Feeling like you can't eat anything without getting bloated or triggering your IBS symptoms?
Watch this video to find out what you might be missing and how to get back to relaxed
eating.
I'm Amanda Malachesky, Certified Functional Nutrition and Lifestyle Practitioner, and
digestive and allergy detective.
I help you figure out why your digestion is misbehaving and what to do about it.
For the best tips and tricks on how to navigate digestive and allergy challenges, be sure
to subscribe to my channel to see a new video every Monday.
So you've heard that Low FODMAP Diet is the best place to start with IBS, but how do you
make sure you're not avoiding foods that you don't need to, or what if you've already tried
the Low FODMAP Diet and you haven't seen results?
In this video, I'll share the low FODMAP basics, how to determine which low FODMAP foods are
okay or not, and what to do if you're still feeling stuck.
I use this same technique to avoid triggering my symptoms, and I help my clients to do this
too, so let's get started.
FODMAPs are fermentable oligo-, di-, and mono-saccharides and polyols, which are all types of fermentable
sugars.
They naturally occur in foods.
Bacteria love these sugars.
They get super excited when you eat them, and they produce gas, which leads to the uncomfortable
bloating, gas and swelling, and, well, you know, that you might be experiencing.
The most widely accepted diet template to help with these IBS or IBS-like symptoms is
the Low FODMAP Diet.
Here are some low and high FODMAP vegetables and fruits.
If you want a more comprehensive list, you can download my FODMAP list.
I've put a link for that below.
But, and here's the rub, this isn't meant to be a forever diet.
Veggies and fruits are healthy foods, and it's likely impossible to avoid all these
foods entirely, and you don't need to.
Many of you will react only to some of the FODMAPS, so the game is to keep the broadest
diversity of foods in your diet as possible because these same starches feed your beneficial
bacteria.
So how do you do this when you seem to react to everything?
The most foolproof way to determine this for yourself is to use a food symptom diary.
You can grab mine in the comments below.
Keep track of what you eat and your flare symptoms for about a week to start, but if
you've got a lot of symptoms, it might take more time.
Once you've got some data, go back and start looking for patterns.
One thing that many people don't know is that it may take two to three days for your symptoms
to begin to show up, and this is especially true if your digestion is slow to begin with.
Once you begin to notice some possible triggers, repeat your experiment if you can handle the
symptom, and see if you can reproduce those results.
If your symptoms repeat then that FODMAP food may need to come out while you work on healing
your gut.
Using this method, I discovered that broccoli was triggering my constipation episodes.
It took me several weeks of tracking to figure this out, so don't give up if you don't see
patterns right away.
Are you already aware of one of your food triggers?
Tell me what it is in the comments below.
Once you know what your food triggers are, you can experiment with serving size and cooking
method to see if this makes a difference for you.
Sometimes you can tolerate a small serving of a high FODMAP food, but a larger serving
will trigger symptoms.
For example, for me, I've found that I tolerate onions if they're really well cooked, but
raw onions and too much onion can totally be a trigger.
Knowing your limits can provide you with a tremendous amount of freedom.
Once you understand these details, you can adjust your intake and avoid symptoms.
That said, the top four foods I would recommend avoiding while healing, even if you don't
show outward symptoms, are gluten, dairy, sugar and alcohol.
These tend to be IBS symptom triggers anyway, but each one of them also tends to create
different kinds of inflammation.
Even though you might feel like this removes all foods, it still leaves many other healthy,
delicious options, so don't panic.
Okay, so what if you get through all this but you still don't know what's triggering
your symptoms?
It's possible that your symptoms aren't due to FODMAPS.
There are other types of food sensitivities, and you may want to consider other possibilities.
Some other places to look are foods high in oxalates, salicylates or histamine.
You can also have a generalized immune reaction within a few days of eating foods, which can
be linked to low digestive function.
If you're not seeing results, don't give up.
Check out some of these possibilities or schedule some time with me to start learning where
to look.
You can also read my blog post I wrote about this, called Choose the Right Elimination
Diet for Your Persistent Symptoms.
I've given you a link for that below.
But not matter what, you always want to continue looking for the root cause of food sensitivities.
This can often be related to gut infections and poor gut function.
Check out my video, Gut Microbiome Testing for IBS, to learn more about that.
Now you know how to work with the Low FODMAP Diet template to reduce your IBS symptoms
and regain freedom and control over your life and your bathroom habits, but what if this
isn't enough and you're still confused?
Often, diet changes are only one part of the solution, and you may need to dig deeper to
find and resolve your root causes.
I invite you to grab my free Roadmap to Recovery guide to learn about what else you can do
to truly heal your gut so you can get back to what's important to you.
If you prefer a one-on-one connection, please schedule a free 30-minute assessment session
with me at confluencenutrition.com/contact, and I will meet with you and help you determine
what the next best steps are for you.
I look forward to connecting with you.
I also have a private Facebook group, called Hope for Healing Chronic Illness, where you
can get help from me and our community, so come check us out.
If you like this video, please let me know by liking it below, subscribe, and share it
with your fellow digestively challenged friends or family, and comment below with helpful
if this video helped you.
See you next time.