Creating Your Custom AIP Meal Plans
The AIP diet is a way of eating designed to support those with autoimmune conditions. “AIP” stands for autoimmune protocol. This diet works to remove many irritating or inflaming foods and incorporate foods that are known to be healing or health-promoting. Specifically, the diet is helping you manage your autoimmune symptoms and improving your gut health.
What Is the AIP Diet?
The autoimmune protocol diet is like a more intense version of the paleo diet. The paleo diet eliminates some common allergenic or irritating foods. The AIP diet takes it up a notch. The AIP diet removes all of the foods that paleo removes but then also includes eggs, nightshades, nuts, seeds and coffee.
Foods that are encouraged to make it into an AIP diet are high-quality proteins, fruits, vegetables and healthy fats. Other health-promoting foods are encouraged as well, such as fermented foods, bone broth and organ meats.
As you can see, the foods included on a strict AIP diet are limited. But, for most people, the AIP diet can be followed in phases. Most experts agree that the diet doesn’t need to be followed strictly forever. (We recommend working with your personal healthcare professional to figure out exactly what you need.)
Our general recommendation is to stick to the strict AIP diet for 30-60 days. This gives your body time to cut out common inflammatory foods and hit the reset button on your health. After your desired amount of time, you can begin to add foods back into your diet - slowly and deliberately.
We call this the reintroduction phase. Let’s say after 60 days, you want to add eggs back into your diet. Try to eat some eggs on day one of your reintroduction phase. Wait two or three days before introducing another new food to see if your body has any reactions to the eggs.
If you notice a symptom (maybe you break out or have digestive issues), then you know that you still need to avoid eggs for the time being. You can then move on to the next food you’d like to reintroduce. If you eat this food, wait a few days, and notice no immune response, then it can be slowly included back into your diet.
It’s important to know that this diet is not meant to heal your autoimmune condition (but for some people they might see this happen), but it can drastically help you improve or manage autoimmune symptoms.
What Foods To Eat on an AIP Meal Plan
If you’re looking to stay AIP, these are the foods you should focus on eating.
Foods to eat while on an AIP diet
- High-quality protein
- Fish
- Seafood
- Vegetables
- Fruits
- Natural oils
Foods to avoid on an AIP meal plan
- Grains
- Dairy
- Legumes
- Nightshades
- Nuts and seeds
- Eggs
- Sugars
- Alcohol
It’s worth noting that egg whites and nightshades are some very common “healthy” foods that are excluded in AIP diets due to their unique ability to cause inflammation.
AIP Meal Plan Recipe Ideas
Here's a preview of a week's worth of meal plan recipes + ideas. The recipes and menu are ever changing and you can customize your meal plan to your taste as a member, but as a sample - here's some of the goodness you could be enjoying today when you join Ultimate Meal Plans.
Monday
Breakfast: Bacon Wrapped Apples
Lunch: AIP Casesar Salad
Dinner: Thai Salmon Soup
Snack: Canned Salmon & Avocado
Tuesday
Breakfast: Fueling Fruit Salad
Lunch: Cucumber Gazpacho
Dinner: Zucchini Salmon Boat
Snack: Sliced Cucumbers + Smoked Salmon
Wednesday
Breakfast: Spinach Power Juice
Lunch: Guacamole Dip
Dinner: Turkey Taco Salad
Snack: Avocado
Thursday
Breakfast: Protein Breakfast Bowl
Lunch: Seedless Watermelon Salmon Salad
Dinner: Salmon Cabbage Cups
Snack: Tuna Avocado Salad
Friday
Breakfast: Sweet & Savory Breakfast
Lunch: Loaded Sweet Potato Breakfast Fries
Dinner: Broiled Salmon
Snack: 1/2 Cantaloupe
Saturday
Breakfast: AIP Grits
Lunch: California Salad
Dinner: Spinach & Steak Salad
Snack: Celery
Sunday
Breakfast: Steak & Brussels sprouts Breakfast Hash
Lunch: Turkey Avocado Boat
Dinner: Broiled Bacon Wrapped Salmon
Snack: Deli Meat & Sauerkraut
AIP Meal Plan Recipe Photos
When you sign up for Ultimate Meal Plans - we have hundreds of recipes in our database, so this is just a sample of the beautiful, delicious and aip-compliant recipes we're serving up in our members-only area.
Try 14 Days of Paleo AIP Meal Planning
You can try 14 days of AIP meal planning for absolutely free. Just take our free trial for a spin and cancel whenever you like. Absolutely risk free!
Frequently Asked Questions on AIP
Here are some of the most commonly asked questions we get about the AIP diet.
What can I eat for Breakfast on the AIP diet?
On our AIP meal plan, we offer the ability to have an AIP breakfast planned for you every day.
What is an AIP meal plan?
An AIP meal plan is a weekly plan for sticking to your AIP diet. Because AIP is more health focused - small variations of non-AIP compliant food can set you back days or even weeks.
Fortunately, we offer an AIP compliant meal planning tool here at Ultimate Meal Plans. You can try it risk-free for 14 days here.
What can I eat on the AIP Diet?
You can see a full AIp diet food list here. The short version is that it is a stricter version of paleo with restrictions on nightshades, egg whites and other similar foods.
Does AIP help you lose weight?
While many people do lose weight on an AIP diet - the diet is primarily focused on eliminating inflammation and pain. While sometimes - this allows people to lose weight easily - it’s not the primary goal.
How do I start the AIP diet?
The easiest way to start the AIP diet is to read a beginner’s guide like we have built here. Then, we recommend using an AIP meal planner like Ultimate Meal Plans to help plan your meals + recipes automatically for you.
Is coffee allowed on AIP diet?
While coffee can be anti-inflammatory, for many people coffee can cause inflammatory responses. For this reason - we recommend when starting out AIP - that you remove coffee completely from your diet. If you want to try adding it back in later - you can have a clearer idea on how it affects you.
Other AIP Meal Plan Resources
People are always looking for more information on the AIP diet. Unfortunately, though, there are unhelpful and frankly unscientific resources out there, that's why we've come together to collect the best resources we can find. Read more below:
