When you’re living with digestive issues or IBS, maintaining a healthy relationship can feel difficult, to say the least. And sometimes, the way food makes you feel—we’re talking bloating, cramping, or unpredictable trips to the bathroom—can even make you afraid to eat.

If this sounds familiar, you’re in the right place. Anna Mapson is a  registered nutritional therapist who specializes in IBS and digestive health, and understands the delicate balance between managing gut symptoms and managing a healthy relationship with food. Today, she’s my special guest as we explore how food fear can develop when you’re constantly trying to avoid symptoms, how that overlaps with disordered eating, and why simply cutting out more foods isn’t the answer. 

Do we really have to talk about digestion? 

If talking about your digestion feels a little embarrassing, you’re not alone. My clients are always like, “Is this TMI?”, but here’s the deal: there’s no such thing as TMI when you’re talking to a dietician or medical professional. We’ve heard it all, so bring it on. 

I say this because it’s so, so important to be able to confidently talk about what’s up with your digestion because it tells us so much about what’s going on with our bodies. And having someone who knows how to interpret what’s going on can help diagnose those signs. 

It’s more common to have issues with digestion than you think. Around one in 10 people in their lifetime will have some kind of episode of trouble with their digestion. Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is really common, but since nobody talks about it, we don’t realize others are struggling as well.  

Why elimination diets can backfire long-term 

Have you ever had a bad experience with a meal, then analyzed what you ate to try to figure out what to cut out? For example, maybe you ate a cheesy pasta for dinner, then had a bit of bloating or an upset stomach. Our thoughts tend to go something like this: 

“I had a lot of cheese, so maybe I should cut out dairy. And there was gluten in the pasta, so I should cut that out too.”

While this reaction makes sense—your brain is trying to keep you safe from going through an uncomfortable situation again—the problem is you don’t actually know which of those foods was the trigger or not, so you cut out everything just to be safe. But this reaction can backfire long-term on both your physical and mental heath. 

Physical Consequences to Cutting Out Foods

Soon, the foods you can eat become narrower and narrower, and often leading to undereating and the following digestive changes:

• Slower emptying of the stomach. Food sits heavy in your stomach when you eat a normal-sized meal, making you feel like you ate more than you should. But your body is trying to extract the maximum amount of nutrients because you haven’t eaten well in a while.

• Stomach acid production slows. When you’re worried about eating, your body goes into fight-flight-freeze mode and creates less stomach acid, leading to bloating. 

• Constipation. If there isn’t enough food coming through your system, the muscles that push that food through your gut become sluggish, leading to constipation and gas build-up. 
• Reduce gut bacteria diversity. The bacteria in your large intestine love to feed on different types of fiber. Yet fiber is one of the first things that people will remove, along with prebiotics like garlic and onions, and vegetables like mushrooms, cauliflower, chickpeas, and lentils. 

Cutting out a lot of foods and undereating is a bit of a vicious cycle you get trapped with every time you eat. But you need to eat to move forward through those blockages. 

Mental Side of Eliminating Foods 

When you cut a lot of foods out and only stick to “safe” things, you’re reinforcing that mindset that those foods are “bad” and that you do need to stay on the safe side. Creating these mental blockages are instinctual, but they are actually making symptoms worse by creating food fear.

Food fear: Why it’s important to work through it 

There’s a lot of misinformation online about food. We hear a lot about how gluten is inflammatory, dairy is inflammatory, or there’s all sorts of toxins in our food. That language is scary, right? And the more danger you associate with food, the less likely you are to try it. In extreme cases, when people are trying to eat organic and be “healthy”, this can turn into orthorexia (an obsession with eating “healthy”). 

But your body thrives off of the most expansive diet you can tolerate. It wants nutrients from a variety of sources, not just from the same “safe” foods, for a healthy digestive system. Instead of cutting everything out, work with a certified professional to identify which foods you react to and then how to bring them back in carefully so you get the broadest diet that you can handle.

Practical tips to expand your diet without flaring your symptoms 

If you want to discern what your body and digestive system can tolerate and what it can’t, try the FODMAP diet under a professional’s care: 

1. Get a baseline of consistent reactions to food. The key here is “consistent,” not perfect.
2. Bring food back in carefully and slowly, noting new symptoms as they appear. 
3. If there are no symptoms, bring that food back in, and try a new food. 

The great thing about using the FODMAP diet to uncover possible intolerances is if a certain food in one category doesn’t raise symptoms, the other foods in that category should be good too (always test to be sure). 

Everybody will react differently—some people will react to garline and others won’t. The way you break down and digest food depends on your genetics, health conditions, and the rest of your diet.

There’s always options for expanding the diet, no matter where you are or what you’re eating. 

Key Takeaways

There’s a lot of fear and anxiety around eating, and it can be hard to let go of that control or that feeling that you’re doing something good by avoiding it. But when you try it and start to feel better—you’re not as bloated, not running to the toilet as much, not in as much pain—it starts to feel better and you can enjoy your food. 

It is a process that requires support, so find an expert you trust to guide you. 

This isn’t fluff (and trust me, I get that it might be a little uncomfortable to talk about), but whether you’re navigating IBS, other gut issues, or supporting someone who is, I hope this post helps you feel less embarrassed, less alone, and more hopeful about your path forward!

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