The bulk of scientific research on diets for weight loss is conclusive: diets don’t work. One reason for this is because our bodies are designed to maintain their weight during times of hardship and famine. This has been an asset to our species evolutionarily, and no amount of calorie counting will change this fact. The other reason why diets don’t work is, well, because it’s incredibly difficult to change your eating habits, and most people who try fail.
Trying a new diet for Crohn’s, however, doesn’t have the limitations of dieting for weight loss. Many people with Crohn’s struggle to put on weight, so we’re trying to eat more, not less, calories. Finally, when you get immediate feedback from your body as it rejects a food, it’s easier to give it up.
Our bodies are programmed to change our perception of foods that make us sick so that we find them unappetizing and avoid them in the future. This becomes an issue when EVERYTHING makes you sick due to your ulcerated digestive system. For people with Crohn’s, the struggle with diet is to find foods that we are excited to eat, and to rebuild a positive relationship between our minds, bodies, and our food.
The first step in building this relationship is getting into remission. This will require help from a gastroenterologist, probably some kind of medication, and eating whatever you can stomach.
A fool proof short term diet for remission is food replacement shakes, also called enteral nutrition. Some hospitals use enteral nutrition as a first step to Crohn’s treatment, but it isn’t a popular choice because liquid diets are super boring and patients have a hard time sticking to them. If you are willing to take the dive, however, food replacement shakes help reset your gut microbiota and speed up mucosal healing.
Once your gut has started healing, you will find it much easier to eat. Foods will be appetizing again, and you will be able to add new and different foods to your diet. This is the time to keep a food diary and pay close attention to what foods correlate with increased or decreased symptoms. This technique helped me realize that soy made me incredibly bloated, I was lactose intolerant, and processed food triggered Crohn’s symptoms for me.
When your health is stable and you have the time and energy to devote to trying a whole foods plant based diet, the first thing to work on is your mindset. You are rebuilding your relationship to food, and this diet is about eating more. It is about eating more servings of fruits and vegetables every day. It is about working more whole grains into your diet. It is about trying new and different fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, beans and legumes, seeing what you like, and learning how to make them the most delicious to your tastes.
Before I plunged into a vegan diet, I tried to increase my intake of fruits and vegetables to 6-7 servings a day. I pack my breakfast and lunch to eat at work, so this was as simple as including 6-7 servings of fruit and vegetables in my lunchbox. If I found I wasn’t eating something, I’d swap it out for a different fruit or vegetable I knew I liked. By the time I was meeting my goal of 7 servings of fruit and veggies a day, I had already replaced a large amount of my diet with plant based whole foods.
Adding more to your diet is way easier than eating less of things you think you can’t live without. Adding more allows you to experiment and see what you like, learn what your body can tolerate, and discover new foods you’ve never tried before. Adding more allows you to give yourself permission, to be gentle with yourself during your healing process, and learn from your experiences.
This approach to veganism worked really well for me. I had been vegan and vegetarian before, a few years ago, and I was raised eating a large variety of fruits and vegetables. These experiences helped me know what to eat and how to eat it. If you haven’t had these experiences, however, I recommend experimenting at the grocery store. Each time you shop for food, put a new fruit or vegetable in your cart. It’s low risk, low cost, and you don’t have to like it; but if you do, you’ve made it one step closer to easing into vegan.
Eating Vegan with Crohn's Disease 