Finding food freedom when dealing with autoimmune disease

While managing an autoimmune disease, I struggled for years to figure out the role of food in disease treatment. I regularly found myself wondering... "Why does food feel like the ONLY answer for natural autoimmune remission? Why is food all the experts seem to talk about? Why does it seem like I nothing else I do is enough... unless I'm also eating perfectly clean?"

To me, it felt like there was this underlying message in the illness / wellness industry that said... If you're not eating perfectly clean, and even worse if you're struggling to eat this way, then there's something wrong with you as a HUMAN.

You must not value your health.
You must not want to feel better.
You must not have any willpower or discipline or commitment.

It took a few failed attempts at the Whole 30, a deep desire to blend the worlds of intuitive eating & Autoimmune Protocol plus three specific questions before I realized how to use food in a way that actually works for me. (Meaning, I saw results AND I enjoyed the road to those results.)

​One quick note before we dig in. This path to food freedom with autoimmune disease is the most powerful for those who feel called to food avoidance or elimination-based diets and feel like food is the best (and often only) way to heal and feel better. While this practice may help those with specific food allergies, if you have Celiac's disease or other known allergy, I also recommend this blog, this blog or this one.

With that being said, here's how I found food freedom with autoimmune disease: 

1. Make sure the cause & get clear
2. Eat for *overall* health, not for weight or solely physical health
3. Reject the rules and make informed choices on the basis of mental and emotional food "allowance"
4. Grow into relationship with self through mental and emotional health activities
5. Extend that relationship into other areas of life

Make sure the cause and get really clear. 

If you're craving food freedom while dealing with autoimmune disease, then you're probably trying to figure how to not feel restricted while you eat an anti-inflammatory or elimination-based diet. You're probably trying to figure out how to take care of your physical health (and do what you believe and have been told is required to heal) while also trying to care for and honor your mental and emotional well-being. 

Simply put, you want to feel good -- again, not restricted or deprived -- as you avoid eating foods that aren't good for your physical health. 

As mentioned, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease when I was 14 and seven months later with an eating disorder. These were two pretty intense experiences I went through at a young age. And I have to be honest with you. Experiencing both of these diagnoses around the same time has made it pretty darn difficult to adopt certain dietary changes like an elimination diet, paleo or AIP.

It's not that I didn't want more than anything to be one of the success stories I found online. It's that cutting out foods and living by hard and fast rules felt suuuuper triggering. While I believed for a long time that I would have to adopt an anti-inflammatory diet (like the autoimmune protocol) in order to heal and get off medication one day, I REALLY struggled to not adopt this protocol like another diet. I struggled to not fall back into obsessive, restrictive, all-consuming habits that impacted not only my health but also my life. 

Now, don't get me wrong. There are people who can adopt these types of healing protocols with great success and relative ease. I just wasn't one of them. Not only did I fail to see the results I wanted to see (because the restriction itself was leading to new symptoms in my body) but I also mentally and emotionally struggled to feel good, happy and content with the changes I was trying to make. 

Frankly, trying to eat perfectly clean made me angry. (And a little bitter.)

I was frustrated that I had to spend so much time trying to heal in the first place. (We didn't ask for an autoimmune disease, right?) I was also frustrated that the only solution I could find for natural management was a diet. (Again, we don't ask for food intolerances.) Even more, I was frustrated that I believed in the autoimmune protocol AND intuitive eating.

I heard the experts who were saying, "Hey, Kel. If you want to feel better, and especially if you want to heal physically from something like autoimmune disease, you need to be adopting a certain type of diet. You need to be paleo. You need to be on the autoimmune protocol. You need to be eating clean."

I felt like I was hearing (over and over again) about the power of food -- it's medicine, right? -- and I took the notion to heart. I started believing food wasn't just a way to feel better... but rather that it was THE one and only way. 

On the other hand, I listened to other experts as they said, "Hey Kel. You know dieting causes a lot of harm, right? I mean, just consider your past. Remember how exhausted you felt dieting? Remember how it put a lot of stress on your body? Remember how you spent way too much time concerned with what you were eating, when you were eating, how much you were eating, etc.? Remember how you vowed never to diet again?"

I felt like I had to choose one side or the other when I really wanted to have both.

