How (And Why) To Be A Mindful Eater

Hi again Fodmappers

As Fodmappers we know we need to be mindful of what we eat but is that the same as mindful eating?

Today I am delighted to bring you a special guest post from my friend, and fellow health blogger, the fabulous Samantha Russell. I hope you enjoy.

How (and Why) to be a Mindful Eater

Are you looking for a simple way to boost the goodness you already get from your meals? Mindful eating might be the practice you’re looking for.

It’s becoming increasingly obviously that when it comes to health, wellness, and food there is a lot more going on than simply the kinds of foods we eat. While following a low FODMAP diet is an awesome way for many people to work on digestive issues, health concerns, IBS, or other health situations, we can also start to look at our thoughts and behaviours and use them to improve our lives too. In this post we are going to explore the idea of ‘mindful eating’ and how this practice can help you do everything from get more pleasure and nutrition from your food, to aid your digestion and help you lose weight. It’s exciting stuff!

Why try mindful eating?

So, first of all, why should you care about mindful eating? Isn’t eating nutrient-dense, low FODMAP food enough?

Well, it certainly can be, but if you want even more bang for your buck when it comes to your way of eating, getting mindful can have a range of benefits including:

• Finding more pleasure in food
• More efficient digestion
• Improvement of digestive complaints
• Improvement of emotional or binge eating behaviours
• Being better able to hear the bodies hunger and fullness signals
• Getting more nutrition from the food we eat

How can simply being mindful achieve all this? As I see it, there are two main ways:

1. When you sit down to a meal, or really pay attention to what you are eating, feel it, smell it, and see it, you begin what’s called the ‘cephalic phase of digestion’. Basically, this is the very first phase of your digestive system, and it’s in your head. That’s right - our digestion starts in the brain!

When you see, smell, taste, or even vividly imagine food and eating your body begins to prepare to digest the food. You literally ‘get your juices flowing’. Wikipedia suggests that a whole 20% of your gastric secretions (juices in your tummy and gut that helps you break down and absorb your food) comes from this ‘head phase’ of digestion - so if you’re not paying attention and don’t stop to notice or think about your food, you’re missing out on a big contribution to your digestive system. Obviously, if you are having issues with your digestion then you want all the help you can get, so eating mindfully and getting the cephalic digestive phase going is a great idea.

2. When you concentrate on eating and enjoying your food, you relax. Relaxation is really important to digestion, pleasure, and appetite. The more you notice your food, the less you will worry about other things and this allows your body to properly send, receive, and act on all the complex messages and reactions that need to happen for healthy, happy mealtimes. Stress is a major contributor to digestive complaints, and so relieving stress, especially while we are eating and immediately after is essential to improving your experience.

What is mindful eating?

Ok, so that list of benefits and explanations has you interested? Now you want to know: What is mindful eating and how can I do it?

Well, the simple part is that mindful eating means really being present when you eat. Pay attention to your food, think about eating as you do it, and feel the experience of eating. This means no multi-tasking during meals or snacks. It as easy (and as difficult!) as that.

So, how do you do it?

• Eat slowly (Harvard Medical School has some suggestions on how to do this)
• Use your senses to explore your food (sight, smell, taste, touch, sound)
• Focus on eating. This famous study found that distraction (in this case listening to two different lectures at the same time) reduced the amount of water participants absorbed for an hour after they drank it. If we can’t even efficiently absorb water while distracted, proper nutrition is going to suffer as well.
• Sip your drink and chew your food. This will not only help you slow down, but will mean you can taste your food (yay for cephalic phase digestion!), and it’ll be really well prepared for great digestion once it makes it to your stomach and intestinal tract.
• Be prepared for thoughts and emotions. You may find some stuff comes up when you slow down and eat mindfully. Stress around food, body image, eating, health, or anything can bubble to the surface when given this kind of quiet and space to do so. The best thing to do is to try to let it go and return your attention you eating. Jot it down to think about later if you must, but don’t get caught up now. Now is for the food.

However you feel like achieving it, that is totally fine. You may like music while you eat, you may prefer the quiet - it’s all about how it feels to you. There are a couple of things you should try to avoid, though.

What shouldn’t you do?

• Over analyse or over-think. You don’t have to spend 45 minutes with a handful of nuts, sniffing each one and imaging it growing from a seed, being harvested, blah blah blah, until you eat it. You just have to eat the nuts and think about eating the nuts while you’re doing it.
• Stress about it. The whole point of mindful eating is stress reduction. If you’re trying out a technique and it leaves you MORE worried, stressed, or feeling like you ‘failed’, stop doing that! Try something else, be gentle with yourself, and enjoy the process.

