“It’s Just Too Hard!”: Improvise, Adapt, Overcome

You may well be one of those people who are able to acclimatize to the AIP diet and lifestyle with ease and grace. I think for most people, however, it is a steep learning curve and, at times, a little painful. This certainly was the case for me. I’m a very ordinary person with very ordinary skills so this whole thing was daunting. For the first two weeks I cried not a few times over the amount of extra work it took to prep meals, the new things I had to learn to shop for and make, as well as just grieving over letting go of foods our family loved. So, yes, for those first two to three weeks it was a big adjustment for all of us. But I’m extremely glad we persevered because the results have been so worth it. I like to think of it this way: yes, living this way and eating this way is hard. But it is so much harder seeing my child unwell and in pain. I’ll take the hard of living on the AIP and seeing her better any day over the hard of seeing her sick. 

If you have started the AIP and are experiencing any of the same emotions or trials we did, I want to encourage you to push through. It will get a lot easier. Finding a way to make the AIP work for you and your family is key; what works for us may not work for you. Maybe you have a large family or you have a demanding full time job or you have family members who are just completely against the whole idea. Despite these obstacles, I really do think, in most cases, there is a way forward. You may have to get creative!  To borrow from the US Marines, it’s all about being able to “improvise, adapt and overcome”. 

Over the next few days I’ll try to tackle some of the reasons the AIP may seem “just too hard”. I’ll share some of the ways we have tried to make it work for us. If you find some of these things helpful, I’m so glad! If not, my hope is that you won’t give up but persevere in finding ways to make it doable for you and your family. And when you do, please start a blog and send me the link so I can learn from you!

So, here’s the take-away from today’s post: starting thinking like a US Marine. This is going to be great. 

“Marines are trained to improvise, adapt, and overcome all obstacles in all situations. They possess the willingness and the determination to fight and to keep fighting until victory is assured. “