And this was my first lightbulb moment. I didn't just want to eat intuitively while eating an anti-inflammatory or elimination-based diet because I thought it would be fun. I was seeking out stories, advice and information on food freedom with autoimmune disease because I thought an autoimmune diet was required to heal...  and I thought intuitive eating was required to feel good (& not restricted) along the way.

It wasn't even that I necessarily wanted to feel good on an elimination diet. I wanted to feel good (period), have food freedom and heal naturally. Meaning, my next question needed to be: Am I sure a full AIP diet is required for me? Is it possible I can get off medication, be in remission and feel physically well without a restrictive diet? 

This is step #1. By getting clear on WHAT you want -- food freedom, to be off medication, remission, energy, feeling good or anything else -- and WHY you want that, we can begin to get clear on what's actually required to get there. Maybe you do have very specific allergies or intolerances to food and removing these from your diet is required to feel your best. Maybe you aren't entirely sure how food reacts in your body but have been told an anti-inflammatory or elimination-based diet is best.

Either way, this is why we make sure the cause.

​We want to make sure that whatever food we think is causing a negative reaction in the body is actually causing the negative reaction in the body. Are we determined to cut out foods because we know certain foods impede our ability to feel well? Or are we determined to cut out foods because that's all we know to do?

This can be a really easy step to miss because we're being given information all the time about what we should and shouldn't be eating. So much so that it can be really hard to filter all of this information through our own intuition and our own bodily truth.

But I really think this is the missing link for so many of us.

Because if you want to make choices around food (possibly the #1 most important principle when it comes to combating restriction) then you need to feel informed and empowered to make said choices. That empowerment comes the most quickly (and the most convincingly) through personalized data that you trust, understand and believe.

You see, knowing firsthand how a food reacts in your body is a really powerful piece of data that can inform future decisions. It's how you bypass willpower and discipline and instead truly feel at peace with food. 

Eat for *overall* health, not for weight or even physical health.

If you're trying to avoid certain foods and feel really good about doing so, check your motivations. Are you using food to improve your overall health -- or are you using food to lose weight? Are you using food to feel good mentally, emotionally and physically -- or are you using food with only your physical health in mind?

​This step is important simply because we make different decisions (and experience different feelings around those decisions) depending on the motivation we're using. 

Why care about your feelings? 

Because restriction isn't solely a physical conversation. In fact, so long as you're eating enough, restriction is more of a mental and emotional conversation. Feeling good and not restricted or deprived around food (even when you're avoiding triggers or intolerances) is about knowing you *could* eat any food not that you *do* eat any food. 

After all, if you have a dietary restriction, intolerance or sensitivity, you probably aren't actually looking to regularly eat these foods that leave you feeling unwell. Rather, you want to know that you could. This is where eating not just for physical health but for overall health really comes into play.

It can be easy to trip ourselves up and think the only way to eat intuitively is to avoid dieting. And that the only way to avoid dieting is to literally eat any and every single food you might want to eat. But for those of us with dietary restrictions, that's not entirely applicable. Instead, we want to know how the choice to avoid certain foods can be an intuitive one. It's the difference between I *do* eat every single food and I *could* eat every single food. 

That choice is determined by how you want to feel in a moment, how you want to feel tomorrow, where you're trying to go and what health means to you. 

Reject the rules and make informed choices on the basis of mental and emotional food "allowance".

Making choices is probably the #1 most important principle when it comes to food freedom with autoimmune disease. (Or, in other words, not feeling restricted or deprived when avoiding certain foods.) What's really important about this concept of choice is that we're making that choice regularly and not expecting to make once choice that we uphold for the rest of our lives.

Meaning, it's not about making the choice to adopt a diet that tells you what to and not to eat forever and ever but it IS about making a choice to eat or not eat something based on a variety of factors in any given moment. I know it sounds like this would be exhausting, or that it would be easier to make one choice and never question yourself ever again, but the way we get rid of willpower and find lasting freedom is to know that we can make ANY choice at ANY time and still be okay.

Are you okay -- as a human -- no matter what choice you make? Do you believe you can value your health *even when* you eat something not in the best interest of your physical body? Are you only "good" when you're eating clean?

To have food freedom, we need to know we COULD eat any food at any time. Part of getting to this place is feeling like its okay to experience unwanted physical reactions. Just like it's important to remove the fear of weight gain from the diet conversation, it's important to remove the fear of pain from the health conversation. It's not to say that we can't desire a pain-free life, but it's to say that *we* can't be "bad" or "wrong" or "guilty" or "unlovable" should we experience discomfort.

