Posts Tagged ‘specific carbohydrate diet’

What Does Healthy Poop Look Like?

Friday, June 11th, 2010

Yes, I’m going to talk about poop. Come, sit, make yourself at home. It’s unfortunate that in western society, talking about things like sex and shit is often taboo. But when you have Crohn’s disease, it’s very important to observe your poop carefully for signs of health.

Before I got my Crohn’s in remission through natural diet and supplements, my poop looked nasty. Very loose, pale brown and floating along with globs of what looked like mucous, but later I learned it was fat deposits that weren’t being absorbed by my gut. This was the sight of my stool for so long that I began to accept it as “normal” and that there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

But when I switched to a new diet, the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, within 24hrs I had my first solid stool in years. Even so, it was years before I really researched and taught myself what healthy stool looks like. It’s rather simple. First, here’s what unhealthy stool looks like,

  • Loose, no formed solids
  • Pale color
  • Floating
  • Additional deposits (blood, mucous, fat)
  • Bad smell

In contrast, here’s what healthy poop looks like

  • Solid, smooth and log like
  • Nice chocolate brown color
  • Sinks to the bottom of the toilet bowl
  • Nothing else, no blood, mucous or fat
  • No smell

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Stool_Scale

When you have an inflammatory bowel disease, you need to constantly monitor your bowels for signs of health. You could have colonoscopies, CT scans and other very expensive and harmful tests, and those are OK every few years or in an emergency. But in between, looking at your own stool for the signs above is your best option.

If you see that your stool is unhealthy, it means you are eating the wrong kinds of food. Forget about drugs. They are not the answer, in fact they tend to cause more problems than solve.

The kinds of food you should try eating are like those recommended by the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. Starting with their chicken soup recipe is safe because after making the soup with carrots, celery, chicken (w/skin and bones), parsley and onions, you only drink the broth and pureed carrots. The rest is thrown out because when you are starting the diet your gut is not strong enough to digest them. But keep up with it, and soon, it will.

A few months ago, I made the soup and ate everything, chicken (without the skin), carrot, onion, parsley and broth. It was like eating spinach, I felt superhuman amounts of energy. The nutritional concentration was fantastic. When cooled in the refrigerator the broth turned into a solid gelatin substance. I even ate it cold and it was damn good. Just like a cold pizza. In fact, this chicken soup recipe is the SCD version of pizza because it has a lot of healthy ingredients packed into one meal and can be eaten either hot or cold.

In my own experience, following the diet from “Breaking the Vicious Cycle” stopped the inflammation in my gut and returned my stool to a solid, healthy form. I highly recommend people with Crohn’s or Colitis take a long, serious look at the diet because I believe it can help keep Crohn’s in remission, but it does take a lot of hard work, patience and discipline.

© 2010, Reid Bryant Kimball. All rights reserved.

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Strawberries, Bowel Obstructions and Glutamine

Monday, May 31st, 2010

That’s an odd title for a blog post, “Strawberries, Bowel Obstructions and Glutamine”, isn’t it? Not if you have Crohn’s disease, like I do. I want to share with you something awesome that has happened, but first, we need some background story to gain perspective on why it’s so awesome.

In December of 2004 I started a whole food, all natural diet called the Specific Carbohydrate Diet to help manage my Crohn’s disease flares. Within 24 hours I saw the first solid stool I had seen since winter of 1997, when it all began.

I was convinced this diet was the answer to regaining control of my health and my life. By 2007, I was medication free and in remission, confirmed with a colonoscopy. Not long after, I started having bowel obstructions so bad that I felt nauseous. I felt pain in my gut, like a 500lbs weight was concentrated on a pin-head point below my belly button. It kept me rolling in my bed for hours in the early mornings, 3 – 5am or longer on occasion.

I figured out that it was because of strawberries. The seeds of the strawberries I guessed were getting stuck in my intestines, causing blockages and a lot of pain. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing!

What it meant was that Crohn’s was definitely in remission. When Crohn’s is in remission, there is no inflammation of the intestinal walls. Once inflammation stops, the once inflamed tissue becomes scar tissue, which narrows the passages of the intestines. Stopping the inflammation is key as it stops diarrhea and as long as future inflammation is prevented, no more strictures and therefore narrowing of the intestines should occur, or so I thought. At that point in 2007 or early 2008, I decided to stop eating strawberries and to never try them ever again.

With Crohn’s, there can be long periods, many months of no issues and then suddenly it all comes crashing down. In 2009, unfortunately, I was getting more bowel obstruction pain, this time from foods like pepper and carrots.

I told my doctor, this time a naturopath that I was becoming concerned that the strictures were limiting the range of foods I could eat without having bowel obstructions. I was worried that eventually, I would need surgery. That’s the last thing I wanted to do.

