How Did Diet Impact Your Ulcerative Colitis?

Food is intertwined with family, comfort, and culture. But with ulcerative colitis, certain foods (usually, your favorite ones) can become triggers for a flare. Color of Crohn’s and Chronic Illness ambassador CJ Cabrera didn’t want to accept the way UC was changing his ability to eat what he wanted, but a desire to regain control over his life set him on a path to clean eating.

I suffered a lot in the beginning, I suffered a lot, but how much suffering do you have to go through in order to change?

My relationship with the UC and dieting was rough. I was pretty hard-headed in the beginning. I wanted to keep doing what I was doing, eating what I was eating. I had just discovered my love for food. I discovered cheese on everything. Once I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, I had to give up dairy. That was a hard transition. Then as my UC got worse, I had to start giving up things that triggered my UC, made me worse.

I suffered a lot. In the beginning, I suffered a lot. But how much suffering do you have to go through in order to change? On a podcast, I heard that and I was like, You obviously haven’t hurt enough if you ain’t changing, like, let me just stop doing what I’m doing, change my diet and see how it helps. I needed that full on push to give my gut some rest to actually give it time to rebuild itself.

I went on a flare diet. All I ate was rice, three to four eggs. I would eat it with avocado, and I literally ate that for every meal for like two weeks straight, just because I knew that it didn’t hurt me, and I could tolerate those things. That’s when I started to implement probiotics, such as kefir. When I first tried it, I’ll tell you what, it was completely nasty. The biggest mistake of my life. So, the next time I put it in the blender, I had a papaya to it. I added banana, and I had at least eight bottles. It was a little weird, but I knew it was going to help. I could see the change in my stools. I could see the change in how I was feeling, and I was just feeling better.

During that time, I was able to introduce oatmeal back into the equation. Squash, and I kind of made a mistake, because I tried to introduce beans and then I did baby spinach at the same time. So gassy and things hard to digest kind of messed me up a little bit. I kind of took a step back from that and I just been eating clean. And if I do go out, I’ll try to select the bare minimum. Stuff that doesn’t have too many things in it, like a grilled chicken. Nothing fried, nothing spicy. Just try to stick to the safe side, so I don’t get any symptoms.

I’m not going to lie to you. Yesterday, I had a cookie for the first time in a minute. I low key was saving that cookie, since the time that I went on that flare diet, I bought a cookie for my “mental health”. But I was like, You know what? It’s not even worth it. It’s going to feel good for five seconds and then I’m going to be paying for it for, like the rest of the time. I threw it in a box. The other day. I got the box. I looked, I saw, I had the cookie. I was like, Wow, I really? I knew I had that cookie in there since last year. The whole time I could have ate this cookie, but I knew it wasn’t worth it.