Best Diet For Inguinal Hernia

Have you ever wondered what the best diet for inguinal hernia is? Me too. I am still trying to figure that one out. A while back I thought that cutting meat completely out of my diet would be a good thing to help heal my hernia naturally. But what I figured out by trial and error is a little different.

Gluten Free

For the past 20 years or so I’ve been eating a very clean diet of all organic food. I never really have eaten all that much red meat, but I did eat a lot of chicken and fish. I went gluten free a few years ago, which has made the biggest difference in how I feel. The first time I tried it I went for 30 days with no gluten. I didn’t feel very much different, but after the thirty days, I went back and ate some food containing gluten, and couldn’t believe how terrible I felt. I felt bloated, gassy, tired, run down, and just overall not good.

So I went back to not eating gluten after that for three months this time. I tried eating gluten again at the end of the three months, and felt even worse than the first time, so since then I just don’t eat gluten. Gluten is extremely inflammatory for the intestines which is definitely not good if you have a hernia. I’m not sure if gluten has this affect on everyone, but for me I feel best when I don’t eat it.

Fish (Mercury) Free

I also stopped eating fish a few years ago because I ended up getting mercury poisoning from it. I used to go fishing offshore at least twice a month, and caught lots of Mahi. We always had a stack of fish in our freezer that we would eat for dinner at least 3 times a week. After a while, I realized that I was having a lot of trouble sleeping, and being tired during the day. My memory was terrible. It was like having early Alzheimer’s symptoms. I was wired all night as I laid in bed trying to sleep, and severely tired all day to the point that if I sat down in a chair for 5 minutes I would fall asleep. This was not like me at all, so I knew there was something wrong.

I ended going to get a hair test done which showed an insane amount of mercury had built up in my body. My holistic doctor put me on a bunch of supplements that I took for a period of over about a year to detox from the mercury. So needless to say, I cut fish out of my diet completely.

Sugar Free

This was a tough one for me. My wife is a big dessert lover, so it seemed like we always had some sort of dessert after dinner every night. I did a bunch of research on the causes of inflammation, and it turns out that ingesting sugar is a major contributor. I know that inflammation of the intestines is not good for a hernia so I cut it out of my diet.

It turns out that less intestinal swelling was not the only benefit that I saw from removing sugar from my diet. I have also seen a decrease in general aches and pains. Also, I seem to recover from hard workouts with less soreness. That alone would be enough for me to not want to eat sugar anymore. But with all the benefits together it really is a no brainer.

Meat Free

I started eating a completely vegetarian diet in March of 2018. I did it for personal reasons of not wanting to kill animals to live if I didn’t have to, but also because I thought it might be good for the hernia as well. It seamed like before, when my hernia was more pronounced and would poke out, if I ate meat it would tend to poke out even more. It was like the meat was too heavy in my intestines.

Once I started eating vegetarian, I really didn’t feel all that different because I wasn’t eating a huge amount of meat before anyway. One thing I did notice though was that I was having a hard time recovering from hard workouts. I would feel run down for three days afterward.

There has been no change in the status of my hernia at all for over eight months since the time I went vegetarian. I am so close to having my hernia 100% healed, but I believe that this diet may be holding back from the extra push that I need to get all the way there.

I’m not sure if it’s the missing protein, or the lack of essential amino acids that wasn’t allowing me to see further results with my hernia.

Changes I’m Making To My Diet Now

For all of the reasons listed in the above paragraph, I have started adding a small amount of meat back into my diet. After just one week, I can already feel the difference. I’m not getting the weird feeling that I would sometimes get in the area of the hernia whenI’m in a forward sitting position. I also already feel stronger, and am able to recover from workouts much easier.

Like I said, I’m not 100% sure what the reason is for the changes that I feel, but I will keep you guys updated on how it goes!