Sherry Lipp & Karyn On… SCD 2.0
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What happens when two SCD experts join forces to thoroughly examine the Specific Carbohydrate Diet to make it better than ever before?
This episode. That’s what happens!
In this week’s episode of The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD, we’re diving into all things SCD with guest, Sherry Lipp. Sherry is a certified holistic gut practitioner, SCD expert, and a seasoned IBD warrior. Sherry’s journey through the ups and downs of Crohn’s disease since her diagnosis in 1999 led her to discover the healing power of SCD, which played a crucial role in her path to remission.
In our candid conversation, we not only celebrate what we love about SCD, but we also explore its limitations and how if we were the masterminds behind a more modern take on the diet (SCD 2.0), it would be more accessible for IBD skeptics and would also boast even bigger results for those who go all in.
Whether you’re new to the SCD or a seasoned follower, this episode will provide you with fresh insights, practical tips, and thoughtful critiques that could change the way you approach your IBD diet plan.
Join Sherry and me as we talk about everything from how the SCD gave us structure and clarity in our dietary choices, to the evolving science around the microbiome that suggests areas where the SCD could benefit from some modern-day tweaks. We’ll also share our personal experiences with SCD, discuss how it has empowered us and our clients, and brainstorm what SCD 2.0 could look like.
Tune in As We Talk About:
✅ [00:03:45] The pivotal role that the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) has played in both Sherry’s and my IBD journey, and why it remains a go-to strategy for many.
✅ [00:07:18] The structure and clarity that SCD provides, making it easier to navigate what can often be a confusing world of dietary restrictions.
✅ [00:11:56] The limitations of the original SCD book, Breaking the Vicious Cycle, and why some people struggle to follow it.
✅ [00:19:22] How modern science, particularly our growing understanding of the microbiome, suggests that the SCD might benefit from updates—especially in areas like the inclusion of bifidobacterium.
✅ [00:26:34] The importance of not just what we remove from our diets, but also what we add in—an aspect that often gets overlooked in the SCD approach.
✅ [00:31:08] Why a more personalized and less restrictive approach could make the SCD more sustainable and effective for different individuals.
✅ [00:42:40] How the SCD has evolved in our lives, including the foods we’ve added back in and the adaptations we’ve made over time.
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Mentioned in the Episode:
>> The Ultimate IBD Diet Decoder Quiz
>> Join The Gut Love Community for Moms with IBD
>> Book Your FREE IBD Consultation with Karyn Today
Other Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
>> Breaking the Vicious Cycle by Elaine Gottschall
>> Bifidobacterium in IBD Study
>> Another Bifidobacterium Study
Connect With Karyn:
Connect With Sherry:
The Happy Gut for Life Website
Episode Transcript:
Karyn [00:00:00]:
Well, hey there, my friend. We meet again. I’m so happy you’re here. As we both know all too well, living with Crohn’s or colitis, it can be a constant battle. So my goal for today is let’s just go ahead and dive in. Let’s see if we can just move the needle, move it just a little bit for you today. Anyway, that’s my hope, you know? So I have to start by saying that one of the things that I get asked about most as a veteran IBDer, it’s about the specific carbohydrate diet. And, you know, if you’ve ever done this, once you start branching out from your doctor’s advice, you’re wondering what else is out there to help you heal.
Karyn [00:00:45]:
Inevitably, you will stumble across something about the specific carbohydrate diet, and you’ll enter this rabbit hole that’s part aha and part confusion. But you’ll definitely leave that rabbit hole wanting to know more. So, as a long time SCDer talking about the specific carbohydrate diet, it’s something that I’ve become known for. So imagine my delight when I got the pleasure to meet a kindred spirit of a gal who’s also known as an SCD champion. And once we got to gabbing, we realized that SCD isn’t all we have in common in this. In this episode, I’m going to introduce you to Sherry Lipp, fellow IBD gal SCD coach and recipe developer extraordinaire. Sherry is a certified holistic gut practitioner and an expert in the specific carbohydrate diet, the SCD. It’s helped Sherry find relief and remission from Crohn’s disease.
Karyn [00:01:54]:
Diagnosed in 1999 after a challenging battle with her health, Sherry was able to find her path to healing through the diet when those traditional medical treatments, they failed her. Now, her journey, which includes overcoming an allergic reaction to mesalamine and also a bowel obstruction that led to a surgery, it has really shaped her holistic approach to gut health. Today, in our conversation, we dive deep into what makes SCD such a powerful tool in your IBD healing toolkit. And we talk about what we love about the diet, but we also get really honest and real as we explore its limitations and what we would change if we could be the masterminds behind SCD 2.0. Sherry shares her incredible insights on how she has adapted the diet to suit her specific needs while maintaining a balanced approach to food and health. This episode, it is packed with valuable information, whether you’re a seasoned SCD follower or you’re just curious about the diet and how it can impact your IBD journey. If you’ve ever ventured down the SCD rabbit hole and you wondered, is this the gut healing diet for me? This is the episode for you, my friend. Sherry’s wisdom, passion, her practical tips.
Karyn [00:03:30]:
It makes this a must listen for anyone navigating that complex world that we’re all navigating here, the world of diet and chronic illness. So let’s go ahead and dive in and explore everything we love and everything we change about the specific carbohydrate diet with the amazing Sherry Lipp.
Hey there, mama. Welcome to season two of The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD. I’m Karyn Haley, functional IBD nutrition and wellness coach and Crohn’s warrior. This podcast is all about us moms because our IBD plays by different rules. Season two is juicy, full of unconventional wisdom, real talk, new ways to tackle our illness, and a whole lot of community empowerment, and all of us advocating the hell out of our illness. We’re in this together, and I’m here to help you find healing on your terms.
Karyn [00:04:34]:
Let’s do this. Welcome to the podcast, Sherry. I’m so, so excited to have you join us today.
Sherry [00:04:47]:
Thank you for having me. I’m excited, too.
Karyn [00:04:49]:
This is gonna be a fun conversation because you and I are both SCD veterans, both as patients, but also as coaches helping people on the other side of STD. So basically, guys, today you’re getting two for the price of one. What we’re gonna talk about today is everything that we love about the specific carbohydrate diet. And then we’re going to get into some things that Sherry and I would change. We’ve actually talked about this before, the two of us. Some things that we might change if we wrote Breaking the Vicious Cycle 2.0. What would we change about it? What would we improve about it? So that’s what we’re going to do in today’s episode. But before we get to that, Sherry, I would really love to hear about what brought you to the specific carbohydrate diet.
Karyn [00:05:39]:
Tell me a little bit about that. And I know a little bit about your story, and I’m absolutely amazed at all that you and I have in common. It’s fascinating to me. So kind of just take us through your journey and what led you to the SCD to begin with.
Sherry [00:05:54]:
Okay. Yeah. And the same for me when I. When I found your videos. I was like, oh, wow. It’s always exciting. I’m sure all of us know. And it can be isolating to have IBD, and especially if you’re doing a special diet.
Sherry [00:06:06]:
And so what led me to SCD? So I started in the year 2000. So it’s been a long time now. And I. I had surgery. I got diagnosed with Crohn’s in 1999. That was pretty much my whole bad experience was 1999, and I just wasn’t reacting to medication. Of course, medication was very limited at that time, and there was no biologics or anything like that. It was prednisone.
Sherry [00:06:35]:
And as soon as I tapered off prednisone, my symptoms came back bad. I ended up having to have. I had a full bowel blockage, so that put me in the hospital and surgery. And then basically, when you have surgery, they’re like, you’re cured, you know?
Karyn [00:06:51]:
Right, right.
Sherry [00:06:53]:
And they put me on mesalamine and for maintenance, but I was allergic to it, so. And they’re like, you’re on your own. There’s nothing else right now. And so. And they’re like, 50 50. You’ll be fine. But I started feeling symptoms, probably within the year, mild ones, and I was really afraid. I went to the doctor and probably not crohn’s.
Sherry [00:07:18]:
It’s probably the effects of having surgery. And your bowel is shortened, so you’re going to be sensitive. But I was very paranoid because it was starting to become disruptive to my life again. Then I started trying to do research. Of course, online was in its infancy back then, too. But I did find. I actually saw it on a. I think it might have been the Crohn’s colitis Foundation forum.
Sherry [00:07:46]:
You know, the early days of message boards. I saw somebody. It was just a general Crohn’s group of some kind. And I saw one thread about diet, and somebody mentioned this one, you know, a cd diet. So I had to go down to my university bookstore and special order books, and that’s where it started. So I didn’t start it immediately. I read the book. It seemed overwhelming.
Sherry [00:08:10]:
And then the symptoms were bothering me more and more, and so I was like, I’m gonna try it for 30 days. So. And then I kept going.
Karyn [00:08:20]:
And that was that. And then I kept going. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s really so similar to my story, and I can relate to you. I didn’t put it down for as long. I put it down for longer than you did when I first read it, which we’re going to get into, because that’s one of my thoughts about the book in general, is that’s a little bit confusing, but, yeah. So I have such a similar story to yours after having. I had two bowel resections, and then that’s how I came to the specific carbohydrate diet finally.
Karyn [00:08:51]:
But I had Crohn’s and was in the whole medical world, again, pre biologics for 20 years before I came to SCD because I was diagnosed back in 87. So they had nothing. You know, there was, like, nothing. Nothing in terms of that back then. And there was certainly no Internet. But then, yeah, it was like a forum that. Where I heard about it for the first time, and then it kind of, you know, it just went from there. And so you and I, I would say, both have had pretty good experiences with a specific carbohydrate diet.
Karyn [00:09:23]:
It really brought our disease into remission.
Sherry [00:09:26]:
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely keeps it there. I mean, you know, I had the surgery, and so they called it. They call it surgical remission. And for me, I was lucky that it didn’t. So for some people, I know it blows right back up, but I was lucky enough that mild symptoms scared me into really doing something.
Karyn [00:09:44]:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s fantastic. I love it. And so you and I have talked about. There’s lots of things that we really like about the specific carbohydrate diet. So I today was thinking about all the things that I love about it, all the things I tell clients that I love about it, all the things I preach about it, because it has really been helpful for me. And so I have five things that I want to just kind of proclaim before we get into things we would change.
Karyn [00:10:11]:
I have five things that I love. How many things do you have?
Sherry [00:10:15]:
I kind of have ten, you know? Yeah, I think there’s ten. Some of them kind of tie into me personally, so.
Karyn [00:10:23]:
Okay, so here’s what I’d like to do. Let’s go through our lists. Let’s have you do two, and I’ll do one. And possibly, let’s just see if there’s some overlap in what we think, because that would be cool. So let’s start with you. Tell me something you love about the specific carbohydrate diet.
Sherry [00:10:39]:
Well, I’ll say the first thing I loved, and that was that it gave me a guideline because I felt lost. I felt like I wasn’t eating poorly because I had already been through that experience. And I eat soup in it would throw me off balance, and I just didn’t know what to do. So it gave me some. It gave me a very specific guideline to go with the title. Yeah, yeah, that was. That was definitely my love of it. And so.
Sherry [00:11:08]:
And I think to go along with that, it was structuring how I wanted to eat.
Karyn [00:11:16]:
Who say more about that?
Sherry [00:11:18]:
It gave me, like, I didn’t have. I just. I planned out what I was gonna have in, like, in the first couple of months. I mean, it was boring, but I knew exactly what I was gonna eat.
Karyn [00:11:31]:
Instead of wondering, what should I eat? What’s good for me, it gave you this. The boundaries and the structure of this is what I eat, and I don’t go outside of it.
Sherry [00:11:41]:
Exactly. Yes. Very determined. And luckily, my husband was. Was very supportive, so he was just like. And he. He kept me going.
Karyn [00:11:52]:
I think it’s really. I don’t know if I would say you have to have a supportive spouse or family, but I would say it’s. It’s huge. It’s really. At least for me, I had a really supportive spouse, and my kids were little at the time, and so I just took everybody along for the ride. And I don’t know about you, but I find my clients who are able to do that, it’s so much more doable, rather than, well, I make this for my spouse, and I make this for my kids, and I make this for me. That is absolutely unsustainable. And so I would make the same food that I made for me.
Karyn [00:12:28]:
I would make that for my family, and then for them, I would add in rice or a potato or something. Did you do that, too?
Sherry [00:12:36]:
Exactly. That sometimes my husband will get his own thing. I don’t have kids. You know, he would like, and I didn’t. Well, I think in the early days, maybe I did resent that a little bit, but sure, he didn’t do it. I think now we fall into such a routine that it’s like sometimes we’ll just go grab something so he can go grab what he wants, and I get what I want. But in the early days, yeah, since I was. I was primarily the cook, as it was.
Sherry [00:13:02]:
So it’s like, you know, we’re having our protein, our vegetable, ours, you know, I’m having squash. He didn’t like squash, so he loved rice. I actually wasn’t that big of a rice fan in the first place, so I didn’t mind. I was like, okay, have the rice. I’m not that into rice, so I don’t care, you know, but I think.
Karyn [00:13:20]:
That makes everybody healthier. Like, I feel like my whole family is healthier because of it, which is something that I did not write down. But I think that’s a huge thing to say, is that I feel like my whole family is healthier because of the specific carbohydrate diet, because it’s just healthy food for the most part. Healthy food. Okay. Yeah. Give me another thing you love about it.
Sherry [00:13:44]:
Well, I think that for me, it was an immediate result.
Karyn [00:13:49]:
So that is one of mine. Yep.
Sherry [00:13:52]:
I felt better. So I have on. There was a reduced inflammation. I could definitely tell immediately that I, you know, all of us, I would just. Even though I wasn’t having a super amount of symptoms, I just was like. I just feel all over better.
Karyn [00:14:09]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was awful. I was feeling awful. I was. I was looking at another possible bowel resection, and I had already had two. And basically my doctor just gave up on me and said, I’m sorry, but there’s nothing that I can do for you. And that’s when I said, oh, I’ve got to go back to that book that I read years ago, because that’s the only path that I see forward. And within a week, I actually felt.
Karyn [00:14:37]:
And I was really, really sick. But within a week, I felt better. And so I wasn’t fully healed in a week, but I just felt like me in one week, which is quick. I don’t typically have clients that feel better in one week, but it’s pretty quickly that you start to feel better, and so that’s just to piggyback on what you said. I feel like it’s a quick win. Food in general, in my opinion, is the low hanging fruit in the gut. There’s a lot of other things you can do that are harder, but food is something where you can get it. If you’re doing it right for your gut, you can get a quick win, and so the SCD can give you that quick win.
Karyn [00:15:20]:
And so when you’re really desperate, you’re really looking for something. Or, like, in your case, when you’re just having those mild symptoms and you want to nip it in the bud quickly, I think it’s a great thing to try. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so we definitely align on that. Give me one more that you have.
Sherry [00:15:37]:
Okay. So this might sound like a weird one, but at the time and early on, it actually helped me not feel awkward about my condition, because I. It gave me a concrete thing to say why I wasn’t going on the team lunch or why I was. I mean, interesting. I made food. So it got me out of my, actually, my work mates at the time were super supportive. They’re the most supportive co workers I’ve ever had when I started doing it, and so they were all in. And so it gave me that concrete thing to take the pressure off of me for feeling awkward.
Sherry [00:16:14]:
I know a lot of people like, it causes awkwardness, but when I started it, at the very least, it took that awkwardness away. Now, awkwardness came later as I continued it, as in that I went to new jobs and stuff like that. But in the early days, I just found, I think it all ties back to that one thing. It was a guide, and I was able to stick to it, and I was like, I just felt very confident in it. So that’s what I tell other people, and they’re like, oh, this person’s not supportive, or what do I do? I’m just like, you have to be confident and this is what you’re doing.
Karyn [00:16:45]:
Yes. You have to have faith in it. You have to have the confidence that it’s the right path for you. I really love what you’re talking about because I think it brings in the whole support system aspect, which is actually one of mine, which is the strong community piece of it. And I think you were really lucky. I, on the other hand, was very much known for my bread in my pasta and my italian dishes. And so my friend group, my coworkers, my family, they were all like, what the hell? Like, who is this person? Like, I don’t feel like I had that support, but I think when you do have that around you, I think that really makes a big difference.
Sherry [00:17:24]:
Mm hmm.
Karyn [00:17:24]:
Yeah.
Sherry [00:17:25]:
Especially, I mean, I had family members that weren’t supportive of it, you know? And somebody was asking me about that, and he’s like, you know what? Some of those family members who weren’t super supportive have now passed away. So it’s like, I don’t care anymore, you know?
Karyn [00:17:38]:
Right.
Sherry [00:17:38]:
That’s the thing to keep in mind. It’s like it’s, you still feel confident, your choice. And unless it’s causing fights and arguments, I would hope not. But, you know, if it’s just somebody’s like, whatever, and handing you a candy bar and you just don’t eat it, you know?
Karyn [00:17:53]:
Exactly. Exactly. They may not cook for you in that way when you go to their house, but you just bring your own food, you know? Yeah, they might not get it like that. It’s rare when somebody gets it like that much that they’re like, yes, I will cook that meal for you?
Sherry [00:18:08]:
Yeah.
Karyn [00:18:08]:
Yeah.
Sherry [00:18:08]:
Like, pretty much only my mom, you know, was doing that. She was always an adventurous cook anyway, so she was kind of excited to. To try out new things.
Karyn [00:18:18]:
That’s so awesome. I love hearing that. For me, it was my spouse. He was the super supportive one that was, like, you know, cheering me on and excited about it. Now, I think a little behind the scenes, he was a little bit resentful because he kind of went through that carbohydrate withdrawal initially, like I was going through. But up front, he was really, really supportive. And I think everybody needs somebody in their corner to kind of really walk this path with them and just say, hey, I am 100% in this with you. As long as you have at least one person, and it sounds like you had many of those people, it’s more likely that you’ll be successful.
Sherry [00:18:57]:
It makes up for the ones I mean. Yeah, I mean, there were hard times. There were times when I, like, sat home while everybody went out for a birthday dinner because it’s like they wanted to go to a restaurant that was, like, not gonna be anything, you know? So. And then I like. And so you hate to be the one that, like, well, I have to go to this, you know, because I know I can order what I need, and that’s like, well, I want thai food or, you know, or something like that. And I had no clue. And so sometimes, yeah, I’d be. I’d feel left out, or I’d be like, they’re getting pizza for a movie night, and I’m eating my plain chicken or whatever, but.
Sherry [00:19:34]:
Or sometimes waiting till I got home. So those things are hard, but so it definitely does help to. To have some support.
Karyn [00:19:42]:
Yeah. Yeah. And that goes along. Actually, I’ll mention one of the things that I have, because that goes very. Ties into very much what I wanted to say, and that is that, you know, back when you and I started SCD, maybe it was your coworkers or your family, but I think today that’s really changed, because there are so many online communities, and they are so supportive of each other. So if you don’t have anybody in your life, in real life, you can go online. You can go to online forums, you can go to online Facebook groups and all kinds of places, even live conferences. You can find people that are SCD people like, you can find your people where.
Karyn [00:20:20]:
When I was doing it, the only person I knew doing it was my coach who worked with me. That was it. I didn’t know anybody else. I would tell people about it. They had no clue what I was talking about. But I feel like nowadays, if you do start it, there is a built in community that you can very easily find.
Sherry [00:20:37]:
Yeah. That was the next thing on my list, you know?
Karyn [00:20:39]:
Okay, fantastic.
Sherry [00:20:40]:
Yeah. Nowadays, you’ve got the online community, so. And I tell people, I’m like, just reach out to me, you know, ask me questions, you know, because I don’t mind, you know, if you’re gonna send me a message, because I’ve read some. You know, you read this tragic thing where people are, you know, struggling with their spouse or whatever, and you don’t want that, you know?
Karyn [00:21:05]:
Exactly. Exactly. Yes, me too. I always reach out. I will, because I know what it’s like to not have those people in your corner. So I will be in your corner. I always feel really strongly that. Yeah, reach out because there are people out there that are willing to help.
Karyn [00:21:20]:
Yeah, yeah. Okay. Give me another one on your.
Sherry [00:21:22]:
Listen, I think, you know, this one. I think some people are surprised you. But the variety of food that you can ultimately get to.
Karyn [00:21:33]:
Yes. They don’t see that initially, but it is there. Yeah, yeah.
Sherry [00:21:37]:
I didn’t see it initially either. Part of it’s because I didn’t really know how to. I grew up. I love cooking, but this was foreign to me from, like, you, what you’re talking about. You’re used to making pasta, and, you know, I was making my tuna noodle casserole or whatever, you know. You know, it was foreign, so I felt bored. But then it just led me into just researching more food and then trying things I wouldn’t have tried, you know? And that’s what led me to writing recipes and sharing those.
Karyn [00:22:11]:
Yeah, I completely agree. There’s so many things that I eat now that I never would have eaten before. I think I was very much a creature of habit. I mean, even all, like, the squashes and things like that. I didn’t eat any of that avocados. Like, I was very limited in what I ate, and it kind of forced me out of my comfort zone into different foods that I now just love. And so I’m really grateful for that.
Sherry [00:22:37]:
Yeah, yeah, definitely my mom, like, I would not touch squash, hardly. And so, you know, I remember calling her, and I was like, how do I cook this acorn squash?
Karyn [00:22:48]:
I have no. What the heck, right?
Sherry [00:22:50]:
Like, I think breaking the vicious cycle just said, cook till it’s done. And I’m like, I don’t. I’ve never cooked one, though. I don’t know.
Karyn [00:22:55]:
What does that mean?
Sherry [00:22:56]:
Right? And so she was laughing, you know, so. But then, of course, if we try spaghetti squash, which is my favorite one, I still love it. Love squash, but I love spaghetti squash and there’s a few kinds. And if you get it, if I get it cooked just right, I like it. But, you know, for a while, they hadn’t seen them anymore. They had those boxes of frozen butternut squash in the freezer. And that’s what I was, that’s all I knew what to do. And so I was heating those up and putting a little butter on it.
Sherry [00:23:27]:
And that’s it. That’s why I was like, I gotta learn. I gotta learn how to do a.
Karyn [00:23:30]:
Little more here and now. You can. It’s like you and I started this so long ago that there weren’t recipe blogs or there wasn’t, and we were just doing this all on our own. In a time before, people didn’t even know what gluten was. But now it’s like, just search SCD recipes and so many will come up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, give me another one.
Sherry [00:23:53]:
I think. Well, probably one of my favorite one is that the empowerment that you have, you know, and that’s what I talked about earlier a little bit, is that you feel like you’re doing something, you know? And as a coach, I mean, there is that you can feel a little bored more than you should. Like, you can’t control everything, but it does empower you to feel like you’re doing the best you can for your body. Now, that’s. As a coach, I have to coach people to be like, sometimes you can’t know, you know, it’s always like, what did I eat? Because I feel bad. It’s like, it might not be. So you can’t get. You can’t get too mentally overboard on, like, it’s all food.
Sherry [00:24:34]:
But you do. For me, it was that empowerment of doing the best we can for our body.
Karyn [00:24:41]:
Yeah, that’s one step. And this disease, I think it robs us of our control, of our. Of this control that we feel like we have over our lives. And this is something that we can take control of. And so, yes, hugely empowering. And I think that’s so important to be our own advocate, to feel empowered in this, to feel like you can make a difference in your health. You’re not a. Oh, I don’t.
Karyn [00:25:13]:
I was going to say victim, but I don’t know if that’s the right word. But you’re not completely powerless. Like, you actually can take this by the reins and there’s a lot that you can do on your own. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I love that. Okay, let me give you one of mine. I feel like the STD is a great starting place when you’re ready to move beyond medicine or add an adjunct onto medicine. I think that when your doctor is only offering you medication and you might say to yourself, you know, that just doesn’t fit for me, or it’s just not enough for me, it’s either one of those scenarios that it is the best starting place.
Karyn [00:25:55]:
I just don’t think there could be a better starting place than the specific carbohydrate diet.
Sherry [00:26:00]:
Totally agreed.
Karyn [00:26:01]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Sherry [00:26:02]:
That was kind of the last one on my. On my list. Okay. I combined a couple, I think, when I was talking, but it was the holistic approach. You know, it’s one corner. If you take the holistic thing as the three circles, mind body experience, it’s one corner of those that you can, and it’s the most easy one to manipulate. To control, manipulate, figure out. I know a lot of people have a hard time figuring out, but it is figureoutable.
Karyn [00:26:33]:
Yes, I completely agree with you on that. Yep, absolutely. Yep. Agree. I have a couple more. Let’s see. I love that it inherently cuts out many of the culprits that a lot of us with ibdan have, you know, in common. So gluten, grains, refined sugar, lactose, it immediately cuts those things out, and a lot of us need to cut those things out.
Karyn [00:27:00]:
So I like that it does that. You may not need to cut all of those things out, but it’s a great starting place, and then you can start to add in as you go. But I like that it just immediately. It just, like, takes those things away, and at the base, it’s just gut healing. Right. It’s like, we’re gonna take away everything that could possibly be a trigger, and we’re going to just build you back up, and I love that part of it. And then the last thing I have is, I love that I’m gonna. There’s a little caveat here.
Karyn [00:27:32]:
I love the intro part of the diet with some. With a more modern. I kind of change it a little bit and do a little bit more about what I call a modern version on it. It’s a little bit juice heavy. Anyway, there’s just a couple issues, I feel like, but the idea of the intro in general, to really help shed those toxins and set your body up for success, I really like that part of the diet. There isn’t another one that has something like that. It’s like, you just start. But SCD has this intro that’s like this pretty toxin release.
Karyn [00:28:12]:
I don’t want to say detox, because I think that sometimes that can be challenging for people with Crohn’s and colitis doing a detox because it’s a little bit too harsh on the system. But the idea of you’re just, like, setting your body up for those mucosal layers to start populating new epithelial cells, I love. I love that the intro part of it does that. So I really like that as well. Anything else that you can think of that we didn’t talk about, that you really like about it before we get into our 2.0 of SCD, you know.
Sherry [00:28:48]:
I think I just like that it exists, you know?
Karyn [00:28:50]:
Yes.
Sherry [00:28:51]:
It’s a foundation.
Karyn [00:28:53]:
It’s a foundation. I think that just wraps everything we set up in a nice, neat bow. It’s a foundation. Yeah. Very foundational. Okay, Sherry, so you and I were getting to put on this hat, this imaginary hat of if we were to make some improvements to the specific carbohydrate diet based on someone who’s both of us who have been there for a long time, based on coaching clients for a long time, what would we want to see different? And I have. I don’t know about you. You tell me how many you have.
Karyn [00:29:23]:
I have ten of these. How many do you have?
Sherry [00:29:26]:
I think I have ten. I didn’t write these down as concretely because I feel like the conversation would evolve on them. I definitely have my core ones that I talk about a lot.
Karyn [00:29:39]:
Okay, cool. All right, cool. So tell me, what’s one thing that you feel like you would change if we were to modernize the specific carbohydrate diet?
Sherry [00:29:51]:
I think the main thing I would change about the structure of it is that beyond the intro, I would have a little more guideline for what you eat at certain points.
Karyn [00:30:02]:
Amen. That’s on my list, too.
Sherry [00:30:05]:
It’s, um. I think that I don’t. I used to think this way, but now I don’t. Is that there’s the. The idea, like, all foods are. Anything on the STD list is, okay, go ahead and try it. Um, whereas I. And I used to be like, yeah, just do it and figure it out.
Sherry [00:30:25]:
But I think, actually, if you really start to break down that list, you can find things that would not be appropriate. And the book lists on things like nuts and the obvious ones, but I think even beyond that, I think it’s. You could actually break down not just food, but the way to cook it, because you’re going to need to cook your vegetables, and you’re not going to maybe want to do that forever because you want as much new. You want to start, you want to build your nutrients, so you need to modify as you go. And so just finding your safe foods is not enough.
Karyn [00:30:59]:
Exactly. Oh, yes. And I can’t tell you. Tell me if this is true for you, too. I cannot tell you how many clients come to me and they have already tried the specific carbohydrate diet, and they’ll tell me it doesn’t work for me. And I’ll say to them, okay, well, how. Tell me about how you went about doing it. And they’ll say, well, I did the intro, and then I went hog wild, and I’m like, okay, I know the problem right here.
Karyn [00:31:20]:
And because. And I was really lucky because the coach that I worked with on the specific carbohydrate diet, when I started, she knew that that was a bit of a problem with the book. And so she really broke things down into a step by step. And I am a teacher at heart. I love a good step by step. And so this kind of goes along with actually my number one, which is that I feel like the book is a little bit confusing. And so I really feel like in a revamp, it needs a better guideline, a better approach to not just what foods you might want to start with that are really easy to digest, easy to absorb, things that are really best when you’re in that repair, restore phase, and then moving all the way into, you know, raw and seeds and nuts and all those lentils and beans and all those beautiful things that you can eat down the road, but really are not the best things initially. So, yeah, 100%, I completely agree with you.
Karyn [00:32:24]:
I think there needs to be something a little bit more concrete that takes you through what to put in when and how to make it in that way. And one of the reasons why I did not, I picked up the book and I set it down for five years was that very reason, because I just felt so overwhelmed. I didn’t. I needed more. Like, I take my hand, hold it, and give me the step by step. And that’s probably why so many people come and work with us, because they read the book and they’re like, okay, that’s great. But now what? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sherry [00:32:58]:
And for me, you know, it took me a while on that because I had the mild symptoms and I felt better right away. I could eat most of those foods myself right away. So I was like, oh, what’s the problem? You know, but as I’ve talked to more people who are dealing with those symptoms and they haven’t had surgery and so they’re trying to, they’re trying to avoid surgery, you know. And so I’ve come to realize, and then my own research, you know, on nutrition and gut health, I’ve realized that there needs to be more and with a guideline and then a tailorable way to do it because obviously people are going to have different needs.
Karyn [00:33:37]:
Exactly. Maybe like an overarching guard guideline, but with information that you’re going to make this your own, you know, this isn’t the one size fits all, but these are just some guidelines that can help you along the way, you know, that kind of thing. And then maybe a good list of these are the people that you can get in touch with if you want further guidance to help you really step by step this to help you do it, you know, something like that would be great, I think. Yeah. Okay, what else?
Sherry [00:34:07]:
I think that I know we talked about, you know, it’s a stuck in time, so I wish there was a steward of it that could update it with more current research. There’s so much research on the microbiome now and nothing else in health do we say, well, they said this 30 years ago, and we’re not going to listen to anything else that’s come since then. I mean, you know, even with antibiotics and penicillin and stuff, we know a lot more than we did when it came out. Even though we’re still using those things, we know that they wipe out our microbiome. We know that we got to be careful. We know that we need probiotics. We know people are allergic to them. And so, you know, we can’t overuse them.
Sherry [00:34:55]:
We know that we have to take the whole dose. So, I mean, science evolves with everything, even our oldest medicine that still works, we still have to update it. So I wish there was a way to do that. I think that there’s two prongs of problems. One of them is that people stick to it kind of blindly because they’re like, this is the book and this is what I’ve chosen and this is what I’m going to do. And it may harm them, which is what I hate to see the most. People won’t do it because they’re like, this is all outdated, right?
Karyn [00:35:33]:
Yeah, I completely agree.
Sherry [00:35:35]:
Go on to Amazon and look at the reviews and you go to the negative ones. It’s like, why would I do this? This is ridiculous. She said this, and it is an outdated concept, but it doesn’t negate the whole book or the whole concept.
Karyn [00:35:47]:
Yes, it doesn’t negate the concept. It’s just some of the theories in there have evolved. And I think you’re like, so spot on with this idea of the microbiome exploding. The code of the microbiome changed so much about how we perceive gut health. And so one of mine goes right along with what you’re saying, and that’s about the whole idea of bifidobacterium being not allowed, being one of those illegal things on the diet. And so Elaine, in her wisdom at the time, was talking about how bifidobacterium has the power to ferment carbohydrates. And so when we ferment carbohydrates in the intestine, we can increase symptoms. Right? That’s the whole thing.
Karyn [00:36:33]:
You’re trying to prevent this extra fermentation. So that causes symptoms like bloating and gas and abdominal pain. And so I can see where she’s coming from. But then we learn all these things about the microbiome. And I’m looking at research from recent, like 2017, 2023, and I’m seeing some really cool studies that are very IBD specific. And actually, I’ll link these in the show notes that talk about the power of bifidobacterium. And I wrote down some of the things. So bifidobacteria, there’s a study that looked at it, bifidobacterium, looking at how it produces short chain fatty acids in the colon.
Karyn [00:37:13]:
So we’re talking like, butyrate there. And so that’s really nourishing for the colon as well as it boosts your immune system. So that’s a big benefit of the bis bifidobacteria. Other studies look at it improving lactose digestion, reducing pathogenic bacteria, having a more diverse microbiome, as well as improving the gut barrier function. So there’s just so much research now that talks about the benefits of it that if I were to rewrite it, I would add that bifidobacteria in.
Sherry [00:37:49]:
Yeah, I would definitely, totally agree. I’m kind of on a little personal crusade to, not to get people to use it, but to get people to think about it or read about it. And yes, I wish it would. I wish it was there because in reality, when we have very severe symptoms, we shouldn’t be doing any probiotic, probably, you know, especially if you have sibo. So it’s like just one. So you’re not wanting fermented food, so you’re not going to take a probiotic, you’re not going to make the yolk right away if you’re very severe. I mean, that’s what I would tell somebody because we’re going to wait until we’ve given our gut a rest. And so, and so, and she, and also there was a study at the time that showed a correlation, they thought showed a correlation between bifidus and overgrowth and people with IBD and colon cancer.
Sherry [00:38:37]:
And so they, so she was kind of like this, and she even said herself, this needs more, more of a look. But right now, I’m not going to recommend it. Well, unfortunately, you know, that never got a re look as far as breaking the vicious cycle. But we know now that that’s, you know, I’ve looked up many times and some, I think the same study that you were just talking about where they’re saying it does not cause, it’s actually, it doesn’t cause an increase in IBD symptoms. It doesn’t. It’s not correlated with a cause of colon cancer. It’s actually a byproduct inflammation that you might have some more bifidobacterium in your system, but that’s not bad. It’s just that you’re, you’re out of balance.
Sherry [00:39:19]:
And actually, I think some people have actually speculated it’s actually doing some good in there.
Karyn [00:39:24]:
Exactly. It’s actually doing good.
Sherry [00:39:27]:
Yeah.
Karyn [00:39:27]:
People who have, not taking it as a probiotic, but when they, when you look at someone’s microbiome and you see that they have extra amounts or good amounts of bifidobacteria, it actually is reducing inflammation, inflammation in their body. So there’s just too, in my opinion, there’s too much research that just negates that. And so in an update, I would definitely change that. Which brings me to another something that I would change, and it has to do with the yogurt. But in general, some foods on the diet, I feel like, actually create more problems, then benefit. And yogurt, to me is one of those. Yogurt is not for everybody, especially in the beginning, just like you said. So I 100% agree with you on that.
Karyn [00:40:16]:
Sometimes people need to just not do yogurt at all right away. Maybe they have sibo, maybe they have candida. There’s so many comorbid conditions that go along with Crohn’s and colitis, and some of them do not lend themselves to bacteria initially. We have to do some healing first before we introduce those ferments, whether it’s food or in probiotic form. So. And even maybe it’s. Maybe it’s that you’ll never do well with it. You know, we can remove the lactose from the yogurt, but we can’t remove the casein.
Karyn [00:40:50]:
And if you’re sensitive to casein, well, then that dairy yogurt is never going to be okay for you. And so maybe it’s about switching to a coconut milk yogurt or an almond milk yogurt or. I don’t know about you, but I have clients that have severe constipation. And so I would never recommend yogurt for them because it can be very constipating in their cases. We actually start with sauerkraut, which is a whole different ferment. Right. And so this. You must have the yogurt right away.
Karyn [00:41:17]:
I think that’s something that, for some people, causes damage that. And also, I would say it can actually be a pretty high sugar diet because of all of the fruit, the bananas, things like that. And like we were mentioning people with sibo, people with candida, that’s just not what they need. They don’t need that much sugar. So I feel like there are some foods that are on the diet that maybe it just needs to be more individualized. Maybe that’s what I’m saying. Because there are some foods that I think are detrimental to some people. Not everybody.
Karyn [00:41:47]:
Like, for me, yogurt was like. It was like a big warm hug every time I ate it. It works for me. It doesn’t work for everybody.
Sherry [00:41:55]:
Yeah, I totally agree. And I think that that goes along with kind of making the book, if it could be expanded more of a personal touch, more. I mean, it’s very scientific based. Like you said, it’s kind of confusing. And I think that it’s not up to date with modern thought on the food managed food restriction, food eating disorder, disordered eating. That’s very rampant in people. And so I think that there needs to be more of a. Maybe a gentle touch to the book.
Sherry [00:42:33]:
Like we.
Karyn [00:42:33]:
I.
Sherry [00:42:33]:
You know, I think I told you when we first talked, I was like, I would take some of the language and change it away from fanatical adherence.
Karyn [00:42:42]:
Oh, yes. That phrase is gotta go illegal.
Sherry [00:42:45]:
Legal. Where it’s like I always tell people, this is SCD. This is not a CD. You’re making the choice. And if you choose a not a CD food, it’s okay. But let’s talk about what it is and why.
Karyn [00:43:03]:
Yeah.
Sherry [00:43:03]:
And not just you failed, you know.
Karyn [00:43:07]:
Yes. I feel like the book makes you feel, feel like such, if you ever stray, whether it’s intentional or unintentional, I think you feel like a failure. So I completely agree with you. A different kind of more supportive language. Maybe some, I’m trying to remember because it’s been a while since I read the book, but maybe some more case studies of, like, real people and what they did and how they made changes and how that worked for them. Something like that, I think would be really helpful. People learn through story, and so I think more of that in the book would be helpful. I love that.
Sherry [00:43:47]:
Yes, definitely. Stories are definitely a powerful, probably the most powerful influencer over how people, you know, emotionally connect to things. So definitely stories and some allowance that there’s going to be differences. And I think the way it’s written, though, the science is that we do these types of foods, we do monosaccharides, so there’s no room for a polysaccharide, even if it’s not harmful. And so I don’t know what you can do there. You know, I think it’s actually broader for people with IBD to kind of consider their options because there are more. There are more than one option. If you look at some stories, if you look at, like, Danielle Walker, who was like, I tried SCD and it wasn’t, I took my food allergy, you know, test, and I was, like, reacting to everything on STD, so I had to change, you know, or there’s a couple other people I’ve listened to where it’s like SCD was not the answer.
Sherry [00:44:49]:
And I think for, you know, sometimes you get into that STD world and you’re like, well, I must just be doing it. Right.
Karyn [00:44:56]:
Right.
Sherry [00:44:59]:
You start restricting more because there’s only room for more restriction, but no expansion.
Karyn [00:45:04]:
Oh, amen. Oh, I love what you just said. There’s only room for restriction, not expansion. Yes, 100%. And sometimes, and I know I have that somewhere in my notes here, that same exact thing. Sometimes it’s not about limiting, it’s about actually, what can I add to? Not what can I take away? And I feel like that needs to be an update in the book. I 100% agree with you there.
Sherry [00:45:32]:
Yeah. And so, and I don’t know, you know, unfortunately, there’s not a new researcher who can, who can revise those concepts because it would need a whole conceptual revision on some of those points to really, you know, to offer that kind of expansion and more personalization, whereas, you know, so it’s like, I guess this would be my dislike of SCD, not necessarily breaking the vicious cycle. Unity. The whole package is that if you are not, you’re either doing it or you’re not doing it.
Karyn [00:46:06]:
Yeah.
Sherry [00:46:07]:
And so you get that it’s a line in the sand, it’s black and white, where I can’t really, as a coach, I can’t approach things that way.
Karyn [00:46:15]:
No, I did. I really am sorry to say, but I did approach that way because I had such success with fanatical adherence and I didn’t stray from the diet at all, like literally at all for two years. And so when I first started my coaching practice back in 2000, 920 ten, I, that’s what I did. I was, I thought, everybody needs to do it this way. And I very quickly realized, no, actually, just because it worked for you does not mean it works for everybody. And so that’s kind of when I was like, oh, there’s little chinks here. Actually, there’s some things that need to change about this. And I’m going to do a little differently because, yeah, we don’t need to be so fanatically adherent.
Karyn [00:46:59]:
And with that, along with that, I think in some of these communities comes a lot of. I don’t think that it’s bullying, but I don’t what, you tell me what word you think comes to your mind about it, but it’s like saying, well, you’re not doing it right. Is that bullying? I don’t even know what the right word is.
Sherry [00:47:16]:
I don’t think it’s bullying because I think it’s coming from a point of wanting to help. Yeah, you’re right, but it’s. It’s kind of some peer pressure. I think it’s that idea I get a lot, and I used to be this. I used to be the same way. You know, it’s tough love.
Karyn [00:47:30]:
Right. And they just need to be tougher, stronger.
Sherry [00:47:35]:
But I realized the more people I interacted with, the more kind of, that’s not the right for some people. It might be if somebody came to me is like, I want that. You know, I want you to help me stick to this. And because I do tell people if you’re going to try STD, try it for a month strict, if that’s what you want to do. I have alternatives from people who are like, this is too much. But if that’s what they want to do, I definitely say stick to it 100% for a little while.
Karyn [00:48:04]:
But it doesn’t take that long. I’m with you 30 days. You may not be healed in 30 days. Right. But you should know, in 30 days, do I see improvements? It doesn’t take very long.
Sherry [00:48:15]:
And so, yeah, I don’t. I think people are like, well, this worked for me, so I don’t understand. This person must be doing it wrong, you know? And so. And that comes from that point of. But I also come from the point of, you know, as a holistic thing, I’m like, you. You have a whole life, and if you are going on vacations, is important to you, because I saw somebody say, don’t go on the vacation. How could that be more important than your health? Oh, my gosh.
Karyn [00:48:42]:
That’s your mental health, which is so important, too.
Sherry [00:48:45]:
So. And so I’m like, I’m gonna say, how do I. How do we make this work? This is. I mean, I’ve done a lot of traveling. I had to travel a lot for business.
Karyn [00:48:52]:
Me too.
Sherry [00:48:53]:
This is how I made it work. And it’s not 100% percent FCD. Yeah. But I never had any single problem while I was doing it.
Karyn [00:49:00]:
Yeah.
Sherry [00:49:01]:
And so. And that’s what. That’s one thing I probably change about breaking the sister cycle. She has a little bit of the mind gut connection in there, and at least the last edition that I bought. But I think there needs to be more.
Karyn [00:49:13]:
Absolutely, yes. It isn’t just about food. You know, there’s, like, I have all my pillars that I work with, and food is just one of them. And mind body is huge. Huge. And I have never met somebody with IBD that doesn’t have an anxiety component in their life. And I don’t know if it’s the chicken or the egg. It doesn’t matter to me.
Karyn [00:49:36]:
I just know that our gut is impacted, and I’ve read a lot of studies about it, about how people with IBD actually have more sensitive guts that are more prone to, like, emotional, like, highs and lows. And so that makes it. That makes sense to me. And so having that gut brain connection is even more important to us than other people that don’t have gut disruptions. So, yeah, that would be great if that could make its way somehow into the book as well. It’s not just about food. There are other things.
Sherry [00:50:07]:
We know so much more about that. That whole system that it’s actually a system of our body. The enteric nervous system.
Karyn [00:50:15]:
Exactly. Vagus nerve, all that.
Sherry [00:50:18]:
Yeah. We know so much more about our gut health’s connection to our brain. Not just for emotionally, but for cognition.
Karyn [00:50:26]:
Yep. So, you know, the gut affects the brain, the brain affects the gut. It’s all connected through that super communication pathway. And so we need to be thinking about that all the time, you know. Yeah. I had to learn that the hard way. I thought it was all about food and, you know. Yeah.
Karyn [00:50:45]:
And I kind of realized, wow, this is not. It lasted for a while, but I kind of crashed. And I said, well, what’s missing here? Oh, it’s that gut brain connection. It’s me realizing how important my mind and my body are in this whole equation. And I had to really do some retooling.
Sherry [00:51:05]:
I did, too. When I was. I went, like, seven years before I did other things, but then. And that was. That’s my other. That’s my thing with the illegal legal is that people treat illegal as all the same, you know, whatever it is. And so then that’s what I did. I was like, well, I’m not following STD, so I’ll just have whatever.
Sherry [00:51:25]:
And that was. That was, like, twelve years ago now, 1213 years ago. I just was like, I’m gonna have whatever. And I ended up in a very mild flare. The first one. The only one I’ve ever had in the last 24 years. Wow. So.
Sherry [00:51:44]:
And so then I went back to STD. But I. I know a lot of people are like, I’m going back to STD on 100% forever and ever, but I knew even then that I wasn’t going to be 100% forever. I just. It wasn’t realistic. There was a reason, and. But the stress levels around the time my mom passed away, so it just went a little crazy. And I.
Sherry [00:52:05]:
And I discounted the emotional impact that had on me. And I was using food as comfort, which is a totally normal thing to do. And that’s something I, too, have to take that into consideration, something I’m a huge proponent of, because if we try to force ourselves to not, that’s when we’re gonna. We grab the whole bag of cookies and scarf them down and be like, well, I’m never doing that again. You know?
Karyn [00:52:29]:
Yeah. And then all the guilt and shame that goes along with it.
Sherry [00:52:32]:
Oh, it’s okay to eat for comfort. And so then I started teaching myself how. And how it would work for me, and then. So now I have, like. And when I think about the non sed foods I eat, they’re not that many.
Karyn [00:52:46]:
Yeah.
Sherry [00:52:47]:
That balance. But I also have allowed myself a completely non sed thing from time to time on a special occasion or something like that. I. There’s another blogger who I was listening to, and he’s like, I have a celebration meal every once in a while, and this person was, like, on there in the hospital, like, near death from Crohn’s, you know?
Karyn [00:53:07]:
Yeah.
Sherry [00:53:09]:
And I’m not saying people should have. Should do that or not do that, but I’m saying if you do, it’s. It’s not. I always give the it’s okay.
Karyn [00:53:17]:
Exactly. And don’t beat yourself up over it. It’s not something that you should blame or shame yourself about. We’re just human. It doesn’t mean you just stop that. Well, I had pizza. Let me just stop the diet altogether. Nope.
Karyn [00:53:31]:
Tomorrow’s another day. Get right back on. And you keep going. And that’s another thing that you and I have in common, is I learned about the mind body connection when my mom passed away, too. Yep. All the stress and everything, of taking care of her and her passing and everything. My disease just really flared mega. It was.
Karyn [00:53:55]:
Everything held out until she passed, and then it was, like, now, okay, I have permission to fall apart. And I did. I fell apart, and I realized, oh, wow. It isn’t just about food. There’s so much more to this.
Sherry [00:54:07]:
Yeah, exactly. And I didn’t even. I kind of made the connection, but I didn’t make it. Really didn’t make it until later when I was thinking about it, you know? And, you know, more bad things we can’t avoid. Bad things are gonna happen in our life.
Karyn [00:54:21]:
No.
Sherry [00:54:23]:
Manage that stress.
Karyn [00:54:24]:
That’s right. Like, I get. I tell my clients all the time, it’s not about the stress, about trying to get rid of stress, because when I. When I bring up the idea of stress management, people think, oh, no, I have to. I’m never gonna get rid of my stress. It’s not that. It’s about knowing what to do with the stress that you have. You know, knowing that it will impact your gut, your mind.
Karyn [00:54:44]:
It will impact all of those things. So if we have these tools in our tool belt. So I really love the idea. I really had never thought about that. I always think of it, the SCD, the breaking the vicious cycle as a food book. So I had never thought about it in that way. And why not add it in there? It’s a perfect place to put that idea of mind body medicine.
Sherry [00:55:03]:
Yeah. I mean, if I. I have to think of STD now as part of a holistic treatment.
Karyn [00:55:09]:
That’s right.
Sherry [00:55:10]:
Not just. Not just a food treatment. I think all the things we’re talking about kind of, you know, as we talked about, like, doctors not accepting it. I think that, I mean, a lot of doctors aren’t into holistic medicine. Some are, but your GI doctor is not really even into nutrition. So I’ve just like, don’t fret about your doctor doctor telling you not to do it because they told you to eat whatever you want anyway. You’re eating whatever you want. It happens to be SCD, but I think to get it more taken seriously in the medical world, I think that it has to have some allowances for updates.
Karyn [00:55:48]:
Yeah, absolutely. Are there any other updates that we haven’t talked about? I think I have a couple that I could go over really quickly. What do you have anything else that we haven’t talked about as we wrap up?
Sherry [00:56:01]:
I think that for me is just adding that, like, what do we do? You do the diet, you reach a point of healing. Where do you go from there? There’s no real guidance.
Karyn [00:56:12]:
That’s on my list, too. Yeah. Moving beyond, what do you do? Beyond, there is nothing like that. When you do autoimmune Paleo, you then move on to Paleo, and maybe from there you move on to something else. There is a moving on. Where is that? I can’t tell you. You probably do this too. In my practice, I work with all kinds of people who tell me, okay, I’ve done it.
Karyn [00:56:32]:
I feel great now what do I do? And I have a whole protocol for that because it’s not in. It’s not in the book. There needs to be something. I think the book is saying do this for life because it’s healthy. My opinion is there’s actually some nutrients that you might be missing out on if you do it for life. Some people might be. You know what I mean? Who am I to judge? There is no one size fits all. Some people might do great for life.
Karyn [00:56:58]:
I know I’m not one of those people, and most of the people I work with are not. My goal is not to have you on this for life because it is very strict. My goal is to get you as healthy as you can be and to move you off of it and to help you move away from it step by step, just like you got into it step by step. I’m going to help you move away from it step by step. And so that should absolutely be a part of the book that’s on my list, too.
