The Migraine Relief Plan: An 8-Week Transition to Better Eating, Fewer Headaches, and Optimal Health

The advice in this book made a big difference for me. No longer suffer as much with migraines.

If you have been to the doctors with migraines, you've probably received the rubbish nhs leaflet about food migraine triggers. This book has a comprehensive yes / no list for nearly all foods you will eat. It's better than any list on the internet. While I have found some of the recipes a faff, that list is my food bible! There are some good tips in the book too. Definitely worth getting.

Very detailed and some handy tips and facts. Perhaps some pictures to go along with the recipes would make the book more attractive and enticing!

I really enjoyed reading this book and learning more about migraines. I used to suffer with them a lot in my twenties and recently had a flair up. I really like the fact that Stephanie decided to research migraines to find answers for herself. The result is this book, a source of information and a collection of beautiful recipes.

It was OK, but the advice in this book is very samey if I'm honest. Maybe that's because the advice for helping with migraines is on a practical level the same (eat less sugar/caffine/trigger foods) but the way this is presented in the book feels formulaic and no different to other books in the same genre. That's not to say its a bad book per se, just not stand out different.

Initially, when I read the section how the book is organised, I wondered why it would take 3 weeks of preparation before the reader was asked to start eating the foods on the plan. Then it hit me! How many times I have tried to 'diet' but still had easy access to all the things I should not eat? And what happens when the diet change is sudden and all-encompassing? Well, the simple answer is that I give up, and go back to the foods I know and enjoy. The answer, therefore, is to introduce changes slowly, and to remove temptation. Whilst I do not suffer from migraines, there are other health issues that I need to consider when making family meals, and once I had thought about it, the first three weeks of The Plan provided sensible advice. Each week the reader is asked to clean out a food storage area, check its contents, and get rid of certain foods which might be a trigger for migraines. There is no rush to change your diet in these early weeks. It's more about learning what you should and should not have in your store cupboards. I found Ms Weaver's personal experience interesting to read. She saw two doctors who gave conflicting advice, and two different diet sheets, because one of them was still using an outdated diet sheet. Only from her own investigations could she work out what she could and could not eat, and as such, her book serves as a useful guide. Although this book is written with migraine sufferers in mind, I think the advice offered could help anyone who needs to rethink their diet for whatever reason. The recipe section contains lots of interesting meals, but perhaps not all would be something I would want to make for myself or my family. However, I found the food list summary much more useful, as armed with that, I can adjust my own recipes to make meals which are familiar to us as a family, but without the migraine-triggering ingredients. The plan isn't all about diet. It also considers sleep and exercise as part of the regime to better manage migraines, and in Month 7 there is advice on how to go about testing yourself for foods which might be bring on a migraine. Ms Weaver's advice is clear and easy to understand. Overall, I thought this book was well-researched and reasoned, and would be a useful tool for anyone trying to better manage their migraines.

As a hereditary sufferer of migraines, I was eager to read this book. My father found that acupuncture worked for him as well as having an allergy test to see what foods were his triggers. I found some of the same foods triggered my migraines, but I also discovered that hormones had a part to play as well. In some respects I am very lucky as I don’t suffer from them often, but when I do… This book is a lifestyle guide, it has a great introduction about the authors’ experiences. I think that knowing the author had first-hand experiences made me more willing to pay attention. I am a believer that you don’t truly know what someone experiences until you experience it yourself, you can empathise and offer support but it’s never quite the same. The book is quite intensive and packed full of so many useful advice, tips and ideas. Taking small steps rather than jumping in at the deep end and ditching the stuff in cupboards and fridge seems to me to be a very sensible approach. The focus is on building up a regime that is manageable and more importantly maintainable. Often diets and lifestyle changes fail as there is too much too soon and the novelty wears off. There are lots of tips throughout this book, and while I did find some that were useful there were some that did not really apply to me. This is not a criticism in any way, as each sufferer is different, therefore there will be things that are more relevant to some. Now to the recipes, they have an American feel to them as I would expect given the author is herself an American. There is a range of snacks, lunches, desserts, dressings, and sauces, some of these have a budget rating. The book is a guide, it is about a change to not only your diet but also the lifestyle. It starts as an 8-week plan but encourages a longer period for better results. This is a well laid out book. It is not a cure-all, and it does not report to do that, it is a guide of things that can help people to manage and maintain a lifestyle. It looks at a whole-body approach rather than just pinpointing one specific area, so health, fitness, sleep as well as diet are dealt with. I think if you are looking for this sort of approach that could help with reducing symptoms and works alongside your already prescribed medications then I think this book will be beneficial. I found it interesting and I did take quite a lot of things from it that I can easily work into my own lifestyle. It is a book I would recommend.

