With the arrival of August, my family and I celebrate that we have now completed four months of the Specific Carbohydrate Diet.  We are trying to heal our guts of several food intolerances and possible Celiac disease in my son, Isaac.  It has been a journey.  Trying to maintain fanatical adherence to this very strict eating style is challenging to say the least.  In fact, this diet reminds me of pregnancy.

When you first find out that you are carrying a child, you have a mixture of excitement and anxiety.  You begin reading all you can about good nutrition, fetal development, etc.  You plan to do the best for your child.  This reminds me of when our plan to follow this diet was conceived.  I read books, found recipes, and had lists of all the acceptable foods.  I was prepared and anxious to get started.

Then the morning sickness hits you.  I personally did not suffer badly from withdrawal; however, my husband and daughter laid on the couch for two or three days.  They felt like they had the flu.  Their bodies were screaming for sugar and starch.  The bad bacteria in their guts were demanding to be fed.  On the other hand, I had a headache and felt fatigued.  Jake suffered from major cravings of sugar.  Once all these symptoms disappeared, the diet was much easier.

We moved into the “let’s try new foods” stage.  We began trying to replace foods that we missed with new choices.  Some of our family favorite snacks are now California dates, raisins, and dried apricots.  Kohlrabi and mashed cauliflower are replacements for potatoes.  Spaghetti squash replaces pasta.  You get used to pizza with Cheddar cheese instead of mozzarella.

We began hitting our stride.  The diet seemed easier.  I had reliable recipes that everyone enjoyed.  We knew what brands of different items we could have instead of consulting a list all the time.  Eating on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet became our new normal.

When you finally get over morning sickness, you begin enjoying your pregnancy.  You feel great.  Your belly is growing, but not too big.  You actually look cute.  I feel like we are currently in this stage.  It is evident to others that we are doing something different.  My husband has lost 21 pounds.  My daughter has lost an amazing 26 pounds.  In contrast, I have a lost a whopping 5 pounds.  Three of my children grew an inch in three months.  There have been spectacular physical changes in some members of my family.

Another family that is also following the SCD protocol was six months in and burned out.  They began adding soaked grains to their diet and weeks later began seeing symptoms return.  Learning from other’s mistakes is a great policy; therefore, I am concerned that we too will be tempted to begin cheating or drop it altogether.

You get to a point in your pregnancy when you are just tired of being pregnant.  You look longingly at your due date.  You are uncomfortable, your legs begin to swell, all you want is to have your baby.  You might even say, “Get this baby out of me!”  I am afraid that describes what happened to the family mentioned above.  Patiently waiting for labor to begin naturally is tough.  Our “due date” is April 1st.

Typically regardless of how ready you are to meet your infant when the labor pains commence, fear strikes.  You are afraid of the pain; you are afraid that something will go wrong.  Simply put, you are afraid of the unknown.  In the same way, I anticipate that as we draw nearer to the first of April that we will begin to have similar emotions.  “What if this diet didn’t work?’  “What foods do we start with and how slow or fast do we begin entering them back into our life?”  “Wouldn’t it just be easier or safer to stay on the SCD protocol?”

We still have a long haul to go before we complete our year on this diet.  Some days eight months sounds like a lifetime and other days it does not sound so bad.  It is on the former days that I worry about.  We have not come this far and struggled so not to accomplish our goal.  Please join us in prayer for two things concerning the diet.  We are praying for lasting and permanent healing in our guts and the strength/will-power to finish the year.

Tags: birthing pains, Celiac disease, comparison to pregnancy, food intolerances, healing gut, prayer request, SCD, Specific Carbohdrate Diet

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011 at 9:05 am and is filed under Food Allergies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.