The AIP Diet (Autoimmune Protocol Diet) is specially designed to reduce and manage symptoms of various autoimmune conditions. It is not a fad diet for weight loss, rather a targeted diet to manage specific symptoms that often appear in autoimmune conditions.
I decided to give AIP a go when I was dealing with a lot of inflammation due to my celiac disease and what I now know is a histamine intolerance. I couldn’t manage my joint pain, bloating, or puffiness – so I used to AIP diet to give my body a break and identify foods that were bothering my body.
The AIP Diet is not meant to be a long term solution. Rather, the goal is to reduce high inflammation and high histamine foods to give your body a break. Then after you feel better you’ll reintroduce foods until you find what you can tolerate. It’s hard to measure how long you’ll need the AIP Diet, however I completed the reduction and reintroduction phase in about 12 weeks.
Discloser: I am not a trained health professional. All articles are based on my own experience and opinions. Please consult with a health professional before making lifestyle changes.
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Understanding the AIP Diet
What is AIP?
The AIP diet eliminates several food groups to reduce inflammation and heal the gut. The diet excludes: Gluten, dairy, legumes, grains, nightshades, nuts, seeds, eggs, and seed-derived spices.
Phases of AIP
- Elimination Phase: This phase lasts 2-3 weeks (up to 90 days), where you strictly avoid all eliminated foods until symptoms improve.
- Reintroduction Phase: Gradually reintroduce foods one by one, noting any symptoms. If symptoms arise, remove the food again and wait until you feel better before trying another.
- Maintenance Phase: Find a comfortable baseline diet that minimizes inflammation and allows you to manage symptoms.
Foods to Avoid
- All grains, eggs, and legumes (e.g., green beans, black beans, white beans, kidney beans, garbanzo beans, buckwheat, corn, millet, oat, quinoa, chia seeds, rice).
- All nuts and seeds, and their derivatives (e.g., almond flour, canola oil, walnut oil).
- Nightshade vegetables (e.g., tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, eggplant, tomatillos, paprika, cayenne pepper).
- All dairy products (e.g., ghee, kefir, milk, cheese, cream).
- Spices derived from seeds (e.g., fennel, cumin, dill, anise, mustard, coriander, nutmeg).
- Most added or artificial sweeteners and food additives.
- Alcohol and coffee.
- Slippery Elm, Maca Root (two supplements I occasionally take)
Foods to Eat
- Nose-to-tail grass-fed or wild-caught animal proteins (meat, fish, fowl, organ meats, bone broth).
- Healthy fats and oils (coconut oil, olive oil, avocados and avocado oil, coconut milk).
- A wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables (e.g., sweet potatoes, greens, lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini, berries, apples, melon).
- Leafy greens (kale, spinach, lettuce, cabbage, watercress, beet greens, collard greens).
- Cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, arugula, turnips, mustard greens, radish).
- Alliums (onion, leek, garlic, ramps, scallions, shallots, chives).
- Tubers and roots (sweet potato, beets, carrots, parsnips, turnip, acorn squash, yam).
- Edible fungi (mushrooms).
- Sea vegetables (laver, hijiki, wakame, dulse, Irish moss, alaria).
- A variety of fruits (apples, apricots, avocado, bananas, berries, cantaloupe, cherries, coconut, figs, grapefruit, grapes, kiwi, lemon, lime, lychee, mandarins, mango, orange, papaya, passion fruit, peaches, pears, pineapples, plum, pomegranate, rhubarb, tangerines, watermelon).
- Non-dairy fermented foods (sauerkraut, kombucha, kimchi).
- Herbs and spices not derived from seeds (cinnamon, turmeric, thyme, oregano, basil, rosemary, bay leaf, chamomile, chives, cilantro, cloves, dill weed, garlic, ginger, kaffir lime leaf, onion powder, parsley, peppermint, saffron, spearmint, tarragon).
- Natural sweeteners (stevia, maple syrup, honey, monk fruit).
What To Eat on the AIP Diet
While at first glance the list of what you can eat might feel restrictive – I promise you there is plenty left to enjoy. I found it easier to give myself a flexible “menu” rather than a meal plan, so I could choose what sounded good in the moment. As I continued into the diet I curated a menu of meals that I were easy to prepare and I could eat over and over again. Check out my list for an easy starting place.
