5 Ways To Prepare For Your Gut Reset Or Elimination Diet
These are the 5 ways I prepare for a gut reset, elimination diet, or healthy eating changes.
I honestly tried to keep this short and cool, but it’s long and involved!
However, if you’re struggling to get started or stay motivated, are feeling a bit lost and unsure how you’re going to get through this process, or transition into being someone who uses food as medicine — this will be helpful for you.
If you’re just looking for a snap shot, here it is:
Knowledge - Gain a deep understanding of the nuances and details of the plan.
Food and Recipes - Build up a good database of recipes and start planning meals and how I will prepare.
Kitchen Dial In - Clean things out and fill it back up.
Clarity - Why am I doing this and what makes it important to me?
Mindset - Who do I need to be to succeed at this, and how can I get stoked about it?
When we want or need to do a gut reset or elimination diet there’s often a sense of overwhelm, dread, and maybe urgency if you’re using food as medicine to treat a disease or diagnosis.
I know this feeling very well because it was (and can still be) the reaction I have to doing a dietary change.
There’s so much to consider!
Like how will I not spend every waking moment in the kitchen, how will my kids deal with it, what will Scotty eat, who will still hangout with me socially, and what the heck am I going to eat?!
Then, I take a deep breath and go into a process that I have developed over the many years of doing elimination diets and gut resets.
When we first started doing them it was based on curiosity and wondering if we could feel better, and if I’m being totally honest, for me personally it was often driven by a hope that I would lose some weight.
It should have been a bit of an alarm that even 10 years before Scotty was diagnosed with his thyroid disease he was trying to feel better. Trying to increase his energy and general wellness, but we didn’t know yet how powerful food could be.
Anyway, we tried everything at least once for at least a few months.
Then the diagnosis of Hashimoto’s had us get real with it all, and after that there were many layers of eliminations. Then I went to school to be a Functional Medicine Health Coach and felt the need to try out any and all elimination diets created by the Institute for Functional Medicine.
So, let me share with you my framework for getting ready.
One quick tip before we get going is to make sure you pick a day to start and stick to it.
I like to give myself about 5 days to get organized, and I also ease into it.
I slowly back off things like glasses of wine, cups of coffee (if it’s been eliminated), and anything else that I know will be a challenge for me.
This isn’t how everyone does it, but it’s what works for me.
Knowledge
This step is essential to your success no matter what changes you’re making.
You need to understand all the nuances of your food plan. If you’re using food to support healing this is especially true. You need to know in detail what oils to use, what sauces are ok, what ingredients are ok, and what ingredients are not. This included hidden ingredients, preservatives, and thickening agents.
If you’re using food to heal your body and something isn’t listed on the YES list, it’s not to be enjoyed at this time.
If you’re not necessarily using food to heal your body, but are hoping to optimize your health or maybe balance out your weight or hormones, this is still very important.
Maybe you’re planning to eliminate gluten, sugar, dairy, corn, or soy, all of which have many different names and are found in the most random things. So knowing all of them is going to really help you out.
When I’m gathering knowledge around a gut reset I read through as much reputable content as I can get my hands on. For me this often looks like diving into information from The Institute for Functional Medicine, or in the case of the Autoimmune Protocol or low FODMAP finding the people who developed it or use it as part of their Functional Medicine practice.
I gather this to me like a warm blanket of knowledge because It helps me relax a little to fully understand what is NO and what is YES.
Once I understand it, I then lean HARD into the yes list.
Food and Recipes
Also known as research and development.
Now you know what you can eat, you know what you can indulge in, what to minimize, and what to cut out completely so it’s time to figure out how to make work.
I like to have some ideas for each meal, and to have thought about what I can batch cook and what I can make in case of an emergency. (The emergency being it’s 5:30 and I have zero plan for dinner and everyone’s yelling at me because they’re hungry).
Getting started for me is all about keeping it simple, keeping it easy, and having things available when I need it.
I also love to order cookbooks from the library, dig deep into my own personal resources, find people to follow on social media, start a Pinterest board, talk to my foodie friends, and whatever it takes to feel like I have a grip on what to eat.
Surrounding ourselves with this information can help us feel a little less odd as well, which can be very helpful as we get into this process! Knowing there are other people doing something similar to us is incredibly helpful, emotionally and mentally. It also helps us succeed on our mission, so I strongly recommend building up a network of support and supportive information — even if it’s completely online and made of people you will never know.
Kitchen Dial In
No matter what, when we do any kind of reset to our diet, we need to get our kitchen in order.
We need to have our cupboards and fridge not only clean of tempting foods, but also STOCKED with foods we can enjoy.
