Iyiyi.
In this video I'm gonna reveal
the number one reason why most people
who start the low FODMAP diet end up failing.
They don't end up getting the result that they should have,
the result that they deserve.
And this is a fundamental thing that you need to understand
when you're cutting FODMAPS from your diet,
so make sure that you stick around to watch this.
Now I will give you a little clue.
Can you figure out what it might be about.
First of all I want to introduce myself,
my name is Joe Leech.
I am a dietitian, I create lots of content
around gut health, irritable bowel syndrome,
low-FODMAP diet, things of that nature.
My website is DietvsDisease.org.
If you want more information about this
or anything you can type in the search bar there
and find it there.
Anyway, could you guess what the number one reason is
that people fail at this diet?
If you said that it was because they give into food cravings
and, you know, go off the wagon,
then you might be right as well.
But the thing I'm talking about today
is called FODMAP stacking.
You may or may not have heard of it.
I hope you have heard of it because it's super important.
So as you know, portion sizes are very important
when we're talking about low FODMAP and high FODMAP foods
and so is stacking.
So what does it mean?
Stacking can apply to any foods,
not just high FODMAP foods.
So for example, there are many compounds,
food compounds, that people can tolerate to a certain amount
and once they exceed that amount they get symptoms.
So for example, high-fat foods.
Some people, if they go and eat a greasy fish and chips meal
they get tummy problems whereas someone else won't.
If they drink lots of alcohol might get tummy problems.
Most people can tolerate a little bit of chili,
and once they go too far then you get problems later on.
The same even with caffeine,
and the reason is because people have what's called
different threshold to that food compound.
And it's different for different people.
Some people's thresholds are, for me for example,
for caffeine my threshold is all the way down here
and I've got some friends who can skull
a liter of caffeine
before they go to bed and they'll be asleep in two minutes.
So their threshold his way up here.
The point is it's the same with FODMAPs.
So if you are really sensitive to a FODMAP
you need to be careful of how often you are having it.
So let's have a look here.
So on the left here I've written dose,
in terms of FODMAPs this is kind of like
the amount of FODMAPs you have or the FODMAP load.
Down the bottom here is the frequency that you're having it
or the time that's passed.
This is the makeshift threshold line.
So anything exceeding this threshold is symptoms,
and below here is symptom free.
So we're happy down here.
Now a lot of people will eat a food
that's low FODMAP at a particular amount
or dose or serving size.
And then they're fine, they don't get symptoms,
but then they continually eat that at every meal
or even in between meals and then the next day
they get symptoms and they're trying to figure out
what it is and they can't.
And it's typically because of FODMAP stacking.
So let's do an example.
If, we know that two kiwi fruits are low FODMAP.
As of the recording of this video.
They retest things all the time and change 'em.
But let's say two kiwis are low FODMAP.
So you have two kiwi fruits at breakfast, for example.
And this is a spike you get here from the dose.
You're way under the threshold
so you don't get any symptoms.
Kiwis have fructans so in this case it would be,
so this would be your fructan threshold line.
Now, you could have two kiwis
at lunch as well, say.
Or say this was at morning tea
and then you had a time in between where
your body was able to start digesting that
and processing that.
So it came down and then you had two more.
And then in afternoon tea you had another one, for example.
Then all the sudden we've come up a bit
'cause we had less time,
your body had less time to process that.
It's the same, just think about it with coffee
or with chili or greasy foods or even with alcohol,
it's the same.
Now if you were then to have again,
two kiwi fruits at dinner, for example,
then all the sudden your body didn't
have enough time to process that and boom.
Now all the sudden you've been eating,
you've only been having two kiwi fruits at each serving,
that's low FODMAP,
but you actually ended up eating,
for example, eight kiwi fruits today,
and all the sudden you're gonna start getting symptoms.
That just reminded me that this happens sometimes
when I eat watermelon.
You know, you buy a small watermelon
and then you decide, well it's only small I'll just eat half
and half a watermelon ends up being loads.
And normally I'm pretty okay with watermelon,
but if I eat half a watermelon
this is what's happening,
and you know what's gonna happen later.
So that's something to be mindful of.
You wanna space things out okay?
So if you're gonna eat two kiwi fruits at breakfast,
yeah that's low FODMAP.
If you're gonna eat them at lunch as well,
okay, yeah, they do have,
remember FODMAPs are in plant-based foods,
so they're in all plant-based foods basically.
So they're not no FODMAP foods, they're low FODMAP foods.
If you eat, if you stack them up, hence FODMAP stacking,
eventually they're gonna stack up
higher than your threshold.
Something to keep in mind.
So you can have two kiwis at breakfast,
but maybe, you know,
if you're gonna have them for desert after dinner,
you might wanna eat them during the day.
That way you've got,
you've got a change for this to come back down to baseline.
And look I know that, can you hear that music outside?
I don't know if you can hear music,
but there's like a concert playing outside
on the day I wanted to record this video,
and like a festival, and they never have that.
Like this is the only day of the year.
Of course it has to be on the day that I'm talking.
Anyway, I know there's a lot of variables here
that I've been talking about,
it's not black and white.
Depends on what FODMAP you're talking about,
depends on the person,
depends on what food you've been having,
and I'll leave you with this thought
because as humans we wanna have a blueprint
of exactly what to do and where we're going.
We like certainties, but with the low FODMAP diet
you have to embrace that there is a bit of variation.
When it comes to gut health and sensitive tummies,
there is no set way.
Different people respond differently to different things.
So if you want to move forward with this
you have to kind of embrace the uncertainty
and that's the only way to move forward.
So look, if you've got questions
you can ask me in the comments,
I'll do my best to get back to them.
Let me know if you've found it useful.
If you know anyone who would find this interesting
or useful I'd really appreciate it if you share it
or if you tagged them in the comments even,
that would be amazing.
Thank you for watching.