The #1 Reason People Fail on the SCD Diet… and Never Get to Feel Better

The biggest reason people fail on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet is that they move way too fast and advance through the diet too quickly. Let’s face it, as a society, we are focused on instant gratification and we are all impatient. It is especially true when it comes to health and feeling good. If you are on this diet, then you most likely are sick of being sick and want to get better right now!

How Do I Slow Down?

In many instances, people fail to see any results on the SCD diet because they simply moved way too fast through the phases. The amazing folks at PecanBread.com developed the stages of the SCD diet for people to have a general guideline of what foods to introduce and in what order.

At SCD Lifestyle, we took those stages a step further and introduced the Phases of the SCD Diet starting with the intro diet and moving from phases 1 through 5 with an additional detail. Our phases identify the phenol (salicylates) levels of the foods in each phase from weakest to strongest (you may have heard of this from the Feingold diet). Phenols can cause reactions during the early period of the SCD diet before healing has started to take place. The reaction can be as small as a little constipation or diarrhea or as large as complete brain fog and headaches. You can download our free Phasing charts in PDF format, along with a free chapter of our book here: Phasing into the SCD Diet.

Using this phasing approach will give your body a couple weeks (hopefully months) of low inflammation foods so that you can begin healing before you start trying more advanced foods. At the very least, you should avoid Almond Flour and cheese (preferably most dairy) until you have been free of diarrhea, constipation, and other mental/physical symptoms for four days in a row.

To give you a rough idea of timing, you shouldn’t be entering into Phase 3 foods until you’re 3-6 months into the diet. Keep in mind, everyone is different and some will be faster just as some will be slower.

How Do I Introduce a New Food?

• Only introduce a new food, if you have been free of diarrhea, constipation, and other mental/physical symptoms for four days.
• When deciding what foods to introduce next, follow our phasing charts or the stages diagrams from pecanbread.com and step through them one by one… don’t jump ahead.
• When you try that new food, eat it for four days without changing anything else so you can know exactly what reaction, if any, you had to that food.
• Track all your symptoms in a journal or you will be chasing your tail trying to figure out what happened when you spent the entire day on the toilet!

Final Thoughts…

At SCD Lifestyle, Steve and I are committed to helping you start healing today, that is why we preach a very conservative approach to the diet. No matter how many times we read Breaking the Vicious Cycle, it just didn’t have a plan or the answers we needed to start getting healthy. In the beginning, we would try various SCD legal foods and they would leave us scratching our heads (on the toilet of course). This frustration is what motivated us to finally write a book detailing a step-by-step outline showing how to survive the first 90 days and beyond… by taking it slow and healing properly.

We have been dealt this hand in life and this is the first time in our lives we have the power to fix it ourselves. Take control, be diligent, and meticulously introduce new foods as slow as you can handle to make sure you’re going to be successful.

We have the right to live life feeling good just as much as anyone else… but it’s up to us to take control of what we put in our bodies! Leave others your advice…

-Jordan