This week is Endometriosis Awareness Week, and as I had my own journey with Endometriosis (see my latest YouTube video where I talk about it HERE), I wanted to share what I learned about eating a proper endometriosis diet with you.
Endometriosis is a complex condition that is largely misunderstood. But like every complex health challenge, diet and lifestyle factors are significant contributors to your ability to manage and cope. In today’s blog, I’d like to share what I’ve learned about how to eat an endometriosis diet to minimize symptoms.
Endometriosis 101: What Is It?
Endometriosis is an inflammatory, possibly autoimmune disease, where tissue like the inner lining of your uterus, or endometrium, is found outside your uterus. The misplaced endometrial tissue responds to your monthly hormone cycle just like your uterus lining, and this causes inflammation, swelling, scar tissue build up, pain, and adhesions.
The most root-cause resolution approach for treating endometriosis is wide-excision surgery, which removes all of the visible endometriosis tissue with a wide margin of healthy looking tissue. Though there is some recurrence rate, it is much lower than more conventional laproscopic cauterization surgery, and is certainly far more effective than hormonal or other pharmaceutical treatments.
However, these treatments are only one side of the coin. Endometriosis, especially long-term endo, often causes secondary problems, which need to be addressed in addition to surgery for best long term success. Many of these secondary problems are manageable with diet and lifestyle. These include things like: IBS, SIBO, generalized gut dysbiois and leaky gut and the downstream nutrient deficiencies this can lead to, adrenal fatigue, underlying hormone imbalances, food sensitivities, interstitial cystitis or other bladder problems, and internal structural problems due to scar tissue.
Though it can be tempting to try to “attack” all these issues aggressively, the most real, lasting effects are gained by drawing your attention back to the basics, and to create a nourishing, supportive environment, where your body’s cells fundamentally get what they need.
What to Eat and What Not to Eat on an Endometriosis Diet
As with most other inflammatory conditions, an endometriosis diet template reduces or removes inflammatory foods like gluten, rancid vegetable oils, dairy, sugar, and processed foods as a starting place for eating. But here are few specific considerations that may help you find your way to the least symptom-tiggering endometriosis diet.
WHAT TO AVOID on your Endometriosis Diet
Dairy products
No matter whether your sensitivity or dairy source, all dairy products come from a lactating or pregnant cows, and therefore all contain hormones. Because endometriosis is generally hormonally mediated, naturally-occurring hormones from dairy can aggravate the mixed up hormonal messages your body is already experiencing or sending. Avoid dairy products or evaluate each type to see if they affect your symptoms.
Industrial Seed Oils and Trans-Fats
As Americans, we generally over consume industrial seed oils like canola, safflower, sunflower, soy, and cottonseed oils. These oils are easily oxidized, or turn rancid, and this rancidity causes inflammation in your body, especially when not balanced by an abundance of omega-3 fatty acids, like those from fish and seafood.
Reduce or eliminate these seed oils, and replace with olive, coconut, or avocado oil for cooking, and sesame or flax oils for cold uses. You can also increase your consumption of fatty fish or consume a fish oil supplement.
Red meat and Farm-Raised Fish
Many women with endometriosis find that red meat or farmed fish aggravates their endometriosis. For some people, red meat consumption increases inflammatory cytokines, which leads to more pain. Meanwhile, farm-raised fish is raised in toxic, chemical-laden ponds, and is often given antibiotics.
If you can, purchase organic, grass-fed or pasture-raised meat, and wild-caught seafood. Avoid seafood that accumulates toxins like mercury, such as mackerel, merlin, shark, tuna, bluefin, and orange roughy. Commonly farmed fish include tilapia, catfish, and salmon. Choose short-lived fish and seafood species such as wild-caught salmon, cod, shrimp, and pollock.
Oxalate Foods
Oxalic acids naturally occurs in some foods. With certain gut conditions, oxalic acid can deposit into any body tissues and form sharp, jagged crystals. Oxalate crystals are the most frequent cause of kidney stones, and can often be involved with body pain.
Some common foods high in oxalates include spinach, chard, sweet potatoes, chocolate, almonds, peanuts, wheat, chia, and rhubarb. But before you run out and remove all foods these foods (please don’t do this!) you need to know that if you suspect oxalates to be a contributor to your pain, you must slowly reduce the oxalate content of your diet over a period of weeks. This prevents an episode of oxalate dumping, which can lead to a major pain flare. If this is you, I suggest working closely with someone who can guide you through this process. You can start by downloading my Food-Symptom Diary and doing a little tracking to see if you notice a correlation between your symptoms and oxalate foods.
Caffeine and Alcohol
Both caffeine and alcohol can increase the severity and incidence of endometriosis pain, and they can also affect your estrogen metabolism, which is also involved with endometriosis. Reduce or eliminate these from your diet, except for an occasional treat. Green tea is a wonderful substitute for caffeine, and is generally anti-inflammatory.
Sugar
Sugar is generally an inflammatory food, and depletes your body of important nutrients, including magnesium, vitamin D, calcium, chromium (which helps your sugar metabolism), and vitamin C. Since several of these nutrients support your immune function, sugar reduces your healthy immune response. Eliminating sugar can make a significant difference in your level of endometriosis pain, and your body’s ability to manage the inflammation and swelling.
WHAT TO INCLUDE on your Endometriosis Diet
Though it’s easy to say what you should avoid, I also want to take a moment to share a few foods that may be helpful for you to include to modulate your endometriosis. These foods help balance hormones, support proper hormone detoxification, keep your balanced blood sugar, and reduce inflammation.
Green Tea
Green tea contains powerful antioxidants that help clean up inflammatory damage in your body. A cup or two of green tea per day, or using supplemental ECGC can help.
Red Veggies and Fruits
These contain lycopene, another naturally-occuring antioxidant, which may reduce adhesion formation.
Cruciferous veggies (Broccoli, Cauliflower, Brussels Sprouts, Kale, Collard Greens, Arugula, Radishes)
Cruciferous veggies contain a relatively high amount of sulfur compounds, which aid your liver in detoxing estrogens and other compounds.
Flaxseed
Flax has a reputation for being estrogenic, but it actually helps bind up the “bad” estrogens and eliminate them. Daily ground flax seeds are helpful to keep estrogen in check.
Fermented Foods
Sauerkraut, pickles, kombucha, and more are a wonderful source of beneficial and diverse good bacteria. Keep in mind that if you already struggle with IBS or SIBO, probiotic or fermented foods may not be the right thing until you handle this because increasing your intake of these foods may exacerbate your bloating or belly pain.
Evening Primrose Oil
This supplement may help with estrogen metabolism and to reduce pain.
Water
Drink plenty of clean, filtered water.
Conclusion
Changing your diet and taking a few supplements won’t likely make your endo go away, but it can make your symptoms largely manageable, and make your other treatments or pain management more effective. And these same dietary changes can help you manage the conditions downstream of your endo as well. By working methodically to shift your life terrain, you can expect to find your cycles less painful, as well as improved pain management, sleep, moods, and immune function.
If you are feeling confused about how to navigate all these choices to manage your endometriosis, I encourage you to reach out to me and schedule a free 30-minute assessment session. I can help you set a course for success.
If you’re not ready for that yet, I invite you to download my free guide, Roadmap to Recovery, where I share the how you can make sense of what your body is telling you so you can experience relief from your most pressing symptoms.