My naturopath recommended I start taking a supplement called Glutamine (aka L-Glutamine). She told me in plain English that Glutamine is the main fuel for the cells of the intestine’s walls and it promoted healthy cell growth. In other words, it may help repair damaged intestinal walls.

I gave the Glutamine a shot, had no adverse side effects, which is common and kept up with it for I’m guessing 6 months before I started adding food back in. I added carrots and found I had no gut pain! I never tried the pepper again but will soon. Instead, a few nights ago I decided to try having one single strawberry before dinner. If I had any problems, I figured I would know within 24hrs.

To my surprise, I felt completely normal. No gut pains at all and also had several solid bowel movements. I gave my gut a break the next night and on the third night I decided to have two strawberries. I woke up this morning, ecstatic because I realized I did not have any gut pain. No bowel obstructions. I also have had several solid bowel movements since waking, telling me that my bowels are moving fine through my intestines.

I believe this is evidence that Glutamine has REVERSED any narrowing of my intestines due to strictures. That is without a doubt, wicked awesome!

I know how horrible living with an IBD can be. I’ve got an intensive regimen that has kept me in remission and healing. I recommend that anyone with a Crohn’s or Colitis switch to a diet like the Specific Carbohydrate Diet or similar and Glutamine.

© 2010, Reid Bryant Kimball. All rights reserved.

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A Decade in Health

Friday, January 1st, 2010

The first decade of the 2000 millennium was one in which I grew tremendously in health and psychology. There’s still room for growth, but as I look ahead to where I want to be in the next 10 years, it helps to look back at where I came from, where I am now and how I got here.

Let me tell you a story. I’ve never told anyone this story in person or in writing or by any other means of communicating stories to others. It was a hot summer evening in 2004, I was on a date with a very kind, generous and pretty woman and we walked together back towards my apartment. We had just finished eating dinner at a local burger joint where I had a cheeseburger without the lettuce, tomato and onion because I couldn’t stand “healthy” food back then.

While walking back, my date was talking about a conversation she had had with someone. My date said, “And I told her, ‘no way, not going to happen.’”

As I listened intently, suddenly, without warning diarrhea started to run down the back of my thighs. I stopped in my tracks, heart pounding, butt cheeks helplessly clenched and said to her, “Uh, there’s a problem.”

She snapped, “That’s what told her! It’s a big problem and it’s not going to happen.”

I corrected her, “No. Me. I… uh… wait.”

I felt a swooshing sensation in my gut. Noticing I was frozen and not saying much, she asked what was wrong.

The next few moments were probably the most embarrassing and hard to deal with I’ve ever had. How do you tell a date, one that you’ve gone out with several times and really like that you just lost all control of your bowels? I had mentioned to her I had Crohn’s Disease when we first started dating, but never went into detail about it with her. I wasn’t even sure she understood what I go through, with the unpredictable diarrhea and painful gut spasms.

I just didn’t know how to tell her and said, “You know how I have Crohn’s?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it happened.”

“It?”

“Yeah… you know. I need to get to a bathroom.”

“Let’s go back to the restaurant.”

“No, I can’t do that. They’ll see it.”

“Uhm. What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know.”

I had to stand there and let it all sink in for a moment, collect my thoughts. We were within walking distance to my apartment and I finally suggested we just walk back to it.

Less than a minute later we reached the gate of my apartment complex. Horrified, I see the gate is closed and locked. Residents have no control over it. I had no key, no remote, nothing. We tried to squeeze through the gaps in the bars but couldn’t.

It was so frustrating because we were less than a 30 second walk from my apartment if the gate was open. Instead we had to take a 10 minute walk in the complete opposite direction to circle around to the other side of the gate.

A mile is forever when your pants are full of liquid shit.

Forever ended when we got back to my apartment. I immediately took a shower while she waited. As soon as I was done, she decided to leave.

I felt so embarrassed; I didn’t know what to say, but “Thanks for being so cool about all of this. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, no worries, shit happens!” We both laughed. “Call me tomorrow, OK?”

Then she left. I was too embarrassed the day after to call her. A week later she told me she was dating another person and it was going really well. That she saw me more as a friend than someone she was dating. At the time I wondered if my incident had anything to do with it. I don’t know and it’s really something I don’t think much of anymore.

So, that’s what life is like with Crohn’s, unpredictably painful physically and emotionally. It was later that same year, 2004, when I felt like my gut was going to explode and I wrote an email to my mom. I don’t remember what I wrote, but it must have moved her enough that she searched online for help. She found a diet called the Specific Carbohydrate Diet and during Christmas of 2004 I started it when I came home.

24hrs later my bowels were the most solid I had ever had since Crohn’s started in 1997. Overnight I became a fanatic believer in the power of food to heal one’s body from aliments and diseases.

