HI! You can take the HCl a few minutes before the meal to prime the stomach and the enzymes with the fist bite of food.

As far as finding your dose – you can also look at how things such as bowel habits and heartburn have changed. Your more likely to feel the warmth less than an hour after you take it (3 is a bit too long).

Reactions can take place up to 3 days….so you can assume that the cheese isn’t working for you right now.

When we find those that have a ton of food intolerances and feel like they can’t eat a whole lot with out getting sick…there is likely something else going on. We’d suggest some stool testing to detect possible gut infections or adrenal/hormone testing. We quite a bit of information on stool testing (I dont’ want to overwhelm you here). Just let me know when you’re ready (if you’d like it) and you can email us at support@scdlifestyle.com

I hope you guys can help me out, because I’m kind of at a loss for ideas right now…

I’m on day 26 of the SCD and it has been really tough for me.
I have a leaky gut and been tested on these IgG things in November last year with way too mamy positive results (55 of 270 tested foods).

Now in the beginning of SCD I really struggled with constipation and then upcoming diarrhea after 3-4 days of no BM.
Then started the heartburn issue, which I never had before starting the SCD, so I am now supplementing with digestive enzymes and HCL, after testing it.

I have three questions for you and hope you can help me out:
1. Regarding the HCL and digestive enzymes, when do you take which? So many contradicting infos on the web,, whether to take the enzymes first and the HCL 30-45mins after eating, because they would otherwise destroy the enzymes. Another website saidthe, exact opposite… what’s your take on this?

2. I just don’t find the right dosage of HCL, or to put it another way: when do I have to feel the warmth or burning in my stomach after taking HCL in terms of time? I often start feeling something 1-3 hours after eating. So is this a sign that it was too much or too few HCL?

3. Pretty much the same question for testing new foods. For example I tried a little bit of cheese yesterday evening and this morning again and now more than 5 hours after eating it I got a heartburn. Is that because of the food? Because after 5h I suppose the cheese has long left my stomach and yesterday evening I felt fine afterwards… so when do these reactions have to occur in terms of time after eating something to put the food into correlation with the reaction?

A last question that just came to my mind:
Is it normal that now on SCD I do not tolerate so many foods any longer that I could eat 26 days ago without causing problems like heartburn, nausea, etc.?

I am really frustrated at the moment and considering whether to go on with this or not, since it feels like getting worse than before…

Hi Amy – oil and fat in general can be hard on an already impaired digestive tract so take it real slow. You can try avocado oil as opposed to coconut oil, which is largely saturated (but healthy) fat. Start with a teaspoon and if the kids react poorly, it’s probably a bit soon. You can test that out now:)

Hi Karen- we’d suggest additional stool tests to see if something else is contributing. Getting your hormones checked can help as well. (you can see the tests we recommend here:https://www.directlabs.com/scdlifestyle/OrderTests/tabid/28099/language/en-US/Default.aspx) As far as adding in new foods – are you introducing them in their proper state and according to the stages?

Hi Moni ( I replied earlier but not sure it went through…) Anyway, your still going to introduce foods as you would according to the article. You’ll just be looking for other cahnges such as fatigue, head aches, full ears, runny nose, etc.

Hi Irene- the phasing charts along with this article will help you understand it better! https://healthygut.com/introducing-new-foods/ You’re a great candidate for SCD, as it sounds like you have a bit of inflammation in the body and healing your gut will really help decease it.

I want to start this diet but I’m a little confused. After I do the intro diet and start to add foods, do I add them one at a time instead of a whole food group at once? Like with squash, do I eat acorn squash for 4 days, then stop eating that and go to buttercup and only eat the buttercup for 4 days or would I eat both of the squashes, etc? I think that is what the phasing charts indicate but wasn’t sure.

I have severe thumb tendonitis (De Quervain’s) in my right hand/wrist that is getting worse, I refuse to get cortisone shot. I have been taking everything that I can think of to help the tendonitis but nothing has helped. I think I have Leaky Gut which is causing the tendonitis, I am severely gluten intolerant indicated by the Alcat food test. I’m on high dose magnesium as I read tendonitis and Leaky Gut can be deficiency symptoms, but I have been taking high amount of magnesium since last April and it’s not helping relieve the pain and inflammation from the tendonitis. I have been gluten/dairy free for 5 weeks but don’t feel better from that. I need a miracle and hoping this diet will be it.

