I have been dialoguing with many of you about specific diet questions you have. One reminder I would like to offer is this: Rotating Your Foods is critical to the success of the diet. After overcoming the initial hurdles of eliminating foods that harm and learning to include the foods that heal, it is all too easy to fall into repeated eating patterns. “I eat puffed rice cereal with rice milk for every breakfast, I leave cooked chicken, broccoli and quinoa for my husband every day while I am at work, I always eat the same lunch at this great restaurant I found,” and so on.
Proud of avoiding so many of the old food patterns while discovering easy substitutes makes it hard to remember that you must now go to the next level. Eating the same foods day after day, even they are ‘allowed’ on the diet sets up your body to develop brand new negative trigger food reactions. Try to find at least 3 variations for every breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack. Once you have found them it will become easier once again to automatically rotate between them. Make a menu plan for a week or two and then experiment for yourself to see what you like and find easy to order, assemble or cook for yourself.
Rotating grains, starches, meats and fish is especially important. Rotating the dense sweet vegetables (root veggies like onions, carrots and beets) is also important. Salads and greens can be more safely repeated if you vary the dressings you use- flax seed or other oil with lemon juice one day, a little apple cider vinegar another and balsamic vinegar the next. Learn to have enough for leftovers to eat again in two days time. Try not to snack always on rice cakes or the same gluten free crackers, but reach for raw sliced veggies or a few nuts and a glass of veggie juice instead. On another day, have a small bowl of soup as a snack.
Even if cooking is not your thing, learning to make a few stand-bys is very helpful- a baked white or sweet potato (not in the same food family), a pot of rice, quinoa or millet; rice or buckwheat pasta with a sauce that is sugar free; ground chicken or turkey burgers or turkey bacon, canned sardines or oysters- these are quick and easy foods to have on hand to fill you up if you know you are eating out or with others and they won’t have a menu that is good for you. Eat a little before you go out or plan to fill up when you get home.
Meanwhile, remember to rotate, rotate, rotate your foods. Variety is both more fun and more healthful.