What is Low Residue?

I knew what it meant once upon a time. I could my daily fiber grams and monitored my liquid intake with zeal. What happened? I fell off. Hard. Low residue has come to mean a diet that consists of mostly packaged foods with little, if any, nutritional value. The only vegetables I have are the occasional pieces of avocado in my philly roll. I joke that I subsist on eight foods: tuna, salmon, crackers/bread, diet shakes, energy-bars, cookies, powerade, and coffee.

White bread and rice is my friend. Whole grains are to be feared. Tuna and salmon, canned, raw, or cooked, can be good. However, anything beyond that gets me in a gray zone. (Did I mention that I was a pescatarian?) I'll save that for another post. Back to the gray zone. The gray zone is occupied by the many foods that precipitated illness at one point or another in my life. There is little rhyme and less reason for the foods on this list. Nuts and seeds are the usual enemies for folks with IBD, but add to that cocoa nibs, original english muffins, rockfish, and cheap coffee and you begin to see the issues. Some days my stomach is like a colicky child -- accepting and rejecting at random what I give it. Comfort food takes on a whole new meeting when your existence depends on the consumption of non-bothersome foods in a variety of personal and professional venues in a 16-hour day.

This feels like whining and I feel it necessary to add a disclaimer. I do not have Crohns disease and people who do experience inconvenience, discomfort, and pain far beyond my measure. The people I have met who've confronted the disease deserve praise for their fortitude and some exist on Ensure or IV fluids. I'm grateful that my condition has not deteriorated to that point and only hope that I can find a diet and a routine that helps me lose the fifteen pounds that have crept on my petite figure since I started the carbfest known as a low-residue diet.