This takes a somewhat ruthless hand and might induce some guilt if you feel you’re getting rid of perfectly good and healthy foods, but I have a few ideas around this.
If it’s healthy but eliminated for now, I freeze it or put it in a box and slip it in a closet.
If it’s healthy-ish but food I don’t want in my house anymore because it doesn’t serve my long term health goals and ideas, I will give it away. Maybe to family or a neighbour or the food bank if it’s appropriate.
If it’s not actually healthy for anyone, and actually has a negative effect on a person’s health, I toss it out.
Now, if you don’t live alone and the people in your house aren’t doing the elimination with you, I will often put the food I’m trying to avoid in a box or pop it on the top shelf. If the people in the house want the things, they can sort it out themselves. At least until I’ve made it past the craving stage of a gut reset!
The next part of this is to use all the information gathered in the knowledge and food and recipes section and head to the grocery store.
Personally I like to do a pretty hefty shop at the beginning so I can really get some basics sorted and have my kitchen stocked to the gills with things I know I can eat.
I plan for a day of batch cooking, and I shop for it.
Preparation = freedom
Always.
Clarity On Your Destination
Why the heck are you doing this anyway?
This thought is going to come up A LOT as you go through the process. So figuring it out ahead of time is helpful because the sooner your brain can come up with an answer the more successful you’ll be.
But I don’t mean the quick answer.
Whenever I’m working with a client (or my own coach) I’m looking for the answer behind the answer, or the reason behind the reason.
Gaining deep clarity on WHY you’re doing something will dramatically impact your success and potential for transformation. (I talk about this more in this blog post: https://gwenjohnson.ca/foodasmedicine/6-ways-to-succeed-on-your-elimination-dietnbsp)
Most often we have a quick answer for why we want to do something like this. Ranging from things like: “I want to heal my Hashimoto’s” to “I want to lose weight.”
Neither of these are bad reasons but every single time I’ve worked a client (and myself) in this area there is ALWAYS something below it.
For me it comes down to wanting to be strong and healthy for my family. To show my daughter what it looks like to take care of herself like she matters, instead of feeling like she needs to take care of everything and everyone else first. Showing my son how that looks, and showing both of them what it looks like to take care of their health.
The healing of Hashimoto’s seems like a strong response, and it is, but what was below it was deep motivation to live longer than a father that passed away early in life from health complications.
The reason behind the reasons.
They are motivating to a different degree and are worth digging into if you want to not only heal your body, but perhaps also begin to heal your ideas around what your relationship will be like with food upon completion of your reset.
Why are you doing this? What is your deepest motivating factor? Who will be impacted if you succeed? How will your life be impacted?
Mindset
This is a big one. You have got to get your head in the game!
Who do you need to be to do this?
When I’m planning a reset I am building up all this new information that let’s me know how great I’m going to feel, and I lean hard into that.
When we change our eating habits it can be quite challenging, so one must be ready for that. Yes this might have hard moments, but I (YOU) can do hard things. The outcome is worth the effort.
Try and touch in every single day to make sure you don’t forget what you’re working towards. Perhaps working it into your morning routine or meditation, or looking in the mirror as you brush your teeth and remind yourself what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and why it’s important!
But most importantly, who will you be when you have successfully completed this challenge? When you’re in it you might forget about this part.
You might just be head down trying to get through each week, maybe feeling like you’re drowning a bit. And then one day you’ll realize that it’s not as hard as it was in the beginning. One day you will feel noticeably better.
You will have more energy, more mental clarity, focus, and motivation. You’ll be sleeping better, having better sex, waking up with energy, laughing with your kids more, and making more time for yourself.
So, what will you do next?
More often than not people don’t finish these things.
They don’t make it to the end, and if they do they are looking forward with glazed donut glasses on. Just waiting for the first day of freedom… but that’s not how this works.
You are making changes because you want to feel differently, that’s why every single person does something like this. They want to feel different.
So don’t slip back into your old habits. Don’t be planning for the finish before you even get started.
How do you want to feel for the next 5 or 10 years?
Why is that important to you?
How important is it?
What are you going to do about it?
This is how I get my head in the game in order to create a new foundation for health and healing.
One that supports me on my journey to showing my babies how to take care of themselves, and showing myself that I am worth it.
If you would like to read more about how you can transform your life while doing a gut reset or elimination diet have a look at this blog post:
https://gwenjohnson.ca/foodasmedicine/s0ais9k1ffcugnlcsfy09z9rvong33
Thank you so much for being here with me, and GOOD LUCK!
If you would like further information or feel you would benefit from working together please feel free to pop over to my “Work With Me” page and fill out the appointment application.
Kindness for days,
Gwen
