I Kept a Food Diary for 1 Month to Help My IBD and This Is What Happened

It’s important to remember that, food diary or no food diary, you alone cannot control your condition.

Keeping a food diary is a common treatment recommendation for those of us with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), especially if we believe certain foods are worsening our symptoms.

It can be really hard to figure out your IBD triggers. According to the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation, the cause of Crohn’s disease, which affects 3 million Americans, isn’t well understood.

Certain foods can make symptoms worse, but there’s no single diet that works for every person with IBD. After living with IBD for many years, I’ve realized that triggers are really personal to the individual.

However, some find adjusting their diet helpful. One way doctors suggest people with IBD investigate potential triggers is by keeping a food diary for at least 2 to 4 weeks.

With IBD, the aim of a food diary isn’t to find a cause or cure, but to pinpoint whether something you’re eating or drinking is making symptoms worse.

A food diary can also be useful if you are in clinical remission but still experiencing symptoms. Your diet might be causing other gut-related issues, like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or bile acid malabsorption.

Is keeping a food diary worth doing? I’ve always felt like my diet really influences my IBD, so I kept a food diary for 1 month to see if it would help.

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Beginning a food diary with IBD

I started off by keeping a notebook and recording all my meals to see if I would notice a pattern. A food diary should be a record of what you ate and when you ate it, but I also recorded my bowel movements and other symptoms to try to see if there was any correlation.

In the first week, I struggled with remembering every single thing I ate. I work from home, so I usually snack throughout the day instead of having a set lunchtime. I would often forget what I ate by the time I went to fill in my diary at the end of the day, so I switched to using my phone instead of a notebook.

This was much easier because I didn’t need to worry about carrying my notebook around. I could type in the notes app of my phone after each meal or use specific food and symptoms logging apps, such as Bowelle.

By the end of week 1, I didn’t notice anything other than that my diet was a little erratic. I decided to persevere to week 2.

Week 2

Once I reached the midpoint of my food diary, I started to notice some triggers emerging. A big one for me was foods with high fat content — something I’ve always known I was sensitive to but didn’t realize how sensitive until I saw it all written down.

I found that I was affected by which foods I ate together. If I was having a high fat dessert, my meal needed to be low fat.

I noticed a similar issue with fiber, and I soon realized these food combinations prompted my symptoms more than individual foods. If I was having gluten-free bread (I had already gone gluten-free prior to keeping my diary) with high fiber content, the rest of the meal needed to be low in fiber.

Symptoms seemed to be worse on weekends when I ate at a restaurant or ordered takeout because these meals were usually higher in fat.

I don’t buy soda at the grocery store, but I will drink it if I’m eating out. I realized carbonated beverages cause more bloating and diarrhea for me. This is a common trigger because carbonation can cause gas to build up in the stomach.

Despite my new findings, I discovered that IBD is so much more than what we eat. Other factors also triggered my symptoms, like how quickly I ate, whether my toddler kept me up the night before, and if work had really stressed me out that morning.

At this point, my diary was turning into more of a research paper, but it did make me realize that I needed to be extra careful about what I ate if these factors were at play.

For example, running low on energy and grabbing fast food in a hurry is not a great idea. Did you rush your lunch? Were you stressed right before eating? If you’re puzzled as to why certain foods appear to be triggers, think about other circumstances.

Week 3

By week 3, I was beginning to make sense of my diet. Limiting fatty and sugary foods — especially in the evening as I mindlessly snacked in front of Netflix — did seem to make a difference in the degree of urgency and density of my bowel movements.

I noticed I woke up with stomach pain less frequently once I made a concerted effort to not eat a high fat meal or snack right before bedtime.

Despite learning a lot, around the end of week 3, anxiety about my food diary started to creep in. I felt like I was in a Sherlock Holmes novel, trying to decipher why pineapple had caused my stomach to flare that morning but had been fine 2 weeks prior.

The more I learned, the more I started to try and restrict myself, which I was nervous about doing without help from a dietician or doctor.

The food diary did impact my mental health. Seeing it written down made me feel more guilty than I should have felt if I had a small glass of wine or a side of fries.

The aim of the food diary was to learn how to help my body, but I started to blame myself for not trying harder if it wasn’t a good day.

Week 4

By the time I reached the end of the food diary, I did learn about my food triggers. I knew late-night snacks, fizzy soda, high fat, high fiber, and big meals made my symptoms worse. I was also able to recognize some specific foods that caused issues, like melon and grapes.

The downside was that I had started to obsess over my diary and beat myself up for my food choices, so I was ready to take a break. Finding the balance between trying your best and not blaming yourself is hard, and I was overanalyzing my food intake and my bowel movements a little too much.

The bottom line

If you’re newly diagnosed or have never considered the role of diet in your IBD symptoms, I would recommend keeping a food diary. It’s a great way to figure out triggers and help you eliminate foods that are causing problems.

However, if you find it hard to manage your mental health, like many people with IBD do, then it’s worth considering whether you are ready to keep a food diary.

It’s important to remember that, food diary or no food diary, you alone cannot control your condition. You should keep a food diary with the help of your doctor, and you should also consult your doctor for other treatments to give you the best chance of keeping IBD symptoms at bay.