Ok, this one is a bit of an education piece on the LOFFLEX diet so it might be a bit boring. You’ve had your warning, skip it if you don’t care but I thought it was a good idea because I’m going to be jabbering on about it for MONTHS.
I’ve found the first thing people say after you tell them you have Crohn’s (after either looking confused or standard sympathy noises) is “Doesn’t that mean you cant eat some foods?”
The answer, for those of you wondering if it does, is not necessarily. Some foods can trigger “flare ups” in IBD conditions, however what foods these are will differ for everyone. Obviously, unless you were REALLY paying attention to what you were eating before you get diagnosed for some weird reason (I wasn’t…at all) then you don’t know what these trigger foods may be, enter the LOFFLEX Diet.
For all the detail on what it is & how to do it etc, read this, but for a brief summary there are 2 parts to the diet. The first is the basic LOFFLEX diet where you stick to a list of certain low-fat & fibre foods but I’ve done that bit so lets skip over. The second part is where things get really “exciting”. The re-introduction stage involves testing certain foods which may or may not cause a reaction “twice a day for four days” to ensure you can be certain it was that new food that caused it. If nothing bad happens bowel-ly then you can move on to the next on the list.
Anyway, enough of the history lesson. This is my list. Ive re-ordered the proper one for certain things to be tested earlier or not at all (I hate bananas for example, so I’m not wasting 4 days trying to stomach them when I could be having bacon instead):
- Eggs
- Onions
- Butter
- Cheese
- Milk
- White wheat
- White bread
- Wholegrain wheat
- Wholegrain bread
- Pork
- Tomatoes
- Chocolate
- Tea & Coffee
- Apple
- Wine
- Corn
- Beer
- Citrus & berries
- Pulse beans
- Rye
- Nuts
- Barley
Testing everything there will take me 92 days. That means I’ll be done with this in September, so just in time for autumn. Yaaaaay.
Confusingly, there are also loads of things on the banned foods list which aren’t on the list (when is it ok to have mustard, parsnips and Gin again dammit?!) but I’m thinking I’ll have to wing those, or “leave them until the end then test” as my mum puts it.
Jakes Crohnology 