How to Fuel Athletic Performance In Chronic Illness Featuring T.L. Wright (The IBD Athlete) — About IBD Podcast Episode 199

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T.L. Wright, known as The IBD Athlete and author of The SCD Athlete Cookbook, tells Amber about her frustrating decades-long journey to a Crohn’s disease diagnosis. She explains the health reasons behind her pivot from triathlons and Ironman races to competitive bodybuilding. You’ll leave this episode with a better understanding of how to fuel for your sport or workout while managing an immune-mediated condition.

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What You’ll Learn:

  • How upper GI Crohn’s disease can be missed or misdiagnosed.
  • Why the “tough it out” culture in endurance sports can be dangerous for athletes with chronic illnesses.
  • How to transition athletic goals to better support a healing body.
  • Practical tips for managing the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) as an active person.
  • The importance of advocating for your health and understanding the connection between diet and IBD.

Chapters:

  • 00:00 – Introduction to the IBD Athlete
  • 02:39 – A Lifetime of Unexplained Symptoms
  • 04:18 – The “Go Hard” Endurance Sports Trap
  • 08:09 – The Overlooked Connection Between IBD and Oral Health
  • 11:04 – The 3-Year Promise
  • 14:26 – Can IBD Patients Compete at an Elite Level?
  • 21:21 – The Pivot to Natural Bodybuilding
  • 26:54 – 5 Tips for Consistency on the SCD Diet
  • 33:04 – The Dangers of AI Recipe Generation
  • 35:29 – The Accidental Influencer
  • 40:44 – Where to Find the IBD Athlete

More resources:

Find T.L. Wright at:

Find Amber J Tresca at:

Find Mac Cooney (mix, sound design, and theme music) at:

These show notes may contain affiliate links. If you choose to purchase after clicking a link, Mal and Tal Enterprises, LLC may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

[Music: IBD Dance Party]

Amber Tresca (00:00)

“Hey everyone, It’s Amber, host of about IBD. In a moment you’re going to hear my interview with athlete author and Crohn’s patient TL Wright. While I was editing this episode, I realized we talked a lot about her book, the SCD Athlete Cookbook. But we didn’t mention the title. At 200 episodes, you’d think I’d know better. Please check the show notes for links to order the SCD Athlete Cookbook. If you want to use the big screen to make an order, head to aboutIBD.com where you can find the webpage for this episode, which includes links to order the SCD Athlete Cookbook, as well as a transcript and more. Okay, that’s it. Now on to the episode.”

Amber Tresca (00:37)

“I’m Amber Tresca and this is about IBD. I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis as a teen and had J-pouch surgery 10 years later. Now I help people with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis understand their disease and feel seen. On about IBD, you’ll get real talk on symptoms, treatment, and life with IBD straight from patients, caregivers, and experts. You’ll learn, feel less alone, and even have a laugh along the way. My guest is TL Wright, also known as the IBD Athlete. TL is a writer, athlete, and cookbook author. After years of unexplained health issues, she was diagnosed with an immune-mediated condition. This led her to the specific carbohydrate diet, which became a turning point in her journey. She developed recipes tailored to support her performance in competitive sports. TL aims to inspire fellow athletes in the kitchen and offer hope that living with a chronic illness doesn’t mean giving up sports or an active lifestyle. TL, welcome to about IBD.”

T.L. Wright (01:28)

“Thank you so much for having me. This is… this is quite an honor. I’ve been enjoying your podcast for last couple of months, it’s fantastic.”

Amber Tresca (01:39)

“I am always so excited to hear that because sometimes it feels a little bit like I’m just putting things out into the void. So to hear that you listen and that you have found it valuable is really so helpful and um I’m gonna have to like uh I’m gonna have to burn off that energy a little bit later because it really does invigorate me so much.”

T.L. Wright (01:57)

“Well as an athlete, we spend a lot of time in the gym, we spend a lot of time working out, a lot of times by ourselves and… just being solitary and so it’s nice in training wise to just have a really good podcast on or audiobook or whatever. So I’ve enjoyed it. Thank you.”

Amber Tresca (02:16)

“Yeah. Great. Yeah. Same. In my many, many circles around my neighborhood as I walk. Um, so our topic today is IBD and athletic performance, and we’re going to learn from you about your story and how you have brought these things together. So let’s get started by hearing more about your diagnosis. You were diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. So I’m wondering, how did that all start for you?”

T.L. Wright (02:39)

“So I have a really unique story is that I was extremely late diagnosis of Crohn’s disease. I actually started exhibiting my earliest symptoms as young as seven and twelve. I was actually… I actually was able to get my entire medical records, my paper records, down to that time uh after my official diagnosis and I looked back and I was able to see all the different times I was taken to the hospital and tested and nothing actually came about it. It was really frustrating to the point where my adenoids and my tonsils were taken out, which is pretty common for young kids. They said we thought you had, you know, an appendicitis and a number of different things. But unfortunately, I just kept slipping through the cracks.”

T.L. Wright (03:17)

“And I think it’s just because I was an active kid, I didn’t have the… the really, really serious symptoms yet because Crohn’s manifests in so many different areas. And it originally manifested in upper GI. So that is probably one of the reasons why my symptoms were not getting captured. I also feel like as a child being involved in sports and being really active does help with your stress levels and kind of is therapeutic in many ways. So for… for me, I think one of the things has helped… it did help mitigate my stress levels when I was a child. So that might have helped quite a bit.”

T.L. Wright (03:45)

“I really started examining some of the symptoms I was having to food sensitivity once I was in my 20s and living on my own and eating on my own. I realized I had some major sensitivity to artificial sweeteners. And just sugars in general. I kind of gaslighted myself in many… in many cases because as an athlete, there was this really go hard mentality and… and it’s exhibited among a lot of athletes, like you just push through your symptoms. You just push through the pain. And I did a lot of that. And honestly in the endurance community, which was where I started, was that we are really over-sharers of our bodily functions.”

