The thing about an elimination diet, if it works, is that it isn’t temporary. It is your new lifestyle. There’s no “this one bite of ice cream won’t hurt….” or “it’s my birthday! I deserve some cake!” It is extremely difficult to pull off.

If you’re thinking about going on the diet, or know someone who is on it, this is for you. This is what I wish someone had laid out for me, from the start. I thought I was just going on an experimental diet; really, I was changing my entire relationship with food.

At first, as I tried cutting out different foods to figure out what exactly Bean was intolerant to, the initial confusion followed by successes clouded this new reality for me. It was just something I was trying out to see if it’d help, like a new diaper cream. Then, one day, I realized this was real and this would be going on for years.

Food brings us together; it is how we celebrate, it is how we catch up. We do brunch with friends; we grab sandwiches and have picnics; we meet over tapas and cheese spreads; we have long, boisterous family dinners. Every holiday is celebrated with a feast among family and friends. One of my favorite things to do was to throw multi-course dinner parties for anyone around.

When you have to go on a strict elimination diet, you can’t take part in the literal breaking of bread. It can feel isolating. Sure, I cooked myself an elaborate (and delicious!) Thanksgiving dinner to bring with me, but part of a great feast is the sense of conviviality that comes with passing platters around a table, the shared joy of biting into something delicious. Just think of all the family recipes that you can no longer eat (and, remember, cheating even slightly means your baby gets sick, for days. You do not cheat on an elimination diet.)

Your relationship with food changes. I became an abstemious eater. I ate anything that was available, regardless if I actually wanted it or not. We used to get excited about trying new restaurants; as evidenced by this site, we’d willfully trek across town to try the best Chinese dumplings. Once I was on the diet, we started eating at the same 2 or 3 restaurants — “safe” restaurants that I knew wouldn’t make Bean sick.

Your tastebuds and olfactory senses change. I was really looking forward to the soy sauce challenge – sushi, finally! Except soy sauce had become revolting — like musty, putrid socks. I could only muster a half bite. Someone once ate yogurt at our apartment, and the meaty smell of cow’s milk permeated our living room for the rest of the night. Once I was off the diet, food no longer tasted as I remembered it.

It’s been a year since then (I stopped when I stopped breastfeeding), but my relationship with food still hasn’t gone back to normal. Partially because we still eat the diet due to Bean’s continuing intolerances, partially because I’ve seen the other side, where food is an energy source and not much more.

But, if you’ve been doing this because you are breastfeeding, the diet comes with several silver linings.

First, most obviously and the reason for it all, your child will be healthy.

As difficult (and annoying) as it will be to maintain this diet, you were lucky to catch this when you were still breastfeeding. Through early intervention, we treated her symptoms before they became intolerable. Until a few years ago, no one knew that food intolerances and allergies were causing their children’s persistent full-body, red, angry rashes. Bean got eczema patches from a single food challenge, half a baby teaspoon of soy milk, and that patch took months to go away with diligent treatment. Imagine if we’d been unknowingly feeding her those foods every meal for years.

Also, you’ve already done the hard part — figuring out what a person can eat on the diet. Once Bean started eating table food, I had already marched up the elimination diet learning curve myself — I no longer had to spend hours at the supermarket checking every label, I had a repertoire of recipes that worked, I knew what questions to ask if we had to eat out. It was an easy transition.

Finally, you’re whole family is likely eating healthier. I’ve been nodding for years at Michael Pollen’s “Eat real food.” I had no idea what that meant until everything going in our mouths, including sandwich bread, had to be homemade, from whole foods.

The reality is that the person who really needs the diet is your kid. We all hope that they’ll outgrow it before their first birthday, but chances are this will be with her for a long time, maybe years, maybe life. You’ve done a lot of legwork already, figuring out how and what to feed her, but you’ll also know a little bit about what it will be like for her growing up never eating Chinese or Thai food, never eating birthday cake. You have walked in her little shoes, and now it’s time  to be her advocate.