# Food diaries and ellimination diets



## Corydalis (Apr 27, 2013)

Hi guys, have any of you done ellimination diets? Kept extensive food diaries? Seen allergists?


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## SLaurenAlise (Apr 10, 2013)

I kept a food diary for a while when I first began seeing a nutritionist, and that was really helpful because he could look over the diary and recommend that I eliminate certain things and eat more of other things. You have to be totally honest and consistent for a while in order for that to work, but I would say that it helped me to make certain adjustments to my diet.

It's also helpful to keep a food diary if you aren't able to keep track of what you react to -- I've pretty much established what causes an IBS attack for myself over the years, so I haven't used a food diary for that in a long time.

Finally, food diaries are helpful in managing your weight... I tend to gain a lot of weight whenever my IBS flares up because I have to start eating different foods. Simply writing down what you eat can help you to cut back on the amounts that you consume and keep track of how you are feeling in reaction to different foods, even when you may not be experiencing an IBS attack of diarrhea or constipation. I think there are foods that don't cause my IBS to flare up specifically but still might be causing me to feel more sluggish, crampy, nauseous, etc. so I think I'm going to go back to keeping a food diary again.

If you have a smart phone, you can use the MyFitnessPal application. It's really helpful because a lot of times, you can enter in the food item and the app already knows the caloric content of the food. It stores all your data for months and even years as to what you've eaten each day, how much water you have to drink, and how much exercise you get.


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