So around Thanksgiving or Christmas last year, I started having noticeable joint pain in my right foot. Now some of you might know that I have an autoimmune disorder, which is Hashimotoes. This is the autoimmune form of a low thyroid or hypothyroidism.
If you haven’t read my blog post about my Hashimotoes and Adrenal Fatigue, check out the post below. They give you a little insight into these issues.
MY EXPERIENCE WITH HASHIMOTOES -HOW TO FEEL WELL AGAIN
SYMPTOMS, DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT FOR ADRENAL FATIGUE
Anyways, like I was saying, I had joint pain that was affecting my quality of life. With a low thyroid, I have had stiffness and soreness in my feet first thing in the morning. However, I would walk around and it would go away. However, instead of going away it eventually went to the other foot.
I have trouble wearing shoes. This was not good. I am a busy mama and I need to be able to get around and walk without hobbling.
So, when I started with this persistent pain, I prayed for God to help me and I started my investigation into what was causing it.
It’s important that I tell you, that you have to be an advocate of your own health care. Sometimes a lot of doctors won’t get to the bottom of your symptoms or just don’t know how. They just want to give you a pill or shot and go on.
You have to research to find what works.
Well, and for me, a lot of praying. I need God to lead me in my health journey because he is the one that made me. Psalms 139:14 says I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. I encourage you, that this is where you want to start. Ask God to lead you in the direction that you need to go to improve your health.
Then just have a made of mind to do it, even if it’s hard. So there you go, that’s your pep talk for the day. You can do it with God’s strength. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
Almost 9 years ago, I was put on a Paleo Diet by my provider. I did follow it but loosely. Accept for the gluten. I did not play around with eating gluten. When I was eating gluten, it would swing me from low thyroid to high thyroid. That was not fun. I would have heart palpitations, and feel very weak and my medications would never stay balanced out.
Yeah, I don’t miss eating things with gluten in it. Yet, I wasn’t as strict on the other foods. Like when I eat too much sugar (like at Christmas last year) then I would feel negative effects from it. That negative effect was joint pain in my foot that caused me to hobble around when I was at my daughter’s house. That wasn’t cool at all. We were trying to play active games and I’m trying to get around at the same time.
Enough was enough! I had to ratchet my diet back in. So, when I got back from vacation, I was determined to change my diet once again. Get 30% off your purchase & a $60 FREE gift when you join Thrive Market!
The big thing that we hear out there today, from all the professionals is inflammation. No one wants to have that. Inflammation is ok if you just hurt twisted your ankle and it swells up. Swelling is because you have increased movement of fluid and white blood cells going to help you hurt foot.
This kind is beneficial to help heal the injury. However, when you have it in your body and it isn’t fighting the bad guys or the injured area, then that is when we want to get rid of it.
I seemed to have what I call puffiness in my feet and legs. These are some of the things I was trying to heal.
Mediterranean Diet
So first I started with the Mediterranean Diet. This diet is supposed to be good at being an inflammatory diet. However, each person is different.
The Mediterranean-style diet usually includes lots of fruits and veggies. You can have grains, potatoes, beans, nuts and seeds.
You need healthy fats, so you could have olive oil, dairy products, eggs, fish, and poultry in low to moderate amounts.
They wanted you to limit added sugars, sodium, highly processed foods, saturated fats, and fatty or processed meats.
Then they promote eating together.
I tried this diet for about a month. I believe this is a healthy diet, but I didn’t notice it to fix my problems.
This diet wants you to limit red meat. After a month, I was ready for a hamburger.
What is an AIP Diet
The AIP diet stands for autoimmune protocol (AIP). It is similar to the Paleo Diet. However, this diet is one of the most restrictive diets out there. This diet can possibly help you improve on autoimmune disorders.
If you have an autoimmune disorder, it can cause inflammation. So the purpose of eating the AIP diet is to reduce swelling in your body that could be causing you symptoms. Sometimes, some foods that you eat can trigger this inflammation, thus creating unpleasant symptoms in the body. Eliminating certain foods that affect us negatively can help improve the way we feel.
How to Begin AIP Diet
To start this diet, you can start small or just go all in like I did. You begin with eliminating foods that people have the most trouble with. Then, after you have followed this diet till you see improvement, you begin to bring foods back in by stages 1, 2, 3, and 4. By doing this in stages, it will help you rule out foods you might have a problem with.
Who Should Do an AIP Diet
The AIP Diet (autoimmune protocol diet is designed to help lower inflammation and help the body to heal. If you have an autoimmune issue, this diet might be for you.
