But here I am, fifteen months on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, and doing very well. My episodes of gastrointestinal distress seem to be coming less frequently, and are shorter-lived when they do happen. I would say that I'm at about 95%, and I'm very happy with that, despite the occasional hiccup.
So what's new?
I've almost finished reading Jimmy Moore's "Keto Clarity," which describes how a ketogenic diet can help with a variety of problems. There is definitely a slight emphasis on using a ketogenic diet for weight loss -- Moore himself used to weigh over 400 pounds -- but it's only a slight emphasis, he also discusses a lot of other problems that can be managed better or eliminated by adopting a "keto lifestyle": diabetes, migraines, dementia, and many others.
While I haven't gone full-tilt into a ketogenic version of the SCD, I've ended up just inside the keto fence by default: through more and more testing of foods, I found that the more fruit I ate, the more likely I was to have GI difficulty, so I'm down to about one cup of frozen berries in the evening and that's it for fruit. Since I eat almost no honey, and since other sweeteners are illegal on the SCD, I've just ended up eating very low-carb. And since I lost a bunch of weight early on and am happy to eat as many calories as I can, I'm eating plenty of butter and cheese, so my diet is also relatively high-fat. And those two things put together almost define a ketogenic diet; the only thing missing is "moderate protein," and I think that was already the case. If I was seriously trying for a state of ketosis, I'd probably have to add more fat and decrease the protein slightly, but this seems to be working for me, so I'm going to keep going in this direction.
Speaking of cheese, I continue to be slightly surprised that I seem to be able to tolerate many different types of cheeses just fine. They are all SCD-legal cheeses (legal because the way they're made eliminates virtually all lactose), but I'm still a bit surprised, simply because of the decades that I spent believing that ALL cheeses were a problem for me. My favorites these days are Jarlsberg, Gruyere, and Parmiggiano Reggiano, but others that I enjoy are Manchego, Gouda, Pavino, and a couple of varieties from Unie Kass (a Dutch cheese-maker) named Robusto and Reserve.
I'm still flummoxed about why SCD yogurt seemed to be so helpful when I introduced it a couple of months into the diet, but came to be something that brought on GI problems a couple of months after that. It's either the casein, the galactose content, or the high dose of probiotics that each serving contains. Based on my success with cheese, I've all but eliminated casein from the equation. My suspicion is that it's the amount of l. acidophilus that it contains, and that, for some reason, while I needed a lot of this early on, too much of it now causes an overgrowth situation. But given my experience with carbohydrates, I'm not ruling out the possibility that the galactose is a problem. In any case, I tried a test a month or so ago of 1/4 cup of yogurt once a week, and I got mixed results: the first week, I experienced a bit of stool softening the next day; the second week, I experienced no problem the next day, but diarrhea the day after. I don't know if either of those were from the yogurt, but I discontinued the test. A couple of weeks later (just a few days ago), I started testing again, this time with a heaping tablespoonful once a week. I noticed no problems after that first attempt, we'll see what happens after the second one in a few days.
I still seemed to have trouble with nuts the last time I tried them, so I haven't had any in a month or two. I'm going to try again soon, this time with pecan butter (homemade). I would really, really like to be able to add nuts into my diet, as they're a healthy source of fiber and micronutrients, and they make great portable snacks. My biggest problem with them is being able to stop eating them after a reasonable amount!
And I've continued avoiding wine for the past month. I look forward to trying to get that back on the menu as well.
It takes so long to introduce new things at this point. Trying to keep everything stable in between weeklong tests means that I can't really change much during that week; the most I'm willing to try is two concurrent weeklong tests, with each item three or four days apart, but even that decreases the possibility of being able to definitely identify what caused a problem if one occurs. Having to wait so long is frustrating, but I'll continue to do my best with it in the hopes that I'll be able to continue increasing the foods that I can eat without causing major distress.
Onward!