Less than 2 years later in early 2006, still following the diet fanatically I was able to stop taking Pentasa with no ill effects. On September, 11th 2007 I had a colonoscopy which showed I was in remission from Crohn’s, meaning no signs of inflammation and active disease. It was a huge win for me and ever since then I’ve only grown stronger. No sudden diarrhea and significantly less, if not zero pain on a consistent, daily basis.

I love getting up in the morning, not to go to work, or see a special someone, but to get up and cherish how great I feel and savor every bite or sip I take when I eat. I LOVE how I feel. After years of gut pain and nights of crying, just observing that my gut feels cool and calm, like a refreshing mint brings a huge smile to my face.

To get to this point I’ve had to follow the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, which is a whole foods diet that eliminates fake processed food and only allows natural whole foods that have simple carbohydrates and sugars that occur naturally in the food. I eat very well, organic meats, diary, fruits and vegetables. Here’s a sampling of what has been key to my regaining my health:

  • Whole foods (nuts and meat without added preservatives and additives)
  • More fruit and vegetables
  • Yogurt
  • Probiotic
  • Glutamine powder
  • Vitamins
  • Organic whenever possible
  • Water (32 oz in the AM and 32oz 2hrs – 4hrs later)

If you think about it, what we put into our bodies is no different than the fuel that we put into a car. The gasoline makes the car go from point A to point B. But imagine if Exxon started making 26 different types of gasoline with added ingredients that made it smell like flowers, colored it different colors or even taste better. But those ingredients were only cosmetic and actually made the gasoline perform poorer and as a result the car started to suffer internal damage.

The engine would begin to rot and rust. No longer were you able to go from point A to point B as reliably as before. You took it to a shop trying to figure out what was wrong and the mechanic said, “It’s a part of the car’s aging process. It’s natural. But I can give it a pill for it. Feeling helpless and trusting the mechanics “expert” knowledge you agree to give the car the pill. Months later, the car starts to leak oil. Another pill. Then the exhaust pipe clogs up and explodes. More pills, more breakdowns. Eventually, you have to scuttle the car and get a new one.

Unfortunately, you can’t do that with your body. What you’ve got is all you’re gonna get. If you have some health issue and you take a pharmaceutical drug for, I strongly recommend you try to eat healthier. You just might find your problem go away months or years later. If not, you at least help prevent future problems from arising and having to take more drugs. If you want to fuel your body with the right ingredients, the same ingredients that we evolved to thrive on millions of years ago, here’s a few tips to get back to the basics:

  • Chew your food until it becomes liquid. The enzymes in your saliva are very important for beginning the process of breaking down your food and allowing you to absorb the food’s nutrients. In our modern society we’ve been conditioned to go fast and faster. Sitting down to eat a slow high quality meal has taken a back seat to eating on the go. Say no to this societal shift and reclaim your quiet personal time to take care of what’s important, feeding yourself.
  • Avoid packaged food with long lists of ingredients. If the package has a picture of the food on it, don’t buy it. Good healthy, wholesome food doesn’t have advertisements for itself on the packaging. It’s kinda like the guy or gal who drives an extremely flashy car. You know they are compensating for something.
  • Stop eating out. This even includes high end restaurants and especially goes for fast food joints like McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, In and Out, etc. They simply cannot sustainably keep food fresh and full of nutrients that is the fuel for your body. Yes, this means more cooking. Trust me that it’s not a big deal. It only takes 20 to 30 minutes to cook a decent, nutritious meal. If you had a choice between fueling your car for 20 minutes and having it last for 20 years or fueling it for 5 minutes and having it last 5 years, which would you choose?
  • Buy local, buy organic. It’s your best bet to ensure high quality and nutrient-rich food to keep you healthy. Food that isn’t locally grown usually travels thousands of miles across country. In that time it loses a lot of its nutrient value, but its price doesn’t go down with it.
  • Use more olive oil in cooking. Try it with scrambled eggs and vegetables instead of butter. It’s a very healthy cold-pressed oil that is great for your heart.

In the first half of the first decade in 2000 I was suffering physically and emotionally from Crohn’s Disease. In the second half, I began a life changing journey towards health and wellness by changing my lifestyle to cook my own food. I’ve come a long way and while I am pretty much free from physical symptoms of Crohn’s, I still suffer from its emotional scars. It’s hard to explain, but I’m still not 100% confident when going out in public, even though I have nothing to be afraid of now. In 2010 I hope I can continue to improve in that area. To live with a little less fear and to be just as hungry for life as I am for good wholesome food.

Happy New Year everyone! Here’s to 2010 and a new decade ahead full of limitless love, joy and growth.

Here’s to food!

Here’s to health!

Here’s to you!

© 2010, Reid Bryant Kimball. All rights reserved.

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