You'll Get Better Soon

For the past 3 months or so, I’ve been on a low-fodmap diet (weird and hard, google it) and seeing a nutritionist to guide me through the process of getting my IBS food sensitivities under control. Like any drastic lifestyle change, this diet has rocked my world, influenced every eating decision, and taught me so much about myself in the process. This post is not about what I can/can’t eat, don’t worry – but it is about what this journey has been teaching me about life, some important lessons to learn I think, no matter what your food philosophy is.

For one, as someone with just an incredibly sensitive stomach (eye roll emoji), I’ve learned to accept that just like all emotions are valid, all feelings of pain and discomfort are valid. The measure of a person is not how perfectly they ate and therefore felt. It’s not how few fodmaps entered their system on a given day. What matters is not my nutritional perfection on this journey but my ability to hold it all, learn from every day, and get back up when I fall.

When I think back over my nutritionist visits, packed with information and instruction, the words I remember the most are not the explanations of serving sizes or the way food is digested, but my nutritionist’s (I should say counselor, really) words of approval and disapproval. “That’s exactly what you should be eating!” (wow, yay!) or “why weren’t you sitting at the table when you ate dinner?” (sorry, I’m the worst human) I think these words cut me, good or bad, because for so long I’ve considered eating a moral act. It is good to eat gluten-free food, or healthy food, or omega-3s, or paleo. It is bad to eat things that upset my stomach, or have too many calories, or have pesticides.

I’m trying not to think that way anymore. It is much healthier to see food choices as non-moral but consequence-laden choices, that is, a decision I make that does not increase or decrease my goodness but will influence how I feel later. This is complicated because there are moral implications in eating, secondarily – factory farming, water usage, the distance our food travels, unfair wages for workers, among many – but my point is that the food itself, and its impact on my body, is neutral until I assign a category.

The correct category for for chocolate cake, for my body, is ouch. Not evil. You see the difference.

I also used to operate under the assumption that food allergies and sensitivities were a fixed phenomenon. Like, I react violently to pizza and always will, but I’m good with hummus and always will be. The truth of the matter is that for people with IBS, they fluctuate a good bit throughout a lifetime. I can’t eat hummus now. Until this year I’ve tolerated everything but gluten pretty well. Now I react to milk, garlic, onions, legumes, fructose, and a whole long list of other things…but might not next year.

Because I hit a stressful patch. Life changes happen, and that’s good and it’s ok. My IBS was triggered to flare up. Alright. Time to slow down and do some hard work (psychological and dietary) to get better and heal.

I’m on a pretty strict low fodmap diet now, but the goal is to be progressively widening my container; broadening my good experiences with foods, increasing the amount and variety of food my system can tolerate, so that eventually I can contain a whole host of foods and situations.

Stress? Progressively, mindfully, broaden my capacity for dealing with it so that it doesn’t affect my absorption of nutrients in food.

Fodmaps and triggers? Progressively, mindfully, broaden my capacity for digesting them.

You go day to day, week to week, calming and opening and testing a little at a time, and when the container is not big enough to contain all that you are feeling (emotional or physical), you stop. You don’t eat the thing. You leave the stressful situation. You eat by yourself for a meal. Not forever, just until the container can grow.

How much healthier we would be if we approached all of life this way.

It’s identical to a yoga practice. In yoga, you widen your container. You push your “edge” physically and mentally to the place where you can’t find your breath anymore and then you pull back. You don’t keep doing the plank pose if you’re holding your breath and thinking about hamburgers. Your container has burst.

This is also what I want everyone to do during the holidays, including myself. I have to pay extra attention because I have IBS and I’ll be so sick if I stress out, but it’s true for everyone: monitor your level of activity and self-care so that they’re in balance, and have escape routes if you need them. When your container has filled, go for a walk, or don’t spend any more money, or eat a salad instead of the fast food.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you’re like me and you’ve reached a point where your body has rebelled against the stress you’ve lived through, even if it was all good stress, give it a break. Take care of yourself. Stop eating fodmaps if you have IBS. Spend an afternoon alone if your introvert tank is empty. Do the things that fill your soul, and trust the process of healing. All feelings are valid, even pain and discomfort. You’ll get better soon.