Sherry [00:57:25]:
I totally agree, because our bodies change as we age and we might have different conditions that require different dietary treatment. But I see so many people, oh, my cholesterol is high. I mean, high cholesterol is a huge part of a CD if you continue to eat it, you know, if you’re concentrating on meat and cheese and high fat dairy. And so, and so I had high cholesterol, and I just had just had blood work done last week, and it was 15 points lower.
Karyn [00:57:57]:
Wow.
Sherry [00:57:57]:
I changed my, I kind of made it. I focused more on vegetables. I decreased, you know, some of those saturated fats. And, and I think that, you know, so that was a change because. So I eat sweet potatoes. I eat quinoa. Those are, you know, healthy.
Karyn [00:58:15]:
Me too. Yeah.
Sherry [00:58:16]:
And so, and so I started concentrating more on that, and I started really thinking about grains. And even though quinoa is really the only one I added in, I think having, you know, we might not need, we have the same protein needs as we were getting older and not moving around as much.
Karyn [00:58:31]:
That’s right. That’s absolutely right. Yeah. For sure. Yes. So there should be some sort of. This is where you go next. And maybe it’s not in that book.
Karyn [00:58:40]:
Maybe it’s a sequel to the book. Maybe it’s an addendum. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a part of it, but something about. Okay, where do I go from here? I would really love to see that in an updated version. Where do you move on? I have read some research that talks about nutrient deficiencies in terms of vitamin D, in terms of calcium, especially in the pediatric population. And so pediatrics that are, you know, children that are on it for a long time are struggling to get some of those nutrients. But I know grains, fiber, things like that. I’ve seen some people in my practice with non alcoholic fatty liver disease after doing SCD for a long time.
Karyn [00:59:20]:
So there’s definitely some challenges. And so people, if they want to move on, should be able to have some, some guidance in that, just like you mentioned earlier, that word guidance, they should have some guidance in moving beyond.
Sherry [00:59:34]:
It’s moving beyond, and like you said, during and during, because it is just eat as much as you want of all of anything that’s SCD. And like I’ve talked about and we talked about, what we talked before is that that could be, you could be eating ten bananas and 28 and some honey and that’s a huge amount of sugar.
Karyn [00:59:54]:
That’s right.
Sherry [00:59:55]:
Eaten, you know, a lot of cheese. Because, like, for me, cheese has always been a very agreeable thing to my gut. For some people, it’s not. But I don’t have an issue with dairy and so for me, cheese has actually been a comfort. And so I can find myself reaching for that when I want a snack or I need a comfort food or, you know me to like, well, I can eat this beef patties and so I’m having four or five of them a day because I need food, because I need the calories. For me, it’s like you got to have the calories. You got to figure out ways to get calories.
Karyn [01:00:25]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody wants to do that with IBD, right? You got to get the calories.
Sherry [01:00:29]:
And so, yeah, guidance, I think. Yeah, more, more guidance.
Karyn [01:00:33]:
Yeah. I’m just going to look and see if there’s anything. We didn’t talk about that I have down here. We talked about. Yes. The, it just goes straight from the intro to the full diethouse. I would like to see some more guidance on eating organic, local, pesticide free, if you can possibly do that. And what are the most important things to eat in that way? I know that from what I’ve read that Elaine knew about the importance of eating organic, but she really wanted it to be accessible for all and so she deliberately, from my understanding, left that out.
Karyn [01:01:11]:
I’d like to see a little bit more, more about that in a new version where you talk more about, you know, farming practices and things like that, trying to eat foods with less chemicals and herbicides and things like that. So I’d like to see that. Let’s see, was there anything else? Oh, it’s so meat heavy. I find that it’s a really difficult diet. You kind of alluded to this, sherry, about how you might eat a lot of meat on it. So maybe some tips for vegetarians or people who even just want to eat less meat. And maybe you’re not a vegetarian, but you just know that it’s healthier to eat less meat, especially when you’re trying to get your protein in. I think later on in the diet you’ve got your lentils and your beans and seeds and nuts and things like that.
Karyn [01:01:55]:
But earlier on it’s a little bit challenging. So how about some guidance and that? Like, if I’m a vegetarian, how can I do this diet? What’s the best way to do that? I would love to see that in an updated version. And this kind of goes, I guess, a little bit along with your mind body medicine. Part of it, I feel like it takes into account your symptoms, but in my practice, I work with moms exclusively and we need to not only take into account our symptoms, but our lifestyle. And so I guess that kind of goes along a little bit with your mind body. It’s another facet to it. But sometimes we need to meld the diet around not just our symptoms, but our life. And so that means not fostering this radical adherence, but figuring out how can I fit this into my life? In what ways? Because if I’m not radically adhering to it, can I still do it? And I think the answer is yes.
Sherry [01:02:47]:
Yeah, that’s definitely my thing. I mean, I have some. Some stuff written out for people. It’s like, I can’t like, do it as written, but here. Here’s some guidelines. Food accessibility is of course, a huge issue. So, yes, I have grass fed eggs and milk for that. I use to make my yogurt and beef.
Sherry [01:03:06]:
I always get grass fed except for the occasional restaurant one and organic chicken and stuff. And for me, that’s very important to me. But yeah, I am very cognizant that the people can’t afford that or they don’t have access to it. And that’s very sad to me. I mean, I also. So, like, as I’m thinking about this, I always start thinking about, like, how can food accessibility be improved? Because if you live in the inner city area, those people have diabetes too. And, like, what do you have access to? And like, how would I help somebody who’s like, I don’t have access to a lot of fresh produce and fresh meat, so what do I help them to decide on? So. And I think that’s important.
Sherry [01:03:44]:
But, yeah, I would definitely like to see more written about it updated. If we were going to update that book, I would say, here are some benefits to grass fed.
Karyn [01:03:53]:
Yes. So that people can make the decision for themselves what they have access to, what they can afford. But just so it’s there. Just so that information is there. Because we do know now that people with sensitive guts are more prone to the chemicals and dyes and even just the things that are put on plants, you know, the herbicides and the pesticides and things like that. So just the information being there would be great.
Sherry [01:04:21]:
Yeah, definitely. And then so I was like, I’m going to eat less meat. I’m going to buy more expensive meat. I’m going to eat less of it.
Karyn [01:04:28]:
Yeah, exactly. We all have to figure out how that can fit in for us. In what way, you know, but having the information there is important. I think we’ve covered my list. Anything else you want to add?
Sherry [01:04:41]:
No, I think I’ve covered my list, too. I think it’s just, you know, I think it’s being the big picture is what I want to see a little more of.
Karyn [01:04:49]:
Yeah. A great diet with a great foundation. I love that word you used early on. Wonderful foundation with some key modernized updates. I believe that this could be a best practice diet for IBDers. It just needs some updating.
Sherry [01:05:08]:
Yep, I agree. I think the principles of it. I think there’s some core principles that can fit most people.
Karyn [01:05:14]:
Yeah, exactly. I love it. What a great conversation. Sherry, before I let you go, I have a quick lightning round, if you don’t mind. What we talk about here on the podcast is usually just really kind of heavy, and I like to just finish up with something light. So is that okay with you if we do that real quick? Okay. It’s ten questions, and you can answer them as rapidly or as slow as you want. It’s completely up to you.
Karyn [01:05:36]:
But they’re quick, easy questions. Okay. What’s your favorite? Go to gut healthy.
Sherry [01:05:42]:
My favorite go to gut healthy snack. Sorry, I don’t understand.
Karyn [01:05:45]:
Siri is talking to me.
Sherry [01:05:48]:
We have to have it. Okay. This is not an ACV snack, but no worries. Healthy. My plantains. My plantains.
Karyn [01:06:00]:
Oh, I love plantains. Yes. Love it. Okay, cool. What is one piece of advice you wish you received when you were first diagnosed with IBD?
Sherry [01:06:11]:
I wish that somebody would have. Well, I wish I had gotten advice on dietary advice, because that was nothing.
Karyn [01:06:21]:
Yep, that’s me too. I would say the same thing. So, since we are both coaches, but also patients as well, how do you advocate for yourself? We’ve talked about this today about empowerment and advocacy. When you go to the doctor’s office, how do you advocate for your.
Sherry [01:06:39]:
I tell the doctor, I kind of just say what I. My expectations. Like, I had a doctor. He’s like, are you in the medical field? Not really, but my mom was a.
