Daredevil Diet
FIRST A LITTLE RECAP
In the Adventurous diet, you've tested your tolerance to :
- The most common food triggers (gluten, dairy, soy products, eggs, nuts & seeds, corn, nightshades, sugar)
- FODMAPs, grains & starches
- Food chemicals
The goal was to figure out what your body likes.... and doesn't like!
During your experimentation with various foods during the Adventurous Diet, you've started to create your very own 'ideal' diet.
You've also learned to listen to your body and understand your own threshold to the various types of foods that can be problematic, so you can adjust your meals accordingly.
You may also have played around with adapting and/or creating recipes to suit your unique needs. If you haven't, now is the time to start.
WHAT IS THE DAREDEVIL DIET
This is where you'll really push your limits... and you might even be a little bit naughty once in a while! 😈
Indeed, being a daredevil means being bold with your approach to your diet now. You'll want to find out how far you can push yourself.
It's time to step out of your comfort zone and take some risks!
This also means that you might occasionally push your luck and experience some minor flare-ups. This is okay and is part of the process.
We want to make sure you don't panic if this happens. You will not undo all the good work you've done. We will give you the tools you need to get back on track quickly.
The goal of the Daredevil diet is to make sure you've included as many foods as you possibly can into your diet. This is important not just for health reasons, but so you can live a more joyful life. It's also going to enhance your social life.
HOW TO KNOW IF YOU'RE READY TO BE A DAREDEVIL
It’s better to wait until you've identified most of your triggers (FODMAPs, histamine, etc) and have a good understanding of your threshold. This means that you now know your body really well.
You also understand how to manage your symptoms and what to do if you have a flare-up. For instance, you've experimented with doing coffee enemas to quickly relieve your symptoms. Or maybe you found that eating simply for a few days helps you to quickly get back on track if you've overdone it and experience symptoms. You'll need to have these skills at hand during the Daredevil diet.
If you need a refresher on the tools available, take a look at the Tool Box.
It's important to understand that what you discover during the Daredevil diet will continuously change and evolve as you do. You'll learn to adapt and adjust your diet as you progress through your healing journey, and the different stages of your life.
This is a skill that will be with you forever.
IMPORTANT NOTES: If you're not improving or struggling to reintroduce foods, we recommend getting extra support.
WHAT TO EXPECT
1- You may experience a flare-up
As we've mentioned above, you'll be taking some 'risks' in the Daredevil diet, and this means that some of you might have mild flare-ups. It's important to remind yourself that these will be temporary.
2- You'll have some happy food moments
Although there might be a few flare-ups, there will also be celebrations as you discover that many foods you've been avoiding are now safe for you, even foods you've been avoiding for years. 🥳
3- You'll continue to learn about yourself
You may continue to discover new depths in regards to your diet and health. For instance, Gen discovered that oxalates were an issue for her after years of trial and error. We hope that you feel empowered to keep learning about yourself and health.
HOW TO BE A DAREDEVIL
As you get to this stage, you'll all be in a very different place.
Below, we've given examples of what you might have discovered during the Adventurous diet and how to know what your next step is.
FODMAPS ARE YOUR MAIN INTOLERANCE
Some of you will have discovered that you feel better on a low FODMAP diet but when doing the food chemical test, you realised that they don't seem to be an issue for you. As you've been on a low-moderate food chemical diet for the most part so far in this program, you'll now be able to start pushing your limits with food chemicals. You may also want to keep experimenting with FODMAPs and really test your boundaries.
Important note: if you have SIBO, you should wait at least 3 months before increasing your FODMAP consumption.
It's important to understand that you may not be able to increase your FODMAP consumption for a long time and that's okay. It doesn't mean that your gut is not 'healthy', it's simply the way your gut is.
Click here to refresh your memory about FODMAPs
FOOD CHEMICALS ARE YOUR MAIN INTOLERANCE
During your testing in the Adventurous diet, you realised that some or all of the food chemicals were contributing to your symptoms. Some people may have a problem with only one food chemical - histamine, salicylates or oxalates - while others may have an issue with a combination of these.
You've also discovered that FODMAPs don't seem to be a big contributor to your symptoms. 🤸🏼♂️
If this is you, you can carefully add more high FODMAP foods to your diet. Continue to pay attention to any symptoms while eating more of these foods and adjust accordingly.
Here, you'll also keep experimenting with increasing - carefully - the amount of food chemicals in your diet. To help you with this, we've created the 'Manage Food Chemical Sensitivities' section.
Click here to go to the 'Manage Food Chemical Sensitivities' section
FOOD CHEMICALS AND FODMAPS ARE BOTH ISSUES
If you found that you have symptoms with both FODMAPs and food chemicals, then we recommend staying on a low FODMAP diet until you can tolerate more food chemicals (for instance when you're able to tolerate some foods from the 'high' column).
Once you feel ready, you can then start experimenting with increasing your FODMAP consumption, carefully!
Click here to go to the 'Manage Food Chemical Sensitivities' section
Click here to refresh your memory about FODMAPs
TRIGGER FOODS
As you may remember, it takes time for your immune system to stop reacting to specific foods. The immune system has a 'memory'. It's estimated that it can take up to 6 months of COMPLETE avoidance for the immune system to 'forget' a food and stop reacting to it. The good news is that if you do avoid a food for a long enough period AND heal your gut, you should be able to eat some of these foods again.
Because of this, if you found that you were sensitive to certain trigger foods, we recommend you avoid these for 3-6 months, and then you can test them again.
Click here to go to the 'Test Your Tolerance to Trigger Foods' section
We also recommend reading the 'Leaky Gut' section again for a refresher.
A SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT FERMENTED FOODS
As you know, we recommended that you avoid fermented foods for the initial phases of this program. This is because many people with severe gut health issues don't actually tolerate fermented foods well until they're feeling better.
We believe that now could be a good time for you to start experimenting with fermented foods again, VERY CAREFULLY.