This whole process should feel good, pleasurable, and kind. Sure, it may be a little uncomfortable at times, as you deal with old habits, stale or out-dated beliefs or emotions, and so on, but I trust you to know the difference between those feelings and when something is legitimately not working for you.

So, if you are on a journey to better digestion try practicing mindful eating as you go. I’m positive it will have nothing but benefits and is a perfect accompaniment to the wonderful recipes here at Fabulous FODMAPS!

This post was written by Samantha Russell, the blogger and Eating Psychology coach behind Live the Whole. Her site and services are dedicated to helping people be happy, healthy, and whole no matter who they are, where they are, or what they do. She takes a holistic mind-body approach to health, with a particular focus on the effects of stress, psychology, and belief systems on our health. You can read more from Samantha at livethewhole.com

'Til next time Fodmappers - Stay Fabulous. x

7 Low FODMAP Breakfast Ideas

Hi again Fabulous Fodmappers - How are you? (I don't call you 'fabulous' enough, but I hope you know you are?)

I apologise for being a little late with this weeks post, I'm just getting over a sinus infection. Looking on the bright side I managed to avoid antibiotics which I'm happy about as I don't want to mess with my gut flora if I can avoid it. I think it just needed a little time and rest.

But I'm happy to say I'm feeling better now and back to my usual excited self. I can never quite express how much going low-FODMAP has changed my life for the better, but I know there are some of you who still find the whole thing daunting. (I did at first too). I also understand that if you're still quite poorly with your IBS, you probably don't want to spend hours searching the net for info. So I thought this week I'd just share some different low-FODMAP breakfast suggestions to inspire you.

As always, the suggestions here are vegetarian (because I am). If you wish to include meat in your low-FODMAP diet you can do as meat does not contain FODMAPs. Just be sure to avoid anything too fatty as that may trigger symptoms too.

7 Low-FODMAP Breakfast Ideas 

1. Porridge made with lactose-free milk and sweetened with banana, raspberries, blueberries or strawberries. (Any of these fruit are suitable but remember to keep to one portion with each meal to keep fructose levels low). I also like to add a little coconut oil and a sprinkle of cinnamon to mine. More info on bananas here.

2. Omelettes make a great protein packed breakfast and you can add tomatoes, spinach, courgette, spring onion greens, cheese and herbs to make it the way you like it.

3. Scrambled tofu on gluten free bread makes a nice breakfast which is not only low-FODMAP it is also suitable for vegans. But note, not all gluten free breads are low-FODMAP. Check the ingredients list to be sure the bread does not contain soya or apple.

4. Fancy something sweet in the morning? How about buckwheat pancakes with maple syrup? (For more on buckwheat click here). Again be sure to use a lactose free milk.

5. Make your own muesli. Shop bought muesli tends to contain wheat, dried fruit or whey powder which you want to avoid. So make your own from ingredients such as quinoa flakes, rice flakes, oats, nuts, seeds and dried banana chips. Yum!

6. Or what about cheese and tomatoes on gluten-free toast?

7. And finally, Rice Krispies! Ok that might not sound like the healthiest breakfast option but they are low-FODMAP (of course the lactose-free milk rule will apply) and I like to show you that low-FODMAP doesn't have to be complicated. I think it's also good to know there are easy options for children with IBS.

So there you have it, a different breakfast idea for every day of the week. And I didn't even include muffins. You might also like to check out the Chachouka recipe here. (Doesn't that make 9 suggestions in total?)

If you have any more ideas - please post them in the comments below. In the meantime, be nice and share this post on facebook, pinterest and google + using the icons below. Chances are that some of your friends also have IBS and don't like to talk about. A click from you could help them on the road to recovery. Many thanks - and stay fabulous!

A New Year's Resolution for IBS

Hi again Fodmappers - I hope you had a fantastic Christmas and managed to avoid the yummy temptations which cause us so much grief?

As we're now moving into the New Year, I thought now would be a good time to focus on what you really want from the year ahead. In particular, are you ready to commit to getting your IBS symptoms under control? How would that sound as your New Year's resolution? Is that something you'd like to achieve? Maybe you've 'dabbled' with the low-FODMAP diet and want to give it another go? Or maybe your resolution is to begin to discover new ways to improve your digestive health? Maybe you've simply had enough of your IBS and you're ready to do something about it? Then welcome to Fabulous Fodmaps - this blog is for you.

