Troubleshooting: The Difference Between Staying Sick and Healing

One of the most common questions we get from people every day is about being “stuck” on their diet.

They’ve changed their diet to improve their stomach problems, and maybe they feel a little better, but they still don’t feel as good as they should.

Whether the diet is SCD, GAPS, Paleo, or WAPF…

Their emails typically go something like this:

“Hey Jordan and Steve, 40 days ago I started the Specific Carbohydrate Diet using your book and at first I felt amazing! I finally had my first formed stool in years, but since the first week or so I’m still getting horrible stomach pain and bloating after meals and I still have loose stools 3-4 times a day. The diet doesn’t seem to be working anymore. I’m only eating beef, pureed carrots, chicken soup, applesauce, and winter squash. I’m going insane eating like this! Can you help?”

Can you relate to this email?

Do you feel like the diet isn’t working for you anymore?

Are you frustrated because you’re only eating a few foods and still not feeling better? Do you feel “stuck” and ready to give up?

If so, there are 5 primary troubleshooting tips that could help you get “unstuck” and feeling like the diet is working again.

Troubleshooting is all about becoming your own “Health Engineer” and beginning to test and tweak your way out of this to get control of your symptoms. Troubleshooting is the difference between those people that heal and those people that never get better.

These are some of our best troubleshooting tips to get you started.

1) Stomach Acid is Your Friend…

Are you even digesting your food?

If you have a lot of gas, bloating, reflux, diarrhea, and constipation… or undigested food in your stool, you need to watch this video.

It’s all about how stomach acid works… and why it really is good for you. In fact, I would argue that proper stomach acid levels are the key to great digestion.

Most of Us Don’t Have Enough Stomach Acid

One of the most frustrating things we see is when people switch to a real food diet like SCD, Paleo, WAPF, or GAPS and they feel worse! Or they spend all this time and money to eat healthy anti-inflammatory food and they aren’t even digesting it well.

In this video, I share the 4 triggers for good stomach acid secretion. I also cover 2 really important supplements to help you digest your food properly.

Having proper stomach acid levels is vital for digestion, and if this isn’t right, the rest of the digestive process can get totally screwed up.

Fixing this was one of the biggest health breakthroughs on my journey to becoming symptom-free and I hope this video supports something similar for you.

2) You Might Need Digestive Enzymes (and How to Take Them)

Digestive Enzymes are right for you if…

You’re someone dealing with:

• Low grade inflammation
• Intestinal damage
• An “oily toilet” (you’ll know what that means)
• Gas and bloating
• Diarrhea/Constipation
• And undigested food in your stools

In this video, I share 3 digestive enzyme brands we personally recommend and also how to properly introduce them to avoid ‘The Stomach Ache of Death.’

3) Dairy is Probably Not Helping…

We get a ton of questions about dairy products every day. Most people aren’t sure what to do because it’s a grey area in many low-carb diets.

For example, dairy is allowed on the SCD Diet as long as the lactose sugar is removed. So, things like 24-hour fermented yogurt and aged cheese are ok to eat and supposed to help you feel better.

But some low-carb diets don’t allow dairy at all… and others allow raw milk.

So, you may be asking yourself whether or not you should be eating it at all.

Not only that, but dairy can be a strong trigger for digestive problems in certain people.

So, when should you introduce dairy?

Is it OK to drink raw milk?

What if you don’t tolerate cow’s milk yogurt?

I answer these questions and more in this video. Hint: It all starts with your symptoms… not what diet you’re following.

4) This Hormone Could Be Low (Allowing Your Inflammation to Rage On)

There’s an inflammation epidemic going on… and there’s one root cause that can really help. We’ve seen it in about 90% of our 1-on-1 private clients.

There’s a hormone that, when it’s at normal levels, can completely put the inflammation fire out.

And in this video, I’m going to explain everything you need to know about this hormone and the critical role it plays in your immune system.

If you’re someone with chronic inflammation, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, or Autoimmune Disease… this video could explain a lot about why your immune system isn’t working right.

I even share 6 test results and show you what’s been going on in detail.

Not only that, but I get really specific about what tests to order if you think this hormone is a problem for you.

5) You Could Have Bad Bugs in All the Wrong Places

If you’re still struggling with gas, bloating, constipation, and diarrhea… you could have bacteria growing in all the wrong places.

You could be suffering from Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO).

It could be the one thing that’s keeping your diet restricted and causing a lot of stomach pain. The most important things you need to know about SIBO are covered in this video:

… signs and symptoms you’re a candidate for SIBO testing.

… clearing up the confusion about what testing can tell us.

… what to do if you test positive for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth.

What to Do Next…

Pick one thing from today’s post and test it like an engineer. Maybe that’s cutting out dairy, or trying digestive enzymes. No matter which thing you choose, keep the mindset that you’re a “health engineer” and keep tweaking things… each step in the right direction is one step closer to heath.

If you haven’t yet, take our quiz for Leaky Gut here to see if that’s a problem holding you back…

And if you need more help creating a custom diet that works for you, I highly recommend you get a copy of our book. It’s a step-by-step guide for creating a custom real food diet that works for your body:

–>  http://scdlifestylebook.com/

In good health,

– Jordan

P.S. – The most important thing? Never give up trying to take control of your health. I know it’s frustrating, I’ve been there… but I believe in you and know you can do this.