Elimination Diet - Reintroduction Part 1

I did end up starting reintroducing foods somewhere about day 17. Between day 14-17 I could tell I was just not feeling good because of the lack of carbs. I know this was an issue for me when I tried gluten-free (and many others, just google low carb hashimotos!) and its much harder to compensate for that without grains as well. I just can't eat enough potatoes and bananas to supply me with the carbs I need to feel good. And they say right about two weeks of Paleo is when you often hit ketosis and that's right when I started to feel bad. Coincidence? Probably not. The doctor I am working with for Jonah's issues recommended 2-3 weeks as a good length for a gluten/dairy break for him anyway and since I was planning on doing much slower food reintroduction period than the 10 days Whole30 recommends, it seemed like a good time to get us all started.

That said, it wasn't a pretty start! I went with brown rice. Not because I had any great craving for brown rice but I had already planned the meals for the week and it was pretty simply to just make rice for everyone instead of making cauliflower rice for me to go along with everyone's brown rice. And I wasn't expecting any issues. And I actually felt really good that first hour (because, finally, carbs!) But then... Brown rice is now dead to me! I seriously felt like I had eaten a bag of rocks. That's the only way to describe it. I was that wolf in Little Red Riding Hood and was going to experience death by rocks. 24 hours later, I had not died but I had lost the desire to ever eat rice again. Now I have heard that white rice is a lot easier to digest and many who can't tolerate brown rice do just fine with an occasional serving of white rice. I am not yet at a place where I want to try this. Maybe down the road.

After I recovered from my one serving of brown rice, I waited another two days just to be mentally prepared. At this point, I'm not going to lie, I was really scared to try anything else. But I went with oats. Again, because kids eat oatmeal 2-3x a week so eating the same is very convenient. No issues.

Wheat a few days later. I've tried being gluten free for almost a year with no discernible difference in my labs or symptoms before so I was pretty sure it would be fine. Then 18 hours after trying to Wheat, I ended up with the horrible stomach flu. Violent vomiting a full day and a half after eating a sandwich is a bit extreme for a reaction to wheat so I was pretty sure it was just a stomach bug - but I was still nervous. The next day I was up to the BRAT diet. Except the BRAT diet without rice or wheat is just bananas and applesauce. That's not very sustaining. By the end of the day, I did try toast with almond butter and that was fine. No issues with wheat since. Kids didn't have issues with wheat either. And boy, are they happy to have their pb&j sandwiches back as a lunch option!

We actually just started dairy yesterday but jury is still out so I'll update that next time. And then I have some other stuff like corn, quinoa, beans and peanuts.

Sugar itself isn't a category to introduce on it's own like the foods because it just tends to come with them but I am keeping track of when I have sweeter things and how I feel. So far, I haven't done much. No binging, although I have wanted to! We had pancakes and they have a bit of sugar in them but I topped mine with fruit instead of maple syrup. I did make a paleo chocolate bar last week with cocoa, coconut oil, and maple syrup but even a small square of barely sweetened (we're talking 1 Tablespoon maple syrup in a 8x8 pan) treat was a bit much for me. I just felt jittery and had a headache later. The only new thing in that was the maple syrup so just as I suspected, I need to be very cautious about my sugar intake, even in more natural forms. My brain says eat a big bowl of ice cream, my body thinks that might be a bad idea. But for now, we keep going. The end is near!