Hi Katie – the tough case meal plans do not contain nuts, dairy or eggs. If you feel you are ready to introduce them, you can move to the mild case meal plans and introduce them one at a time. WE suggest starting with nut butters and milks and in very small amounts. Hope that helps! If you’d like to check out the mild case plans, you can go here: https://healthygut.com/meal-plans/

HI Agata – yes if you don’t have access to squash move to the next veggie:)

I’ve just started the SCD diet, just the first day of the Intro phase. I’m a bit worried because according to your phasing chart in the phase 1 I should start with different varieties of squash. But at this time of the year in the country where I live I can’t find them. What should I do? Can I start with the next vegetable, that is spinach?

I really appreciate any help you can provide.
Agata

Firstly thanks for all the support over the years, you have made such a difference to my life but I have had a relapse after pregnancy and I have had to start the diet again.
I am following your tough case meal plans and I can’t remember when I can start to try to introduce nuts, eggs, dairy into my diet as these are a staple for me. If I recall it was about 6 months into the diet but I can’t seem to find any information in the material I have purchased from you to back that up.

Thanks again.

Kind regards,
Katie

Hi Mary-

For lemons and limes, you can just try introducing the juice (unless you eat the flesh). Just about any fruit can be cooked as you would applesauce.

For the serving size, you don’t need to eat an entire cup (that is a lot of lime!) – just have 1/2 of a SERVING the first day, 1 serving the 2nd, etc. A serving size is the amount you would typically eat of that food at a meal.

Hope this helps!

Do we also use 1/2 cup for day one, 1 cup for day 2 and 1,5 cups of lime for day 3?

Thank you!

HI Dasharian, great question. We’d recommend sticking with the 3 day rule across the board when introducing anything new – legal or illegal. And it’s best to introduce illegal foods after you’ve done some healing so you can actually decipher between a food reaction and just regular symptoms.

HI Abby! It is safe to start the SCD diet and it will only help. We’d recommend working with our doctor regarding the medication and possibly reducing it or weaning off completely when that time is right. You can start with the Free quick start guide, here: https://healthygut.com/scd-quick-start-guide/

Hi Tina – soaking and/or sprouting them help to neutralize the phytic acid and other anti-nutrients so we’d highly recommend consuming them this way. I’d start with organic quinoa and rice and you can learn more on proper preparation here: http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/living-with-phytic-acid/

Hi Wendy – we’re sorry to hear what your daughter has been going through with her health.

We always recommend following the Intro Diet and phases of the diet for SCD – if you just skip straight to eating SCD-legal foods, your daughter won’t know what she is reacting to and it can impair her healing.

You can learn how to get started here: http://scdlifestylebook.com

Hi Kelly – thanks for reaching out!

Once you have successfully re-introduced a food you can continue eating it while you introduce other new foods.

For example, if you reintroduce butternut squash over three days and are successful, you can then progress to applesauce and have both butternut squash and applesauce (plus any other foods you’ve reintroduced and are eating).

Hope this helps! You can email us too – support@scdlifestyle.com

Thank you for your help so far!

Kelly, Rossendale, Lancashire, England

Hi Elizabeth 🙂

Adding new foods is scary, but it is empowering!

We do recommending starting with eggs on SLG. You can start with just the yolk.

If you haven’t been eating raw food, you can try some raw fruit in a smoothie too. Make sure you don’t eat too much at once (too big of a smoothie) – think about if you would eat that amount if it wasn’t blended into a smoothie as you prepare it.

It is so important to have that variety in your diet. You can do this!! We are here for you.

Hi Alisa – I’m so sorry to hear you’ve been struggling.

We aren’t surprised to hear fermented foods cause problems for you. This is really common when people have very damaged guts – fermented foods are POWERFUl. We don’t recommend them until at last 30 days into the diet, and even then only in very small amounts.

Because you’re pregnant, everything is more complicated – you have to make sure you’re getting enough food to sustain your pregnancy. We recommend you run EVERYTHING by your doctor or practitioner.

In genreal, we recommend going through the entire reintroduction (all the phases) without the four horsemen before reintroducing them – that way you have a really solid base of meat, fruits (but not too much!), and veggies before you add back the nuts, eggs, dairy, etc.

Remember this – it is the most important rule of Steve and Jordan’s version of SCD – no food is healthy/ good for you – if it causes a reaction FOR YOU – i.e. kombucha might be awesome for 98% of the population, but if it gives you a rash and makes you feel bad, it isn’t a healthy food for you right now! You have to customize the diet to work for you, which it sounds like you’re already doing 🙂

Hope this helps – if you need more support, email us at support@scdlifestyle.com

Christine – thank you SO much for commenting! Congratulations on all your success 🙂 It makes all of us here at SCD Lifestyle ecstatic to hear from people like you!

We’re really sorry you’ve had a flare since trying to reintroduce bread, but unfortunately we aren’t surprised. While we think it is a great idea to reintroduce safe starches like white rice and potatoes, we never advise reintroducing wheat or other grains, as they are inherently harmful to the gut.

