In November, I met with a dietician who is attached to the gastroenterology clinic that my Crohn’s specialist belongs to. I’m glad I met with her, but I honestly didn’t find the appointment all that helpful.
Before the appointment, I had to keep a food diary for three days so the dietician could see what my eating habits are like: what foods, when and how often I eat and if I noticed any symptoms that were tied to certain meals. She didn’t see any nutritional deficiencies in my diary and she liked how the meals were spaced out. Her only suggestions were to:
- Eat at least 3 food groups at meals and 2 at snacks (so throughout the day you have your bases covered).
- Continue eating small meals throughout the day (it’s easier on my digestive system than 3 large meals).
- Continue eating as wide a variety of foods as possible…until something triggers symptoms (the goal is to get as many nutrients from actual food as possible).
We also talked about the two kinds of fibre and how to use each to address symptoms. Of course, my symptoms are atypical, so that’s not much of a worry for me at this point. And we talked about pre- and pro-biotics (personally, I think these are mostly marketing hype – I’ll stick to greek yoghurt). There is some evidence that omega-3 fatty acids are beneficial and I should probably eat more fish, but I think I’ll stick to flax seed and nuts. It was a nice chat and the dietician is a lovely woman. I just didn’t feel like “keep doing what you’re doing until you feel horrible, then stop eating the thing that made you feel bad” was particularly useful advice.
Things were going pretty well diet-wise before Christmas, but fell off the rails in the last few months. You’ll see in upcoming posts that I’m starting to get things back on track.
marilynk 