There is some great information in the book, but I'm finding myself wondering if I can actually follow the author's program. What is her program? Well, part of it involves 8 weeks on a type of elimination diet. 8 weeks. That's all I can think of: 8 weeks. And this is after 2 weeks of gradually working up to the full elimination part. I'm not managing any wheat-free days lately, or even junk-free days... How in the world can I handle 8 weeks without:
*artificial anything (well, that would be good to eliminate entirely)
*sugar (that could be VERY hard for me; I think a lot of what I eat has sugar in it, esp. since the list includes: brown sugar, cane juice, cane sugar, fructose, glucose, lactose (pretty much all allergy pills and many prescription drugs have lactose), malt, maltose, mannitol, raw sugar, high-fructose corn syrup...
*alcohol (easy; I don't drink anyhow :D)
*pop (I almost never drink pop anyhow; soda, for you American readers)
*commercially smoked and cured meats
*foods with white vinegar
*processed oil products
*coffee and regular black tea
*yeast
*dairy (already gone)
*gluten grains
*peanuts
*corn
*nightshade family vegetable (eggplants, peppers, potatoes, tobacco, tomatilloes and tomatoes, goji berries)
*processed soy products (fermented soy is okay, supposedly)
*oranges and bananas (This will be hard: I so far don't like any green smoothie that doesn't have a banana added.)
After the 8 weeks, you start introducing certain things back to see what sort of things are actually a problem for you. In addition to all of the above, I clearly shouldn't have anything I already react to, like raw apples, raw peaches, raw plums, raw nectarines, raw pears... While some of the list is stuff that we should all do away with, some of it is definitely harder to think of eliminating
I find myself at the same time thinking 8 weeks mustn't be enough or not enough is being removed. I've read accounts of people going 100% raw (that somehow doesn't seem as daunting! lol) and eventually getting over certain allergies. I'm not sure what sort of time frame it was.
As I write this all out, I feel kind of silly: How long have I been thinking about going raw, even 100% raw for a while? And how much different is the list above of excluded foods different from what is not in a 100% raw diet? Not much. So, why am I finding the idea of 8 weeks so hard? Probably because I haven't managed a single day yet without all the things listed above.
I find myself thinking that while I may not be prepared to change things for 8 weeks, I can certainly take her guidelines to prep up to that. I have to sometime just bite the bullet and go for it. I've been getting more vegan meals done around here for suppers, but I'm such a creature of habit, change is so slow going. What's it going to do to change things more suddenly? (Make me go crazy? lol)
There are many, many recipes in the book and even a vegan menu suggestion (I think for after the 8 weeks, but I'm not sure). On top of that, each recipe has symbols indicating if it's wheat-free, dairy-free, raw, etc. It's a fantastic book to help me on my journey. As I finish this post, I'm watching the end of Meet the Robinsons with my nieces. The motto of the movie: Keep moving forward. That's what I'll do. Whether I can stick rigidly with the 8 weeks or not, I'm going to keep moving forward.
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