What Are The Benefits of the AIP Diet
When you follow the elimination diet, it can help you figure out what foods you are sensitive to. That way you can avoid any foods that make you feel bad.
You might be wondering about food sensitivity tests such as this one. However, I have never tried a test. While it is true that you may gain information from these tests, your body can sometimes change. Then you might have to test again later on. That is what I read though, I’m not sure of that for a fact.
After all, I am still learning about this diet myself. I’m not a Dr. or an expert on this topic. However, this diet is effective in improving gut health and boosts beneficial gut bacteria.
The diet has three phases or parts to it.
The first phase is the elimination phase: You cut out foods that may potentially cause the greatest risk of inflammation. Thus making you have symptoms and making you feel bad again.
The Maintenance phase is where you leave out these foods until your symptoms improve.
The Reintroduction Phase: This is where can gradually start adding foods back into your diet one food at a time.
How the AIP Diet May Help
These are some of the autoimmune disorders the AIP Diet may help.
Hashimotoes
Psoriasis
Lupus
Inflammatory bowel disease
Rheumatoid Arthritis
Psoriatic arthritis
Celiac disease
Inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn’s disease
Many people who have followed this diet say they had improvements in joint pain, fatigue or gut health.
Is The AIP Diet Gluten-Free
The AIP Diet is a gluten-free diet. If you already know that you have foods you have to avoid, you won’t have to worry about this diet. It cuts out grains because people can have a problem with certain grains—especially ones with gluten.
What Foods Are Not Allowed on the AIP Diet
Grains, legumes such as green beans, black, beans, garbanzo beans, kidney beans, etc., nightshades such as tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, and eggplant, dairy, eggs, nuts, seeds, spices derived from seeds such as cumin, dill, anise, mustard, nutmeg etc, coffee, chocolate, nightshade spices such as paprika and cayenne pepper etc, refined or processed sugars and oils, stevia and food additives.
It’s important to read labels and stay away from ingredients you don’t recognize or Google to see what it is. If I don’t recognize an ingredient, I check to see if you can have it on AIP. Or I Google to check the safety of the ingredients.
The most important thing when reading labels is to avoid chemicals that can affect our immune systems.
That might seem hard, but after you learn to read labels, you do get used to it.
What Are Some Foods You Can Eat on the AIP Diet
So after you read the paragraph above about what you should not eat, you may be thinking, then what can I eat?
Just like many diets, you can eat most God-made foods.
Perhaps you’re wondering what exactly that means.
Just what it sounds like. So many foods that you think should be in their natural state just aren’t.
I concluded that there weren’t many things that I could eat at Walmart.
What you can eat on this diet is proteins such as chicken, fish, grass-fed beef, organ meats, and bone brother.
Most vegetables are ok except nightshades and fruits.
Herbs and spices that don’t come from seeds., such as cinnamon, turmeric, thyme, oregano, basil, and rosemary.
Healthy fats-Olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil
Healthy sugars-Maple syrups, honey, coconut palm sugar
You can have flour such as coconut nut, cassava flour, and tiger nut flour. Cassava is a gluten-free alternative to wheat that comes from the root vegetable cassava. Coconut nut flour is ok because it is not actually a nut but a fruit. Go figure! I’m like why don’t they call it a fruit then?
That’s way too logical I guess, I digress. Anyways, then there is Tigernut. You guessed it. It’s not a nut either. Tiger nut is an edible tuber.
One of the most important things about eating to improve your health is finding out what foods bother you and staying away from foods with strange chemicals in them. I had to do a lot of searching to find even turkey that didn’t have other things added to it.
AIP FOODS
This was the baking mix that I used. Since you can’t have other almond flour during AIP Diet this is a good option and I bought this product a lot.
This is the baking powder that I use. You can’t do corn on the elimination phase of AIP and regular baking powder is made with corn starch plus probably other things you don’t want in your food.
I also enjoy their cassava flour.
I can now eat black pepper. I still haven’t worked up to chili powder which I really enjoy, however, when I couldn’t have pepper, this product was great. I bought myself a little travel salt and pepper combo which I will link and put my spices in them. It worked great for when I wasn’t eating out and had to order my food plain.
Enjoy some AIP-friendly pancakes or waffles. Just because you are temporarily on an elimination diet doesn’t mean you can’t have some comfort food. Just a healthier version of it without affecting your diet.
Here is an AIP-friendly bread mix. While you can get a recipe and make your own. This bread mix makes it quick and easy to have some bread for dinner.
One of the most missed foods by a lot is chocolate. Carob powder was my go-to in the elimination phase. It looks a lot like cocoa. However, it does taste more earth-flavored.
