20 Years on the Specifc Carbohydrate Diet™

It was 20 years ago today that I started the Specific Carbohydrate Diet™ (SCD™).

Why start a grain-free, gluten-free, sugar-free (any many other things–free) diet on the day of candy – Halloween?

Because I knew my office would be full of candy and other treats. I thought if I could resist that temptation then I would be on the right course for staying the course with SCD™.

It worked!

I didn’t touch any candy, cookies, cupcakes, or any other non-SCD™ food that day – or any day after that for a very, very long time – like seven years.

My original plan was do try it for 30 days and see what happened. At the time I was technically in remission according to my doctors. It was a year after I had, had surgery to remove the inflammaed part of my small intestine – about 12 inches of it, which immediately took away the terrible symptoms I had been having, not to mention the obstruction that had been created by scar tissue build up.

Still a year later, I was starting to experience some more and more frequent upset stomachs and I was scared. I didn’t want to go through that experience again – feeling terrible, being chained to the bathroom, missing out on everything.

I started to look for something that I could do to keep the Crohn’s symptoms from coming back. That’s when I stumbled upon the Specific Carbohydrate Diet™. It was the early days of online research, but I saw some people chatting about it in a Crohn’s forum so I sought out the book – Breaking the Vicious Cycle and read it.

I was convinced this diet would help me, but I didn’t jump right in. I read through the entire book and spent about a month going through the book again and mentally preparing myself to do it.

When I was ready I picked my start date – October 31, 2000.

I consider it one of the best decisions I ever made. Eventually I began creating my own recipes and really started SCD For Life – now Happy Gut For Life – as a place to keep them that I could easily access. I also thought I could share them with a few of the people I had met online in the various groups and forums that were around at the time.

I’m so happy this project has grown to what it is today and when someone reaches out to me when they have a question or like a recipe I feel to grateful that I have been able to turn all of this into something that is beyond myself.

Thank you for joining me on this journey.

Join in the dicussion! I started a new Facebook Group – Happy Gut For Life – Beyond SCD Discussion Group where we can talk about any SCD subjects including introducing new foods that may be outside the diet. Come check it out – I’ll be disussing my own successes and failures on this topic and it’s a great place to connect with others who are exploring SCD and beyond SCD foods.

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Sherry Lipp

Founder at Happy Gut For Life

Sherry is a Certificed Holistic Gut Practioner, author, and recipe creator. Sherry started the Specific Carbohydrate Diet in 2000 and has been creating delicious, grain and gluten-free recipes ever since. She is the author of the Don't Skip Dessert SCD cookbooks.