AIPlum

On January 1st (I know, bit of a cliche), I started the paleo autoimmune Whole30 protocol in the hopes of improving my ME symptoms. I also committed to daily bone broth and fermented foods. After changing jobs in March 2013 and increasing my working days from 3 to 4 per week, I was feeling lethargic and drained all the time and my non-work time was more and more often spent in bed.

After an initial SNAFU involving seed-based spices (didn't mention that one in Practical Paleo, which was the meal plan I started out following) I didn't find the protocol too difficult to follow in January. It wasn't that different from the primal diet I'd been following for over a year and doing some Mel Joulwan-stylee cookups helped immensely.

Towards the end of the month, I noticed that I had more mental energy. I was feeling inspired to start new projects, which is unheard of for me at this time of year. I usually spend the UK winter in something of a funk and using my SAD light faithfully every morning. This January, however, I eventually realised that I'd stopped using the light without noticing. My sleep quality (as measured by my Fitbit) also went up measurably and I lost 4 lb and an inch off my waist.

All sounds good, no? It was. And then February arrived.

I was in two minds about how to approach February. On the one hand, I had read The Paleo Mom's advice to not let food reintroductions be ruled by the foods you miss, and her words of wisdom on the importance of handling the process properly. On the other hand, I really missed some of the forbidden foods. On the OTHER other hand, though, I was pretty excited to be noticing an improvement and didn't want to jeopardise this.

A sensible person, at this point, might have decided to carry on the hardcore version of AIP for another month or two and then carefully planned a phased introduction of various foodstuffs. Not this plum, apparently. No, for the last week or so I've been having a random smattering of mustard, cumin, egg yolks and the like - and part of a piece of gluten-free chocolate cake that it's best we don't mention here (a coworker saved me a piece especially and it was the first cake he'd ever made in his life). Unsurprisingly, I've had some odd physical symptoms and, also unsurprisingly, I've no idea what they were related to.

So. I'm going to try to knuckle down and do another two weeks of strict AIP (not strict Whole30 rules, but I won't be eating a lot of sugary stuff either) before doing what I should have done in the first place and planning carefully how I reintroduce things.