A bad day: what to do in a flare
What tends to help, what not to decide in the heat of it, and when it is for a doctor.
A flare is not a failure of the method. It happens on a well-run diet too, and what you decide in the middle of one is what costs most to undo later.
What tends to help:
- Smaller meals, spread out through the day.
- Sticking to what has already gone well, instead of trying new dishes.
- Drinking water and not skipping meals: a long fast does not sit well either.
- Writing down what you eat these days, even when you do not feel like it. That is what later tells you whether there was a pattern.
What you do not do while it lasts. Do not add new restrictions: the list of forbidden foods grows on its own on a bad day, and nobody revisits it afterwards. If you are in the challenge phase, stop the current challenge and wait until you feel well. That is the rule of the phase itself.
When it passes, go back to normal. Staying in the narrow version of the diet "just in case" is the spiral that phase 3 exists to undo.
What we cannot tell you. Which food shortens a flare has not been measured: no study supports it, so the app does not say it. What you can look at is your own diary.
When this is for a doctor. Blood in your stools, fever, weight loss you were not looking for, vomiting that does not stop. Pain that wakes you at night, or new symptoms after the age of fifty. These are the same signs as the questionnaire at the start, and a flare does not change them.