How-To: 48 Hour Colonoscopy Prep

After my last colonoscopy prep experience THAT DIDN’T WORK(?!) I set out to tackle the 48 hour prep my care team recommended. Documenting my experience & a few of my go-to “recipes” below!

Colonoscopy Prep: The Basics

Usually, at-home colonoscopy prep consists of the following simple instructions:

1. Clear Liquids Only
2. Miralax & Dulcolax
3. Gatorade/Electrolytes

While this trio typically works well in a 24 hour timeframe, some people (aka me, apparently) need a little extra time & help! My first colonoscopy I prepped for, nothing happened… if you know what I mean. I don’t how how or why a full bottle of Miralax had absolutely no effect on me, but it didn’t! After that experience, which ended up being such a waste of time and energy, I met with my doctors to go over a revised plan for this time around.

When Do I Need a Colonoscopy?

Colonoscopies typically aren’t recommended until age 45 to screen for colon cancer and other potential chronic diseases. However, if you’ve been diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis, Crohn’s disease, or another digestive disorder, your health care team would most likely recommend getting one scheduled annually just to monitor everything.

I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis early in 2020, when I was 20 years old. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve been on more of a 1.5 year colonoscopy pattern. Partly because they’re not fun, partly because it was so difficult to get an appointment during that time. My full diagnosis journey and how I’ve learned to manage a lot of my symptoms is in this post!

Clear Liquid Diet Grocery List (Low Sugar)

It’s no secret that 48 hours with no solid food requires lots of planning and prep. Especially since I had to work one of these days and actually be a functioning human! I’ve documented a few of the things I’ve leaned into through these 2 days because they seemed to work fairly well, considering I’m convinced its impossible to not feel deprived on this type of protocol.

1. Grass-fed beef bone broth
2. Pasture-raised chicken bone broth
3. Grass-fed unflavored beef gelatin
4. Electrolyte adaptogen drink mixes (not purple or red!)
5. No-Sugar-Added mango juice
6. Flavored Water
7. Black coffee (buy your fav roast, treat yourself!)
8. Tea Tea Tea!
9. No-sugar-Added Popsicles

The biggest mistake most people make with colonoscopy prep is eating way too much sugar-filled fruit juices, gummy bears, and soda. It still blows my mind that doctors actually recommend these types of foods. Not only are they incredibly horrible in terms of managing glucose spikes & hunger, but these are all also completely devoid of protein!

Protein is an essential nutrient we have to consume every day to avoid deficiencies and imbalances, but carbs aren’t. Our bodies can make it’s own glucose to help feed our brain and muscles, but there are 9 essential amino acids found in protein-rich foods that we can’t make on our own despite needing them to function in a healthy way. Protein also helps regulate the blood sugar spikes/crashes that give way to the “hangry” feeling a lot of us know all too well from eating too much candy on Halloween.

The 48 Hour At-Home Colonoscopy Prep Plan:

Day 1: Clear liquid diet begins (ugh), but besides that it’s a pretty easy day. I spent most of this day prepping all of my homemade, refined-sugar-free “Jell-O” (recipe below!) and watching the NFL playoff games until I had to start drinking the first 8.3oz. Miralax bottle with 64oz. of Yellow/Clear/Blue Zero Sugar Gatorade at 6pm. This stuff always makes me incredibly nauseas so the rest of the evening was more or less a wash & you bet I went to bed very early…

Day 2: Honestly, not too much different than the day before! Expect to have very low energy at this point from already going through a full 24 hours of not having anything solid in your system. This is why I took advantage of all of the energy I had on Day 1 to prep some “food” (if we can even call it that) to have on hand ready to go. The only differences in my protocol from Day 1 was taking 4 Dulcolax stimulant tablets at 3pm & only 4.2oz of Miralax with Zero Sugar Gatorade at 6pm. I was instructed to take the rest of the Miralax bottle with a 28oz. Zero Sugar Gatorade bottle 6 hours before the colonoscopy time… which was unfortunately 4am for me.

My Meal Plan:

Honestly, it’s very sad to even be calling this a meal plan BUT it worked fairly well for me so I still wanted to share.

Breakfast: focus on protein! Grass-fed, pasture raised bone broth or a serving of homemade grass-fed gelatin gummies are great options since both pack in 20 grams of protein. I also like to stir in unflavored collagen peptides in my morning cup of coffee to (once again) add more protein and help me feel satisfied.

Lunch: I did a combo of pasture raised chicken bone broth & 5 or 6 no-sugar-added popsicles on both days. It was the perfect combo of sweet and savory!

Dinner: I simply switched out the chicken bone broth for grass-fed beef bone broth, added a few of my homemade gummies on the side, & another Popsicle or 2.

Drinks throughout the day were also necessary. I probably drank at least 5-6 cups of tea each day, and made sure to stay on top of my electrolytes with IQmix and LMNT packs! When I went in for the procedure itself, I was WAY too dehydrated and it took almost 2 hours and at least 20 tries to get a vein to take the IV. Please whatever you do, learn from my mistake!

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