Are you eliminating too many different foods to help control IBS?

Discover the significance of diverse dietary choices, learn about the benefits of reintroducing fibre-rich foods, and find out how to navigate the intricacies of a gradual reintroduction process.

Highlights:

• Overcoming Food Anxiety: Learn how to manage anxiety-driven food avoidance and regain control over your dietary choices.
• The Role of Fibre: Understand the vital role of fibre in nurturing a healthy gut microbiome and why its reintroduction matters.
• Mindful Eating: Discover the importance of mindful eating during the reintroduction phase and its impact on digestion.
• Professional Support: Learn why working with a trained nutrition professional can be valuable in the food reintroduction journey.
• Symptom Tracking: Get insights into tracking your symptoms and using a food diary to monitor your progress.
• Success Stories: Hear real-life examples of clients who successfully expanded their diets by reintroducing foods.

Links

1. Ep 2 - How to eat - https://player.captivate.fm/episode/019c8f5f-6ea6-4bdf-a586-b2c584fc8821
2. Ep 6 - Tracking for IBS - get the free IBS symptom tracker - https://player.captivate.fm/episode/e5465c15-fc31-4829-9a7c-525094761043
3. Email me some ideas for future episodes if you have a topic I should cover - info@goodnessme-nutrition.com
4. Website - www.goodnessme-nutrition.com

When it's time for my gut reset clients to start reintroducing foods to their

diet, they often find it quite scary.

After all, the reason the food was eliminated in the first place was

because it caused digestive issues.

After working through my clear process, you can discover it is

possible to eat more food than you do now and even enjoy it.

I've helped hundreds of people get a better understanding of

how food affects them and how to increase their diet diversity.

In this episode of the Inside Knowledge podcast, I'll be sharing my experience of

reintroducing food to an IBS diet, so you can get back to eating a broad and varied

diet and actually enjoy your food again.

Hello!

Welcome to episode 15 of the Inside Knowledge with me, Anna Matson.

Now, first of all, I want to start by saying sorry for my

slightly croaky voice this morning.

It is a little bit croaky because I have been away for the weekend and had

a lot of late nights and a lot of fun, and now my voice is slightly suffering.

So, if this is your first episode you've ever listened to, I don't

know why it sounds like this.

Anyway, I'm going to struggle on if it's too annoying.

Skip to the next one.

So we're going to talk today about why you have to reintroduce foods, and

how to in a way that feels safe to you.

I'm never up for pushing anyone to start introducing foods they don't

feel ready to, but what I want to do in this episode is explain to you a

little bit about why it's important, and then how you can actually go about it

in a way that wouldn't feel too scary.

You can do it in your own time, wherever you are in the world, with whatever foods

you feel like you need to reintroduce.

often foods that you're thinking about reintroducing is really vegetables,

fruits, wheat often, and dairy.

I'd say those are the most common foods that people are excluding.

And they are very, very important to us because of the fibre.

So when we eat a good fibre rich diet, it's feeding

beneficial bacteria in the gut.

When you don't eat that, when you have a low fibre diet for the long term.

You're effectively starving out your gut microbes of food.

And if they don't have enough food to eat, they don't want to hang around

in your gut, so it means they go.

And this means that other bad bacteria can take over the place

of the good guys, and this can lead to further digestive problems.

Now, if you're in a situation where you haven't eaten fibre for a long time,

maybe you've been doing like a kind of Atkins diet, or even the carnivore

diet, which is basically just eating meat and animal products and no fibre.

This can lead to a transition period where your body is readjusting and

learning to take in the good bacteria again, so it can take a little while

to get to a good position which is why I really suggest going slowly so

you don't scare yourself off and you don't start some of these big problems.

The other thing to be really conscious of is how your anxiety is around food.

A lot of people I work with have been avoiding foods for a long time because

of severe digestive discomfort, and it's led them to have really bad food anxiety.

