Wellness and health aren’t the same thing. Yes, there’s some overlap. However, while health focuses on avoiding disease, wellness is a proactive approach to life. It covers fitness, diet, and even stress levels.
Creating a personalised wellness plan involves taking account of your current fitness and health levels. As you evaluate your life choices, you identify actionable changes you need to make to feel better. Usually, that’s some combination of more sleep, less processed food, and a little bit more exercise.
There’s one aspect of health that rarely features in such plans: allergies and intolerances. Yet, these conditions can leave us feeling depleted and constantly under the weather. Below, we’ve developed a helpful guide for creating a personalised wellness plan based on your test results.
What is a Personalised Wellness Plan?
What do we mean by the word “wellness”? If you picture gymgoers, vegan diets, and green smoothies, you’re not alone. However, wellness is a more holistic concept covering all aspects of your life. It’s self-care with some rock-solid objectives.
Inside a personalised wellness plan, you identify potential problems. That could be a dietary intolerance to milk, high-stress levels at work, or ongoing allergy (think pollen or dust mites) that’s ruining your life. The next step is to develop solutions to each of these problems. Set clear objectives with actionable steps you need to take.
Personalised wellness plans aren’t just a fun thing to make. You should track your progress and monitor your symptoms or general feeling of wellbeing. You could even grade your wellbeing on a scale of 0-10, observing your progress or adjusting the plan.
Understanding Allergy and Intolerance Tests
We’re basing this personalised wellness plan on your results from an allergy and food intolerance test. Let’s begin by covering the difference between these conditions:
- Allergies: These are acute reactions triggered by specific foods or environmental factors, causing the immune system to produce IgE antibodies. Symptoms can range from mild (like hives) to severe (like anaphylaxis) and typically occur immediately after eating or being exposed to the allergen.
- Intolerances: These are chronic issues where the body reacts over time, producing IgG antibodies. Symptoms, such as digestive problems or headaches, are usually less severe than allergies and often delayed, making them harder to pinpoint.
An allergy and intolerance test will analyse IgE and IgG antibody levels in your blood related to specific triggers, e.g., pollen, foods, and other environmental factors. You’ll receive a score informing you of the potential risk of each trigger.
Use this information to trial an elimination diet, removing the culprit before reintroducing it to see if your symptoms appear. You could also book a more detailed pinprick allergy test if you wish to receive further confirmation.
Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Personalised Wellness Plan
Step 1. Identify Key Allergens and Intolerances
Most test results identify both environmental factors and specific ingredients that can trigger allergies or intolerances. For instance, the test might reveal an allergy to Bermuda Grass, which is associated with hay fever, or a food allergy to peaches.
To make practical use of this information, you need to compile a list of items to avoid. If you are allergic to peaches, it’s obvious to steer clear of peach pies, peach ice cream, and fresh peaches. However, you also need to be cautious with less obvious items like peach-flavoured candies and other products that might contain peach extracts or flavourings.
Identifying products to avoid can be more challenging with certain ingredients. Common allergens like mustard, sweet lupine, and gluten are often hidden in a wide range of products. In such cases, it can be more effective to create a list of “safe” foods and gradually expand it as you learn more about which items are free from the allergens or intolerances in question.
Step 2. Nutritional Planning
Nutritional planning is a balancing act. While you want to eliminate certain foods, sometimes that risks a nutritional deficiency. For example, an allergy to cow’s milk will reduce your calcium intake. Identify replacement foods, such as mackerel, to increase your weekly intake.
You could also consider replacement foods. People with a gluten intolerance can source gluten-free foods from their local supermarket or online. Just be careful – some of these foods contain other allergens, such as lupini beans or soy.
Step 3. Meal Planning and Preparation
Now you know what’s in and what’s out, you can plan out your meals. These could be some general guidelines if you prefer to experiment in the kitchen, or they could be a well-organised box of recipe cards. Most people find a mix of both strategies helpful – creating cards for specific recipes like gluten-free brownies while also leaving room for improvisation. Planning ahead helps you stay on track and ensures you always have the necessary ingredients on hand.
Step 4. Lifestyle Adjustments
Pair your dietary adjustments with overall lifestyle changes. If you’ve discovered an allergy to pollen, house dust mites, or dog dander, you’ll need to make some lifestyle adjustments. That could be as simple as putting a box of antihistamines in your bag in case you meet a dog or a more comprehensive rethink of cleaning your bedding. (Pro tip: Putting bedding and pillows in the freezer will kill dust mites.)
Hay fever sufferers have tons of resources and advice available. Consider washing your clothes when you get in, keeping windows clean, and rubbing a little bit of petroleum jelly around your nostrils (it works wonders!).
Take Your Allergy and Intolerance Test Today
Of course, you can create a personalised wellness plan if you’ve got your test results to hand. The Allergy & Intolerance Test Plus is our most comprehensive test kit. It analyses 79 intolerances (food & drink) and 38 allergies (food & environment), providing in-depth results. You’ll receive your results within 3-5 days after we receive your small blood sample.
Get tested today with the Allergy & Intolerance Test Plus and take the first step towards wellness.
