My Crohnstipated Life

The Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD Diet) is a group of foods that are starch-free, unprocessed, grain-free and sugar-free. This diet focuses on removing many of the foods in our society that are toxic and harmful to our bodies; it’s a simple diet similar to what our grandparents ate-whole, real foods.

I’ve been directed by my new gastro to address this diet to ‘re-boot’ my gut and give it an overhaul.  I’ve never really had a flair so I guess I was due. This one has been so bad and so entirely different from what I am use to that’s its been about 8 months now of lingering pain and associated symptoms. So, I hopped online yesterday and started printing out the pages I needed to study in order to start this way of eating. It seems like a massively strict diet, one which I may not be able to stick to but I’ll willing to try. If this is as good as it gets with restricting every single thing that goes into my mouth, I’m all for it.

The main guidelines of this diet is that not everyone’s digestive tract has evolved to optimally digest complex carbohydrates and other man-made processed foods such as sugar. Any food that is not properly digested causes bacterial and yeast overgrowth when undigested carbohydrates are fed on by bacteria and yeast in our intestinal tracts. This is what happened to me. This then starts a chain reaction of excess toxins and acids which cause irritation of our small intestine cells damaging them and causing absorption issues with our food – which then only fuels the cycle even more.

This diet is a simple way to break the cycle of bacteria and yeast overgrowth by eliminating the food sources they feed on. When you work to  restore gut flora back to normal levels, then the intestinal tract can start to repair any damage itself. When you eliminate complex carbs, sucrose, lactose and other man made ingredients – the body is able to start healing. As our gut flora levels start to stabilize, the reduced irritation from undigested food, toxins and other man made ingredients allows the inflammation levels to decrease. This is accomplished by starting the diet with easy to digest, whole foods.

Wish me luck and I’ll let you know how this SCD Diet goes!