How Special Diets Can Help Heal Your Gut

How Special Diets Can Help Heal Your Gut

When your gut isn’t working properly, it can feel like your whole body is off. You might have stomach pain, bloating, weird bathroom habits, or just feel tired all the time. Some people even have serious gut illnesses that affect their lives every single day. The good news? Changing what you eat can sometimes make a huge difference.

There are lots of special diets out there that are designed to help your gut heal or calm down inflammation. People use them for different reasons depending on what’s going wrong inside their digestive system.

Let’s talk about some of the real-life problems people use these diets to help with:

IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome)

If you have IBS, your gut can be super sensitive. You might have diarrhea, constipation, cramping, bloating, or all of them at once (not fun!). Diets like Low FODMAP are often used here. They help by taking away certain foods that create gas or upset the gut, giving it a break so it can settle down.

IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease)

IBD is a name for a group of diseases where the gut is actually inflamed inside. The two main types are Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. People with IBD often try diets like SCD, GAPS, or even AIP to lower the inflammation and allow their gut lining to heal. These diets cut out foods that are tough to digest or that might make the immune system go into attack mode.

Crohn’s Disease

Crohn’s can cause deep sores anywhere in the digestive tract — from the mouth all the way down to the butt. It can cause pain, diarrhea, weight loss, and tiredness. Because Crohn’s can hit in lots of places, people sometimes need super soft, easy-to-digest foods (like on the GAPS Diet) or need to remove foods that trigger more inflammation (like on AIP or an Anti-Inflammatory Diet).

Ulcerative Colitis

Colitis is when the large intestine (colon) gets inflamed and develops ulcers (little open wounds). It can cause bleeding, cramping, and urgent bathroom trips. Some people with colitis use the SCD or Low FODMAP Diet to calm symptoms. Others focus on really soft foods for a while (like on the GAPS Diet) when things are really bad, then slowly build back up to more variety.

Ostomy or Colostomy

An ostomy is when part of the intestine has been removed or needs to be rerouted through a small opening in the belly called a stoma. A colostomy is one type of ostomy where part of the colon is brought to the surface. People with ostomies often have to think about their food differently. They may need to eat things that are easy to digest, don’t cause blockages, and don’t make too much gas. Gentle diets like parts of GAPS, Low FODMAP, or a soft version of an Anti-Inflammatory Diet can be really helpful — especially right after surgery when everything is still healing.

Why Fiber Matters for Gut Healing

Fiber is like food for the good bacteria living inside your gut. When you eat the right kinds of fiber, these good bacteria “eat” it and create something amazing called short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). SCFAs are like natural medicine for your gut — they help lower inflammation, protect the gut lining, and even boost your immune system.

But getting the balance right is super important: too little fiber, and your good bacteria can starve. Too much fiber too quickly, and if your gut is damaged, it can make you feel worse (like more bloating or pain). That’s why many gut healing diets focus on bringing fiber back slowly and carefully — so the gut can heal while still giving the good bacteria what they need to make SCFAs and help the body calm down.

Why Food Matters So Much

When your gut is already struggling, the last thing you want to do is make it work harder. These special diets are like giving your digestive system a vacation — they take away the foods that cause the most stress or harm and replace them with foods that are easier to handle.

Different diets work for different people. Sometimes it takes a little experimenting (with help from a doctor or dietitian) to find the right plan. But the goal is always the same: help the gut heal, reduce inflammation, and let the body feel strong again.

Gut-Healing Diets

Low FODMAP Diet

Some foods cause a lot of gas and bloating because of how they break down in your gut. The Low FODMAP Diet helps by cutting out the foods that make the most gas — like onions, garlic, certain fruits, and bread — to give your gut a break. Later on, you carefully test which foods you can handle and which ones cause problems.

SCD (Specific Carbohydrate Diet)

The SCD focuses on removing certain carbs that are harder to digest and can feed bad bacteria in the gut. It’s about eating simple foods like meat, veggies, fruits, and homemade yogurt, while avoiding grains, processed foods, and complex sugars. The idea is to make digestion easier and help your gut heal.

GAPS Diet

The GAPS Diet is like a full gut repair plan. At the start, you eat only very soft, easy-to-digest foods like broths, soups, and cooked vegetables to calm everything down. Over time, you slowly add back more foods as your gut gets stronger. It’s a way to rebuild a damaged gut step-by-step.

Anti-Inflammatory Diet

This diet is all about reducing inflammation — which is like internal swelling or irritation. You eat lots of colorful fruits, vegetables, fish, olive oil, and whole foods that cool the body down. At the same time, you avoid processed foods, too much sugar, and anything that adds more ‘fire’ to the body.

Autoimmune Paleo (AIP) Diet

The AIP diet is designed to calm down an overactive immune system, especially when it’s attacking the body’s own tissues. It removes foods that are common triggers — like grains, dairy, nuts, seeds, and processed foods — and focuses on nutrient-dense, healing foods like meats, veggies, and some fruits. Later, you can slowly reintroduce foods once the body is more balanced.

Special Diets Ebooks