Amber Tresca (04:18)

“Right, yes.”

T.L. Wright (04:20)

“And you can have a completely normal gut in the running community and still have some of the… like you can exhibit symptoms of Crohn’s but it’s totally normal in the running community. I just thought I was exhibiting the same symptoms as everybody else. And then I got into Ironmans and training and, you know, escalated, and sitting on your bike for 112 miles, bleeding and things like that were just kind of overlooked.”

T.L. Wright (04:40)

“A lot of those things were just… I managed the best I can. There were unfortunately some very serious symptoms that where the blood loss became way too much where I had to be um seen in the emergency room multiple times and I had exhibited or I experienced the worst flare I’ve had in my life and it lasted for months and months in fact and and I didn’t go to the ER until like it was really, really serious to the point of you could die from this. And at that point, they… they really said, okay, we’re getting you checked out, you’re almost 40, let’s give you a colonoscopy.”

T.L. Wright (05:13)

“Who would have thought, right? Um, I actually had a sigmoidoscopy before that, but nothing… there was no symptoms of… there was no sign of the disease at that point. Well, then they did the colonoscopy after the really serious um, the really serious symptoms and they found that I had I had signs of Crohn’s disease, long-term Crohn’s disease at my ileocecal junction followed by a pill endoscopy which then showed upper GI, uh, small intestinal Crohn’s, and of course I had some other issues that they’re like, okay, maybe it wasn’t your endurance sports. It wasn’t… it wasn’t spending 8 hours… 6 to 8 hours on a bike. Those… those weren’t… yeah, no, you… no, those are probably Crohn’s related. You… you had way more serious symptoms than we expected.”

T.L. Wright (05:49)

“And I was just turning… my 38… 39th birthday. And I was pretty devastated by the… the diagnosis, but at the same time I got some closure. Yeah. And… and that’s what helped. And I remember I had went through two GI physicians until I finally found the right one for me. Um, I think one of the reasons my disease did manifest a bit worse as I aged too was my… my husband’s a cancer survivor. Mhm. Um, a leukemia survivor. And so, and that’s actually how I got into triathlon is through uh the Leukemia Lymphoma Society.”

Amber Tresca (06:17)

“So a couple of things about your story from the beginning. First of all, you got diagnosed after your colonoscopy but you were largely having upper GI symptoms in the beginning, so what did they find? Did they find anything? Did you have an upper GI? Was there anything there that indicated that, you know, you had Crohn’s?”

T.L. Wright (06:36)

“Well the pill… well not when I was a child. Yeah. None of that… you know, when you’re an HMO and you’re 40… there was just no… there was really not anything that…”

Amber Tresca (06:44)

“And they don’t like to do those things on kids anyway. Yeah.”

T.L. Wright (06:47)

“They don’t. Right. They don’t even like to give colonoscopies to kids because I mean think about it. I mean, we all know what prep is like, and it’s it’s not fun, and it’s really tough on the parents. So that’s one of the reasons probably I was missed and they didn’t insist on me getting one.”

T.L. Wright (07:05)

“Um, as far as the upper GI, when I did get my official diagnosis from the colonoscopy, I did do an um, a pill endoscopy, which does everything from the entire upper GI all the way through, right? So they did see the ulcers, they were seeing those things. So anyways, as I said, the oral thing is is one of the ways, and so the adenoids and tonsils were removed. Yeah.”

T.L. Wright (07:25)

“That still didn’t resolve the issues though of of a lot of throat ulcers, and especially one thing I always always I hated going to the dentist. Not because I don’t I have a fear of them, but because it was so painful. I would be maybe in a flare or inflammation and my gums were very painful. So once I so I kind of learned along the way that oral care is so important, and definitely flossing every day, magic mouthwash, all of those things were some of the ways I helped deal with some of these symptoms especially I continued those on. And I learned about magic mouthwash not from my Crohn’s, but because my husband had cancer. Ah. And so he had oral sores. And so I learned through caring for him that those things help you. And so I didn’t even realize it but I was I was caring for myself just along the way and I didn’t even know it.”

Amber Tresca (08:09)

“I think it’s easy to forget that the mouth is part of the whole thing. And I I think more dentists now understand that connection between IBD and your oral health. I had like bleeding gums for years and years and years, and they would just tell me it’s my fault essentially. Like you’re not flossing enough, you’re not XYZ. It turns out, you know, 20 years later you find out, well that’s because I was in a flare up and it was affecting my gums, you know? And so yeah I I always like to point out these types of things because it’s not often talked about.”

T.L. Wright (08:43)

“Things that people don’t usually ask about when you have oral Crohn’s is that you have sensitivity especially like me, you have a sensitivity to uh different sweeteners, artificial sweeteners. Well that’s in a lot of toothpaste and a lot of dental dental products. Yes. And so I have to request from my dentist like, hey I need pumice not the the normal stuff you use because I’m I know automatically that I can have some GI issues I can if I swallow or any of those things I don’t chew gum for that reason too because most of it has those artificial sweeteners.”

T.L. Wright (09:15)

“So I have to do other things to keep my mouth and my oral health really well cared for. I have already experienced a loss of a of a tooth root because of my Crohn’s, um, we just it’s just one thing we oftentimes forget. Even though Crohn’s does impact me from mouth to the bottom. So, it’s just it’s but not many people talk about it so I’m glad you brought that up and asked.”

