Emily and I are 9 days into our Elimination Diet, and things are going well. We have 5 more days on a strict diet, and then we can start adding foods back. We just have to survive Thanksgiving first.

I’m surprised I haven’t had any food cravings thus far. I’m getting sick of the limited foods we can eat, and how hard it is to add flavour, but we’ve been eating pretty good. For the most part, our diet has consisted of fresh fruit and vegetables, rice and quinoa, and beans and nuts. I’ll include a few sample meals at the end of the post.

Throughout our diet, we’ve been keeping detailed logs of everything we eat, how much we sleep and exercise, how our body feels, and any symptoms we experience.

My body has had a mixed reaction to the diet so far. For the most part, my digestive system is happier, but I’ve had mild constipation, which is puzzling considering how much fruit I’ve been eating – maybe I’m not drinking enough water. I’ve also noted some days with dizziness and fatigue, a problem I generally associate with lack of iron, but I’ve been consuming more iron-rich foods than normal.

Here are some of the meals we’ve eaten.

Breakfast
Most of our breakfasts have included porridge made from buckwheat and quinoa, with milk (coconut, almond, or hemp) plus some fresh berries and maybe some agave syrup. Sometimes I also make a smoothy with hemp milk, frozen berries, ground flax seeds, and Vega protein powder – which is vegan and appears to fit within the diet.

Lunch
Lunch is either leftovers from the night before, plus fresh fruit and vegetables, rice crackers and almond butter, hummus, and nuts.

Dinner
We’ve experimented with a few meals, but frequently we eat vegetables (with lots of kale or chard) on top of rice or quinoa with beans. The most elaborate, and tasty meal, I’ve cooked so far involved kale steamed with lemon juice, apples lightly cooked with pecans and goji berries, roasted beats, and roasted garlic – all served over quinoa.

We haven’t decided what order we’ll introduce the foods in, but I’m hoping that tomatoes and soy are near the top of the list.