I’ve been chomping at the bit to start the elimination diet, so I started this morning.  Last night we had home made calzones which were terrific but also contained 3 of the foods that I’m testing for a sensitivity: Dairy, tomatoes, and wheat.   

So earlier this week I shopped for the elimination diet list of recommended foods and I have to say, it was pretty easy.  OK, finding the rice cereal was a bit difficult and I only located “Cream of Rice” next to the “Cream of Wheat”.  Actually now that I say it, “Cream of Rice” sounds like a pretty good swear word substitute;  Awww, CREAM OF RICE!!!  Ha!  I like it. 

Back to shopping, I picked up some blackberries, strawberries, and a bunch of pouches of Salmon and a few cans of tuna for lunches (I’m not cooking for lunch!).  I stocked up on frozen Salmon and Tilapia for dinners, two bags of baby spinach, a couple bags of raw unsalted almonds, and low sodium vegetable broth.  

The shopping list calls for Green Tea and I found a Green Tea with Mint.  That’s pretty exciting because I’ve never liked Green Tea but I love peppermint herb tea.  Guess what?  I still don’t like it.  The hint of mint made it a touch better, but it still tastes like grass.  Blech!  Oh well, I can get over the grassy taste as long as I get a little hit of caffeine.

Day 1:  I’m a little worried, because so far  this seems too easy.  I drank my green-grass tea this morning and made a serving of Cream of Rice which tastes exactly like Cream of Wheat.    I didn’t have any almonds right away and felt a little hungry only an hour after the Cream of Rice.  A couple handfuls of Almond and I was good throughout my early morning trainings.  Just for the record, I’m not trying to lose weight, so I’ll be doing what I always do: eat whatever it takes to keep from being hungry when I’m training clients or off doing stuff!

The hardest thing so far was not enjoying the huge spread of food and goodies at the Bay Nordic Youth end of year party.  I had some fruit (non-citrus) and waited until I got home to eat my Salmon and Spinach salad with strawberries.  Yum!  That was delicious and I was pretty proud of my use of the pouched Salmon… until I read the label and noticed that the broth used has Soy in it.  Dang!  I’ll have to figure that one out since soy is one of my target foods.

So that’s Day one in a nutshell.  Here’s my original post if you want to learn more about the elimination diet to establish your food sensitivities. -Ryan