Why You Should Record Your Food Triggers?

Elimination dieting may seem daunting and futile, but let me change your mind by addressing Why You Should Record Your Food Triggers!

I promise that it is not a pointless effort and that it can be a simple process which brings you some of the most valuable information that you’ll ever have in your life…and food freedom!

You may be wondering how you can record in a journal, app, or video what your triggers are when you don’t even know what they are at first.  In this post, I will explain this as well as a few points to keep in mind in regards to staying the course with recording your food triggers.

Here are those key points, and what steps to take to get started:

Tracking the Triggers

The goal is to find out what your food triggers are, but you may not know what they are right away. One of the main reasons to start recording your food triggers, and emotional eating moments, is to find what is triggering the food reaction to begin with.

You do this by journaling and reviewing what you record. Keep in mind, you don’t have to write in a journal to do this or to track what you are recording. You can use an app that simply lets you record how you are feeling along with the food.

Go back and review this and you will start to see a pattern. You may notice that the days you react worse to certain foods versus others are:

• Days filled with stress
• Days after a crummy night’s sleep
• A day you missed your supplements / medications / lifestyle factors, etc
• Days of pro-inflammatory eating habits

Once you see the pattern down “on paper” so to speak, you can begin working some triggers out of your routine and utilizing ways to manage the triggers you cannot eliminate.

Tracking the Food Itself

Another reason to record your food triggers is to narrow down which foods might be causing an inflammatory response in your body.

For example, you may find that when you eat raw tomatoes you break out in a rash, but when you have cooked tomatoes your skin stays clear. Or you have joint stiffness after you eat raw almonds, but once they have been soaked in water, you are able to enjoy them pain-free.

Individual food tracking helps you figure out if one of the reasons you are getting triggered is because your body is creating an immune response to a certain food for the time being. With this important knowledge, you can then replace that food with an anti-inflammatory substitute while you work on recovering from potential underlying conditions that are creating the trigger in the first place.

If you are still having reactions to certain foods when you reintroduce foods on an elimination diet like the Paleo Autoimmune Protocol, continue to make simple swaps like:

• Swap tomato sauce for Carrot Marinara
• Exchange cow’s milk for Homemade Tigernut Milk
• Switch seed-based spices for an allergy-friendly seasoning blend

Emotional Tracking

When you think about recording your food triggers, you may be thinking about just narrowing down the food and what to replace or remove. Keep in mind that emotional issues are a huge trigger for many people and can be radiating out in your life in more ways than just-food.

By recording your triggers you can also record your emotional responses and try to work on the root of those issues as well.

Methods for Finding Food Triggers

The two most common being memory and a lack of nutrients in the diet. For example, craving potato chips during emotional eating can be triggered by the memory of reaching for those snacks when you were younger and upset, or by an imbalance of minerals in the diet.

If you are trying to reduce the triggers, or remove them totally from your life so healthier foods can be added, then you need to know how to find your food triggers. Here are a few methods you can use.

Keep a Journal

One of the first ways to find your food triggers is to keep a journal. This doesn’t have to be anything major or outstanding. It can be a simple paper notebook or it can be an app on your tablet. What you really need is an area to take notes when you start having a food trigger.

If you are having a craving for a certain food, or if you grab a specific food when you are having an emotional time in your life, write it down. Keep the date, the type of food you are eating, and any notes about the food. Keep notes on what may have led to it, or write down your emotions and thoughts.

Go back and look at your entries, taking notice of triggers that are recurring and food that keeps coming up during these moments. With this information, you can start making the right choices and changes to eliminate the need for the food trigger you are having.

Do BOTH an Elimination AND Reintroduction Protocol

• You can learn more about the elimination phase of the Paleo AIP (including how and which foods are the best choice to eliminate) right here.
• To learn more about the reintroduction process, let me share with you the case study of one of my alumni:

Kimberly’s elimination phase lasted 5 months. She decided she was ready for reintros after She had recovered fully from a cholecystectomy and wasn’t having any active Psoriasis flares.

She was able to successfully reintroduce seed-based spices, whole seeds including chia, (but not flax), egg yolks (but not whites), almonds (but not store-bought almond milk that contained xantham gum), green beans and snap peas, ghee (but not butter), goat and sheep’s cheese (but no cow dairy), white rice once a week, and white wine.

She was able to enjoy seed-based spices, egg yolks, almonds, ghee, and green beans regularly, but only enjoy snap peas goat/sheep cheese, white rice, and white wine on occasion because she noticed that if she consumed the latter daily, they caused her gut to flare up and her skin would begin to flare up.

She learned that she could not reintroduce eggplant (a nightshade) due to her intense reaction that caused her gut and Psoriasis to flare up, but after getting back to baseline with the elimination phase temporarily, she was later able to reintroduce roasted red bell peppers and peeled, white potatoes (two different varieties of nightshades). So while she was sad initially and thought all nightshades would be a no-go for her, later she had success with other types through the methods I teach in AIP Reintro Ready.

Through these methods, she also came to Know that stress and poor sleep affected her tolerance levels to foods. She was able to use the lifestyle, stress management, and symptom tracking techniques I teach in Reintro Ready to be intentional about her self-care, recognize factors that are key to her recovery and food tolerance, and also learned that when she was having a flare up (which happens from time to time due to life’s common stressors) when to reel in on the successful foods and return to baseline with the AIP again to prevent a larger health crash!

Now that You Know Why You Should Record Your Food Triggers…Let Me Show You How!

These methods are all fairly easy ways to find your food triggers, figure out why the triggers are happening, and replace the triggers with anti-inflammatory options while you work on recovering from potential underlying cofactors.

By incorporating the elimination and reintroduction phases of the Paleo AIP, these methods you can not only keep track of your food triggers, but also work towards a healthier path of food freedom.

To find out what your real triggers are, where you may be experiencing pro-inflammatory issues in your life (emotional and physical), and how to move forward beyond the elimination phase, click here to learn more about my 6-Week AIP Reintro Ready DIY Coaching Program!