Ideally, you want to prepare the meat yourself so you can control the additional ingredients (like oil and spices), but you can buy already-prepared meat. Again, eat this way for a week and then start adding in food items and/or groups. This way you can determine if you do have a food intolerance. Or a certain food gives you an allergic reaction. Finally, eating this way will improve your health because the change to eating whole foods instead of highly-processed foods gives you more nutrition. And when your body has more nutrients it can heal faster.