How To Prepare for the AIP Diet
If you’ve never done an elimination diet – AIP might be a tough transition for you. If you’re overwhelmed with cutting out everything at once, you can add in a slow elimination phase where you just take a few things out at a time, taking a few more out every week or at the pace that works for you.
I encourage you to view this experience as an opportunity to explore new recipes and cooking techniques. Before starting the diet find recipes and create a menu you’re excited about. You can use my menu as a starting point, adding in more based on your preferences. Grab my full AIP Diet menu here – for free!
Another aspect you need to prepare for is how you’ll handle social situations while you’re going through this process. In order for your body to reap the benefits and to learn how foods are bothering you – you have to commit. There aren’t any “cheat” days here. Give yourself a solid few weeks to fully commit – I choose a few months where I wasn’t traveling and there weren’t any major holidays. However, that’s not to say you should become a hermit. Find ways you connect with others without meals if eating out is stressful.
Tips for Following the AIP Diet
Starting slow:
If this is your first elimination diet, it may be challenging. Having done an allergen elimination diet before, I know the mental blocks that come with it. You may find success with a gentler approach, such as eliminating one group at a time instead of going cold turkey. Treat this eating style as a scientific experiment: eliminate potential triggers, wait until you feel better, then reintroduce foods one at a time.
Don’t underestimate snacks:
The AIP diet is low in carbs, so I felt hungry more often. Planning snacks helped keep my energy up. I’m not really a snack person but I treat it like it’s own meal I need to plan and prep for.
Increase your grocery budget:
I underestimated my grocery spending. I chose to buy organic protein and produce, which increased costs. Buying in bulk from Costco and planning meals ahead of time helped manage the budget, but I needed more wiggle room. I found myself cooking less in order to stretch my groceries, but that left me hungry and grumpy. Stock up on produce that’s more budget friendly and have more produce over animal protein to stretch that budget.
Smaller, more frequent grocery shopping:
A big part of the AIP diet is working with as fresh food as possible. For me especially because I have a histamine intolerance (which AIP taught me!) getting fresh produce is key. Where possible shop whole fresh foods – fresh produce, fresh meat etc. Do your best to avoid processed foods. This might mean you pick up a few groceries every 2-4 days instead of shopping for 1-2 weeks at a time.
Resist the urge to meal prep:
A key part of the AIP Diet is to reduce histamines. Histamines rise as food ages – so prepping all your meals on Sunday means that by Friday those leftovers are very high in histamine and could trigger your symptoms. Instead try to cook as much as you can right before eating. This was a significant shift in my life but has made the biggest impact.
Flexibility in meal planning:
It’s important to have a plan so you don’t have to panic last minute, but with the restrictive nature I appreciated some sense of flexibility. So instead of a rigid meal plan, I created a menu of options for 3-4 days at at time. This allowed me to choose what I wanted to eat without feeling restricted.
Lean into trying new recipes:
This might be a big change from the way you’re currently eating, but look at it as a way to try new recipes and cooking methods! You may gravitate to the same few meals – but I promise you there’s so many to try!
Prioritize your bedtime routine:
Rest is key to letting your body heal. I took my bedtime routine seriously and protected it to ensure I was getting 8-9 hours a night.
Make time for hobbies:
This diet can consume you if you let it, make a point to prioritize your hobbies. I recommend choosing a hobby that helps you find peace and center yourself. I enjoy knitting, crafting, watching reality TV lol.
How To Reintroduce on the AIP Diet
Typically there is an order you’re supposed to reintroduce. It starts with nutrient dense, least likely to cause a reaction foods and works towards the more likely foods.
However, the problem I had on AIP was staying full. To compensate I was eating more protein, which is not only expensive, but also at highest risk of high histamine. So I chose to reintroducing grains more quickly so I could round out my meals better.