So, thinking about food a lot, becoming quite obsessive with what

is and what isn't included in certain food products, and, the thought of

changing it can be really challenging.

So there's a mental aspect to this as well as a digestive and kind of health

aspect and I think it's really important for you to think about how much of this

is anxiety driven because when we're really nervous and anxious that can

actually affect our digestion as well.

This brings me on to the first Point in the process that I want you to think

about what is the right time to start reintroducing foods Firstly like you don't

want to do this when you're just about to move house You're going on holiday in two

weeks or maybe you're being made redundant to work These are all super stressful

things or things that change your routine.

So it's important to find a time In your life where you can have some space in your

schedule, you can start to plan what's going to happen and also have a little

bit of space for if things do go wrong.

If you're going to need to take a little afternoon on the sofa, for

example, to feel a bit tired, maybe just trying to find a little bit

of time in your life where it's slightly less busy and less stressful.

Although I would say nearly all of my clients have busy family lives,

caring responsibilities and full on jobs, so I know that is hard to find.

But when your digestion is calm and you feel relaxed, that is a better time

to try to start introducing new foods.

So that's the first point, is find a good time for you.

Then secondly, you want to be aware that some kind of reaction to food

reintroduction is considered normal.

So whilst, like I said, you can be quite anxious about changes in your

digestion, and maybe a mild increase in gas or bloating and that sort of thing,

and those kind of thoughts can really go on to trigger a full blown flare up

if you start to become super anxious.

So it's normal for there to be some kind of digestive reaction.

And this might look like a bit of gurgling in your stomach, maybe a little

bit more gas production, maybe, just some changes in how you feel in terms of

fullness and satiety, because sometimes...

Eating a vegetable rich diet, it's quite bulky, so although it's low calorie

and low energy when you eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, there's quite

a lot of content, and for some people that feels very uncomfortable to have

a full tummy, even though the calorie and energy density is pretty low.

So the reason we get some of these kind of gurglings and gas production could

be down to gut microbes enjoying the fibre that is finally getting to the gut.

This could be a good thing.

It might also be down to changes in your bacteria.

Sometimes we get changes in bad bacteria dying off.

They can kind of throw up a little last flare and the last, bit of gurgling as

they put, as they go on their way out.

And it might be down to your body just adjusting to certain changes

in fats, proteins, and carbs.

Some amount of bloating and gas doesn't mean that this isn't working

or that you should stop the trial.

You need to work out what is mild discomfort, what you can tolerate,

and actually what is too much, what's unbearable, and you need to stop.

It's really down to you, and so definitely recommend listening to

your body and stopping the process if it feels too uncomfortable.

Point number three is to take very small increases in foods to begin with, so

starting low and slow, and this is often my advice with anything to do with IBS.

Don't rush in and start everything all at once.

Start low and slow, , with very small amounts of your

chosen food and then build up.

Now, one way I reintroduce bringing back fibre for those people

who have been avoiding a lot of vegetables for a very long time.

is something called a microbiome mash up.

This is a mash up of 15 to 20 different cooked vegetables.

You cook them down, maybe just a small portion of each, but you just mix

them up and it goes into, to be fair, quite a brown, gooey, lumpy mash.

A bit like baby food.

But you only need to eat one to two tablespoons a day.

The rest of it can be chilled or it can be frozen in small boxes.

This is a strategy that's been used by someone called Dr.

Datis Karazian.

He works with autoimmune patients to reintroduce foods after elimination diets,

and I just read about it once on a blog.

Um, but it actually works very well for those people who've avoided

all vegetables for way too long.

Think about it like you are weaning a baby, so you're

literally just reintroducing foods back to your gut microbes.

This mash up can, you can add a little bit of salt to it to

make it a bit more interesting.

You can add any kinds of vegetables, and it's just literally a small amount just to

sort of reintroduce and reacclimatize your gut microbes to a small amount of fiber.

So, that's one approach.