Amber Tresca (09:34)

“Yeah. For sure. Well because I’ve been through it myself and not realizing and thinking that I was that it was me. Something was wrong with me. I wasn’t taking care of my oral health and I was, you know. And um now that we know more and I have a dentist that knows more, and I go in to see her and she’ll say things to me like you’re puffy. You know meaning my gums. You know she’d be like you’re puffy. What’s going on? You know what’s what’s happening? How are you feeling? Like maybe it could be an initial sign that something is starting up again. So it’s really important to keep on top of that. And I also think that you’re going through so many other things and so many other doctor’s appointments and interventions and then the dentist is like ugh, you know, like it’s just one more thing and you don’t feel like you want to take care of it or maybe you don’t have to, but it is really, really important.”

T.L. Wright (10:28)

“Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.”

Amber Tresca (10:30)

“And so another thing about your story that is interesting to me because I was diagnosed young as a teenager. And, you know, you obviously had symptoms, you know, practically your whole life. So you were dealing with it, you just didn’t know what you were dealing with. And I think often about what it must be like to be a full adult and to be diagnosed and have to basically make changes. So I’m wondering like emotionally, you said you had a little closure and maybe some answers and that was helpful, but um what’s the other side of that? How did you feel about it emotionally and how you thought about yourself?”

T.L. Wright (11:04)

“So again I sort of gaslit myself in many cases of my illness. And remember my husband had cancer. Yeah. So when you have when you live in that kind of environment and you’re caregiving for five years almost, you and you experience that with chemo care at home and all of that, you kind of just say tough it out. And that’s and I don’t agree with that at all. I’m just looking back, I wish I had been a bit wiser and kinder to myself.”

T.L. Wright (11:28)

“And I really stress that with a lot of athletes as well because we in the long term, we just want to be healthy. So I feel that I was definitely grieving hard when I got diagnosed. But one thing I did read about was it’s some random quote or I heard a story about a company, a Fortune 500 company in the recession. And they said to themselves, you know what, we’re gonna turn this situation around. We’re going to say that this situation, this recession, in three years, we’re gonna look back and say that was the best thing that could have happened to us. And that’s sort of like that athlete mentality. When you have a goal line, you say like I’m going to give myself this goal and I’m going to stick to this goal or I’m going to try to figure out a way to make this a positive situation, that’s how I dealt with it emotionally.”

T.L. Wright (12:17)

“After I pulled myself kind of out of the rut and figuring out things as I went, I said to myself, okay, in three years I’m gonna feel the healthiest I’ve ever been because I’ve never felt fully healthy all this time. And I’m going to do something to help other people. And I’m going to of course do something for myself. So it’s like I’m going to be a little selfish, I’m going to be a little generous, and I’m going to also be very like I’m going to have a goal here. And so this is sort of where this is how it manifested. And this is how everything sort of eerily worked out. And that’s sort of where we were at by the third year. There’s a published cookbook, I’m helping people. I’m so everybody who slides into my DMs and asks a question about a recipe or like saying this is fantastic, I feel like, oh my gosh I did something to help other people. And that’s what helps me get up out of bed every day, you know. That’s the motivation. I’m not really pursuing that high level elite kind of goal at the moment.”

T.L. Wright (13:10)

“These are the things that really like wow, they’re really they’re you can. In three years I can look at this and go okay, I was dealt a bad hand. Let’s see what I can do. Let’s see what the things I can control, what can I control, and what can I how can I make the world a better place. And that’s sort of what helped me deal with it. um I really do stress that I’m actually kind of grateful that as I figured this out as an adult or I was diagnosed as an adult because I feel like I’m born or there’s more options for treatment and care these days than there were in the past for people. And I control what what goes into my my refrigerator, right? Yeah.”

T.L. Wright (13:37)

“I don’t think my parents with four children, I don’t know if they would have gone to that extent of cooking everything from scratch and doing everything Yeah. Yeah. that I do currently today. So so and and I don’t know, you know, again, I created a playbook to make life easier. So again, there’s some good there’s some silver linings actually of being diagnosed at an older age because you do have control what medicines you can take, what conversations you can have with your physician, what what food goes in your fridge, what how you want to what sports you want to play, what train what everything. So I think there is something to be said about that at least. And so that’s what I that’s how I kind of look at life a little bit.”

[MUSIC: About IBD Transition]

Amber Tresca (14:21)

“Coming up. TL tells us how and why she went from endurance sports to bodybuilding.”

Amber Tresca (14:26)

“TL, there’s this idea that I think is really pervasive that people with IBD like can’t participate in sports, or they shouldn’t participate in sports and especially at an elite level like you do. um but certainly things are very different today with more treatments and we know a little bit more, we know a little bit more about nutrition. So I’m wondering how your doctors think about your competing and then how you have transitioned over the years. You were doing triathlons then Ironman and now bodybuilding. So what are their recommendations for you?”

T.L. Wright (14:58)

“So luckily I have a extremely supportive gastroenterologist. um he he is really grateful actually wrote the book just because he can now suggest it or can provide it as a resource to patients who are in the same situation as me. Mhm. And and but my first gastroenterologist was very, very against performing at an elite level sport or training for that type of an endurance sport like Ironman. I had that question with my physician at the time or my GI who said don’t do this. Is it is it worth it to put my body through this because the first priority right now is my long-term health and my long and and gut. I already knew I was sensitive to a lot of on-course nutrition. And I already had a lot of GI urgency issues. And I was I had no playbook on what to fuel for my sport. So of course I switched into a different sport because I still am an athlete but I knew at that time it may not be the wisest choice to pursue as a sport.”

