Scared to eat with IBS

Focus: If you’re scared to eat because of IBS symptoms, you’re not alone. Many people with Irritable Bowel Syndrome become trapped in a cycle of food fear, restrictive diets, and growing anxiety around meals. This article explores why foods can become linked to IBS flare-ups, and what may be driving those reactions. Uncovering the underlying drivers of your symptoms is the foundation of the IBS Interrupt™ Process.

People often find me when they’re scared to eat with IBS. They have got to that place where they are really worried. And they no longer know what to eat – or how to appease their IBS symptoms.

With 3 meals a day, food comes up very often with IBS. So it can understandably cause a great deal of anxiety. Don’t wait until you get really anxious. Here is what you need to know:

The link between food and IBS symptoms

In my experience there are two main ways that food becomes linked to IBS symptoms and flare-ups:

• You’ve heard you shouldn’t be eating a certain food because it sets off IBS symptoms

• When you eat a food, you digest it really badly, or have a flare-up

Let’s unpack each of these situations that can occur together, or independently.

You’ve heard you shouldn’t be eating a food

There is so much onine “advice” about what IBS sufferers should, or shouldn’t be eating.

In your mind, IBS flare-ups can become linked to diet – simply because you’ve read that they are.

Which signals to your system the idea that “some food is not safe to eat”.

(I see this a lot with IBS-D sufferers, and in particular with gluten.)

So you start cutting out all gluten “just in case”.

Through my own journey with IBS and food I uncovered something that is rarely talked about.

You have probably heard of the Placebo effect. Where a person takes a pill thought to have a positive effect, and they can experience a positive effect (even if it has a sugar pill).

Our minds are much more powerful than we think. And a similar opposite effect can work with food (known as the Nocebo effect):

We have learned that a food is bad for us, so if we eat it our body reacts as if it is bad. (to protect us).

It is possible to interrupt this pattern, but you will probably need help with this.

When you eat a certain food you digest it badly

Have you found that foods you could eat before suddenly become challenging to digest?

I found this happening more and more, and my list of “safe”, bland foods started getting shorter.

It did worry me. That’s before I came to understand food sensitivity.

What I have uncovered around food sensitivity

Through my own journey out of food sensitivity and MCS (multiple chemical sensitivity) I have witnessed this:

We can develop the habit of feeling strong emotions while we are eating, especially with foods we eat often.

Our system detects a “threat” (our repeated upset) and red-flags that food as a means of protection. Then we can’t eat that food again without our system reacting.

If you want to become more aware of what is going on at mealtimes for you, do the Open Up Your IBS 14-day experience. You’ll be surprised what you discover!

What to do today if you’re scared to eat

1) If you’re scared to eat, your best first step is to cook from scratch. Buy simple, unprocessed, organic foods you tolerate from your local market (or grow your own) so you know what you are eating.

I did this myself when I was trying to understand my food triggers.

This will take a lot of the guesswork out of food and give you back control over what you are eating.

2) If you are scared to eat it may be because you have been taught by friends, family, the media that food can’t be trusted. It is true that with the pressure to keep food costs down, we are seeing “new”, often less nutritional ingredients added to food.

However as a former Product Manager for food, I can tell you that food goes through rigourous testing before it can be marketed. It is tested very regularly (often daily, or multiple times a day). Brands are responsible if there is problem of any kind. They really want people to enjoy their product, and it is not in their interest to face expensive lawsuits or bad publicity of any kind.

3) If you are cooking from scratch and are still scared or worried around food (or experience problems swallowing, or keeping food down), you will need outside help with this – from someone who understands neuroplasticity and food intolerance and can help you reset your system to feel safer around food.