The joys of Crohn's and Chronic Pouchitis is having to reduce one's diet every once in a while.
For the last five days I have been reduced to a full-fluid/soft food diet. The trick to enjoying it is knowing what your body can and cannot handle.
For instance - I can't handle anything heavy, but really soft meats (in soups or tuna cans) are sometimes ok. The rest of it I try and make sure that it tastes good.
Today I bought some groceries so I can enjoy this diet:
Eggs
Mozza cheese
Creamy Havarti cheese
Cheesecake pudding
DanActive yogurt
Milk chocolate
Brie (for baked brie tonight).
Sounds good right?? Add a few spices in - do a baked brie with minced garlic, lemon juice, and fresh dill - and you have a nice treat that still goes with the diet!
Another good choice (which was too expensive today) is buying avocados. You cut those up, add in some mozzarella and Havarti, add a sundried tomato vinaigrette, and you have a great tasting salad made up of soft, easily digested food (if you can handle dairy products).
For those of you who cannot handle dairy products, the clear fluid diet can be pretty unbearable. When I had Ulcerative Colitis I could not handle dairy for years.
Here are a few quick tips:
1. Jello - as nice as it sounds - gets disgusting really quickly. I won't ever eat jello anymore unless there is vodka in it. Otherwise I can't bear it.
2. If you go for popsicles, go with the unhealthier ones. The healthy, real fruit juice ones, as yummy as they are, leave behind that fruity residue that stays in the back of your throat and is just plain annoying - and definitely doesn't help nausea.
3. Chicken broth - best thing to do is heat up some chicken broth, and add in some spices. Then strain it with a super concentrated strain to make sure you are not ingesting the spices. Add in some chicken, some veggies, then strain them out. This gives it much more flavor without actually causing a problem. You are still only eating the broth, but it doesn't taste so bland.
4. You might have huge cravings. I used to have major cravings for meat, veggies, and chocolate. I used to put a small piece in my mouth just for thirty seconds then spit it out. Reduces the craving and doesn't cheat.
5. Experiment with flavors and spices to give anything you are eating/drinking a different spin.
Those are my tips for tonight.
#copingstrategies
For the last five days I have been reduced to a full-fluid/soft food diet. The trick to enjoying it is knowing what your body can and cannot handle.
For instance - I can't handle anything heavy, but really soft meats (in soups or tuna cans) are sometimes ok. The rest of it I try and make sure that it tastes good.
Today I bought some groceries so I can enjoy this diet:
Eggs
Mozza cheese
Creamy Havarti cheese
Cheesecake pudding
DanActive yogurt
Milk chocolate
Brie (for baked brie tonight).
Sounds good right?? Add a few spices in - do a baked brie with minced garlic, lemon juice, and fresh dill - and you have a nice treat that still goes with the diet!
Another good choice (which was too expensive today) is buying avocados. You cut those up, add in some mozzarella and Havarti, add a sundried tomato vinaigrette, and you have a great tasting salad made up of soft, easily digested food (if you can handle dairy products).
For those of you who cannot handle dairy products, the clear fluid diet can be pretty unbearable. When I had Ulcerative Colitis I could not handle dairy for years.
Here are a few quick tips:
1. Jello - as nice as it sounds - gets disgusting really quickly. I won't ever eat jello anymore unless there is vodka in it. Otherwise I can't bear it.
2. If you go for popsicles, go with the unhealthier ones. The healthy, real fruit juice ones, as yummy as they are, leave behind that fruity residue that stays in the back of your throat and is just plain annoying - and definitely doesn't help nausea.
3. Chicken broth - best thing to do is heat up some chicken broth, and add in some spices. Then strain it with a super concentrated strain to make sure you are not ingesting the spices. Add in some chicken, some veggies, then strain them out. This gives it much more flavor without actually causing a problem. You are still only eating the broth, but it doesn't taste so bland.
4. You might have huge cravings. I used to have major cravings for meat, veggies, and chocolate. I used to put a small piece in my mouth just for thirty seconds then spit it out. Reduces the craving and doesn't cheat.
5. Experiment with flavors and spices to give anything you are eating/drinking a different spin.
Those are my tips for tonight.
#copingstrategies