You can reintroduce in this order or start with what you miss most and would make the next few weeks easier for you. For a full breakdown of what to introduce in each stage check out this article:
Stage 1: egg yolks (not the whites), legumes (limited), fruit, seed-based spices, nuts and seeds (oils only), dairy (just ghee)
Stage 2: nuts and seeds, whole eggs, dairy (butter), alcohol (small quantities)
Stage 3: nightshades (paprika, potatoes), dairy, legumes (limited)
Stage 4: nightshades, gluten free grains, legumes, alcohol (moderate quantities)
These are the steps you should follow when you reintroduce:
- Choose a meal where you can introduce the single allergen where the rest of the meal is AIP compliant (preferred) or already successfully introduced
- Take one small bite of the allergen
- Wait 15 mins and monitor symptoms (immediate reactions to look for is headache/sinus pressure, bloating, stomach cramps, muscle tightness, fatigue, lightheadedness etc.)
- If after 15 minutes there is no reaction, eat one small portion
- For the next 3 days go back on strict AIP compliant meals to monitor symptoms (long term symptoms for me would be joint pain, stiffness, negative mental health changes, muscle pain, nerve pain, sleep issues, getting harder to walk, mental clarity, mood changes)
- If after 3 days no symptoms have occurred then move onto the next allergen and you can start eating the successfully reintroduced food regularly. I would space these apart so you get used to adding that previous food back in before trying another
- If symptoms do occur go back to strict AIP (even the foods you’ve already eliminated) until you feel back to where you started.
- Take detailed notes of everything you eat and the reactions you have so you can reflect and backtrack if you do start having symptoms out of nowhere.
My Personal Journey on the AIP Diet
Living with celiac disease has been a rollercoaster. Initially, after my diagnosis, I adhered strictly to a gluten-free diet, and the results were phenomenal. My symptoms dramatically reduced, and I felt a sense of relief. However, over time, lingering symptoms of inflammation began to reappear. I started with the AIP Diet to determine what foods made me feel my best, and that led me to learning I have a histamine intolerance.
These are the main symptoms I saw improvement with while on the AIP Diet
- Swelling/Inflammation
- Hip pain
- Sleep Quality
- Acid reflux
- Psoriasis
- Hormonal acne
- PMS
- 28-day menstrual cycle
- Self love/confidence
Week by Week Recap
Week 1: noticeable improvement in anxiety, reduced puffiness in my face and less stomach swelling.
Week 2: still having some histamine reactions and struggling to sleep well, acne improved, no acid reflux.
Week 3: steady progress, inflammation reducing, still feeling hip pain, no acid reflux, feeling more confident. Anxiety got worse.
Week 4: started to feel be most improvement, joint pain improving, anxiety is improving again.
Week 5: pain reduced enough to increase activity level, more all over swelling reduction, sleep starting to improve, psoriasis improvement.
Week 6: started to see a pelvic floor therapist to aid in my hip pain, pants started to fit better, less PMS than usual, confidence continues to grow.
Week 7: had a histamine reaction which set me back, more swollen, joint pain increased, acid reflux for the first time since week 1.
Week 8: started a partial reintroduction while focusing on lower histamine
Week 9: discovered I react to almonds and corn
Weeks 10-12: some positive reintroductions, some negative – took time between to back up and try again.
Weeks 13-15: continued to reintroduce slowly and find the baseline I felt best at.
These are the things I feel like made the biggest difference in my symptoms:
- Digestive Bitters and Digestive Enzymes with meals
- Apple Cider Vinegar in the mornings
- Collagen
- Improving my sleep
- Pelvic Floor Therapy
- Taking a break from grains and sugar
- Reconnecting with myself and listing to my body
- Making time for hobbies
Supplements I took while on the AIP Diet
These supplements supported my gut and overall health during the AIP diet. They are in no way required but people are often curious, so here’s what I’m was currently taking:
- Calm magnesium: 1-2 scoops every morning (you can sometimes find it cheaper at Costco)
- Nordic Naturals ProOmega 2000 Omega supplement: 1 daily
- Thorne Advanced Nutrients – Multivitamin: 1 daily
- Ortho Molecular Biotic Probiotic Blend: 1 daily
- Pure Encapsulations L-glutamine 500mg: 1 daily
- Kirkland Signature Aller-Tec: 1 daily (cheaper at Costco than Amazon)
- Nature Made Calcium supplement: 4 daily
- Pure Encapsulations Magnesium glycinate: 2-4 nightly