T.L. Wright (15:45)

“Now, in a better place, yes, I feel like there are a number of in fact there are tons of Team Challenge athletes, hi hi- yeah there’s so many athletes out there now who have Crohn’s, there’s professional athletes who have Crohn’s. And so or or IBD, and so here’s one more thing I want to mention is that I feel that people with IBD sometimes make the best athletes because we already have a very high pain tolerance, we already are used to kind of that soli you know, solitude and training because sometimes we can’t leave the house um certain days, right? And we can’t we get a lot of fomo, we experience a lot of fomo where we wish we could be with our with our our peers and doing other things. And so we’re really good at being able to kind of compartmentalize and be and compete at a higher level because we’re already experiencing a lot of these things. These are kind of the trade trademarks of athletes elite athletes.”

T.L. Wright (16:27)

“And basically back to the the overall question of can we do sports? Absolutely. And I’m just here to kind of support a number of athletes pursuing sports in the nutrition realm because some of us just don’t do well with certain foods. And I am one of them. I I know though that if I follow my diet, I’m going to do better, I’m going to perform better, I’m going to be healthier, I’m going to have lower inflammation markers for me, that’s why I did this. And I also want to offer people a more whole food option for nutrition on course nutrition. The only thing we had when I asked the question to a number of support groups at the time was um honey sticks for people who followed SCD. And don’t get me wrong, honey sticks are great, those little portable honey sticks straws. Yes. They’re great, but that doesn’t help with your electrolytes. That’s not enough. Mhm. That’s not enough. That’s just short-term.”

T.L. Wright (17:13)

“And so I I basically had to come up with a number of like kind of copycat recipes in some cases to meet the needs of the specific carbohydrate diet. I I hope as more people start talking about SCD, there might be more pressure in the future with nutrition companies to provide more commercially available whole food options for us athletes that we can use. And one of the things I do appreciate also, if there’s any athletic directors or race directors on the who are listening in, allowing for special needs bags for athletes who have certain circumstances, or maybe allowing us to bring certain foods backstage or whatever is extremely important to ensuring we we do well or we perform well. So those are just a few things that you know, as far as a a a athletics athleticism is concerned and IBD, those are the ways I’ve worked around or, you know, I can recommend to ath other fellow athletes.”

Amber Tresca (17:58)

“Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. The I also cannot cope with artificial sweeteners. And sometimes I forget and then I will eat some I mean gosh even some yogurt that I bought. I’m like why am I so what is going on? I looked at it. Yeah, there’s some stevia in it and that and I don’t do well with that. And so I’ve had a couple of uh people who have finished Ironman on this Iron Men, how do you say? Iron Iron Man races? I don’t even I don’t know what the plural of it is. Okay. I’ve had a couple of people who have finished who have finished Iron Man races on this show and I’ve also interviewed you know, other people uh in other mediums who have an IBD and and have competed in Iron Man races or or triathlons. And that was always something that I thought about that the the things that a lot of folks who don’t live with these conditions rely on for training, for nutrition, while you know actually like during the race like are just are not going to work um for folks like us. I mean honestly I don’t really think they work for anybody.”

T.L. Wright (18:51)

“Truthfully! 100%. Oh my gosh. You can talk to any person with a healthy gut an athlete a healthy gut and especially a runner they’ll say yeah that nutrition they all have an opinion of different nutrition options. Yeah. Yeah. And they’re like this one doesn’t work for me, this one works for me.”

T.L. Wright (19:05)

“Um, we’re starting to see though finally after a number of years more options that are whole food based or less preservatives or less artificial sweeteners. I am really excited there are some new products out there. They don’t really meet all of our needs. um they still are sneaking in some things that are probably still gonna impact our gut in a negative way. Mhm.”

T.L. Wright (19:27)

“And again I want to preface too and I don’t want to mislead anybody. Specific carbohydrate still means that we do use carbs. We just tolerate different carbs or we it’s we still are eating carbs. And and every sport there is there are certain types of what we call macros macronutrients protein carbohydrate and fat and every sport has their own specific balance of that to based on what the sport is. So just because I you might see more maybe lower carb recipes in on my social media and everything doesn’t mean that I’m not consuming carbs. And I’m not consuming fats or anything like that. Every every athlete and every sport is different and they all have different nutritional needs. So this is and so that’s like I said you’ll see a huge variety of recipes in the cookbook related to that but the only thing that you will see is it will follow the SCD guidelines and it will all be whole food based and scratch based. So that’s what makes it a little bit different. Mhm.”

Amber Tresca (20:21)

“Yeah. You can have a healthy gut and you can still have a bad stuck in a porta-potty and a bad race for sure.”

T.L. Wright (20:27)

“Yeah. Yeah.”

Amber Tresca (20:28)

“Yeah, I’ve yeah, and also I you know, I’ve had many athletes on this show and I think we’ve all had the discussion about where where the porta-potties located on the on the course. Even in remission.”

T.L. Wright (20:42)

“I have some stories. I have so many stories. We’re not gonna go there.”

Amber Tresca (20:46)

“Maybe a different time. Maybe offline. Or uh maybe you’ll write a different type of book. But anyway. So um. So bodybuilding. I think um I think because in the IBD community there are so many people that participate in races, you know, even even, you know, like you mentioned Team Challenge and a lot of groups have these types of things. We think of that. That bodybuilding though, I think a lot of people are not going to make that connection. I know I certainly wouldn’t have. And I think that might be partly because I was diagnosed so long ago I that building that much muscle seems completely like impossible. So I I want to know a little bit more about that and what making that transition looked like.”

T.L. Wright (21:21)

“Right, so I want to preface something too. Everyone has this assumption that everybody with Crohn’s disease is in a malnutritioned malnutrition type of state. Yes. And that’s just not true. Mhm. People can actually see huge swings in weight and weight gain. There are totally different spectrums and I really want to make sure folks who are listening understand that.”

