5 Mindsets To Let Go Of For A Happier Gut

Who is ready to find their happy gut place this year? We know you are ready! Mindset can play a huge role in both managing your gut symptoms and learning to love your body. This year we want to help you decrease your anxiety around food and find your happy gut place. To kick start this journey we want to chat about 5 mindsets to let go of for a happier gut.

5 Mindsets To Let Go Of For A Happier Gut

1. All or nothing mindset.

We often see people who think they need to follow the low FODMAP diet perfectly otherwise everything is ruined. But my friends, life is not perfect. Mistakes happen and striving for perfection is not going to do your gut any favours. In fact it will probably wind up making you super anxious and you’ll find yourself crying in the supermarket.

If you are new to the low FODMAP diet process, then focus on removing the major sources of high FODMAP foods from your diet first (don’t forget to look at your drinks too). Once you do this you should start to see some positive changes in your symptoms. Many find this is enough for a good improvement in symptoms  – if your symptoms are still problematic then your next step is to go through your processed foods and look for sneaky high FODMAP ingredients.

It’s also okay if you end up having a high FODMAP meal in the first phase of the low FODMAP diet. This doesn’t undo all your hard work. The high FODMAP foods will move out of your system within approximately a 3 day period – all you need to do is focus on making low FODMAP food choices. Just make sure these high FODMAP meals aren’t happening on a regular basis otherwise you won’t be able to tell if the low FODMAP diet is working.

2. Staying on a restrictive diet when symptoms aren’t improving.

People with gut issues often get stuck in the restrictive diet trap – where they continue to restrict their diet or remove more foods when their symptoms aren’t improving. The person might start by going gluten free, when that doesn’t work they remove all dairy products along with gluten, then go egg free or tomato free, and then add the low FODMAP diet on top of removing these other foods.

The issue with this is that the person often ends up on an overly restrictive diet that isn’t needed to manage symptoms. If removing something from your diet doesn’t help reduce symptoms then it’s okay to add it back into your diet (the exceptions here are if you have coeliac disease, a food allergy, or have been asked to remove a food by your doctor). So if removing egg from your diet for 2 weeks doesn’t reduce your gut symptoms, then you likely don’t need to continue to restrict it.

Also remember that there are a range of different factors that can affect our gut symptoms from food, stress and anxiety, sleep, hydration, exercise, and daily habits like how we eat our foods. Often you’ll need a mixture of strategies to get good long-term symptom management. Our top tip is to be systematic when thinking about food triggers, get expert help from our FODMAP Made Easy programme or an expert gut health dietitian, and don’t keep doing the same things over and over again if they aren’t working for you.

3. Labelling foods good or bad.

Hands up if you are guilty of this – we definitely are. It is so easy to get into the trap of labelling foods good or bad for our health. The issue with this mentality is that it can increase food anxiety and encourage binge eating patterns. At the end of the day if the food contains fat or no fat, sugar or no sugar, carbs or no carbs – it’s all food.

We find that people do best when they include a variety of foods in their diet. It’s okay to incorporate treats or takeout meals into your eating habits providing you are eating plenty of fruits, vegetables and wholegrains. There are no food police here and you don’t need to feel guilty.

When it comes to high FODMAP foods take care to not label these as bad foods either (whether or not they cause you symptoms). Labelling high FODMAP foods as ‘bad’ or ‘unsafe’ increases anxiety when you eat them and can make them much harder to reintroduce. Instead just say to yourself (and others) that you are avoiding these foods for a little bit and that you hope to bring them back into your diet at a later date. Also remember that tolerance levels can change over time, so even if you struggle with a FODMAP group now, you might be able to bring those foods back later on.

4. Focusing on the numbers.

If you are obsessed with the scale in the bathroom or the kitchen then it’s time to take a break. Focusing on the numbers can lead to unhealthy thought patterns which can increase your risk of disordered eating. Here’s what we suggest you do instead:

1. Listen to your body and eat to your hungry cues (make sure you don’t confuse these with being tired or emotional)
2. Include lots of fruit, vegetables, wholegrains and legumes you tolerate in your diet. Once you move into the personalised or adapted FODMAP diet phase it makes it easier to include a wider variety of these.
3. Be gentle on yourself. When you look in the mirror instead of picking at your flaws think about the things you like or admire about your body and appreciate what it does for you every day to keep you alive
4. Remember that while portion size is important on the low FODMAP diet an extra blueberry or cherry tomato isn’t going to ruin your progress. Being a few grams over the recommended portion size is okay for most foods. Also many people find that just swapping out high FODMAP foods for low FODMAP options is enough to improve their symptoms.

5. The low FODMAP diet isn’t for life.

The word ‘diet’ in low FODMAP diet is a tad misleading as it gives the impression that you can eat a strictly low FODMAP diet long term. We want to challenge you to think of the low FODMAP diet as a learning journey – it’s a process to quickly identify if any of the FODMAP groups are triggering your gut symptoms. This means you should only be in the strict/elimination phase of the low FODMAP diet for 2 – 6 weeks. Then it’s time to work through the FODMAP Reintroduction Phase so you can expand your diet while keeping your symptoms settled. If your symptoms aren’t responding to the low FODMAP diet, or you are reacting to all of the FODMAP groups, then it’s time to book a session with a FODMAP-trained dietitian or reach out to the A Little Bit Yummy team to troubleshoot.

Final Thoughts

Letting go of these mindsets takes a bit of work but it’s well worth it to develop a healthier relationship with your food and body.  Also remember that you are not alone in this journey. Over the years we’ve supported millions of people with gut issues and we are here to listen to you, cheerlead you and guide you through the process of finding your happy gut place. If you need more support, then let us know.

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