Podcast episode by JJ Virgin (Ask the Health Expert) addressing how to tell whether symptoms during a diet are due to a food intolerance or an unrelated illness (e.g., a cold). The host advises staying on the elimination-style 'Virgin Diet' while ill, using a minimum three-week elimination (can extend to 6–12+ weeks) to establish a baseline, then re-challenging foods one at a time only after recovery to identify triggers. The episode also includes multiple sponsor ad reads (Earth Breeze laundry sheets, Wayfair, University of Phoenix, Monarch budgeting app, Chrysler).
Chapters
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Okay, so how do you tell that is a little bit complicated. And what I would tell you is don't go challenging when you can't keep all the variables straight. So if you don't feel well, this is a good time to just stay on the virgin diet. Because if you are eating foods that you're intolerant to, remember you create an immune response in low grade inflammation. I can say that word, inflammation. And you don't really want to be doing that as you're battling something. You want to have your body be able to have all of its resources ready to launch against that illness, whatever it is. So if while you're doing the virgin diet, you start coming down with something, just stay on the virgin diet. I basically live my life, you know, on the virgin diet. So there's no harm in doing it. There's no harm in doing it for the rest of your life. Although that's not what the how the diet was set up. It was set up as a process that you go through where you pull these foods out that you're most likely to have some kind of intolerance to. One or more of. You go through a process where you detox and reset at the end of that process. And by the way, that process minimally is three weeks, but you can take it out to six weeks, eight weeks, three months. Okay. @ the end of that, when you're feeling good, so you have a great baseline, then go back and re challenge one by one those foods. And so right now, if you're fighting a cold, just stay on the virgin diet and don't go challenge until you've gotten through that piece of it. Then and only then go back and challenge one by one so that you'll be able to know what's actually causing the symptom. There you go. That was a great question and actually one I've never been asked before. So I really appreciate you asking that. And again, it really, it really states the difference. If I wrote the Virgin diet again, which one day maybe I'll write Virgin Diet 2.0, and it would be, you wanna pull those seven most high offenders that we most tend to have tolerance to out for at least three weeks. But you can keep going, and you really wanna keep going until you've gotten to where you wanna be and you feel great. And then go back and challenge one by one. So again, wait until you feel good, not when you're fighting something to go back and challenge. This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I do this five times a week, so make sure you never miss a show by going to.
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