Do you find yourself battling cheat meal cravings? Linsy here, and I’m back this week to answer another question from one of our amazing readers. You all have the best questions, and I want to answer you as thoroughly as possible!

The question I received this week was in response to my video on What to Do During a Crohns, Colitis Flare – HACK # 4. In this video, I discuss how time and patience are key to healing and why even if you are doing all the right things you still may not be “healed yet.” In my experience, it took me 8 months just to get my bleeding down! So I explained in this video why things may be taking longer than you expected.

If you haven’t seen the series, here are all 6 hacks I shared based on my own personal experiences dealing with flare-ups: HACK #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, and #6.

Our question this week comes from a reader named “B” and it reads:

What did you eat during those 8 months you were bleeding? Are there acceptable cheats for special occasions?

I thought this was a great question because while we are healing, most of us will have times where we want to have something that may not be gut-friendly. It can be a challenge sticking to a certain diet, such as the elemental diet if that’s what a body needs for a certain length of time. Food is a tricky subject when it comes to IBD because certain foods can cause more inflammation, and different foods can trigger different individuals.

Here at Listen to Your Gut, we offer a lot of gut-friendly recipe suggestions, but we never tell people what they should or should not eat! ONLY your body knows that, so while today I will offer a number of suggestions when it comes to food, cravings, diets, and how to have a healthy perspective of these healing modalities, take these as guidelines only and always listen to what YOUR body has to say.

For myself during those 8 months, I had severe symptoms, so I made it a goal to have no celebration meals. When I say celebration meals, I am referring to what others may call cheat meals. I like to call them celebration meals to remove any “guilt” from eating something not healthy, as guilt is never good for the body. So, I decided it was not a good idea for me to have any celebration meals during this time because I was very determined to heal as quickly as possible.

I didn’t want anything to affect my progress if I ate a certain food that triggered me, and this took a lot of self-discipline at first! That is, until I learned the tricks I will share with you today.

I CHOSE not to have any celebration meals during those 8 months because I knew that my body couldn’t handle it. It could not handle a fudge brownie, or any of the foods I may have wanted. So I listened to my gut and refused to indulge any mental or tastebud cravings I had!

This provided my body the time it needed to rest and heal, and honestly without that “break” from whole foods I’m not sure if I would have healed so quickly and deeply. This also let me take an honest look at my daily food choices, as well as time to research gut-friendly foods – as the normal “healthy food choices” for most people are not going to work for people with IBD.

I was on a full elemental diet for most of the 8 months, drinking only shakes and bone broths, as Jini recommends.

For anyone who has been on the elemental diet for some time and is getting discouraged, I hope hearing the amount of time I was on the diet can normalize the situation for you, and help you stick to the course.

After being on the elemental diet for almost 8 months, I slowly transitioned to a half elemental diet – eating only gut-friendly foods. These were things like avocado, yams, jasmine rice, etc., and ANY foods I ate were cooked in the Insta pot to ensure they were “baby food” in texture.

So, here are a few tips to tackle cravings when you know your gut is not a position to handle a “cheat meal” at this time. These tips are taken from both my experience and Jini’s recommendations:

#1: Ask your gut, not your tastebuds.

I absolutely love this line from Jini’s video, Food Intolerance: Your Gut Vs. Your Tastebuds. I’ll link the full video in the description below so you can watch it yourself.

When you want a certain food, clearly distinguish if it’s your taste buds asking for it or your gut. Your taste buds may say: “I want to eat pizza and chips all day every day!” But your gut may completely disagree.

When we ask ourselves, what am I in the mood for? Most of the time we’re asking our taste buds, or our mind, not our gut. If we base the answer on taste ALONE, and not what we really need, we can get ourselves into trouble!

When contemplating a cheat meal, Jini recommends putting your hand on your belly and asking it yes or no – and how much it wants.

#2: Find your tolerance thresholds with food.

This is more incredible insight from Jini, because a lot of people will say “eat this, don’t eat this” – but now is when we go back to listening to our gut because what one person can eat, another cannot. And what that person can eat, maybe he can eat it three times a week, but another person can only have it once a month.

This is awesome because it might not necessarily mean that you have to completely avoid certain foods, but you have to learn where your body’s certain tolerance threshold is for that food.

Our tolerance thresholds are also highly affected by stress, so when you are looking for your tolerance thresholds also look at what is happening in your life. The environment you are eating in has a huge effect! An example Jini has previously given is perhaps a person is generally lactose-intolerant, but they find they can have some dairy when their life is calm and stress levels are low.

Here is a personal example of the effect your environment can have on you while you are eating. I have been able to eat pizza post healing, which is a triumph, as this used to be my number 1 trigger food before I healed. Once my microbiome was reset, I would eat it every so often with friends.

One time, however, I had it when I was really stressed out. It was one of those days where I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to tackle a billion projects at once. I had a huge building project going on outside my house while working from home that week, and I was eating out A LOT – and fast food is never my typical routine.

The icing on the cake was while I was eating the pizza, I was in a very uncomfortable environment. Well I’m sure you can guess that I got sick!! I was actually sick for about 2 days, my body was screaming at me, and I learned a big lesson on thresholds. Now I’ve taken this information and realized that, for me, I can only eat take-out meals if I am eating the food in a relaxed and safe environment – with people I enjoy, or watching a funny show.

We need to remember that while we are trying to balance our gut flora, what we ingest, the environments we eat in, and our stress levels can signal to our body if what we are eating is safe or not.

#3: Reframe your diet or change the story!

If we are on a restrictive diet for health reasons, how do we view it? If we see it as a negative, we may feel like we are missing out or being punished, which is a horrible feeling to feel. So, change that ”I can’t eat that,” or “I’m not allowed to eat that,” to:

I choose health and things that make me feel good!

If we choose to actively eat food our body doesn’t like, it’s almost a form of self-sabotage.

Which leads me to the fourth and final tip…

#4: Experiment and find which gut-friendly food combos work well with your body – and that you actually like!

This helps with cravings and replacing any feelings of “loss” you may have when removing certain foods from your diet. Replace them with gut-friendly foods that are just as delicious so you won’t feel deprived!

Now if you are especially looking for some gut-friendly celebration meals, Jini has a variety of amazing gut-friendly recipes on the blog! Whether you’re looking for something sweet or savory, she has it all. All of these gut-friendly recipes can be found in the recipe section of Jini’s blog.

Thank you for tuning in today, and I hope that our reader “B” and everyone else who watched this video found it helpful!

Here is another blog post you may also find beneficial: Are You Suffering From Food Guilt? In it, I talk all about how guilt can have a dramatic effect when it comes to our food choices.

And before I leave you, here is a great tapping video from Jini that addresses chocolate and sugar addiction/cravings. I highly recommend it!

Happy healing and remember – always listen to your gut!