Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards

Hello Trinity,
Personally, I have had a lot of success changing my diet, and I too had the absolute worse diet in the world! I'm useless in the kitchen, so I lived off fast-food and overly processed food, and alot of chocolate, so changing my diet has been pretty hard.
What might be good is to start trying to "Break the Cycle" of IBS by going back to the "What to Eat when you Can't eat Anything" diet. You can read about here: http://www.helpforibs.com/diet/what_to_eat.asp

Then, once you feel more stable you can start adding back in foods, but don't add back in the triggers. Things to cut out include, caffeine, soda (or anything carbonated), dairy, red meat, and anything really high in fat. You can read all about the triggers here: http://www.helpforibs.com/diet/trigger1.asp

This can be hard, and I imagine at your age perhaps even more so, because when you're out with friends often food choices are not the greatest

I'm 22 and still struggling with trying to learn to eat better, especially now that I have to prepare the foods myself. It is important to completely eliminate the triggers, because even a small amount can cause attacks or keep you from feeling better. Thankfully, there are wonderful substitutes out there for many things (i.e. soy and rice products for dairy, veggie substitutes for red meat). There are many wonderful recipes on this site, and I can HONESTLY say that I'm eating better tasting stuff now than before I started the diet.

You mentioned that your a sugar addict...good news, sugar is OK for IBS! Basically, chocolate isn't because of the dairy, and you have to be careful with a lot of sweets because many contain High Fructrose Corn Syrup which can be hard on some people's tummy, but sugar itself is ok. I just made a batch of Chewy Chocolate Fudge Cookies tonight, and they are wonderful, definately satisfying for the sweet tooth...here's a link to them: http://www.helpforibs.com/messageboards/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=recipe&Number=61564&page=0&view=expanded&sb=5&o=&fpart=

Also, if you don't already have fennel and peppermint tea, I would highly recommend them, fennel is awesome for gas and bloating, and the peppermint helps with cramping. And if you're not taking a fiber supplement you should look into that too, it will really help stabilize your tummy. You can read about fiber supplements here: http://www.helpforibs.com/supplements/sol_fiber1.asp

That's about all I can think of for right now, I'm fairly new to all of this too and have gotten wonderful advice from all the great people on the board, and I'm sure you will too.

Good luck and I hope you're feeling better soon!
Kelly

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