Excuse me for being blunt, I hate Ulcerative Colitis, it tried to ruin my life!
This is by far my favorite part of the experience to share with everyone. To put things in perspective, up until trying a totally new diet, I had been very sick with UC for several years consistently without any relief. I was in effect going through a very long “flare up” that would not go away. Several of the specialists I had met with had suggested I seriously consider surgery. One even gave me a referral to speak with a colorectal surgeon to have the colon removed…
So, after a meeting with a family friend who has Ulcerative Colitis, I learned that this person was able to put the disease to sleep simply through changing her diet. This person had used every medication that I had tried and additionally had tried 6MP.
She was given a book called “Breaking the Vicious Cycle” .
So here is the diet that I follow religiously(it is very similar to the diet laid out in the book: Breaking the Vicious Cycle
but I for sure have made some changes that seem to be working fine. Book says no potato…I eat potato…Book says absolutely no cream…I put about two teaspoons in with my coffee every morning…(actually starting Feb 2010, I am trying cutting out cream as well)
I eat: fruits, vegetables, meats, poultry, fish, nuts, and honey
I do not eat: diary products, wheat, breads, grains, or sugar, corn syrup etc…(the only sweet thing that goes in my mouth is from fresh fruit or from honey)
That is it. It is that simple! But, its not easy to just flop from your old diet to this one. Desserts for example, I have to look at them very differently now.
To give you an example of what I have in the morning each day, here you go:
I make a smoothie in a blender:
1 banana
frozen strawberries
frozen blueberries
peanut butter, (one that has no sugar added)
some orange juice
(I only drink OJ that is “not from concentrate”)
That is my breakfast,and has been my morning
breakfast 5 out of 7 days a week
since August 11, 2009.
Drinks that are OK:
This is what I drink:
coffee (with a tiny bit of milk and honey instead of sugar) the milk in my morning coffee is one of the only ways that I break the rules of the diet
Orange Juice (always not from concentrate)
Diet Coke ( usually about one or two per month)
Apple Juice (only when I make it with my juicer though)
***Also, we got a juicer machine about a year ago as a present which we use quite often. I like making fresh carrot juice, apple, orange, pineapple (all kinds of fruit juices). And so far, have not had any problems at all with symptoms.
As for alcohol. I used to drink one beer per night on average. Now, I don’t drink anything at all. Some friends have said that it is alright to drink Vodka because it contains very little sugar. I don’t know if that works well for me or not yet, have not tried it.
If you have a story similar with regards to a great diet that showed you results, please share it and post it on this website. You can just scroll to the bottom of this page and start writing in the comment box.
I have received quite a few emails regarding the diet. I have done my best to respond to everyone’s questions. Some of the questions that are coming up often request more details about the actual diet. So I will try to address those.
One request from England was about the peanut butter, and requested more details about “no sugar added”. So, I took a picture of the type of ingredients label that I look for on peanut butter. The bottom line for me is, I am looking for ingredients of peanuts and maybe salt, but that is it!
Another request that came in was to give a better idea on what typical meals are like since converting over from a “eat anything and everything diet” to my new diet. Let me start off by saying there was nothing before that was off limits to me, and yes, those were the gold old days of putting down two or three bowls of cereal late at night before heading to bed, and going through at least one usually two baskets of bread when offered on the table at restaurants.
I will try to posts a wide variety of meals that I have adopted. If there is ever some type of meal that turns out not to agree with my system, if possible, I surely will let you know.
Example Meals from 1/6/10:
Morning- breakfast smoothie as described above
Here is a video on the smoothie:
Lunch- tacos from a mexican restaurant. 4 “carne asada” tacos on corn tortillas with onions, cilantro, and green salsa. VERY spicy, but no flour or sugar. Also, some lime juice.(In my opinion, the best tacos that exist. I eat them about twice a week for lunch and have been doing this my whole life.) What I believe is important is no flour tortillas. I tend to stay away from rice completely as well.
Drink: diet coke. (I usually have about 1 or two diet cokes per week) I realize now that when I was much much younger, I always had a “stomach ache” after drinking soda drinks, and I never drank diet drinks back in those days…
Dinner- Chicken Salad from Max’s Cafe. This is a “chinese style” salad. There are some “sesame stick” type bread things which I avoid, and I suspect the salad dressing has some sugar in it. Also, the chicken is deep fried and encrusted in a peanut pieces and I suspect there is some breading on the outside of the chicken. Either way, the amounts of the non diet stuff here is minimal, and I have not had any problems with this type of meal. Since its been a day since eating this stuff, I can safely say this type of meal is good for me.
Drink: Water with dinner of course, and no touching the nice bread rolls they brought to my wife! I used to eat that stuff all day long when UC was out of control.
There is a category on this website about food. Here is one of the pages you can go to talking about appetizers and ideas for ulcerative colitis
A great easy, painless dinner that works for the diet: Burger patty and Baked Potato
This is one of my all time favorites. It can be done partly on the BBQ or however else you like. But basically, its a baked potato from the oven, a burger patty from the grill, and some roasted mushrooms and zuchinni from the oven too. The beer was not mine, I did put on some salsa and pepper and salt on potato, and washed it down with water. If you like this stuff, I hope you enjoy!
Also, I just put up a video that talks about a nice BBQ Dinner meal that seems to work well with the diet too.
