i am really confused too and can't wait to hear the tips.  Some days I do exactly the same thing and have completely different days altogether.  it's really frustrating.  It's also hard to pinpoint exactly what it is when this happens!  Hang in there!!  I look forward to reading the responses!

Hello all,Flares. I do recall having alot of trouble in the beginning figuring it what it was that was flaring me. sometiems I still do but I can narrow it down now and figure it out when its confusing me. It was actually after a while of being on list 2 that it got to where my symtoms were more stable and flaring origins were more distictive. Consider a few things when flaring- are you ovulating or is it your period? I think hormones can be culprits to flares out of nowhere especially when you aren't doing anything out of the ordinary or testing a new food. Again sometimes its not the food its not the herbs - its just probably a rougher patch of die off.when testing out new foods I would just notice my reaction. usually within an hour I could tell if something wasn't right. sometimes it would be fine the firs time but then the next 2-3 times I would consistently feel bad. cease the food and come back to it 3 weeks later. Grains.  I thought I was able to tolerate spelt but it turns out as I got better I simply kind of noticed that spelt was irritating me more than I realized. I began to distinguish the kinds of flares I was having- some were shorter or longer or had distinctive qualities to them. ie. the probiotics when I wasn't tolerating them at first gave me a special kind of flaring burning feeling. I got flares from handling certain perfumes or chemicals without gloves or I got flares from a conditioner I didn't realize unsafe for me. my office had an orkin guy spray my office for roaches. I asked them not to do that in my office as it seemed to bother me later.  keep notes and pay attention and give it time- your body will kind of start teaching you its patterns and can give you subtle clues as to what it is sensitive to and what it isn't. the flares that you do get will eventually get shorter and less instense. notice the timing of the flare and the severity, qualities of the flare. did your pain go up? go down?  the doses of herbs you take will help you get over them quicker. I've had times where I seem to do great with the grains and not so great with them- I've had to switch up rice/kamut bread as my source of grains. sometimes tolerating one better than the other. potatoes usually don't bother me. if something seems like it is bothering you than put it down and come back to it like 1-3 weeks later. At first asparagus and avocadoes were too intense for me and so I just went slowly on list 2 trying a new thing out each week. spices are the last thing on list 2 that I've tried. I have been slowly testing out list 3 foods but I'm going really slowly. listen to your body. your intuitions about things are usually correct. I remember being so sensitive to things that just being near fermented things or picking them up into my hands could cause me to feel symptoms. itchy and irritated! hope this is helpful.It takes practice to figure this out- trial and error. start with what you know does not bother you and go from there. process of elimination is sometimes helpful.thanks!Mary

Even at 5 months and doing so much better, I still don't have a great answer. When I started, I was posting q's just like this - how the heck do you know if it's the food? And I still think this should be asked of Matia again at the next support meeting b/c so many of us struggle with it, maybe esp. b/c she's saying a reaction could be anywhere from a 1/2 hour to hours afterward, which is a huge time frame!
Well, what I've learned is in the beginning don't go crazy over it b/c there's still so much pain and many variable factors going on.  You will likely try things multiple times.  So just keep patient and don't get discouraged - sometimes you can try a food you really want and feel awful after and assume it's not gonna happen, but later you might try it and be fine and realize it was something else.
The only thing that's let me add foods w/ confidence has been doing it on the truly good stretches b/c then I know for sure.  So sometimes, not advocating this, but I'll try more than one new food a day to make the most of the good stretches. And usually for me the foods are fine, which reaffirms that other times I tried it & wasn't sure it was probably fine and just something else (hormonal, etc.).  But also, several times I felt like when I tried a food for the first couple times I felt worse after, but then trying it again a week later fine, so I thought maybe it's not that you can't handle it just the body needs to get adjusted to it b/c it's been absent so long?  So again, maybe a good question for the next meeting.