Are you on an elimination diet to manage your symptoms and health problems?
Is your diet becoming increasingly smaller?
Are you afraid to eat because you seem to react to everything you do eat?
Are you concerned you’ll never be able to get off your elimination diet?
My name is Jennifer Brand and I am a clinical nutritionist. I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Nutrition and Dietetics, a Master’s Degree in Public Health, a Master’s Degree in Human Nutrition, I am a Certified Nutrition Specialist, gut health expert, and anti-diet advocate.
I help people get off their restrictive, and elimination diets, nourish their bodies, resolve imbalances that cause symptoms and health problems in the first place to beat them, and restore their health!
I’m passionate about helping you nourish your body, and stop unnecessary diet restrictions, because when you eliminate whole real foods, food groups and categories of foods from your diet, you are at risk for nutrient deficiency. Your body runs off of nutrients found in foods you eat. When those nutrients are missing, imbalances develop and can lead to illness and disease.
Restrictive diets and worsening of symptoms and health problems go hand in hand and I see this often.
My clients typically come to me with digestive symptoms, skin rashes, chronic fatigue, autoimmune disease, food sensitivities, and other chronic health problems they can’t find relief from.
If you have symptoms and health problems like these, you’ve probably tried elimination diets, and you’re probably still on one!
Removing trigger foods from your diet is a common recommendation. The problem is that food sensitivities are not the root cause of your symptoms and health problems. They are a symptom of impaired gut health.
Here’s what happens… when your gut health is impaired, you can’t digest, absorb and use nutrients from the foods you eat. Foods aren’t broken down the way they should be. This leaves food for bacteria and yeast to eat, and they overgrow leading to gut bacteria imbalances, and infections. This is where things like small intestinal bacterial overgrowth and candida can come from. This creates an environment of inflammation in your gut. Inflammation in your gut causes the lining of your gut to become permeable, this is leaky gut. Undigested food particles can then escape into your bloodstream where they aren’t supposed to be, your body mounts and immune response, and you can experience symptoms like diarrhea, constipation, gas, bloating, belching, skin rashes like eczema, anxiety, depression, joint aches and pains, fatigue, and the list goes on! Over time, this process can lead to autoimmune disease.
If you have lots of different food sensitivities, you likely have leaky gut!
And with leaky gut, there are all kinds of things that can come through and trigger symptoms, it’s not just foods! Toxins from the gut can also end up in your bloodstream and trigger symptoms.
So you see, food sensitivities are a symptom of impaired gut health. You can remove food after food from your diet, however the scenario I described is still happening, so you’ll become sensitive to more and more foods, and your diet will become increasingly smaller.
Plus, since it’s not just foods, you may be barking up the wrong tree to begin with!
This is where a lot of clients I see are. They are on very limited diets, and now they have a lot more symptoms and health problems. This isn’t a coincidence! The underlying problem still exists, and is still wreaking havoc, and now we are also dealing with nutrient deficiency due to long term diet restriction (which causes symptoms too), that we have to resolve in addition to restoring gut health.
The answer here isn’t more food eliminations, it’s restoring gut health! To get relief you need to understand there is a root cause of the problem, rather than using a diet because it will only manage symptoms at best, and for a short period of time. You need to address what’s happening inside.
Now, short term elimination diets can be helpful to identify triggering foods, and removing them can help manage symptoms and reduce inflammation while working on the gut. But you have to work on the gut.
I also want to mention that food sensitivities that I’ve talked about are different from a true food allergy.
A true food allergy causes an immune system reaction that can cause symptoms like breathing problems, throat tightness, hoarseness, coughing, vomiting, abdominal pain, hives, swelling, even a drop in blood pressure. In some cases, an allergic food reaction can be life-threatening.
Even if previous reactions have been mild, someone with a food allergy is always at risk of the next reaction being life-threatening. Eating a microscopic amount of the food, or sometimes even touching or inhaling it, could lead to anaphylaxis. So anyone with a food allergy must avoid the problem food or foods entirely and always be prepared in case of an exposure with an epi-pen for example, which is something you can get from your doctor.
Many people with food sensitivities, on the other hand, can ingest a small amount of the triggering food without much of a problem, and certainly without a life threatening reaction.
So anyway, if you have food sensitivities, and are on an elimination diet, you need to explore your gut health and resolve imbalances there. Then you’ll be able to expand your diet, and nourish your body, restore your health, and get relief from your digestive symptoms, skin rashes, chronic fatigue, autoimmune disease, food sensitivities, and other health problems you may be struggling with!
Remember, to get relief you need to understand there is a root cause of the problem, rather than using a diet because it will only manage symptoms at best, and for a short period of time. You need to address what’s happening inside.
If you need guidance or have questions, book your introductory consultation with me today, I’m happy to help!