Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Any ideas (feeling worse)?

Thanks Michele - I drink loads of water all day and haven't taken any supplements yet - just changed my diet to mostly rice cakes, basmati rice, white bread and added in a bit of chicken/fish a few well cooked veg and peeled cooked fruit.

Before this I was eating a lot more veg, some whole grains, beans and raw fruit with skins on; so I have seriously increased my soluble fibre whilst drastically reducing my insoluble fibre, and cut out fat at the same time. Should I be doing all of this much more gradually?

As for exercise, I wonder if this has been the key to my problems all along. I used to be a swimmer - training intensively for about 9 hours a week (boy, was I fit!) Next to yoga, swimming is THE most stress relieving exercise and it takes all your stomach muscles just to keep you afloat. (I could swim 5 miles by the time I was 9 and at 13 could swim 3 lengths of a 25 metre pool underwater without coming up for air)(I'm only boasting here - hard to believe now!) At 14 I gave it up. By 17, IBS was starting and has got worse ever since. Now I sit hunched over a desk all day at work and do very little exercise aside from a 10 minute walk to the bus stop.

It's hard to exercise though when you feel like you've got a hot air balloon fully inflated inside you.

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