If you've done the Lion Diet strictly for 6+ weeks and you're still not feeling better — or you felt great for a while and then crashed again — the next thing to investigate is your environment. Specifically: water damage in your home, mold, and chronic inflammatory response syndrome (CIRS). I lost months to this in 2023 before I figured out what was happening. This chapter is what I wish I'd known earlier.
How I figured out my home was making me sick
In 2023 I crashed in a way that didn't make sense given the diet. The full update is in Update May 2023: Got sick. Finally healing. Beware of mold. and the follow-up in Update: Mold, Cutting Salt, and CIRS.
Short version: my home had water damage I didn't know about. The mold and biotoxins released by water damage trigger the same kind of immune response that food triggers do. If you're already a reactive person, environmental biotoxins stack on top of any dietary triggers — and you can feel terrible even on a perfect diet because your body is still being hit by something it can't escape from.
The symptoms I had were almost indistinguishable from food reactions: fatigue, joint pain, brain fog, mood swings, skin issues. I kept tightening the diet trying to find the food trigger. There wasn't one. It was my house.
Why mold matters for chronic illness
Mold and water damage produce biotoxins — small molecules that get into your bloodstream through breathing the air in the affected building. In susceptible people (roughly 25% of the population has a genetic predisposition called HLA-DR), these biotoxins aren't cleared properly. They stay in your system and cause chronic inflammation.
The result is a syndrome called CIRS — Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome — described by Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker. CIRS symptoms overlap almost entirely with autoimmune disease, depression, chronic fatigue, and food sensitivity. If you have any of those things and the diet isn't fully fixing you, CIRS is one of the things to rule out.
How to check whether mold is your issue
From most reliable to least:
- Move out of your house for 2 weeks and see how you feel. Stay somewhere known to be dry, ventilated, and recently inspected. If your symptoms improve dramatically while you're away and come back when you return, you have your answer. This is the gold-standard test.
- Get an ERMI test of your home. ERMI (Environmental Relative Moldiness Index) uses a dust sample to quantify mold species in your house. A score above 2 is concerning; above 5 is bad. Mycometrics is the lab most people use.
- Have a remediation company inspect for water damage. Visible water staining, soft drywall, peeling paint near baseboards, musty smells in closets or basements, recurring HVAC condensation issues — any of these can mean hidden mold.
- Get bloodwork for CIRS markers. Specific blood tests can identify the immune signature of biotoxin illness. A clinician trained in Shoemaker protocol can interpret these. C4a, TGF-beta-1, MMP-9, MSH, ADH/osmolality, VIP, VEGF, and visual contrast sensitivity (VCS) testing are the standard panel.
What to do if mold is the issue
This is genuinely outside the scope of this guide — mold remediation is a specialized field and a multi-thousand-dollar undertaking. The short framework:
- Get out of the affected building or remediate it properly. Bleach doesn't fix mold; it just kills surface mold while leaving the toxins. Proper remediation means physically removing affected materials (drywall, carpet, insulation) and addressing the moisture source.
- Air filtration helps, but doesn't fix the source. HEPA filters with carbon (for VOCs) reduce ongoing exposure but don't solve a wet wall.
- Consider working with a CIRS-trained clinician. The Shoemaker protocol uses cholestyramine (a bile-acid sequestrant) and other interventions to clear biotoxins from the body. It works but it's medical, not DIY.
- The diet still matters. Removing dietary triggers reduces the immune load so your body has bandwidth to clear biotoxins. The two interventions stack.
biotoxin.com is the FAQ-style site I've recommended for years on how to test, remediate, and clean a house.
Non-toxic household products
Beyond mold, the ordinary products in most American homes can re-trigger reactions in sensitive people. The categories worth auditing:
- Cleaning products. Switch to fragrance-free, non-toxic versions. Vinegar and baking soda do most of what you need. Branded options: Branch Basics, Seventh Generation Free & Clear, Method Free & Clear.
- Laundry detergent. Fragrance-free. Avoid dryer sheets entirely.
- Personal care: shampoo, conditioner, lotion, deodorant, makeup. Read the labels. "Fragrance" / "parfum" is a catch-all that can contain dozens of chemicals, many of which are endocrine disruptors. Stick to short ingredient lists.
- Down pillows and duvets. If you have hidden reactions, try removing down items for two weeks and see if anything changes. Many highly reactive people are reactive to down.
- Plug-in air fresheners and scented candles. Get rid of these. They're a continuous low-grade exposure to volatile chemicals.
- Drinking water. Reverse-osmosis or activated carbon filter, ideally both. Tap water in many cities contains chlorine, chloramine, fluoride, heavy metals, and pharmaceutical residues. More on water filtration here.
- Cookware. Avoid old non-stick (PFOA-coated) cookware. Cast iron, stainless steel, ceramic, glass, and ovenware are safe.
The summary is in Simple Ways to Get Healthier for the New Year, which I wrote as a starting checklist for people who want to do the household clean-up but don't know where to start.
The interaction with diet
Why does this matter for a Lion Diet guide? Because if you're suffering and the diet isn't fixing you, it's natural to blame the diet. But the diet only addresses the dietary drivers of your inflammation. Environmental drivers stack on top.
If you're not fully responding to the diet after a real 6-week strict trial, the environmental investigation is the next step. In rough order of likelihood:
- Mold / water damage in your home.
- Personal care or cleaning products containing reactive ingredients.
- Pesticides or herbicides used in or near your home.
- Off-gassing from new furniture, carpets, or paint.
- Chronic exposure at work — office buildings, schools, and gyms can all have mold problems too.
What I do now
Eight years in, the maintenance routine for me is:
- Visual inspection of likely-water-damage spots in our house once a quarter — under sinks, behind toilets, around windows, basement perimeter.
- Dehumidifier in any area that runs above 55% relative humidity.
- HVAC inspection annually, with attention to coil condensation.
- Air filter changes monthly.
- HEPA air filter in the bedroom, always on.
- Reverse osmosis water at home; filtered water bottles when traveling.
- Plain everything for personal care: shampoo, conditioner, soap, deodorant — short ingredient lists.
This is the boring infrastructure work that determines whether the diet alone is enough or whether you need to also address what your body is being exposed to outside of food.
The next chapter is the practical question of reintroduction — how to add foods back once symptoms have stabilized.