rotation diets

[motocita]

i'm getting ready to implement a rotation diet to help diversify our diet. we have leaky gut and it has limited our diet severely - i really can't stand to continue this way much longer. so, i'm going to add some foods that are allergens for us, mild allergens.

i found an article on the internet that lists the food families. they also include a rotation diet in the article. my question is: is it OK to mix and match as long as you keep the families together? for example, can i swap the tomato family for another family on a different day?

are there any other rules to doing this? or is the only rule to not repeat a food in a family sooner than every 4 days?

TIA!
silvia

[stacyg]

We are about to start a r.d. too! What site did you find that info on...I've only begun in my search. TIA!

[motocita]

http://www.gdx.net/home/assessments/...eliefGuide.pdf

you can start here.

and here's a plan:
http://www.chekinstitute.com/pdf/Rotation.pdf

[stacyg]

:

THANK YOU!!

[BakingMama]

Sorry, I can't help w/ your questions. But I'm getting ready to set up a strict rotation diet.

motocita:

and here's a plan:
http://www.chekinstitute.com/pdf/Rotation.pdf

Is this what you're following and how's it going?

[RootBeerFloat]

I think it's fine to use different food families on different days--at least the rotation diet that my naturopath gave us allowed that. Our guidelines were to choose a protein, a starch, and a fat of the day for every day and not repeat for 4 days. Families of fruits and veggies were on the rotation diet as well but we didn't rotate them because our sensitivities weren't there (and the things that we are sensitive to, we just eliminated entirely). But, if we had to rotate them, we just would have chosen families of those things too for every day.

Good luck. I found the rotation diet that dd and I used last winter/spring to be pretty exhausting. But, in combination with digestive enzymes and probiotics, I could hardly believe the improvement in dd's digestion and sensitivity to foods after 4 months. It was totally, totally worth it.

[BakingMama]

Ally'smom:

But, in combination with digestive enzymes and probiotics, I could hardly believe the improvement in dd's digestion and sensitivity to foods after 4 months. It was totally, totally worth it.

By digestion, do you mean you noticed her stools becoming much more firm and with the foods more digested? Or something else? I'm curious b/c I'm hoping that once we get on a rotation ds' stools will be improved. I generally try to rotate but nothing strict, set or written so it's a half-baked attempt right now. I'm kinda dreading it b/c with our allergies and foods I don't give ds by choice will really limit the rotation. So, any more detailed info. you could provide on the improvements you saw would be the much encouragement I need.

[motocita]

i made a whole plan for us, based on the limited foods that we could tolerate. then i added in a couple that we react to mildly. it seemed to be going OK, and we followed it strictly for about 3 weeks.

one thing that i like about it is that it's a no-brainer to plan meals. this part was great, because a lot of my anguish over our allergies came at the time when it was time to decide what to eat. that would just bring up all the negative feelings.

we're still rotating foods, but very loosely now, with overlap between days. i since decided to give digestive enzymes a try. it's been a week and a half on the enzymes and we are not yet at full dose, but - i am very happy with the results. i have even given dd some grains and she seemed to tolerate it so much better than before. there's still a reaction but it's minor and i'm hoping that once we get up to full dose on the enzymes this will improve. also, enzymes heal over time so i'm hopeful that over time the reaction will lessen until it's gone.

i am always looking for ways to help my daughter heal, and every new thing brings some improvement. i think enzymes though have made a significant impact thus far. i will also continue to rotate foods but very loosely, mostly just rotating fruits & vegetables because that is what she seems to have most problems with. rotating these has really helped me identify which ones she reacts to, and exactly how (shiners, eczema, behavior, etc.). i've actually been able to compile a spreadsheet of how she reacts and how severely.

[RootBeerFloat]

Originally Posted by BakingMama

By digestion, do you mean you noticed her stools becoming much more firm and with the foods more digested? Or something else? I'm curious b/c I'm hoping that once we get on a rotation ds' stools will be improved. I generally try to rotate but nothing strict, set or written so it's a half-baked attempt right now. I'm kinda dreading it b/c with our allergies and foods I don't give ds by choice will really limit the rotation. So, any more detailed info. you could provide on the improvements you saw would be the much encouragement I need.

Yes, there was such an enormous improvement in her stools. Before we started with the rotation/digestive enzymes/probiotics, she could eat entire meals and have them come out looking and smelling exactly the same way they were on her plate. It was very alarming. There was some change in the beginning, but by 3-4 months or so, I could really see dramatic improvement. It was very rare for me to be able to identify any of what she had eaten in her stools. Her bowel movements were more regular and predictable, and she was not as gassy. These changes persisted even after the rotation ended.

I hated doing the rotation diet. It was so hard and felt so restrictive. The list of things to which dd is allergic or sensitive is very long, and I also do not give her many things by choice (like sugary snacks and candies and really most processed food in general). So it was quite an adjustment. However, it forced me to learn a new way of cooking and eating that has benefitted all of us. A big shift for me came when I started focusing on the pantheon of fruits and vegetables that we could eat for "free" (ie not on the diet). The starches (banana, plantain, potatoes, sweet potatoes) were rotated but so, so many other things were not. The rotation really forced me to build our diet around those healthy things, and we are all better off for it.

I found alot of inspiration in the books Nourishing Traditions, Eat to Live, and Disease Proof Your Child. There are nutty things in all of them to be disregarded, but in general the idea of eating traditional, unprocessed foods and building a diet around plants and whole (gf) grains, really opened up alot of doors for us.

[RootBeerFloat]

Originally Posted by motocita

rotating these has really helped me identify which ones she reacts to, and exactly how (shiners, eczema, behavior, etc.). i've actually been able to compile a spreadsheet of how she reacts and how severely.

We experienced the same thing. I was able to identify a host of other sensitivities during the rotation that just weren't apparrent before. Mostly these were things like soy and tomatoes and oranges, to which dd's reactions are more mild than dairy and gluten. Being able to nail down the rest of dd's "list" was really helpful.