This post is sponsored by ModifyHealth. Thanks for supporting the brands that make The No Gluten Girl possible. All opinions are my own.
A few days ago, I had the pleasure of going live on Instagram with Katie Regan, one of ModifyHealth’s in-house RDN’s, and it was one of the best conversations I’ve had in awhile. Truly. Our conversation focused on navigating IBS, gut health, food, healing journeys, and so much more.
I wanted to bring on Katie because I am not a trained medical profession. I wanted to offer the perspective of someone who has immense professional knowledge and expertise when it comes to Low FODMAP, gut health, IBS, etc. I can talk about my personal experiences, what I’ve learned for myself along the way, and openly share my own health journey, but I cannot, should not, and will not tell you what you should do for your body.
Founded by GI professionals who are patients themselves, ModifyHealth is the first and only Low FODMAP certified, nationwide meal delivery service that brings together expert, trained dietitians like Katie and award-winning chefs who work WITH YOU (and any patient knows that is the ultimate key right there) to create fresh, Low FODMAP meals that are specifically designed to help you feel better both emotionally and physically and help you navigate your own food triggers, as this is something that is going to be incredibly individualized and different for everyone. They are the only meal delivery company that is Monash University Low FODMAP certified; Monash is where Low FODMAP started and they are the gold standard in the Low FODMAP world.
If you haven’t heard or seen me talk about ModifyHealth yet, which, if you’ve been following along for a while, you definitely have – give this previous blog a read for even more background. It goes into how ModifyHealth is revolutionizing the Low FODMAP diet for those with gut health issues and how they’ve helped me with mine.
If you missed the live, you can catch the full replay on my IGTV here, and I’m going to recap/highlight some of the most important parts of our discussion here in case reading is more your thing! Get cozy, grab some tea even, and get ready for a good read.
To give you a little background on Katie, she went to Purdue University, where she studied dietetics and nutrition fitness and health. When she went on to pursue her first dietetic internship, that’s where she dove even deeper into Low FODMAP at a time when she was experiencing some health issues herself. That’s what led her to pursue a career with a focus on gut health, and now she is an RDN working with ModifyHealth.
When I was first told to go on a low FODMAP diet by a doctor, after recently being diagnosed with SIBO alongside my IBD and IBS, I was literally handed a one page pamphlet with a few sentences printed on it and told, “good luck.”
The sad thing is that my personal experience is incredibly common, and something that Katie hears about far too often. It’s something that can lead to the kind of food fear that I’ve spoken about and struggled with, and it’s something that can do even more damage to not only your psyche, but also your gut.
I never want anyone to feel the way that I once did, and I know Katie shares that same aspiration.
Katie likes to call Low FODMAP a protocol, rather than a diet, and I love the way she phrases this. It’s essentially three-fold, starting with an elimination phase. In this stage, high FODMAP foods are eliminated.
For those of you who may not know what FODMAP means (sometimes I even have trouble remembering, not going to lie) it’s an acronym that stands for:
F: Fermentable (gut bacteria ferment undigested carbohydrates to produce gases)
O: Oligosaccharides (fructans and GOS foods such as wheat, rye, onions and garlic)
D: Disaccharides (lactose foods such as milk, soft cheeses and yogurt)
M: Monosaccharides (fructose foods such as honey, apples, high fructose corn syrup)
A: and
P: Polyols (mannitol and sorbitol foods such as some fruits, vegetables, artificial sweeteners)
With IBS patients, they can span the whole gamut from diarrhea to constipation, with gas and bloating in between. Where I fall honestly depends on the day, on my stress, and on my meals, and let me just say – everyone poops, ok? Ok. Moving on.
Katie also stresses the idea that it’s a Low FODMAP protocol, not a No FODMAP protocol. You first reduce the aforementioned high FODMAP foods so that you can then reintroduce them. And this is the critical part that needs to be done with a dietician and that too many people often either perform wrong or completely avoid out of fear (that’s what happened to me.) I stayed on the elimination phase for FAR too long, which, in turn, not only affected my perception of food, but also drastically affected my gut biome as well because I was missing out on so many key nutrients and lacking diversity in my diet. It’s not meant to be elimination for life. It’s the complete opposite, actually. The protocol is only meant to span a few months in which you’re meant to determine your specific triggers so that you can be aware of them and know what your personal limits are when it comes to certain foods. For example, I can have dairy, but it has to be low lactose. Give me some aged cheddar and parmesan and I’m a happy girl, but give me a glass of milk, and I’ll be a girl who can’t leave the bathroom.
When you go through the reintroduction phase, you take all of those FODMAP groups one at a time and you taper them back in. Since we mentioned milk, we used milk as an example. Let’s say you start off with a ¼ cup of milk. You see how you tolerate that, and then monitor your symptoms. If you’re good with that, then it’s on to a ½ cup. You feel great with ½ cup, but, then, a few days later, when you have a whole cup (under the guidance of a professional) it’s a sh*t show, literally. You’ve gained so much valuable information right there. That whole process is necessary to know your limit and to know, “Hey, wow, I actually can have milk, but I can only tolerate a ½ cup. I don’t have to be scared of it anymore because I now understand my body so much better.”
The third stage is a more personalized approach where you can go forth with your dietician and with that knowledge to tap into your intuition and your learnings.
When it comes to moving forward and navigating food fear as you introduce new foods, something that Katie talks about is that it’s important to acknowledge that food fear exists in our society and can exist within ourselves, especially when you’ve been through hell and back medically. Acknowledging it is the first step towards working through it and moving past it. This is really why you want to work with a trained, low FODMAP dietician, because they can help guide you through this process. Fear often stems from what’s unknown to us, what we are scared of happening. Having someone who can hold your hand in the dark, guide you through, and show you what to do and what lies ahead can help to bring in the light that is so needed. If the protocol is done properly, with the right guidance, it offers the potential to find true relief and freedom from your symptoms.
I went on to share my personal experience with food fear, where I am now, and Katie and I both offered some of our tips and tricks when it comes to working your way through a medically necessary protocol, especially in your 20’s, which you can find in the full video!
Overall, we emphasized the idea that focusing on what you CAN have, and working to shift that mindset over time, helps to mitigate some of the stress and anxiety that we all have experienced. Whether it’s being the one to choose the restaurant you want to go to or taking inspiration from the meals that ModifyHealth offers, it’s all about bringing that joy back into food in order to go from just surviving to truly thriving. To go from fear to freedom. To go from feeling pain to finding your power.
You can head to my IGTV to find the complete conversation, and, if you’re interested in trying ModifyHealth for yourself, you can use the code THENOGLUTENGIRL at checkout for $20 off each week for the next 3 weeks, for a total of $60 saved.
