IBS: The Food Frustration

It’s ironic (or maybe it’s not) that as I sit down to write this post on the frustrations of eating with IBS, my belly is bloated, feels awful and is making all sorts of weird gurgling sounds. After last month’s post talking about how my IBS has decided to flair-up after being pretty quiet and leaving me to my own devices for about 1 1/2 years I had hoped that when it came time to write a follow-up post that I would have things well under control again. This is clearly not the case, in fact things are actually worse now than they were then. The IBS Food Frustration is REAL.

(last month on the left, today on the right)

bloated.

uncomfortable.

and hurty. Not like, I’m doubled up in pain hurty, but more in the, “I don’t want to eat anything because everything seems to just make it worse” hurty.

I’ve been following the FODMAP diet pretty well, and keeping track of what makes me feel unwell, but it’s such a difficult thing to pinpoint.

Each of the last three nights I’ve been pretty ill from eating. One night I thought it was because I had a glass of milk with supper, but I can have milk on cereal and have no ill effects at all, and I can drink chocolate milk also without any problems. But drinking just a small glass of plain milk seems to be no good. How does that make sense? Does the carbs/sugar in the other two ways somehow make it more tolerable? I wouldn’t think so, but what do I know?

Two other nights I had meals with a number of ingredients so it’s hard to know which one was the culprit. I feel like maybe it was too many carbohydrates in one sitting just based on how I felt afterwards, but I have no real basis for that assumption.

It’s frustrating. The foods that we know to be healthy for us nutritionally, are often many of the same foods that make me feel unwell. This isn’t a newsflash to me since I’m married to someone with Ulcerative Colitis, but it’s something that continues to be a frustration. How am I suppose to eat healthy, nutritionally dense foods when those are the foods that make me feel bloated and unwell for hours and sometimes days afterwards? You know what doesn’t make me feel sick when I eat it? Stouffer’s Macaroni and Cheese. It’s about as unhealthy as you can get, packaged white pasta and cheese, but when I am at my wit’s end and don’t know what to eat – that is what I can go buy, and eat, and know that I’ll feel just fine afterwards.

How does that make sense? It doesn’t.

Protein proves to be another difficulty for me. I don’t eat fish, lamb, duck, turkey or wild game. I tolerate chicken (but don’t enjoy it), very occasionally have beef and pork, and about 2-3 full servings of protein powder/week (I usually only put 1/2 a serving in shakes). The majority of my protein comes from chicken and greek yogurt – with some help from cheese, milk, and the few nuts and seeds I can tolerate.

Gone are the days of enjoying nuts and seeds as snacks for added protein. Now I only seem to tolerate them in small quantities (and even then, only select varieties).

Needless to say, my goal of ensuring I eat adequate protein (which in my case is about 140g/day), falls far short nearly everyday. Not because I’m not trying, but because I find it nearly impossible to find enough rich protein sources that my GI Tract can handle, and that I enjoy eating.

So here I am, the nutrition coach, coaching others on how to eat adequate protein, eat lots of vegetables (currently there are very few vegetables and fruit I can tolerate raw or cooked) and to avoid processed food – and I am finding myself becoming more and more desperate to find foods that don’t upset my stomach, and finding that those foods do not seem to fall in line with what I am telling others to do.

Does that make me a hypocrite? No I don’t think so, it just goes to show that every person is different. What works for one person will not work for another. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not urging people to eat processed foods and to ignore my (or another’s) healthy eating advice. What I am saying is that there are exceptions to every rule, and until my IBS gets back under control my diet is going to have considerably fewer fresh vegetables and fruits, nuts and seeds than it normally does. Thankfully, my VEGA One does have 6 servings of veggies in 1 serving of protein powder, and I still seem to be okay with spinach in my smoothies so while not in the ideal form, I will still be able to get the nutrition I need.

But I still need to figure out how to get more tolerable protein in.

It’s frustrating, and annoying. But I know this won’t last forever. It’s just a bump in the digestive road. And hopefully not a l-o-n-g one.