You’ve done the right thing by going back to the intro diet until your flare calms down, but you then can likely go back to eating all the foods you had successfully reintroduced before (you don’t need to go back through all the phases again).

I hope this information helps and you’re feeling back to your normal self soon! If you need more support you can contact us anytime at support@scdlifestyle.com

Hi Dan, thanks for reaching out. You must get some digestive enzymes for the diarrhea: https://healthygut.com/recommended-products/ Secondly, we do ask that you introduce one food at a time and this article can help you here: https://healthygut.com/introducing-new-foods/

I have been on the intro diet for 5 days and still have diarrhea. My BM frequency is down to 3-4 per day, and blood is very infrequent, so that is good. After reading Jordan stating in one blog that he had diarrhea for 7 days I’m not freaking out yet, but since the grape juice went right through me the first day, I cut that out and the only sugar I have been having is from the carrot puree. Even though I still have diarrhea, I added pureed pears today to get some sugar into me and to add variety to all the meat.

I have a few questions:

Do I need to introduce the intro/phase 1 meats once every 4 days like the rest of the phase 1 foods, or do I just assume they will all ‘work’? Should I wait to intro new veggies/fruits until all meats have been introduced?

Since I still have diarrhea, how will I evaluate if I am having a reaction to veggies/fruit or the new meat since the intro diet is all beef patties, chicken soup, and pureed carrots?

Any help would be much appreciated. Your knowledge and assistance through this blog and your books have been a life-saver guys (and all others commenting :)). Thanks so much.

Dan

Hi Carmella – Any time someone is transitioning back to eating meat they are going to have a 8-12 week adjustment period. During this time and maybe longer it’s wise to test using digestive enzymes and HCL if needed. I’d start there, and yes you need to go at least every other day. So start with the supplements and add a lot more fat. Regarding what to introduce you can pull up any food you think you should try.

I haven’t been officially diagnosed but everything seems to point to me suffering from fructose malabsorption, splenic flexure syndrome (pain under left ribcage from gas getting trapped in the colon’s bend), and candida and bacterial overgrowth (which are most likely the reason for the first two). I released 3 adult roundworms last month which I suspect were the culprits for the severe inflammation/abdominal pain I’d been experiencing since December. Since then I can feel that my gut is finally beginning to heal but I must now address the bacterial and yeast overgrowth issues, enters the SCD diet.

I’m now on Day 15 and it’s been very tough going, partly due to the fact that I’ve been vegetarian for 18 years. Sure didn’t take long for me to realize that there’s no way I could do this if I didn’t introduce some animal protein back into my diet. And so I’m now having eggs, wild salmon and chicken. Because it’s been so long since I’ve eaten meat I can only tolerate very small amounts at a time (1/4 c.) or else I get a protein headache. Thankfully I’m ok with eggs which have been a life saver; so I have 2 or 3/day.

The other major challenge is that because of the FM I haven’t been having any fruits and I’m reacting to all of the veggies in the Intro and Phase 1 except spinach. I’ve been eating carrots and squashes anyways but in very small amounts at a time in order to minimize gas. It’s been tough keeping hunger at bay and having enough energy to even function due to my very small food intake.

Anyhoo, I guess I have two main concerns/questions that I was hoping you could help me with:

1- Because of the small amount of the allowed veggies I can have in one sitting I can’t follow exactly the 3 day introduction protocol that you suggest. I do end up having close to 1 1/2 cups of one veggie divided throughout the day, so I suppose that still works. They of course can’t be considered really ‘safe’, though, (even in small amounts I do get some gas) so I’m concerned that by eating them I’m still feeding bacteria and therefore can’t be making any real progress.

2- Since a lot of the veggies so far are high in FODMAPS/fructose I’m wondering if I could move along more quickly and skip to the safer/low FODMAPS veggies even though according to the Food Intro Chart I should be having them much later. I’d also like to introduce nut milks as they would certainly help in satiating me, provided I can tolerate them. By moving along the Food Intro Chart faster would that compromise the effectiveness of the SCD diet?

Oh and I actually have one more… I’ve been having a BM only every 2 or 3 days since I’ve started the diet. I remember reading somewhere that you guys recommended adding more fat when constipated. Would introducing coconut and olive oils now be alright?

Thanks for taking the time to respond; any suggestion as to how best to process would be greatly appreciated!

Warm blessings,
Carmella

Hey Scotty – Yes you are correct I meant 1 serving size so on Day 1 do 1/2 of the normal serving size for that food group. And I’m not sure I understand question 2 as anyone can develop a food reaction to something they are eating if their health is sliding or their gut is too leaky. But after day 3 of no negative changes are observed with the new food just work the new food into the diet rotation as your taste buds ask for it.

