The First Week On The Kaufmann Diet

The first week on The Kaufmann Diet might be the most difficult part; plan ahead and make it easy on yourself.

Changing your diet is among the more difficult challenges a person can undertake; understandably, switching to The Kaufmann Diet can be difficult for many people, especially if you are accustom to eating the Standard American Diet. 

Particularly for those with a fungal infection, the foods you are asked to give up on The Kaufmann Diet are often the very foods you crave. These might be foods high in sugar, like sweets, desserts or ice cream, or maybe food high in carbohydrates, like bread, pasta or potatoes. And often, as you begin to deprive fungi and yeasts of those foods they thrive upon, those cravings will intensify. For many people, the first week of The Kaufmann Diet can be the most intense. 

Make a Plan

The best way to set yourself up for success is to make a detailed plan for the week that includes meals, snacks, and an appropriate list of groceries, which you should shop for ahead of time. Be prepared! When cravings do hit, it is important to make sure you have food on hand that you can eat. It might feel awkward to plan out your meals and snacks for a whole week, taking into account any work or travel plans, but this is a good health habit to cultivate though, and it can make a real difference when you are starting out on the diet.  Learn more about planning a week on the Kaufmann Diet here

Purge Your Kitchen 

To keep yourself from slipping up, get rid of anything in your kitchen that is not on your diet. This might mean foods like sugar, or a stash of candy; it certainly means snacks like chips and crackers or foods like bread. It may mean getting rid of certain condiments. To avoid being wasteful, you can always donate unopened packages of food to food banks. 

What To Expect

The first week on the diet can be intense. While there is never any reason to be hungry on the diet––you can eat as you want as long as it is on your diet––you might experience hunger that is really just cravings for sugar and carbs in disguise. As fungi and yeast begin to die, those cravings might intensify. Furthermore, you may experience what’s called a Herxheimer reaction, which can temporarily make you feel worse than you did before starting the diet. This flu-like malaise is short-lived however, and it is ironically a sign that you are on the right track. 

The first week on the diet will likely require some resolve. You will be tempted to cheat, and will likely find yourself trying to to talk yourself into cheating. It can and likely will be difficult. 

However, it is important to remember that on the other side of the first week, the diet gets easier. Particularly when you begin to feel much better, or experience relief from symptoms that have plagued you for years, or experience effortless weight loss, your motivation will increase. After 4-6 weeks on the diet, you may realize that you do not even crave the foods you once did, and you may have no desire to ever revert back to old ways of eating.

Related Articles:

Getting started with the Kaufmann Diet

A Simple Kaufmann 1 Diet Shopping List

More Questions?

If you have more questions we invite you to join our live Q&A show every Tuesday and Thursday.