T.L. Wright (21:39)

“So I was coming from a different place. I was perimenopausal. The first thing they want to put you on is steroids too also by the way that’s the first thing they want to push you you’re in a flare they act a flare it’s like let’s just get you out of the flare let’s put you on steroids. And so I I did not take that option at the time. Maybe looking back I probably could have or should have but at the time I was I was freaked out because I’d already seen what steroids did to my husband during cancer and Yeah. I know it’s a it’s a double edge sword right.”

T.L. Wright (22:02)

“So basically when it comes to it comes to Crohn’s and IBD there is so many you can run every which way. And I hear it in a lot of women’s support groups. Because in order to be a bodybuilder you actually have to eat a lot and you actually have to build muscle. Mhm. You lose muscle when you cut down for stage. Mhm. So I’m actually in a build right now. So I will drop about 40 pounds for stage. Purposely. But in a healthy way. Because right now I’m in the process of of gaining weight. I want to build as much muscle as healthily as I can.”

T.L. Wright (22:34)

“And so I was already in this spot where I was I was already kind of on the bigger end and I just wanted to like find a way to stay active and you know honestly let’s just build as much as I can and then talk to a certified coach to lead me through this because even as a professional athlete, even a person who has a degree in some in sports nutrition all that I basically was like no let’s go let’s let’s get the let’s go the right way. Let’s get a coach let’s let’s do this all healthy. And I really did interview a lot of them to find out the ones with the right fit before I ever made the decision to even pursue a stage.”

T.L. Wright (23:04)

“Honestly I went into it thinking I’m just going to train like one and we’ll see what happens. I didn’t pick I didn’t select a date of I didn’t honestly select a stage date with a coach until I felt like I was in this really comfortable healthier spot and my body was sort of normalized, my cortisol levels were lower, and I was doing everything the healthy way. Because unfortunately in any sport, you can swing in so many different directions for from health perspective. You can do things really unhealthy and you can do things really healthy. And and so I chose the slow healthy approach. I made sure I had a vetted coach. I made sure that they understood my situation that I couldn’t eat all the foods on their list or the or or whatever. And it was actually really a learning experience for her too.”

T.L. Wright (23:40)

“Sure. um she it was very learning for again a learning experience for her because she’d never had an athlete in my situation. But she always said you’re the most coachable athlete I had because I I was a coach myself. So I knew when your coach tells you to do something and you trust in their process then I’m going to do that. But again I had to interview and vet quite a few coaches before I felt like I had the right fit.”

T.L. Wright (24:12)

“That’s really important. Anybody with a chronic illness and I say this numerous times anybody. Finding a a coach or trainer who is actually going to schedule in your rest days, your recovery days, making sure you’re actually meeting all your nutritional needs, all those things are super important and so that’s what I went into bodybuilding. Those are the steps I took in order to pursue more of a at an elite level.”

T.L. Wright (24:37)

“So I went into this bodybuilding just to give myself an outlet because I’ve been an athlete for so many years and I needed something to to help me deal with my illness. Mhm. And I wanted to be healthy and I named a few other reasons why I did it because I also wanted to not find myself in a hospital bed and and have a slower recovery because of it post-surgery or whatever might happen. Anything can happen as you know in our in our illness. Yes. Community.”

T.L. Wright (24:57)

“So basically I went into it as kind of an experiment and it snowballed really quickly. Mhm. And I did really well for my first show.”

T.L. Wright (25:04)

“With of course great support from and again I want to also preface I’m in the natural bodybuilding community. It’s a lot different than the non-natural where steroids are a common place and everything you use. Oh wow. Okay. And it’s actually a big deal so if you do want to ever if someone does try to pursue bodybuilding and they have Crohn’s disease they also have to be very careful to look up the WADA guidelines and follow all of that. We get urine tested, we get polygraph test in order to pursue a or to compete on stage.”

T.L. Wright (25:25)

“So I had a really great support network within the bodybuilding community. um I competed in three four shows in total from two different federations and I turned just turned 40 and so I was a master’s bikini category. I also competed in fit body and I did try my I did try another uh another uh category but I didn’t do well and I don’t think that’s my thing.”

T.L. Wright (25:41)

“But in general I found this great support network among a lot of athletes who who follow a strict diet well guess what I follow a strict diet. There’s some friends there you know it was um a lot of people were also like they use exercise as their way to deal with stress. Well perfect awesome that that worked out really well for me as well. And so I competed again four times. On my third competition I got my pro card.”

T.L. Wright (26:07)

“So I did I did get my master’s pro card and I will be stepping on stage in the future as a pro athlete and to do my to actually compete at a very elite level but I know where that elite level is. Mhm. And I’m not there yet. I have to gain a lot of muscle. You have to gain as a especially a woman who’s perimenopausal, you have to be very slow and very targeted and it’s a long, long, long build to get to that level and then it’s going to be followed by a long, healthy cut, very slow in order to then jump on stage and be that at that competitive level. I mean because it literally is you’re going up against world worldwide athletes. Mhm.”

T.L. Wright (26:39)

“From all different countries. And so that’s where my again I will I’m right now in the build I’m building just building away while I while I built a book. And and that’s where we’re kind of at right at this point.”

[MUSIC: About IBD Transition]

Amber Tresca (26:54)

“Up next. TL gives us her tips on being consistent with the specific carbohydrate diet.”

Amber Tresca

“So what I’m hoping that you can help with is some lived experience because you’ve been doing this for so long and you’ve been doing it at a level that most of us are not going to take our diet to. So I think that you can teach us what are your top tips about how to get started with the SCD and then how do you remain consistent with it.”

T.L. Wright (27:17)

“Right. So the first thing I recommend to people is to usually buy the book. The original book. Mhm. Go and find your support community. There are a number of us. I am in a number of Facebook support communities groups to help with any questions related to SCD if they picked up my book I’m there and people can reach out to me. I post regularly so that’s find your find your support system first because that’s that’s key.”

