I am slowly starting to add back in diary to my diet to see how I feel. It’s been touch and go – to say the least. I am trying to do it slowly with smoothies and adding cream or milk to my coffee. I am still avoiding eating lots of cheese or making super diary-filled meals.
Every morning this week, I have been having a protein smoothie made with Milkwise milk, chocolate protein powder, a scoop of peanut butter, chia seeds and cinnamon. Milkwise was nice enough to send me a variety of their milk options so I have been switching it up a bit to see what I like best. I am a big Unsweetened Almond Milk fan, so I gravitated towards the Reduced Sugar Vanilla flavor. It was good, has the same amount of calories and calcium as the Almond Milk I drink so it really is a toss up between the two. If you are looking for more of a diary option, Milkwise is a great alternative to all the Almond Milks out there. 
As I start to incorporate more diary into my diet, I have been thinking about what I have learned along the way while doing this Elimination Diet. Check it out!
Confessions and Things I’ve learned:
- I have to admit I haven’t been 100% perfect. I have slipped up for sure. I still get frequent headaches and bloating – but not nearly as much so I am making progress
- Preparing and doing meal prep is a life saver. The days I didn’t pack enough food are the days that I cheat and end up eating something I shouldn’t.
- Peanut butter is my best friend.
- Package foods sneak in a lot of crazy ingredients you would never expect to be included. I have been checking the ingredient lists on everything to make sure there are no sneaky add-in’s I wouldn’t expect. And there absolutely are! FYI…flavored potato chips have a CRAZY amount of artificial flavoring and coloring. I had no idea! Plain old, regular chips are fine – they have like 3 ingredients. But, flavored chips are a different story.
- Not drinking beer is really hard. I don’t like cider much and more than a couple glasses of wine leaves me with a big old headache the next day.
- Asking what is in food is crucial. It awkward at first, but it’s so important to your health, diet and digestion, it is worth doing. And, after you do it once or twice, you get over it and it is a-ok.
