In Phase I, you’ll eliminate meat, dairy, all processed foods, and also nutritious foods that include fruits, nuts, seeds, legumes, and grains.
These are classes of foods that have the most reactions.
Foods with the highest numbers of reactions are dairy products, nuts, and grains.
If you still have symptoms even in the first week, one of a couple of things may be the case:
- You have a pervasive food sensitivity (more likely a stronger reaction than just a “sensitivity,” possibly a true allergy) to a food whose presence still is having an effect. To test this, you may want to repeat Phase I and take an extra week on the elimination program to see if symptoms abate with a bit more time. You are reacting to other things in your environment besides food.
- You have some degenerative gut issues that will take time to heal.You unfortunately may have to take a longer time and develop more patience to heal from a very entrenched problem in your body. Don’t give up—just get very scientific about tracking what causes your symptoms and what gives you relief, and be very rigorous about avoiding the forbidden classes of foods.
It’s not just about food sensitivities.
It’s about eliminating foods that take longer to digest, in the interest of giving many systems a much-deserved rest.
So don’t “cheat” and set back your cleanse by introducing a food we are eliminating for a good reason.