The other thing you could do is to try each food individually, particularly

foods that you know are going to be a little bit safer, foods that you're

less worried about, just to try to bring things back one at a time.

And in this way, you end up with more data about the foods

and about what they do to you.

Now, the fourth point is going back to episode number three of

this podcast, which was about eating mindfully and eating slowly,

really focusing on how you eat.

During this reintroduction phase, you might find it helpful to

focus on the basics of eating.

This includes things like chewing your food really well,

sitting upright at a table.

Trying to get into a relaxed state before you start eating by doing

some deep breathing, focusing on diaphragmatic breath, sitting

upright, these things really do help because they get your mind into a

safe space in order to receive food.

And it might sound too basic, but it does make a big difference, so just a

little reminder to go back and listen to that episode if you haven't already.

My next point is really about working with a trained nutrition professional

who understands IBS and SIBO.

Someone who really knows about what foods do to your digestion, where

to start, what order to do them in.

It really helps depending on what you've been avoiding.

And someone who understands what these foods can do to you and what what

reactions you might be expected to.

experience.

It's helpful to understand these kind of things as you're bringing the foods

back in, but also it's helpful to have someone cheering you on, to have someone

supporting you, someone you can ask questions to if you feel like things are

not going well, because if you try to do this on your own, and I appreciate for

some of you that is the only option, but if you can, working with someone who can

fully explain to you what is Okay, and also when to stop can be really helpful.

Even if you are not working with a nutrition professional, then you're still

going to need to track your symptoms.

And the best way to do this is to use a food diary and track your symptoms

as you're introducing each food.

Now, I did an episode on this previously.

And you can go back and listen to episode 6 if you want a bit

more details on how to do that.

Also, in episode 6, in the show notes, is a link so you can download my diet

and IBS tracker, which I use with my clients, and will help you if you

don't know where to start with this.

The things I want you to look at though is to think about how is your

digestion reacting to the food that you've been eating, but also think

about your other signs in the body such as has my sleep been affected?

What has my skin been like during this trial?

Am I bloated all day or just after I've eaten that food?

Am I still bloated in the morning if I ate it yesterday?

Is the reaction to this food immediate or does it appear a few days later?

And also, think about your mood.

Is my mood changing?

These are sort of slightly tangential effects of food, but

I think they're really important

it's also good to monitor your stress levels throughout this because if you

notice anxiety is particularly high, it's worth recording that in your food

diary because, as we know, it can make a difference to how you digest your food.

If you're someone who's been avoiding loads and loads of foods and your diet

is very narrow, then my last point is to think about how you're going to

choose which foods to bring back in.

In some ways, It doesn't really matter.

It doesn't matter as long as you're eating more variety and more different foods.

But, one of the things you could try to consider is, are you just bringing

in foods that your body needs, or is it foods that you've been missing the most?

Sometimes I ask my clients, What would you prefer to do?

Would you want to go for something that you really love, that you want to

try, but might be more of a trigger?

Or, should we focus on something that I think your body needs and that is missing

from your diet, but might not be as tasty?

And what I mean by that is sometimes people haven't been craving carrots and

they haven't been craving beans, for example, but I think they would be a

really good fibre addition to their diet.

And it very much depends on the individual and what you like and

what you have been eating so far.

But try to be, try to avoid being led by your cravings when you're working

out which foods to reintroduce.

Try to look at your diet overall.

Now, for some people, it might be focusing, like I said at the

beginning, on vegetables, fibre, beans and pulses, maybe nuts and seeds.

For other people, it might be reintroducing fats.

So I focused on fiber in this episode, but for you, if you've been on a very

low fat diet for a very long time, maybe you need to think about reintroducing

healthy fats, and you could start by small amounts of avocado or little

bits of nuts and seeds, for example.

These are also important contributions to a good, healthy, balanced diet.

I thought I might just end this episode with a few examples of how

two of my clients have previously reintroduced foods in the past few years.

