Choosing Core or Modified, and what your plate looks like

There are 2 pathways when you choose to explore the AIP protocol. This food choice is one piece of the Autoimmune Recovery Method (ARM), a complete approach to moving an Autoimmune condition 'Toward Remission'. If you are new here, the whole approach is mapped in 'What AIP Is, and Why It Works'.

Core is the original, most complete version. It is the version I typically recommend the most and trust for the deepest healing. I believe it is the gold standard of the two, because the scientific studies showing AIP's efficacy have been done on Core. It also gives your body the cleanest information, with fewer variables in play, and it is the more thorough version.

Modified is a valid place to begin. It is a real door in, and for some people it is the difference between starting and not starting at all.

• Core is what I strongly suggest.
• Modified is an on-ramp for some.

Core also tends to be the more efficient path. Do it correctly for 90 days and you get the cleanest data of all. On Modified, a food that is still allowed could turn out to be a real trigger for your body, and if that one trigger food stays on the plate, everything else you are doing will not show you the results you are working for.

The research reasons I trust Core over Modified are below, in 'How to Choose'.

How to choose

The whole point of elimination is to lower the noise so you can finally read the signal.

If you can give the fullest version a real and committed try, Core gives your body the cleanest information, with fewer variables in play, which means that when something shifts, you have a much better chance of knowing what shifted it.

If the more thorough version would set you up to quit, you could start Modified and work your way toward Core.

If you think, before you even begin, that you may quit, a gentler version you actually stay in teaches you more than a more intensive version you walk away from.

The goal is to stay with this for 30 to 90 days, and 90 days is what I typically recommend, so you can hear what your body is telling you. Be as kind to yourself in choosing your pathway as you would be to a friend who is uncertain about where to start.

Signs a gentler start fits you

A few things that point toward a gentler start:

• A fuller or less flexible schedule
• Limited energy for cooking
• A tighter budget
• A history of all-or-nothing attempts

It is information about how you set up to succeed.

What comes out, in plain terms

Both versions remove the usual suspects, and it helps to know why each group is on the list. Remember as we go that the immune system we are quieting is a devoted, exhausted protector working from crossed signals, holding no malice and having never betrayed you, and we are simply lowering the foods most likely to confuse it.

Grains and gluten come out because gluten is the most studied driver of a leaky gut wall, which I explain in full in 'Grains and Gluten: Why They Come Out Entirely'. Dairy goes too, both as an inflammatory food and because its proteins can provoke that sensitive, overworked protector. Eggs come out because their proteins are reactive for some people. Processed oils and additives feed inflammation directly, part of the larger shift away from processed food that I make the case for in 'For the Love of Whole Foods: The Shift from Processed to Real'.

Legumes and soy, nuts and seeds carry the lectins and enzyme inhibitors that can irritate an already-inflamed lining. Nightshades and nightshade spices, tomato, pepper, eggplant, potato, paprika, hold alkaloids and saponins that can keep the irritation going. Processed oils and additives feed inflammation directly. And alcohol is hard on the gut wall and the liver both.

Core removes the most on purpose, because it is the most thorough. Modified removes less, allowing a short list back at the start as a way in. The AIP Companion app we developed will show you the exact lists for your path, so you are never guessing at the grocery store.

One note in my own voice: in the AIP Core lineage that I resonate with most, by Datis Kharrazian, I do not reintroduce grains, dairy, or most legumes, and that includes soy. His approach was called AEP, the Autoimmune Elimination Provocation Diet. Those are not foods I suggest people work back onto their plate, even after reintroductions go beautifully with other things, and I stay cautious with rice.

You are your own sovereign being, and you have the final say! My role is to provide the education to the best of my ability so you can make the most informed choice for yourself. This is my considered position, and your practitioner may see it differently. I will always tell you plainly when something is my view rather than a settled fact.

What the plate looks like

Whichever path you choose, the plate is the same shape, and once you see it you can build it anywhere. Most of what is on your plate is vegetables, a wide variety of them across many colors, cooked in ways you will actually want to eat. Here is a good place for the reminder: Datis Kharrazian recommends 6 to 14 servings of vegetables a day, and the goal is variety, not quantity. That fiber feeds the good bacteria in your gut, the ones that do so much of the quiet work of keeping the immune system calm.

Add nutrient-dense, quality animal protein, real food rather than a protein powder or supplement, which gives the body the building blocks it needs to repair, and enough starchy vegetables, like sweet potato or squash, to keep your energy steady through the day. Grain-free is not low-carb. The carbohydrate simply moves to root vegetables, squash, and fruit, and your body still needs it.

That steadiness matters more than it sounds. Stable blood sugar is one of the 4 things this way of eating is built to support, because the spikes and crashes of an unstable day pull on your adrenals and your immune system both. In the Autoimmune Recovery Method this plate is how the food piece holds steady while the rest of the work goes on. I go deeper into this in 'Blood Sugar and Steadiness'.

Nutrient density and meal rhythm

Organ meats and fish, more nutrient-dense animal protein like liver, muscle meats, and fish across the week, add nutrients that are genuinely hard to get anywhere else, the zinc and vitamin A and omega-3s the gut lining uses to rebuild. I make the case for them in 'Organ Meats: The Most Nutrient-Dense Foods on AIP'.

And eat real, sit-down meals rather than grazing all day, ideally leaving 4 to 5 hours between meals. That spacing matters because of something called the migrating motor complex, or MMC, a wave-like cleansing cycle that sweeps through your digestive tract between meals and clears out leftover food and bacteria. Grazing all day never gives that cycle the chance to run its full course, and real spacing between meals lets your blood sugar and your nervous system both get to rest too.

This is the most nourishing way I know to eat while your body settles. If you are not sure which to start with, Modified or Core, that is exactly what the setup questions are for, and we will choose together. Take a slow breath into your belly, in deep and a long exhale, and let the pressure of getting it perfect drop away. That slow, diaphragmatic breath is a quiet signal of safety to your nervous system, and it helps your whole body settle. There is a real door here either way. You do not have to figure this out alone.

And there is a quiet, steady voice in you that already knows how to be gentle with you as you choose. It is the part of you that keeps championing for you, even on the days you cannot quite champion for yourself. You might call it the Wisdom Voice. It is always the kind voice, the one guiding you toward harmony and balance. Notice it, and trust it. Learning to lean on it is part of the work, not a soft aside to it, which I make the case for in 'The Inner Work Is Not Soft: Why Mindset and Connection Are Part of Recovery'.

---