Is Your Gut Stressed Out? [Part Two]

Your best friend had great results on the paleo diet but your mom keeps raving how all her bloating is gone after embarking on a low FODMAP diet. You’re left trying to decide which is right for you.

Wait, FOD-what?

The word diet simply means a style of eating. I personally follow the “Laura Diet”. I don’t live under a certain dietary label because I’ve done the work to clean up my digestive system and like you read in Part One, activate my rest and digest system in a way that works for me. When I was 19 I went to my Doctor with severe pain in left side and he told me it didn’t make sense, the only thing there was my intestines. I was left to research my symptoms myself. I went to school and figured it out on my own and now I know which foods I feel best on and which foods make me feel not so good. Needless to say I’ve never had that excruciating pain again.

There are so many diets in the world of health that most people end up feeling confused what to eat when they start googeling their symptoms and don’t end up making any changes at all. When you’re having gut problems and don’t know where to start because the diet part is so overwhelming. When many people come to me, they are at their wits end. They exclaim they’ve tried everything and nothing helps their symptoms or they’ve become reactive to more foods.

Let’s take a look at a client case. Vanessa came to me after being on a very restricted diet for well over a year with no success in relieving her gas, bloating and constipation. Her gas and bloating we’re so severe that it caused her to take a leave of absence from her job. She was prescribed a myriad of different anti-fungal, anti-yeast and cleansing supplements and herbs, which continued to make her symptoms worse. She tried introducing different types of probiotics, again worsening her symptoms.

I had Vanessa stop all her supplements and slowly re-introduce some easy to digest and healing foods. I then transferred her onto a low FODMAP diet. While she was following the diet we added in some gentle digestive support to get her bowels moving properly and decrease her bloating. And of course, we added in some exercises to activate her rest and digest system.

A low FODMAP diet is an elimination style diet that removes many foods that are otherwise considered healthy like cauliflower, apples, mango, beets, garlic and onions.

FODMAP = Fermentable Oligo-Di-Monosaccharides and Polyols

FODMAPs are osmotic (which means they pull water into the intestinal tract), may not be digested or absorbed well, and could be fermented upon by bacteria in the intestinal tract when eaten in excess.

When I put a client on a low FOMDAP diet (or any healing diet for that matter) I always reiterate the fact that it is temporary. We use it as a tool to find out what’s going on their body and build their health upward.

Stay tuned for Part 3 where I’ll go into detail about Vanessa’s outcome and how you can get started on your own healthy gut journey!