So there's one client, he'd been on a low FODMAP diet for over two years,

which isn't recommended because it's cutting out all fermentable fibres,

um, and this was to help him manage abdominal pain, constipation and gas.

As part of when we were working together, we ran a SIBO breath test, which suggested

that he might have had hydrogen sulfide gas producing bacteria in his intestines.

Now, there isn't a clear test for this in the UK.

If you live in the US, there is a test for hydrogen sulfide, but

we don't have one here in the UK.

But what we can do is just look at the results and see.

They give us a suggestion that you might have hydrogen sulfide.

So this was my

conclusion from his test results.

To address this sort of SIBO, the best approach is actually to really increase

fibre, almost to the point of eating a vegan diet., I also suggested he went on

a low sulphur diet, so cutting out things like onions, garlic, cruciferous veg,

and gave him some supplements as well.

And this was...

understandably anxiety causing for him.

So after years of avoiding fiber, I was asking him almost to reverse his diet to

start eating loads of fiber and hardly any meat and hardly any animal product.

So, to help his anxiety, we spent a long time talking about how fiber supports

his gut health, how it was going to crowd out hydrogen sulfide producing bacteria.

And actually he was really brave and he ate a lot of prebiotic foods and he really

went for it, in fact, almost too much.

He was eating greenish bananas, artichokes, which are particularly

high fibre foods, and he went for that microbiome veggie mashup.

He really, like, threw himself into it within his limits of

what felt comfortable for him.

And within a few weeks he had expanded his range of foods quite considerably.

So...

I suppose my reason for choosing this example was to show that somebody

who felt like he couldn't go down this route actually did it, and he

managed to get there in the end, to get there to expand out his diet.

Another example was somebody who had a long term constipation, and

she had been told by a kinesiologist to avoid gluten for 12 years.

Well, about 12 years before, she'd been told to avoid gluten.

She was eating quite a lot of fruit and vegetables, but eating the same

things day in, day out, and there wasn't much variety in her diet.

She was really worried about gluten, because she was told

it wasn't good for her, because she hadn't eaten it for so long.

And so I talked to her a lot about gluten, how it affects the gut, and

how grains can actually be a good part of a healthy, balanced diet.

So, because wheat can sometimes be an issue on its own, we started out with

non wheat containing gluten foods, such as, grains like rye, spelt, and barley.

And this didn't really change her symptoms, so she was eventually more

confident and was able to move on to eating small amounts of bread made

from wheat and pasta and other foods.

So she was able to see eventually that eating a balance

of Gluten containing foods.

It wasn't actually affecting her symptoms.

She lost her fear of eating it, which meant she could enjoy eating out again,

she was eating better with her family, and just could go for meals with her friends

again and enjoy a bit more variety.

The reason I wanted to pick out this example is her anxiety wasn't as

bad, it was just so much of a habit.

It took a while for her to change her thought processes to

allow gluten back into her diet.

The reason I wanted to highlight it is that Sometimes people can get

nutrition advice of people who are not trained nutrition professionals,

who don't have any qualifications in understanding nutrition science and

that can lead to some Dodgy advice, so please be careful where you're getting

your nutrition information from.

All right, so that brings us to the end of this episode.

If you've got a huge range of foods you've been avoiding and you want to do

something about changing it, please get in touch, book a call with me and we

can talk about what symptoms you've got.

I can share how I could help you as part of my IBS nutrition

package, the three month gut reset.

I'm doing that currently in a group setting for a quite low price or, one to

one individually which is all tailored to you and your different situation.

with people all over the world so wherever you are, whatever time zone,

hopefully we can work something out.

I'm UK based but,, I do try and accommodate people

from all over the world.

Also in the show notes is a link to my email address, so if you want me to

cover a particular episode or there's something you'd really like me to

investigate, then please let me know.

Happy to take some suggestions for future episodes of The Inside Knowledge.

Right, that is it for this week.

Hopefully I will have a bit more of a sturdy voice next

week, and I will see you then.