T.L. Wright (27:39)

“So when you are picking up an ingredient at the store and go oh why oh this coconut milk looks great but wait a minute there’s guar gum in it. Then you go oh wait a second that’s something I can’t have or if you have a question about a specific food on the list. Then you have somebody to ask those questions to or there’s a a huge amount of resources for you, okay? The second thing is go buy a cookbook not mine, you don’t have to buy mine. There are a number of other cookbooks out there that are really well done.”

T.L. Wright (28:05)

“And then the third thing is keep it simple. Keep it really simple. Think of it like what don’t don’t try to recreate a hot fudge sundae. Don’t try to do that. Try to keep it really simple and you eventually find the foods and the kind of the routine that works for you. I I could say like I my meal prep takes is Sundays and it takes me less than 3 hours 2 to 3 hours. It’s really, really simple. And and I’m feeding an athlete, actually two athletes in my household because my husband’s an athlete. So we’re feeding both of us and most of my recipes at least are are made in bulk.”

T.L. Wright (28:36)

“You have a lot of things to freeze and you. So that leads to the fourth thing which is Souper Cubes and different different things in the in the kitchen to store the things that you make from scratch makes it your life a lot easier. I mean it is so nice to come home and not have to worry I could just throw something in the crock pot and dinner’s done. I don’t have to worry about it. And I have leftovers. So, you know, having the right tools or the right storage things there are great.”

T.L. Wright (29:02)

“And then the fifth thing again is is you don’t again my husband is a novice novice cook. Bless his bless his heart. Hopefully he’s listening to this no. He no, he will admit he will admit. He’s like honey give me the stupid tasks. That’s what he literally says to me. Because because he’s like he’s like I don’t want to have to think about anything. Uh huh. And so so do if you have somebody like that in your life and you have cooking fatigue, do make sure you have a few recipes and things that they can help you with.”

T.L. Wright (29:32)

“I feel it’s really I’m actually working on two more cookbooks to make it easier on the people in our lives to support us. So that we don’t have to take on the full burden of of cooking all the time for ourselves. And making also travel easier and a number of other things. I’m all about making your life easier. And I feel like that’s needed in this space. You can still eat and make really good scratch made easy recipes without having to over complicate things.”

T.L. Wright (29:56)

“And that’s kind of my general goal. You there are there’s ways to make your life easier there’s ways to follow SCD without having to go off the wagon and and you know honestly it’s always there when you want to like if you do mess up there’s always you can always go back to your safe foods, your safe diet. People make mistakes.”

T.L. Wright (30:09)

“It took me about three or four months to realize that I was ingesting coconut milk with a bunch of guar gum and no wonder I was like still having some weird symptoms. So, you know, there’s it’s basically just take a also a closer look at what you’re what you’re picking up in the grocery stores. Mhm.”

Amber Tresca (30:45)

“Yeah. Absolutely. Uh agree with all of that. I’m a pretty religious label reader for a lot of reasons for myself, but also because I’m an allergy mom so I really needed to learn more about all of the different ways that that specific allergens may make it into our foods and then also what they’re called. Because the name isn’t it’s not always, you know, uh soy. You know it doesn’t always say soy, it may say other things. But to your point about not trying to recreate things, I discovered that it took me several years because I was always trying to recreate things. One of the allergies in our household was eggs. And I’m a baker. And so I would be like, what can we what can we do? What oh applesauce, you know, like people come up with all these different things. And then I realized why am I doing this? Why am I trying to take a recipe that does not account for the allergies and adapt it. Instead, I went and bought some vegan cookbooks which would not contain some of the allergies that were in my household. And then that made things so much easier and it took me a while to connect those dots. Right. But to so I think that’s a really valid point when youre trying to address food issues is that find recipes that are made for that instead of trying to adapt things that are that were made for people that don’t have any of these problems.”

T.L. Wright (31:55)

“Right. And and you brought up a really good point about allergens and food sensitivities as those of us who have IBD and and Crohn’s, the the big thing we don’t realize is that a lot of times we’re in an inflamed state or our guts are very unhealthy. And then a lot of people who have followed SCD for years anecdotally they will say that I can now eat something I couldn’t eat five years ago or three years ago. Yes. And that’s kind of one of the benefits of long-term following these diets or this specific and I’m not saying SCD is the only way.”

T.L. Wright (32:19)

“Everybody’s body and everybody’s gut is different and I do want to stress that that there are a number of other diets offered by the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation, special IBD diets, but most of them are pretty spot on about at least the additives and other things that we’re finding in our foods. That is one pattern you will see among all of them. So even if you just eliminate some of those things or figuring out what is really setting you off maybe the key for you being able to eat something later on or maybe help repair I wouldn’t say I never say heal, I’ll always say repair, recover a bit, but never I’ll say that. Okay let’s want to make sure there’s a lot of people who stress that and I’m just not one of them. So I’m saying from a personal perspective is that you might find what works for you.”

T.L. Wright (32:47)

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be SCD. In fact SCD is very full of eggs in many cases, but we do have modified we do have SCD where it’s low FODMAP, SCD no eggs, SCD so you’ll find those recipes out there.”

T.L. Wright (33:04)

“I will want to caution everybody. If you utilize AI, and I’m not against AI, but if you do utilize AI there are some very unique quirks to baking and cooking with SCD ingredients and whole food ingredients that AI has a tendency to really mess up. So I’ve done enough experiments now to know that if I had tried what was suggested to me I would have lost a lot of money grocery money at the grocery store. Yeah.”

T.L. Wright (33:31)

“So that is one thing I will say in our space, do try to find people not necessarily me but there are others who can help you create a recipe that is well tested and they use themselves. That’s really important. And it’s even better when you see them actually making it in a video because you know they’re making it. You know what it looks like the end product.”

