Hey guys you're probably here because you want to know all about the fodmap diet what is the fodmap
diet and are there any benefits associated with the fodmap diet well i'm going to answer that
question along with many other different questions in this week's responding to your comments
where we look at fun questions we look at science-based questions but most importantly we
always look at the evidence update 20 dear abraham please can you do a video on the fodmap diet
i've been recommended it by my gp update 20. thank you for your comment this is from the how to get
rid of bloating video which i did a while back and this is a great comment i'm going to do my best to
give you all the information i possibly can so let's begin so the fodmap diet is a three-stage
diet for patients with ibs it limits certain types of carbohydrates from your diet now you're
probably wondering what does fodmap stand for well fermentable oligosaccharides disaccharides
monosaccharides and polyols that's what it stands for now let's move on to the science behind the
fodmap diet so fodmap carbohydrates pass through your small intestine where they're not absorbed
into your colon once they're in the colon bacteria in there break this down now when they're breaking
this down it leads to all kinds of ibs type symptoms such as bloating such as reflux such as
excessive wind such as a gurgling tummy so it's causing all these different symptoms now that
was a very basic explanation of how the fodmap diet works but i hope it gives you that basic
understanding of how the fodmap diet can actually potentially help patients with ibs and their
symptoms but don't worry i'm not going to tell you to stop every single carbohydrate i wouldn't dream
of doing that we're going to talk about what foods you can and can't eat a little later on in the
video now it's super important to remember before you start any diet including the fodmap diet
please first speak to your healthcare professional either a dietitian or any healthcare professional
if you've already spoken to them and you've given you the thumbs up or to go ahead then this video
is the video for you we're going to go and break down the fodmap diet as much as i can and make it
relatively easy for you to digest see what i did there let's crack on so there's lots of different
fodmap foods that you need to limit from your diet now the best way for me to go through this is to
separate them into four different categories for you this will make it a lot easier to understand
now please remember i am going to leave a full list in the description below for each different
category as well i'm not going to keep saying it because that gets a bit annoying but please
remember if you want more information look in the description below at any point in the video
so category number one oligosaccharides such as fructans we need to limit these foods for example
wheat based pasta cabbage beans there's loads more too hopefully my editor's going to be shooting
these texts everywhere as well for different types of foods that are in category 1. let's
move on to category 2. so category number 2 we have disaccharides such as lactose so again we
need to limit these now this doesn't mean stop having your dairy products completely this means
go for lactose free versions of whatever dairy products you like that way you're still getting
your calcium intake which is really really important however please do avoid processed
cheese and low-fat cheese okay so the next category category number three monosaccharides
like fructose now this doesn't mean stop having fruit completely but you do need to stop having
things like honey mangoes sugar snaps and fructose sweeteners you need to avoid these
i know mangoes are delicious i would really struggle with that one but you do need to avoid
that moving on to category number four polyols you need to avoid them or limit them as much as you
can these include things like mannitol sorbitol xylitol you may have seen them in sugar-free gum
sugar-free candy and also sugar-free medicine but please don't stop the medicine without
speaking to your healthcare professional first if you do see it speak to them there might be
versions that don't have these in them also stone fruit you need to avoid these as well such as
apricot and plums any stone fruit really so i hope that was quite simple and easy to understand
those are the four categories of carbohydrates that you need to avoid or limit as much as you can
but the next question is what kind of carbs can you eat well i'm gonna tell you that now
okay so let's see what's included in the fodmap diet now before we begin please remember like i
said earlier i'm going to leave more information in the description below on all the foods that you
can have these are very brief examples otherwise this video is going to be super duper long so
for breakfast you can have things like puffed rice corn flakes and if you love porridge you can still
have oats you can still have rice and potatoes it's completely fine to have cook them however
you like it it's fine if you want other type of carbohydrates you can also have buckwheat you
can have polenta and you can have quinoa quinoa delicious in a salad and it's also spelt really
funny isn't it now speaking of salads that reminds me fruit and vegetables are also a good source of
carbohydrates and also a great source of fiber now in addition to these please remember you need to
try and avoid things like alcohol caffeine spicy food fatty foods all of these are notoriously bad
for ibs symptoms now in addition to these also set aside some self-care time for yourself so you can
relax and stress less and do some things that are going to help reduce your stress i did have
a video well i do have a video on how to reduce stress levels so i will leave a link to it up here
and in the description below and i'll also leave a really useful nhs article on useful things that
you can do to help relieve your stress levels so i'll also leave that down there too so you're now