What are Night Shade Vegetables
Nightshade vegetables are vegetables that belong to a plant family known as the Solanaceae. The foods they include are tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and white potatoes.
The reason why these foods are cautioned about eating are because Some people with autoimmune issues are affected by these foods.
While there is no scientific proof, some people report experiencing more inflammation and pain from arthritis when eating night-shade vegetables.
How to Eat While Traveling
The best way to eat while traveling is to plan ahead.
I know that sounds oversimplified, But the fact is, you just need to do your own cooking. Prepare your snacks and read lots of labels.
I just recently went to my church camp. I spent part of the day most of the day. I am preparing breakfast lunch and dinner to take with me.
I know what sounds like a lot of work, However, it is worth it to make sure you don’t eat things that will make you feel bad.
How to Eat at Restaurants
In my opinion, this is the most tricky part of following the AIP diet.
Be prepared to say things like no spices, please. No butter please, and give me that plain. Thank you!
Sometimes people look at me like I’m strange but that’s okay. I just let them know that I’m on a special diet and I can’t eat these foods right now.
Most servers are nice and willing to help.
So don’t fret, this too shall pass.
I remember that I won’t always be on this diet. Even now, more and more I am starting to be able to bring food back in. I am in phases 3 and 4.
The reason I say that I am in both is that I have not tried milk products yet. Some people with Hashimoto’s can’t do dairy because it acts very similar to gluten in the body. So I don’t miss it and so I am just waiting for a while. That way I can enjoy foods that I really do miss.
Hopefully, when you and I have completed our journey on the AIP diet, we will feel much better for having taken the time and effort to follow it.
How Long Should I Be on The Diet
How long you follow an AIP diet depends on each individual.
It is recommended to follow this diet anywhere from thirty to ninety days.
My provider told me to follow this diet for 90 days to be most effective for me.
When you start to have fewer symptoms. That is when you know it is working.
For me, I started to see improvements around three weeks after starting the elimination phase.
Elimination Phase
You should stay in this phase until you start to feel better. After you have been following this diet, you should experience improvement in symptoms. For some, it’s a shorter time, but it could take closer to 90 days.
If you don’t start to get some relief of symptoms, it might be time to check in with your Dr. I know with Hashimotoes, sometimes I have needed meds adjusted. However, since I have been gluten-free for so many years my prescriptions have stayed steady.
Once you do start to feel better following this diet, it’s time to start bringing foods back in. When you start to feel better, it can be tempting to stay in this elimination phase and not reintroduce foods. However, this program isn’t designed to be forever. It is just to help you figure out which foods trigger your body to have symptoms and to keep those foods out of your diet.
After all, these foods that we have cut hopefully temporarily, still have nutritional benefits to us. Also, if you try a food, and it doesn’t agree with you, give your gut health more time to heal and try that food again later.
When I first tried mustard, I wasn’t sure if it agreed with me. My left leg seemed to start swelling, but now I seem to do ok with eating mustard seeds and mustard. It could have been that I just got all worked up and fearful of bringing in the new foods.
Reintroduction
After you have seen an improvement in autoimmune symptoms, you can then start bringing foods back into your diet, one food at a time. I know it seems like a process and believe me it is, but it’s important to do it that way. If you start eating a bunch of food at one time, you won’t know which foods are the culprit.
In order to check for sensitivities, you must track your foods and be very aware of your symptoms.
Start with stage 1.
Pick a food to reintroduce.
Take a small bite to begin with. You don’t want to eat a large amount in case you react to it. Maybe have a half a teaspoon.
Write down in a notebook or journal what you ate, the date, and the time. Watch your body for symptoms. Record your findings.
If you have a reaction. Write that down and wait to reintroduce that food at a later date when your gut health has improved more.
If you didn’t notice any weird stuff, I call it, then wait 15 minutes and have a whole teaspoon. Repeat the process. If you have problems, don’t eat anymore, and remember to record how your experience went. Good or bad.
If you don’t record the information and you have problems later, you won’t know which food caused it.
Then if you have had no ill effects of the food you just ate again, wait a few hours and eat a normal portion of that food.
Then you wait 3 to 7 seven days before trying the food again.
I’ts necessary to wait for that time frame, because, with autoimmune disorders, the symptoms don’t always show up right away.
After successfully going through stage 1. Continue through to the rest of the states, carefully following the steps above for each food.
Signs to Look for in Reintroducing Phase
When you begin reintroduction foods there are various things that you need to look for in your body. Some symptoms can be obvious while others might not be so noticeable.
