Vexalt

Significant changes and transitions are usually difficult; new jobs, new relationships, new living situations, new diets, and so on alike in their challenge. Such things are also a virtual guarantee in life; as they say the only constant is change. And while that can be difficult, as change necessitates endings, it also opens the door for new growth. Sometimes it’s relatively easy to slip in a new habit during another significant transition; if it can be balanced to be just another new thing and not unnecessarily disruptive. Personally, I’ve experienced many changes recently, and am taking advantage of the shift in life patterns to tackle completely shifting my diet; what’s one more big change at this point?

Diet? Alternative lifestyle? How do these go together? What makes up the raw material of our lives if not what we eat, and what better place to look for wiser choices to make. We are what we eat, literally. Now, while I would love to dive deeper into the topics of food quality and sourcing in future posts; suffice it to say that I believe in the value of eating organic and avoiding heavily processed options. Seeking out this sort of food helped me in the other major change, which I want to focus on today: finding out what foods if any I’m sensitive too. How does one tell which foods are poorly tolerated, especially if eating them has been normalized as part of one’s diet?

While there are tests which can give clues and starting points, or even highlight specific conditions or allergies, there is only one golden standard to find sensitivities, and that is an elimination diet. What’s an elimination diet? There are many fantastic, in depth resources on food sensitivities, intolerances, allergies, and elimination diets; so I will stick to a basic overview and personal example. I have good reason to believe something is irritating my gut, based on testing and conversations with my doctor before moving; so about a month ago I simply stopped buying dairy or grains, in addition to beginning of phase out refined sugars entirely.

Essentially, one chooses a suspect food group, and fully eliminates it from their diet for a full month; hence the name. The test comes at the end of the elimination period, when the suspect foods are reintroduced in a food “challenge”; after a month for your system to heal and adjust to other foods, any sensitivity symptoms should be readily apparent. These tests can be run for specific question foods, or with multiple overlapping categories to speed up the process; but if doing more than a single group, challenges must be spread our to get a clear result. If everything eliminated is tolerated well, then the tested foods can return to the regular diet and other explanations are explored; be that another food group to test or seeking other interventions. Recently I got to challenge dairy, and think I tolerated the lovely grain-free pizza I made myself well! I shall see as the challenge continues over the next few days. If so, then on to legumes! There’s always another hill to climb…

Such major shifts in diet are a challenge all to themselves, but worthwhile things are often difficult. I personally would consider it worthwhile to be certain that the food which I eat, the material which my life itself is made of, is truly good and safe for me. I find challenge to be quite an appropriate term; we call both the struggle, and the act of choosing to take on a battle we find worthy a “challenge”. Challenges are what allow us to push and discover our limits, question the barriers we find ourselves against. From time to time, it turns out we can break through our walls and discover something new on the other side; but we first need to make that attempt, challenge the wall. Sometimes, the process of a challenge willingly accepted can be enjoyable itself, and sometimes challenges go well. Hopefully, dairy can come back to my diet, I do so love cheese.

All this talk of challenges and changes has me wondering; what ones have entered your life? And how are you challenging them to rise above your barriers? I’d be delighted to hear from you below!

PS: Thank you so much for being here on my second blog post! Speaking of transitions; I’m both settling into a new job, and finding a new living situation. I do want to make this a regular thing though, and this nearly two weeks feels too long; expect to see new content from me at least that often, with more to come in the future as I make time and space. Looking forward to connecting with you next time, and good luck taking on those challenges!