​So often, we eat something "bad" for our health -- in this case something that causes an unwanted physical reaction -- and we start picking ourselves apart. "I'm dealing with this pain, symptom, discomfort, {insert anything else here} because I don't have any willpower. Because I don't have any self control. Because I don't have any discipline. Because I don't care about my body. Because I don't value my health. Because I don't really want to feel good."

We take any physical discomfort that may or may not be at the hands of food and make it mean so much more than simply a choice to eat or not eat a food. When you're making choices about WHO you are as a human every single day at every single meal, then you are placing a lot of pressure on yourself. Not only are you walking around with the literal weight of that pressure (and the stress it brings) but you are also requiring the finite amount of willpower you have to lead the way.

At some point, things boil over and you're going to fall off the wagon. 

On the other hand, if you're literally making a choice about whether you want to eat a certain food and potentially experience a physical reaction in the body, you simply make the choice and move on, right? You're okay either way. Sure, that choice might influence how you physically feel later on in the day... but it no longer has to interfere with how you mentally and emotionally feel. 

If you're struggling to feel free around food while adopting an elimination-based diet, ask yourself this: What am I making my food choices mean about me? 

The more we can unravel the mental and emotional responses we have to food, the more we can tap into our physical responses to food. As we get more and more clear on those physical responses, the easier it is to avoid foods that leave us feeling unwell. Essentially, we're neutral about the food and therefore neutral about the decision.

For example, I hardly eat things like cheese, milk, ice cream, etc., but I can be around these foods -- for example, we host Taco Tuesday in our house each week and I cook! -- and saying no even while my family says yes does not feel like a big deal. Simply because this is a choice I am making... for myself.

In other words, there is nobody telling me that I am not allowed to eat cheese. There is nobody tell me that I am a bad person if I were to eat cheese. I am simply making an informed decision based on how cheese reacts in my body, how I want to feel in that moment and what I'm trying to achieve in the long-term. Sometimes I want to feel free, and that means eating cheese, and that's most important. Other times, I want to feel well and that means saying no.

Freedom doesn't come from actively DOING all the things. It comes from knowing you *could*. For most of us, that's an emotional and mental conversation rather than a physical one. If this resonates with you, I really recommend reading more about "emotional allowance" from Isabel Foxen Duke. Isabel first introduced this topic to me and I think it's the puzzle pieces that makes "choice" possible.

Allowing ourselves freedom at this emotional and mental level is the sense of freedom I think most of us are looking for. It's the thing that combats restriction and deprivation. We ALLOW all foods regardless of whether or not we EAT all foods. 

Grow into relationship with self by means of mental and emotional health activities. 

Essentially, it's these mental and emotional health activities -- like journaling, meditation, EFT, etc. -- that really help us get to the point of neutrality around food. Neutrality around food is what I call feeling like you could eat any food, regardless of how that food might leave you feeling. 

If you eat something that leaves you unwell, you deal with the reaction without making it mean anything about you, your health or your future. If you forgo something that often leaves you unwell, you do not ruminate over wishing you could eat said food.

I won't go into it a ton here, because I've talked a lot about the importance of mental and emotional health activities on the blog here and here, but I will say this: the more time you spend on your relationship with self the easier it is to trust yourself around food. And that trust really does equate to peace. 
 
Extend that relationship into other areas of life: career, hobbies, family, relationships, etc.

(Because how we physically feel -- in addition to how food leaves us feeling -- will be influenced by these other areas of our lives!)

I can also say this: One other reason it feels easy to largely avoid certain foods is because I've connected the avoidance to a larger mission. So that, instead of an intolerance being something that's happening TO me, I've decided it's something happening FOR me. This took awhile... and I am not saying we shouldn't first feel frustrated first.

In fact, I wholeheartedly believe we have to feel before we fight. Grief is real when we're talking about an autoimmune journey. I am in no way trying to minimize the very real emotions we must be able to express. (You can read more about grief and autoimmune disease here.) 

Be upset. Be angry. Cry. Yell. Process your emotions and this unfair situation in a safe environment and with people you trust. But also, allow yourself to eventually use this for good.

If this post resonates with you, check out my hidden stressors quiz to see if food is holding you back from feeling your best.