Reintroduction

You can go to hell without moving an inch, just focus on what you lack. You can taste heaven without leaving earth, just rejoice in what you have. — james clear

Sometimes you fall into a slump. We’ve hit week 16 on the Elimination Diet. The meals have been put on repeat — Fish/Chicken and Vegetables, One Pan Skillet Meals, and the same smoothie we have been having for the last eight weeks. The elation of success has faded.

One pan skillet meals.

Days have gone a lot like this:

M:       Why don’t you make lunch?

Me:     I’m not really hungry.

M:       Then why are you looking in the fridge?

Me:     I don’t know. I definitely not hungry.

M:       Gives me the look.

Me:     I’ve just eaten a bunch of dates, and I’ve been snacking on coleslaw all afternoon.

M:       The look continues.

Me:     Don’t look at me like that. If I am going to eat my emotions, I might as well eat coleslaw.

So yeah, we are kind of in a slump, maybe if we had done reintroduction on schedule the coleslaw could have been something really crazy, like chia seeds or even flax seeds. So maybe it is less of a slump and more of disinterest.

Reintroduction is a slow and nuanced process. Depending on who you consult, it is one new item every 3-7 days. You take the smallest taste imaginable and wait 15 minutes. Then you take the second smallest taste imaginable and wait 30 minutes. Then you take a whole teaspoon and wait 2-3 hours. Finally, you can eat what is called a normal serving and avoid the food for the next 3-7 days. If at any point in the process you feel a reaction — bloating, upset stomach, a rash, anything that isn’t normal — you avoid the food for 30 days. If nothing happened, that food could now be reintroduced to your diet.

The first foods to be reintroduced aren’t that exciting. You start with seed butters — tahini, sunflower seed butter, pumpkin seed butter — not the things I was dreaming about eating after 8 weeks of abstinence. I kept suggesting that we skip ahead to Easter Chocolate, M stopped responding to that sometime in week nine.

Easter eggs are now considered fresh vegetables, you heard it here first.

We started with tahini. We both seemed to tolerate it, and I had a burst of inspiration that I would make beet root houmous. The first iteration didn’t last, it was gone the first day. The second time…beet root houmous just isn’t the same as beet root flavored houmous, especially with no pita bread (we have recently decided that cassava flour is not one of the foods we want to or should eat), no crackers (wheat is scheduled for October 22^nd if we stick to the schedule), and I have eaten so many carrots that I am starting to hop. So, despite the addition of tahini, sesame seeds, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds; the initial reintroduction has not been as exciting as anticipated.

Of course, I’m exaggerating, we have also reintroduced eggs and finally have moved beyond seeds into nut butters, so the future looks bright.

How we reintroduced Walnut Butter

Soaked walnuts over night

Spread the walnuts in a single layer on sheet pans

Placed walnuts in the oven @ 80 C

Waited 4 hours while the walnuts dehydrated

Placed the cooled walnuts in the food processor

Me:     Do you want to try the walnut butter?

M:       It’s a bit late.

Me:     Okay, how about tomorrow?

M:       Maybe.

Me:     Oh, no!

M:       What?

Me:     We can’t do tomorrow, I have to wash my hair.

M:       Gives me the look.

So far so good, 48 hours until walnut butter can be a part of our diet.

Thanks for reading! Please feel free to share this with anyone you think will benefit. Also (due to algorithm considerations) hit like if you did like it. I’d also like to reiterate that this isn’t to be considered medical advice, this is just our individual experience. Some people respond to the diet, some people respond to the medication, and some people respond to both. The idea is that it is YOUR healing journey, I’m just offering up our experiences on our healing journey in the hopes that if you are suffering from anything similar, you’ll take a little bit of inspiration from M as I do on a daily basis.