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SCD Diet?

Hello,
I would like to know if any of you are in remission with SCD diet only, and not taking any medicine. If so, can you please post your experience, and how long have you been on SCD diet?
 
I tried this and came off all medication, unfortunately for me I went into the biggest flare I had ever had. The SCD was fantastic at first....my symptoms cleared, but once my medication was out of my system then the diet alone could not handle it. I think a combination of both would have been the key!
 

kiny

Well-known member
A problem with the SCD diet is that it is severely lacking in calories and you see many threads of people losing weight on it.

Staple foods in the West and Asia are all carb based, because it's what humans are able to easily digest and turn into energy.

Potatoes, rice, pasta (noodles), bread, cornflakes. Those are the staple foods where people get their energy from.

Yet the SCD does not allow people to eat any of them.

The SCD diet removes all sources of bioavailable calories.

So where exactly are you going to get your calories from. The only other source of energy is fat, and fat is very hard to break down, incredibly harsh on the intestinal lining and the few people that do try those high fat diets (the ''keto'' diets) do it because they lose weight on it, and they need to take lots of enzyme supplements to be able to digest so much (unhealthy) fats, otherwise they would be on the toilet all day.

I think it's fine to eat some more of this or that, but the SCD diet tells people to completely take out staple foods, the main sources of calories around the world. I have a really hard time saying anything positive about this diet.

If you don't like potatoes, eat some rice, if you don't like bread, eat cornflakes, but you can't just remove all staple foods, SCD leaves people with little to no option to get their daily energy needs. It is far too lacking in calories.
 
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kiny

Well-known member
(I'm not ''anti-diet'' for what it's worth. The low-FODMAP diet allows people to still get all the calories they need, it doesn't forbid staple foods like potatoes and rice.

But the SCD diet is far too restrictive to be sustainable, it is completely lacking in nutritional needs. You're not going to survive very long on vegetables or protein, your body needs to get its energy from somewhere, and carbs are where every sustainable diet gets it energy needs from.

That doesn't mean one can't follow a diet like a mediterranean diet that is a bit higher in fats and a bit lower in carbs. But at the end of the day even a mediterranean diet's main energy source is carbs, pastas, breads, potatoes, etc.)
 
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I tried this and came off all medication, unfortunately for me I went into the biggest flare I had ever had. The SCD was fantastic at first....my symptoms cleared, but once my medication was out of my system then the diet alone could not handle it. I think a combination of both would have been the key!
Thanks Daytripper. Hope you are doing well. I was only on SCD diet and had my flare very much in control. I was not taking any medication. I had a surgery to remove a stricture recently. I am recovering now. I am wondering if I should just be on SCD diet, or should I start medication. I have no flares now.
 
I tried this several years ago, and lost way too much weight on it, as Kiny stated. The book states you'll plateau and start to gain, but I failed to do that before i got quite sick and couldn't sustain it. I think i made it about 3months, but i went from 170lbs to ~135lbs. I'm about 6feet, so i was a skeleton. I also felt it required a significant amount of bizarre food tolerance due to the reliance on the almond flour. Maybe it's changed in several years, but if not, i wouldn't personally recommend it.
 
Hello,
I would like to know if any of you are in remission with SCD diet only, and not taking any medicine. If so, can you please post your experience, and how long have you been on SCD diet?
I have followed the SCD diet for 15 years without any medication. The GAPS diet is a further refinement of the SCD diet. There are plenty of calories as I eat a lot of good quality fats. This diet has saved me. I joined this group to ask a question about vitamin C. I could write a lot more but this isn’t the place to do that.
 
Hello,
I would like to know if any of you are in remission with SCD diet only, and not taking any medicine. If so, can you please post your experience, and how long have you been on SCD diet?
When I tried SCD in college I was making an adjustment from eating extremely unhealthy to eating SCD 100%. It definitely helped me cause I went from eating like shit to eating good quality foods, but I lost a ton of weight and I eventually failed bc my urge to cheat became so great I couldn't control myself. SCD will definitely help you, but don't be afraid to try other diets like low FODMAP that may be more lenient with what you are allowed to eat. No need to limit all grains. Short grain white rice is usually fine for like 90% of people. Also, look into supplements. THEY HELP. Don't try to tackle the illness with diet alone. Use diet and supplements it will increase your chances of success.
 

crohnsinct

Well-known member
My daughter was put on the SCD by her GI to complement her pharmacological therapy. Our whole family went on the diet with her and we rather like it. It takes some time to get used to it but once you get the hang of it, it is pretty easy and there is lots of online support and recipes and such. My daughter did lose a little weight at first but now she is gaining really well. Could be things are healing up, making it easier for her to gain weight or she has just hit her stride with the diet.

Unfortunately, the diet didn't bring about remission and we are adding yet more meds to her regime so I can't say that she would be able to control her disease with diet alone but her GI thinks it helped a little. There are lots of versions of diets that you could try, IBD-AID, CDED, SCD, GAPS, AIP, Low FODMAP etc.

In the SCD circles we travel in, it seems that those who try a round of EEN first and then slowly transition to SCD, seem to do better. My daughter didn't do EEN and our transition to full on SCD was not so gradual. The docs and RD's we worked with seemed to think that didn't matter but.....

If you decide to try a diet, it is a very good idea to get a registered dietician well versed in GI illnesses onboard as their knowledge of the diets and being able to make sure you meet all of your nutritional needs is invaluable.
 
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