slowly becoming a bit of a fodmap pro you know what food you can eat you know what foods you
can't eat you know all about the different types of carbohydrates but next let's look at how you're
gonna start to introduce the fodmap diet we're gonna do it in three stages and hopefully soft my
editor is gonna write them somewhere here or there or somewhere let's look into them stages so stage
number one restriction this is going to take about four to eight weeks for you to see results and by
results i mean the reduction of those ibs symptoms so it's super important when you start the diet
keep a list keep a diary what you're eating what kind of symptoms you're experiencing
and then you can kind of look at that diary later on as we go through the stages so when you're
doing stage one the restriction you can either cut out all four categories of the fodmap diet or cut
out one category at a time and see how you get on remember keep that list make a diary because this
is a bit of an experimental stage okay so let's say you've done your eight weeks and you've seen
no improvement you've seen no difference at this point you need to go back and speak to your
dietitian and get some further advice also please remember look out for the following symptoms if
you get any of these kinds of symptoms you need to stop the diet and go back to your healthcare
professional as soon as possible these include things like blood in your stools also low iron
levels you might experience tiredness extreme tiredness this could be a sign of low iron levels
also any weight loss unexpected weight loss or a loss of appetite and lastly any change in your
symptoms so if you've got diarrhea or constipation it suddenly becomes a lot worse any of these kinds
of symptoms you need to go straight back to your healthcare professional i am going to leave a
full list of them in the description below as well for you so if at any point you forget them
go back there and give it a read okay so let's say you've got to eight weeks and your symptoms
have improved however and you've got none of them red flags that we just spoke about
now it's kind of an experimental stage because we can't stay in stage one forever limiting all those
foods because we do need certain types of foods so this is when we start to look at reintroduction
looking at that list that we made that diary that we made and slowly bringing in certain foods so
as explained this is now stage two which is the reintroduction stage so what we need to do is
look at that diary and bring in food slowly what we call challenge foods so certain foods that you
think you know what this might be making my ibs worse you can try challenging it so you can try
it for about two weeks if it does flare up your ibs if it makes your symptoms worse you then know
100 you're sure that that food you need to try and avoid because it makes your ibs symptoms worse but
there might be certain foods that you find with and you can add them to the good list but please
remember you can only introduce one challenge food at a time because it's not going to be a
fair test if you suddenly try three four different foods you're not gonna know which one's actually
causing the symptoms which one's aggravating or flaring up your ibs so one at a time please now
the reintroduction stage is quite time consuming so what i mean by that is like i said earlier one
food at a time but remember before you go to the next challenge food you need to go back to your
baseline so you need to go back to stage one where you're avoiding almost everything for three days
before trying another food because it's really important that you go back to your baseline when
your symptoms were good and non-existent hopefully before you start another challenge food and i hope
that makes sense moving on to stage number three personalization now remember if you're going to be
avoiding all the foods that you love this diet is going to get very boring soon and i imagine
you're just going to revert back to your old ways this is where personalization comes in
this doesn't mean that you can't ever eat the food that you love because there are ways around it so
in this stage you're going to make a decision on which food you're happy to have and how much
of it you can have that you can tolerate before it makes your ibs symptoms worse you're going to
make that decision slowly it's not something you can do quickly also you don't want to do it all
the time so it's kind of like a treat thing but remember to really enjoy that meal when you have
it so don't be playing on your phone or watching tv really get to enjoy that food and have as much
as you can that you know you can tolerate so i guess you're now a bit of a fodmap diet pro you
now know all about the different foods you can and can't have you know all about how to introduce the
diet in and how to slowly personalize it too so i guess you are a fodmap pro so tell your friends
tell your family tell your loved ones tell everyone update 20 thank you for your comment
i hope you found this information helpful and i hope anyone who's found this video who has
found it because they wanted to learn more about the fodmap diet i hope you found it helpful too
so what i will do as well is i'll leave loads more information in the description below all about the
fodmap diet and various different resources that you can check out which i'm sure you will find
very helpful so it looks like we've run out of time again in this week's responding to
your comments if i didn't get back to your question i'm really sorry we are getting so
many comments and so many questions these days it's really difficult to fit them all into one
episode of responding to your comments so what i say every single week leave another comment if i
miss your comment please keep on leaving those comments and eventually i will get back to you
that's the end of this week's video always remember that you're awesome and i will see you
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