(If you're an already experienced Fodmapper, I hope you might still find something useful here. Maybe you'd even like to leave a word of encouragement for newcomers in the comments at the end of this post?)

5 Steps to Low-FODMAP Success

1. Learn.

I suggest that your first step is to learn something about the low-FODMAP diet and why high-FODMAP food causes problems for people with IBS. If this is all new to you you might like to read the overview here or if you're ready for something a bit more indepth then you might like to watch the video, 'Beating the Bloat,' here. You don't need to become an expert in FODMAPs but gaining a bit of knowledge will help make sense of it all and I firmly believe that you are more likely to stick to the process if you understand why some food is allowed and some is not.

2. Explore.

With a bit of knowledge under your belt you're ready to discover new recipes that are suitable for your low-FODMAP diet. I share some of mine here but there are many more on the internet so you won't be short of ideas. I strongly suggest bookmarking any that take your fancy or simply jotting them down in a note book as you're going to need a good selection. You're going to need to think about breakfasts, lunches, evening meals and snacks, as well as eating out. The exclusion stage is a minimum of 6 weeks and that's a lot of meals. I will give you a word of caution though, and that is simply to be careful out there. Not all the recipes you see labelled as low-FODMAP actually are low-FODMAP. If you're not sure which ingredients are safe you can check the list here.

3. Plan Ahead.

Time to shop and to stock up on foods you've possibly never even looked at before. You're going to be visiting the Gluten-Free sections of your supermarket for wheat free pastas, breads and breakfast cereals, and you may be pleasantly surprised to discover that they are not as bad as you may have thought. You'll be trying lactose-free milks and seeing which ones you you prefer.You'll also be reading a lot of labels. Start stocking the cupboards with 'safe' food and clear out anything that you need to avoid and you'll have a better chance of succeeding.

4. Make it Fun.

It may seem tough at first but discovering new food can be an enjoyable experience all of it's own. Treat your low-FODMAP diet as you would any new cuisine and you'll look forward to mealtimes. Even invite friends for meals if you enjoy cooking and let them try something different too. And make sure to award yourself some low-FODMAP treats. For example, a little chocolate is permitted. There's more on that here.

5. Come Back Soon.

I shall be adding more recipes, tips and inspiration throughout the year so please add this blog to your favourites so that you can find your way back here. And don't forget to comment to let me know how you're getting on.

Happy New Year - may this be your best year yet.

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Managing IBS - A Solution Focused Approach

After being reminded recently what a miserable experience IBS can be, I wanted to share with you something a little different which I am experimenting with. This is based on the Solution Focused (SF) approach which was something I had some training in a few years ago but, so far, I haven't seen applied to IBS. Rather than focusing on your symptoms and difficulties, this approach encourages you (us) to look instead at what is already working for you - even when it feels like nothing is!

Essentially, SF explores a problem through asking questions like the ones below. These are not particularly difficult questions but are aimed at helping you recognise your strengths and coping strategies. And yes, you are strong and you are coping!

I encourage you to have a go at answering some of the questions below, and maybe making notes as you go along to reflect on or to add to later. If you can't answer them all, that's fine, go with those that you can answer fairly easily and jot down any that you might like to come back to another time. (Don't forget to bookmark this page so you can find your way here). Also if you feel you want to re-word the questions so that they better apply to you, please do so.

Just one suggestion. When answering the questions try not to use statements such as 'I wouldn't feel bloated' and instead focus on what the positive aspect of that would be, for example 'my clothes would fit comfortably' or 'I'd be able to sleep comfortably' or whatever is true for you. 

I hope you find this helpful - let me know how you get on.

1. How do you cope with your IBS?
2. What are the most effective ways you've found of managing your symptoms?
3. List 5 different ways in which you already manage your IBS.
4. If your IBS was better controlled, how would things be different for you?
5. What would tell you that your IBS problems were becoming more manageable?
6. What would you notice about yourself?
7. What would you be doing differently?
8. What would others notice about you?
9. Bring to mind a time recently when your symptoms have been (even relatively) under control. What else was different about that time?
10. What were you doing that was different to other times?
11. What was it about your diet (if anything) that was different to other times?
12. What do you think made the biggest contribution to how you felt?
13. How will you manage your symptoms better in future?
14. If you knew of one small thing you could do that would make a difference for you, what would that be?
15. What encouragement could you give yourself?
16. What have you learned from thinking about this?