This post DOESN’T Apply to Gluten and wheat introduction at all. Science has shown that in those who are sensitive to gluten and other problematic proteins from grains that even if you don’t manifest high level symptoms there are increases in inflammation at the mucosa level of the SI. So unless you’ve totally ruled out ALL low level sensitivity via cyrex testing with your daughter this test will not accurately work for her. This post should only be applied to meats, fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes and dairy.

Your article on when and how to introduce new foods into the diet is an extremely timely one. My daughter has recently started to reintroduce foods into her diet, and like your posting, the results have not been easy to interpret. Before I explain her experience, I did have some questions for you regarding your article. They are:

• First, when you reference a ½ cup serving, I assume you mean that a serving size is one cup (like for pasta). So, may I assume that if you are introducing other foods, for example, that you should introduce a ½ serving on the first day, vs. a ½ cup of that particular food item.
• Second, even if you are okay after eating a new food for 3 days, I don’t think that guarantees that the new food is okay. I think that it is possible that one could be sensitive to a new food at a higher threshold level (like 3 servings of gluten a day), but be okay with a lower level of intake. To that end, I was wondering if your recommendations are to just eat the new food normally if you are okay at the 3-day mark.

As for my daughter’s experience, she recently went on a baseline elimination diet by cutting out gluten, dairy, soy, tree and peanuts. Because of certain logistics, she’s actually been on this baseline for about 6 weeks. She’s been sensitive to eggs, so she’s already been off that for several months. She recently introduced gluten by eating 1 cup of pasta the 1st day, 2 small muffins and 1 cup of pasta on days 2 and 3. On the evening of the 3rd night, she had some queasiness, some mild/moderate waves of nausea and some sharp pains in the abdominal area. At 3 AM this morning, she woke up with major waves of nausea, continued sharp pains and some diarrhea. She has done a couple of mini trials of removing and adding gluten, but they were not totally scientific trials, and the results were mixed (not totally positive or negative).

So, while it could be that she is sensitive to gluten, I was thinking that it could be the 2nd issue you discussed in your article in that one can tolerate low levels of a substance, but not higher quantities. However, if she just has had a delayed reaction, and it is not due to the amount of a food one eats, we wouldn’t really know that either. One way of testing that might be to eat a ½ or 1 serving of gluten, and then wait up to 3 days to test for a reaction before immediately eating on successive days.

Alternatively, her reaction could be due to the fact that we ramped up too quickly on the gluten. I realize she did 1 serving on day 1, and then 2.5 servings on days 2 and 3. So, if her GI bacteria where overwhelmed via too much gluten too fast, then it might be that she is not sensitive to gluten at all! If that is the case, then she might be able to tolerate the slower ramp-up schedule that you proposed in your article. (I should have mentioned that she had previously had a celiac blood test, and the results were negative).

Just before she did the gluten challenge, she added in soy – in a similar ramp-up fashion. We do think she might have a soy sensitivity since she felt extremely tired while on soy. And, on the third day, when she consumed a lot of soy sauce, she ended up with the similar waves of nausea, stomach pains and more severe diarrhea. Of course, it could be the amount of soy sauce consumed in one serving (1/4 cup per her dietician’s suggestion), or the fact that the soy sauce is from a fermented product vs. soy milk.

So, with the results so far, she has had a positive (i.e. bad) reaction when she reintroduced both soy (which she subsequently discontinued) and gluten (in which she also stopped on the 3rd day). It could be that she is in fact sensitive to both of these substances. But, I’m wondering if it could be that 1) we just introduced them too fast or 2) she is just sensitive to them at higher amounts. So, I’d appreciate any advice you may have to help differentiate the above. I would think such possible tests might be to 1) introduce foods at your suggested pace, or even slower or 2) introduce a food on day 1, and then have 1-2 rest days, just to make sure there are no delayed reactions before proceeding.

Finally, her reactions may not be due to food allergies at all. Several months ago, she had been diagnosed with potential leaky gut, after having an abnormally low, total Intestinal SIgA value of 28 mg/gm (where 400-880 mg/gm would be normal) from Diagnos-Techs, Inc. According to the naturopath who recommended the stool test, she said that with her leaky gut (that the test results implied), it wouldn’t matter what food she eliminated and re-introduced. With a leaky gut, she said that all foods would be getting through the intestinal wall, thereby causing reactions. So, it could be that the health of her intestines is causing these issues, rather than intolerances to specific foods.

If the above is true, then we’re wondering whether we should be focusing on healing my daughter’s leaky gut (via diet and supplements?) before trying any elimination and challenge trial.

Any advice you have on 1) the reintroduction of foods or 2) how best to test and/or treat leaky gut would be very much appreciated.

Scotty