Karyn [01:06:55]:
Nurse, so my mom was a nurse. Oh, my gosh. We have so much in common. It’s crazy.
Sherry [01:07:00]:
So I did learn that from her a little bit about how to talk to doctors. But I think it’s you ask your questions and you kind of say what.
Karyn [01:07:11]:
Your expectations are from the get go. Set those expectations. I like that. That is definitely advocating for yourself. I love it. So what’s one thing that you do on a regular basis to help you connect with yourself? We’re talking about this mind body connection, self care. What’s something that you really, you know, you always make sure that you do something that really helps you get your mind and body in connection with each other?
Sherry [01:07:35]:
Well, recently I’ve actually taken a bullet or rapid journaling? Bullet journal. And I love it. It’s not. I was never good at journaling. Where you’re writing out a whole passage.
Karyn [01:07:47]:
Yeah.
Sherry [01:07:47]:
Yeah. The rapid journaling, where you’re bullet pointing it out, it has helped me tremendously with, like, knowing what’s going on in my day, but then, like, planning things. I’m a big. I like to write, so I, like, start bullet pointing that out. My projects.
Karyn [01:08:03]:
I love that. I love that. That’s really cool. And what do you think is the most misunderstood thing about IBD?
Sherry [01:08:11]:
I think the most misunderstood thing is that. How would I put it? I think the most misunderstood thing, actually, is that how sick you are? I think when you have that, when you’re first, you know, I remember one of my co workers, she’s like, I wish I had what you had. So I could lose 20 pounds.
Karyn [01:08:32]:
Oh, my gosh.
Sherry [01:08:33]:
I lost 20 pounds in, like, three weeks. And I can barely stay awake at desk. But stuff like that. I know that you see those memes a lot where people are like, it’s the hidden illness. Unless you’re running off to the bathroom.
Karyn [01:08:45]:
That’s right. Even then, it’s still. It’s the invisible illness. And a lot of people just don’t get it. I wish I could lose weight like that. Well, not really, actually. Yeah. Yeah.
Karyn [01:08:56]:
That’s absolutely true. Okay. When somebody says to you, what book should I read? What do you have? That book that you recommend over and over? What? And it doesn’t have to be gut related. It could be fiction, it could be nonfiction. What is a book that you just.
Sherry [01:09:09]:
You know, a book I just love. I recently read it, but I’m advocating for it. It’s called pink goldfish.
Karyn [01:09:18]:
I’ve never heard of that. Okay.
Sherry [01:09:19]:
Yeah. Dave Randall. And so. And I’ve seen him speak many times. That’s why I read his book. And he actually. Not pink goldfish. He has one called that the freak factor.
Karyn [01:09:29]:
The freak factor.
Sherry [01:09:31]:
Yeah. So he’s talking about using pink goldfish is a marketing book, but the freak factor is about using your calling, your weakness.
Karyn [01:09:41]:
Oh, wow. That is cool.
Sherry [01:09:43]:
How, like, you know, how do you. How do you. Instead of trying to correct weaknesses, how do we use. Maybe they’re actually what makes us great at what we do.
Karyn [01:09:55]:
Yeah. Oh, I love that concept.
Sherry [01:09:57]:
That’s cool.
Karyn [01:09:58]:
That sounds like a good one.
Sherry [01:09:59]:
It’s one of my favorites, even though I read it recently. But I’ve been watching Dave Rendell speak for the past many years. He’s at many conferences that I go to. So that is cool. He’s great.
Karyn [01:10:11]:
Okay, awesome. And you said that you love to travel. What’s your favorite travel destination?
Sherry [01:10:16]:
My favorite travel destination, so I love to be on the road, which is why I like road trips, people with planning that out, because you can, can only make so much. You know, I had, I made muffins once, and they all were moldy by the time I got into it.
Karyn [01:10:34]:
Oh, no.
Sherry [01:10:36]:
Okay, how do, how do I work this? But. Okay, so I used to grow up in Seattle, and so our favorite road trip was down to the southwest, but now I live in Las Vegas, so now we road trip around the area, and it’s pretty fun to drive out to California, but I love the southwest. Now we, now we live in that.
Karyn [01:10:56]:
It sounds like for you, it’s not even just about the destination, it’s about the road trip. The journey.
Sherry [01:11:02]:
Road trip is my favorite.
Karyn [01:11:03]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that.
Sherry [01:11:05]:
I love my grandparents and their motorhome, but, yeah, me and my husband, many road trips.
Karyn [01:11:10]:
I love it. I love it. Okay, coffee or tea and how do you take it?
Sherry [01:11:14]:
Tea, I like it. I actually just like it most of the time. I’ll put a little honey in sometimes, but I’m good. I love black tea.
Karyn [01:11:25]:
Yep, me too. What is one cheap food that you just cannot resist?
Sherry [01:11:30]:
Cheat food I cannot resist. So I try to keep it healthy, but it’s the unsweetened cocoa something.
Karyn [01:11:36]:
If I can unsweetened cocoa, that’s a pretty healthy cheat food. That’s pretty good. But it’s so good.
Sherry [01:11:43]:
A candy with.
Karyn [01:11:45]:
Oh, nice.
Sherry [01:11:46]:
Don’t have anything that I, that’s, like, too far outside the diet that I would eat on a regular basis. But I do have the date sweetened chocolate chips that the brand makes. And then I’ve got some wafers, I’ve got the powder, so.
Karyn [01:12:02]:
Yep. Yeah. Sweets. I love it. I love it. And so then, last question is the name of this podcast is the Cheese podcast. So to me, that means a little bit sassy, a little bit quirky, and a lot badass. So how are you cheeky in your.
Karyn [01:12:19]:
What?
Sherry [01:12:19]:
Am I cheeky? Oh, man. Um, well, I think that I, you know, I am. I just say what I’m thinking. Not always cheeky online, especially, you know, I had to, like, make a patch and not go into comment section sometimes, but I think that, yeah, I mean, like I said, I’m on a crusade about the bifidus, and I have been. I just, like, this is what I think.
Karyn [01:12:50]:
Yeah, I love it. I love it. That is definitely cheeky. Sherry lib it’s such a great conversation that we had today. I loved every second of it. If people want to find out more about you, can you tell us where can we find you online?
Sherry [01:13:04]:
The best place to find me directly is my Instagram page at Happygut for life. That’s the best place to message me. Also Facebook. But I love Instagram more, so I’m on there more and otherwise I have my website. It’s happygut four life.com. it’s scd four life.com as the parent. But since I named it before I decided that I was employee, I thought I wasn’t gonna ever go off SCD. So yep.
Sherry [01:13:34]:
So I had to change the name a little bit, but the URL is still that gotcha.
Karyn [01:13:40]:
Okay. Yep. I will make sure that that is linked in the show notes. Sherry Lipp, thank you so much for joining us.
Sherry [01:13:46]:
Thank you. It was fun.
Karyn [01:13:56]:
If this podcast is meaningful for you, if it’s been helpful in your IBD mom life, I’d love it if you would do a couple things. First, follow the pod. You’ll never miss an episode. And those moms who are searching for podcasts about Crohn’s and colitis, they’ll find us easier. There’s probably a plus sign or a follow sign where you’re listening in right now. It’s at the top of your screen. Go ahead and give that a tap. And then also give the Tiki podcast a five star rating and review and share it with your friends who are also struggling with IBD.
Karyn [01:14:30]:
The more we are open about talking about our illness and bringing awareness around it, the more we’re able to connect and build a safe community around each other. I love being in community with you and I appreciate you, my friend. One last thing before we wrap up today. You know, I think you’re a rock star for taking time out of your busy life to listen in and invest in your healing. It is capital h huge. And the reason I know how huge this is for you is because I am right there with you in all of this, working my wheel of wellness, keeping my crohn’s at bay. It’s something that I invest in every day. And I’d love it if we could continue our gut healing journey together.
Karyn [01:15:13]:
If you’re like me and you’re ready to soak up even more amazing gut healing information, it’s time to join the Gut love community@karenheathy.com. community the GLC is my free and fabulous space dedicated to dishing out even more IBD resources, recipes, healing hacks, lots of BTS secrets on how I manage my life with IBD, all wrapped up in a weekly newsletter to help you keep your momentum going strong. This IBD dish is gut healing insights that I only share within our tight knit community. Basically, it’s your one stop shop for a more diversified approach to true and lasting gut healing. Amen to that, my friend. Let’s walk this gut healing journey together. Join me in the glc@karenhaley.com community that’s karynhaley.com community. I can’t wait to meet you.