Irritable bowel syndrome is an incredibly tricky and limiting condition to have to live with. It can dictate so much of your life, both professional and personal and can have a significant negative impact on your life.
Sufferers find relief in a low FODMAP diet. FODMAP’s are a group of short-chain carbohydrates that your body finds difficult to process and can cause several impactful symptoms. Low FODMAP diets can be beneficial to the general population as well as IBS sufferers due to the ease with which your body can process the foods involved.

By undertaking a four-week low FODMAP diet, you can help give your body a chance to recover from the irritation caused by a high FODMAP food.

Here we look at the symptoms you can avoid with a low FODMAP diet.

Bloatingibs diet fodmap cake

How often do you eat a meal and find your trousers don’t fit like they did 20 minutes ago? You might even have been congratulated on a pregnancy, which is just a gas baby! What you’re suffering here is the bloating associated with digestive distress. This is caused by the difficulty the enzymes have breaking down a problematic food and the subsequent gases released during the process. Low FODMAP foods are easily digestible and have a lower gas output than high FODMAP alternatives.

 

Satiety

Is there anything worse than sitting down to a meal you’ve been looking forward to all day, and you find you’re full after consuming just a small amount. All that excitement dulled by instant satiety. An IBS diet can restore your body’s natural hunger. High FODMAP foods can irritate the digestive tract, reducing your appetite and ruining that naughty meal you’ve been looking forward to. An IBS diet can reduce inflammation and prepare you for that all-you-can-eat buffet.

 

Diarrhea

Out with friends, and it strikes. That feeling that your bowels are about to evacuate, and evacuate immediately. Frequent bouts of diarrhea can lead to dehydration and electrolyte imbalance which can have further negative health impacts. An IBS diet can relieve this symptom by giving your digestive system a break it needs.

 

To see whether you’d benefit from an extended IBS diet, you should take an intolerance and allergy test.