Image from
The Autoimmune Protocol
Low energy
Headaches
Joint pain
Muscle pain
Anxiety
Stomach Issues
Food cravings
Sinus Issues
Recurring previous symptoms
There are various issues that autoimmune can affect and I know I don’t have all of them on here. These is just some common problems people can have. However, I caution that when you begin to bring these foods into your diet, you will have to figure out what is normal for you.
Also, remember that stress and lack of sleep can also negatively affect how you feel. As can our bodies change daily.
For example, if I have not had enough rest it can cause me to feel poorly, such as heart palpitations. If I have felt more stress in my life, it can do the same thing. When I first started doing the reintroduction states it made me feel anxious. I think that in return kind of made me symptomatic for a time. Until I calmed down and just relaxed.
Also, my symptoms DID NOT 100% go away even completely during the elimination phase. I did greatly improve. The swelling started going down, my weight started dropping without counting calories, and my feet started feeling so much better.
I have to add, that I started going to the gym, which has helped as well. Diet alone can’t be the only thing we do. God has made our bodies move.
Back to my point, and that is, the AIP diet has helped tremendously. I am not perfect but I feel so much better. That is how you will have to judge how YOU feel when you begin to bring food back in. If you basically feel the same you are probably making progress. However, if you start to see other crazy symptoms rearing their ugly heads, or it’s not a good time in your life, then wait on reintroducing new foods.
Phase 1: Reintroduce Foods with Low Likelihood of Triggering a Reaction
Egg yolks (chicken, duck, etc)
Seed-based spices (e.g., cumin, coriander, fennel, mustard, etc)
Ghee (clarified butter, from grass-fed cows)
Fresh legumes (green beans, peas)
Fruit-based spices (e.g., allspice, nutmeg)
Nut-based oils ( oils only) (macadamia, walnut)
Nuts and seeds (occasional coffee)
Chocolate
Phase 2: Reintroduce Foods with Moderate Likelihood of Triggering a Reaction
Egg whites (Whole eggs)
Nuts and seeds (almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, sesame, sunflower, hazelnuts, or any flavors, butter, flour, or oil that comes from nuts or seeds.)
Dairy: (butter, butter oil)
Phase 3: Reintroduce Foods with Higher Likelihood of Triggering a Reaction
Nightshades limited ( sweet peppers, paprika, and peeled potatoes)
Dairy (Buttermilk, cheese, cottage cheese, cream cheese, milk, etc)
Certain legumes (e.g., lentils, chickpeas)
Phase 4: Reintroduce Foods with Highest Likelihood of Triggering a Reaction
Nightshades or spices (bell peppers, cayenne peppers, eggplants, hot peppers, chili peppers chili-based spices, tomatoes, potatoes, etc.
Legumes ( peanuts, black beans, pinto beans, butter beans, kidney beans, lima beans, navy beans, etc)
Pseudo-grains- Gluten-Free grains (buckwheat, amaranth, oats, rice, corn, etc)
This phased approach helps to identify which foods might cause inflammation or trigger autoimmune responses. It’s crucial to introduce one food at a time and monitor your body’s reactions closely.
How Did the AIP Diet Affect Me
I went into this diet to help the swelling in my legs and the joint pain in my feet that was affecting the quality of my life.
After, following the AIP diet for about 3 weeks, I started noticing a difference. I continued to follow this diet for 90 days as a recommendation by the medical provider.
Not only have I improved the leg swelling and joint pain, but I have begun to shed weight. I have lost around 25lbs without counting calories. Just by eating real food, and not ultra-processed foods, it has greatly improved.
I was super excited to start seeing improvements in my weight, joint pain, and swelling, however, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to wear cute shoes again.
I was looking at special and very expensive orthopedic shoes. I am thankful that God helped me improve and those shoes were not needed.
While I realize that following this diet is a large commitment, if it helps improve your health, it’s worth it and I hope you give it a try. Just remember though, no matter what health journey you are on, always seek God for direction for your health. He will lead you.
Also, I am not a Dr. I’m just a mom who has been affected by an autoimmune issue and this is what I tried to help improve my health. I can’t guarantee it will work for you, and always read labels, even with the recommendations that I linked to.
I tried to read the labels very well, but I could have missed something. I know that I would read other blogs and sometimes foods wouldn’t be AIP friendly.
However, I hope something in the post will help you if you have to go on the AIP elimination diet to help improve your health.
If you have followed this diet, or plan to start, leave a comment below.
I would love to hear about your experience with it. Also, share this post with someone who might need this information.[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]
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