T.L. Wright (33:54)

“You’re not and I say there’s definitely a place for AI but it’s just I just want to caution people I don’t want you to waste a lot of money with recipes that are untested and I tried an apple fritter through an AI just for the fun of it the other day. I’m glad I didn’t put more ingredients and make a bigger batch of that. Right right right. Because it would have been really bad.”

T.L. Wright (34:12)

“Um I saved it luckily and so you know those are just things I kind of give everyone a heads up on. They’re AI would be great for like meal prepping. So if you have a list of recipes and you’re like hey I need to know what I want to eat make for the next four weeks and these are my list of recipes, they’ll put it into like a nice little a nice little graph for you or whatever that’s great.”

T.L. Wright (34:31)

“But but when you’re starting to move to an elimination diet or to a SCD diet especially a grain-free diet with a lot of different quirks to it you may want to just trust in the people who are who are actually testing the recipes for you. Yeah.”

Amber Tresca (34:46)

“That’s a very good point and it is not something that I would have thought to ask you. So I really appreciate you bringing that up. Uh AI does has a great place for for meal prepping, planning, ingredient lists, all that sort of thing. Right. But maybe we don’t ask it to develop any recipes we should trust the experts on that. So.”

T.L. Wright (35:04)

“I tried I tried to do a celery root pave off of an AI and it was the worst mistake I ever made. It did not work. It did not work. I had to go back to the back to the drawing board on that and test it. I actually put the recipe up recently for that in for New Year’s and that’s the one that works. Don’t yeah.”

Amber Tresca (35:21)

“So yeah. That was a learning experience. Yeah.”

T.L. Wright (35:26)

“Well let’s let’s say that a learning experience. Yeah.”

Amber Tresca (35:29)

“So speaking of the the recipes that you create and the reels that you do and your your Instagram, I took a little tour of your of your Instagram… I just started it! I figured that out as I was going through it. And I’m looking at it and you had I want to ask you about this because it is something that really piqued my interest as well. You had some Halloween themed recipes at the beginning of of your Instagram which was not that long ago. So I just wanted to ask you about that because that’s pretty rare to see.”

T.L. Wright (36:00)

“All right, so I have to give him a little bit of a back story. Okay. I promise it’s entertaining.”

T.L. Wright (36:05)

“So I I as I told you I wrote this cookbook for myself. And just I thought for any athlete who comes up to me and says hey I’m struggling I’d say hey here’s a book, right?”

T.L. Wright (36:17)

“So I didn’t expect it to get as popular as it did. I basically just like didn’t tell anybody. Didn’t wasn’t gonna tell anybody. I just published the book um cause I’m an indie author and I just published the book and next thing I know my phone is blowing up. Like blowing up one night. And I’m like what is going on? And I’m being tagged and what is happening here?”

T.L. Wright (36:36)

“And the SCD community found me out. Then they put it on their main page and next thing I know they’re like what I’m like what and they’re like do you have a website? I had to literally put my Instagram together like within like a few days.”

T.L. Wright (36:50)

“And I was just like what am I doing here? I don’t want to be I’m not a talker in like communicating over like my food I just want to do make my food and then put it to some snappy jazzy music or whatever you know like not that kind of a cook. And so I was kind of like throwing things out there just trying to figure out my figure out everything and and I didn’t expect it to do as well. It the book went to number one in paleo and number five in gluten free on Amazon within like the first as a new release best seller. And I was like I couldn’t believe what was going on.”

T.L. Wright (37:18)

“Um and so there’s been a lot it’s I didn’t expect I didn’t expect I would fill a niche or a space that was so needed in our community. And that’s what I hope to do moving forward with any any project I move forward with is I want to see what needs to be fulfilled here and as I kind of teased a little bit I’m working on a couple different books right now simultaneously to help our community. Make life easier, make it easier for our spouses and loved ones to cook for us. All of those things. So that is coming soon.”

T.L. Wright (37:44)

“um and yes my Instagram is is light on content. Uh it’s brand new. Light on followers because I’ve always been just that girl hanging out in the Facebook support communities just helping where I was needed. I really want to see societal change in a in the best way possible and to make space for us with in IBD who suffer from IBD in the food space.”

T.L. Wright (38:10)

“I know there is that exists already, but I also want to capture the other piece of it. So that’s kind of where we’re going with this I really I think I’m glad you noticed that. Because what people are go how did she get I literally had publishers like where is this person where did they come from? Like I had people reach out to me and like where where did this girl come from? She doesn’t have a social she doesn’t have she’s not on TikTok, she’s not on Instagram, like where did this they didn’t have anywhere to find me. I literally had to put everything together at the last minute. um that was the beginning of November so like the my first content showed up in like Halloween.”

T.L. Wright (38:39)

“It’s just it’s been getting it I promise you the content’s getting better by the way. It is improving. I have some…”

Amber Tresca (38:46)

“I mean, that’s just gonna happen. Like over time you’re gonna learn more about what the community is looking for and then you also learn how to how to make the thing, you know, how to how to make the content film it and all that kind of thing. um but I just thought it was so interesting because I was like so you’re following a specific diet and then also you want to have some fun with it and like you know Halloween’s my favorite holiday so I was like well I’m going to be making these deviled eggs, you know, come come next Halloween like that’s going to happen. So I was just really excited.”

T.L. Wright (39:20)

“Well we you know I was really I was really sad because I I love to cake decorate and everything and I we there’s it’s really hard with some of our with our dietary needs to do that obviously because we can’t use sugar.”

