Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards

First, I absolutely agree with you that anxiety over food makes our digestive problems worse. When we constantly fret over very single food choice and worry that we haven't figured out the perfect eating plan, I think we do make our IBS worse. There is a lot to be said for just trying foods - if your body hates them you'll hear about it.

At the same time, however, this Board exists to provide support and information for people who want to follow Heather's Eating For IBS Diet because we believe that approach provides a good shot at getting our IBS under enough control so we can live relatively normal, reasonably productive lives.

To me that means that when someone on the Board says that dairy or egg yolks or red meat or high fat foods or MSG or caffeine or alcohol is fine for her IBS - or even good for her IBS - someone else needs to speak up and say, "Not under this eating program" or "Not for most IBSers" or "This just killed me." I don't think there's anything wrong with the first person saying the food has helped her but I think if no one posts the EFI side of the matter then this Board loses its effectiveness and becomes simply another IBS Board where anything goes and all approaches are considered equally effective.

So if you post that ghee is great for your IBS and no one else says boo, I'm going to step up and say that fat is a brutal IBS trigger for most people and that under the EFI approach all dairy is considered a trigger whether it has lactose or not. I hope I'll do it respectfully and perhaps even with a little humor, but I know that won't always be the case. After all, someone has to have the misfortune to be the 93rd person that day who suggested eating dairy.

I'm pretty rigid about this but it's not because I think the EFI Diet is - or claims to be - the "only effective answer". I know there are people for whom the EFI approach doesn't work. I know there are people who report that other approaches have worked. But here on this Board I believe it's important to maintain focus, to re-emphasize that if someone is going to try the EFI approach she needs to try if full-on. Otherwise, how can she ever truly know whether it will work?

You see, while I agree with you that angsting over food makes our IBS worse, I don't think that anxiety is a function of following the EFI Diet - I think people bring that with them to the Diet. It's understandable for people with IBS. After all, food has been an enemy for a long, long time. Heather's approach doesn't create the anxiety. Rather it provides a framework to reduce the anxiety. The EFI Diet is simply not that complicated: avoid trigger foods, base each meal and snack on a food from the Soluble Fiber foods list; eat safe proteins; and eat as much Insoluble Fiber as you can handle. This is not rocket science.

So when I say people should skip the anxiety step and just try foods, I don't mean trigger foods. What I mean is don't agonize over whether an apple is too much IF or too little. Don't lie awake at night worrying about whether you should eat one tablespoon of cooked spinach or two. Don't fret over green grapes versus red grapes, oranges versus grapefruits, pears versus peaches, pasta versus rice, sweet potatoes versus white potatoes, Yukon Golds versus Russets. Just try stuff. If your body doesn't like it, you'll hear about it.

One final thought about anxiety. As wonderful as the Diet Board is, I also believe that for some people it's a huge source of anxiety. Anyone who is agonizing over food choices should probably stop reading the Boards for a while and go back to the Website outside the Boards and Heather's books for a refresher course on just how straightforward the EFI Diet principles are. It's just way too nitpicky in here sometimes.

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[Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate. - Sandra Boynton]

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