As a Chronic Migraine sufferer my wife bought me this. It didn't particularly teach me anything new, most of this info can be found with a quick Google search. The recipes were a disappointment, very geared up for the US market with regard to measurements and some of the products used. Also the recipes are more for people who have A LOT of time to make and plan them. And a big budget on food buying too.

If you want a very well designed and comprehensive guide to get yourself motivated and organized to start and stay on a migraine diet, this is the book for you. The author herself suffers from migraines and Meniere's so she has personally gone through the process of altering her own diet to help decrease the symptoms of these health problems. She walks you through a week by week plan that goes gently into this new way of eating and altering your life style. You don't have to go cold turkey unless you want to. There is even a Facebook group for this book where the author answers questions and posts videos of information and recipes. I have been on the diet for 2 months now and have seen a decrease in the symptoms of vestibular migraines for myself. I plan to stay on the diet for the full 6 months recommended by the book before I follow the book's plan to reintroduce foods. This isn't just a list of foods you can't eat. There are lists of foods you can eat as well as neat recipes that use those foods. I'm really thankful I bought this book. I showed it to my doctor and he liked it well enough to write down the title, author, etc. to be able to recommend it to other patients. UPDATE: It has now been a little over one year since i bought this book and started to follow the plan/diet. I have mostly stayed within the baseline of the diet all this time because i believe that the healthy guidelines i've learned from this book have helped to lessen the chronic vestibular migraine symptoms i've had. I am so thankful i found this book on Amazon when i was looking for more information on migraine diets than the 2 page handout i was given by a doctor. This book and the support i've received in the companion Facebook group (group's name is the title of the book) from the author herself and other members have helped me a great deal.

Oh, it’s complicated. Now that is the point: as a nutrition educator, she breaks it down for you and has a plan to slowly incorporate it into your life (more conducive to long-term changes.). But it will be a change. Not all of us are gluten-free, dairy free, etc. some will get to incorporate them back in. However, the big deal is that tyramine comes from aging; expect to not have leftovers (or very little) and increased frequency of shopping for fresh ingredients, and give up some quality items that are aged (wine, aged cheese, and more). It looks like a good plan and some nice recipes to get you there, but you need to be ready to make major changes. I am not, so I’ll have to find another temporary measure to help me through renovations before I can think about trying this.

Stephanie Weaver has worked very hard to create a comprehensive plan to help migraine sufferers overcome their dietary triggers for getting migraines. If you haven't been able to get a handle on your food triggers before and suffer from migraines then this book offers a great way to try and find some relief from the pain. She gives extensive lists of foods and lots of wonderful recipes that fit within the plan and are reasonably easy to make and taste delicious. After you've mastered the basic concepts you can spread out a little and do elimination testing on various foods to see if you can add them back into your diet without any issues. I personally can eat some of the foods she suggests avoiding without issue, but I also have a few very odd migraine triggers that don't bother most people (green bell peppers I'm looking at you!). If you don't know where to start - this is the place. Full disclosure - I tested some of the recipes in this book for her. I then bought the book from Amazon at full price for my own use and have also shared a copy with friends who had great success using the plan.

Got this book for my friend who suffers from migraines. She has just started reading it but so far, it looks like it has a lot of helpful information in it. Glad I bought it for her.

This is a very gradual transition into a 6 month eating plan that is extremely strict. No nuts, citrus, soy, gluten, salt, cheese, sugar, onions, MSG, lentils, yogurt, corn oil, vinegar, canola oil, seaweed, preservatives or caffeine. The first 8 weeks, you taper off of all of the above, and start tracking everything you eat, feel (symptoms) and do. You are supplied with recipes and the author's website for more recipes. There is a FB group for support and ideas. After the 6 months, you can start to re-introduce things, one per week. I am currently on week 10 and haven't had incredible results in migraine reduction yet, but have been pleasantly surprised with how tasty the recipes are. The author is realistic in how hard this plan is and how migraine relief needs a holistic approach. I have two young kids and work part time, and if I can do this, you can too! If it works, it will be worth the 6 months of sacrifice to figure out what my migraine triggers are and how to be more healthy overall.