T.L. Wright (39:31)

“So basically I figured out like okay what does a kid need? A kid needs something that’s fun. I felt really bad for a lot of mothers who have these children who can’t eat all the fun foods. And I was like well let’s make it fun in a different way but also healthy. So that’s where like a stuffed jack-o-lantern out of a pepper why not? Or like a dragon egg deviled egg.”

T.L. Wright (39:53)

“You know things that they can eat but also gives them some spontaneity and fun and I think that’s what you’ll see kind of trending most of my recipes are on the healthier end. But I do trust me I will be showing up some some very fattening fun recipes because I I’m building so I don’t I don’t I’m not following a a stage lean diet plan at this time. So you will I and I’m gonna and honestly again I want to stress every athlete has every different body everybody has different dietary needs everybody has different macro counts. So if you’re gonna see a nice sprinkling of everything when you come to my my Instagram. And again brand new. Put all of it together because I literally one night just my phone was blowing up and everybody was asking for it so. That’s how that’s how it’s been created so far.”

Amber Tresca (40:26)

“I love it. Well let’s go over that. So where can people follow you on the Instagrams, you know, other places that you are and then also let’s mention again where folks can find your your cookbook and then if you know where your next cookbooks are going to be like like tell us all about that.”

T.L. Wright (40:44)

“Okay so right now you can find me on Facebook, Instagram mainly Instagram right now. Mhm. Mainly Instagram. A little bit of TikTok. Uh it’s all under the handle of the IBD athlete.”

T.L. Wright (40:55)

“I will be at if you’re locally in California I will be featured in the Sacramento Book Festival which is really I’m really nervous about. We’ll see how that goes. I’ve never done a book festival or signing before but if you did purchase the cookbook I will be there. It’s a free fun event for everybody. Uh it’s on April 19th from 10:00 to 5:00 p.m.”

T.L. Wright (41:12)

“And so if you want to meet and greet and you want your book signed I will be there I can also help answer any questions you have. And as far as my other two cookbooks I actually have three happening right now but I can’t talk about the third.”

T.L. Wright (41:26)

“But the first two are are in are in the process of production at the moment so we’re hoping we’re hoping for a 20 either holiday 2026 or 2027 we’re we’re trying to figure out those dates right now. And and yes so I am on Instagram. I am also under my my pen name TL Wright or that’s how you’ll know me as.”

T.L. Wright (41:44)

“I do hang out in a lot of Crohn’s Colitis IBD and anti-inflammatory Facebook groups as well as the SCDA’s or breaking the vicious cycle support group and I am there to help people when they run into trouble on recipes. And as my readers know I’m really good about responding back back if you have questions about specific recipes or issues or anything like that with related to cooking.”

T.L. Wright (42:04)

“And I also if people have questions about my sports and and and anything athletic related I’m highlighting and I’m working with a number of fitness professionals and trainers to provide resources to people who have IBD who want to start a more athletic lifestyle or want to pursue certain athletics. I have been um working with a number of these folks who I know worry about you know ensure we get recovery, ensure we get like a good balance um they kind of have the right attitude and they’ve been in the the fitness industry for a number of years and I would in a heartbeat use them as my coaches personally.”

T.L. Wright (42:28)

“And my book can be purchased through Amazon, but honestly a local independent bookstore is your safest and best bet. Mhm. Also major retailers Walmart, Barnes and Noble can order it. It’s pretty much international. And I have been asked if it could be turned into an an eBook. We are in development of an ebook version. Nice. Yes.”

T.L. Wright (42:46)

“But at this time we’re now in a printed version. Eventually we’ll be an ebook. It is a very big book. I just want to preface it’s two pounds. So it also doubles as you know some weights, some light weights. Light weights.”

T.L. Wright (42:58)

“It’s two pounds. It’s over 250 recipes. It’s not picture heavy. I know a lot of people love pictures but I wrote a playbook. I wanted something that somebody could just buy one book, one SCD book and they got everything they needed. And that’s because I didn’t know if this was my only book I’d ever write. Yeah. So I needed something for my husband I needed something for me so I wrote a playbook and and uh tested recipes about a bazillion times and uh yeah so hopefully you can find it and it works for you.”

Amber Tresca (43:22)

“Well I will try to make it easy on everybody and put all of the information in the show notes and then I always have a space on my own website at aboutIBD.com where I put all of this information and of course um as we go through uh we’ll be sharing your content and making sure that people can can find it. So thank you for sharing all of that. I look forward to seeing I hope more Halloween recipes in the future. So uh I don’t care about anything else. That’s what I care about. uh so TL you have been so uh kind and generous with your time, with explaining everything, and then of course you are offering so much great information to the IBD community and to people who are interested in pursuing the the SCD in a very serious way. So thank you so much for talking with me today. Thank you for everything that is coming and I really look forward to seeing all of it come to fruition.”

T.L. Wright (44:04)

“Thank you so much for having me. This has been fantastic. Amber you do such such an amazing job and fulfilling a space that we just need. Thank you so much.”

Amber Tresca (44:13)

“Hey super listener. Check the show notes to find links and information about the topics discussed in this episode. Plus, get a written transcript and much more on my website, aboutIBD.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing it with someone else or leaving a rating in your podcast app. Reviews and ratings help me grow this show and bring you more great content. Thanks for listening. And remember, until next time, I want you to know more about IBD.

About IBD is a production of Mal and Tal Enterprises.

It is written, produced, and directed by me, Amber Tresca.

Mix and sound design is by Mac Cooney.

Theme music is from Cooney Studio. 

T.L. Wright (44:47)

“um by the way I just realized I have a nervous tick of playing with my hair like little mermaid like I… I’m trying to so I’m gonna try to prevent myself from doing that.”

Amber Tresca (44:57)

“And guess what, that’s the outtake right there, little mermaid hair, there we go, that’s the outtake.”

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