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Experiences with low FODMAP diets
Hello!
As I've been diagnosed with IBS, I've been looking at ways to reduce my symptoms and one of the options I've been told about is a low FODMAP diet.
I am still looking into this, and so far I've only read a bunch of confusing or incomplete/surface level information.
This made me curious about the experience that other people have had any recommendations or stories someone might have.
Also if you know of any good apps for tracking what you ate and how you've felt throughout the day, please let me know.
Thanks!
What I can say is that my wife did it to figure out what her trigger foods are. It is not a good idea to go on as a permanent solution, but something to eliminate the potential problems and then figure out what does and doesn't work by slowing adding foods back in one by one. The diet itself is hell, but you can surmise that by the vast number of things that it restricts.
All that said, it did work for her in finding what causes problems. She figured out she has particular problems with apples, and a few other already known items. Now, she mostly eats a normal diet but keeps away from a few of the trigger foods. Some things can be a bit surprising. Most "fruit juices" in the US are primarily apple, particularly if they are "100% juice", for example. I'm sure it's no revelation that trigger foods hide in all kinds of packaged items.
This is good advice. Most people who have a problem with FODMAPs don’t have a problem with all of them, so it’s a matter of figuring out which ones affect you.
A food + symptom diary can help here before you start the diet as it can help to identify which are most likely to be problems for you and you can start by eliminating these rather than removing all the FODMAPs. You might find that gives enough symptom relief without having to do the very restrictive version.
My wife was diagnosed with Chron's and we did a low FODMAP diet for a while. For people who like food, low FODMAP is, like the above poster suggested, cannot be a permanent state of affairs.
My recommendation is to follow low FODMAP strictly and reintroduce slowly. That thing you can't do without may be your trigger. My wife said, "I'll do low fodmap but keep coffee." She was still having symptoms. Lo and behold, her triggers were caffeine and other stimulants found in coffees and caffeinated teas, plus alcohol! Now we live a perfectly normal life of eating and drinking whatever we want except she drinks white tea and suffers the consequences of wine on occasion.
I don't have IBS, but I do have awful digestive responses to certain types of FODMAPs. I'll share my experience, in case anything is of help :)
To start, I first realized I reacted poorly to certain foods (beans/legumes, and alliums like onion/garlic) and cut out them of my diet because they made me feel awful. It was only a few years later that I learned about the concept of fodmaps. In your reading, you've probably come across the full elimination-reintroduction step that allows you explore which types of fodmaps might be causing problems. I never had to do this step, since I already knew.
My learning about the concept of fodmaps and the idea of 'safe' portions empowered me to reintroduce some foods. I learned that a few types of foods I had previously cut out are considered low-fodmap. I also learned that it's not an all-or-nothing game, and was able to figure out how much of a problem food I could eat in a day before it became a problem.
For example, while many beans are high in the type of fodmap that causes me issues, I learned black beans and certain types of lentils cooked well and rinse/drained thoroughly are low-fodmap; these days, they're a heavy part of my diet. Chickpeas are not great for me but yellow-split peas are fine, so I can still make a 'hummus'-type dip! Silken tofu and soy milk are no-gos, but I can eat some well-drained, extra-firm tofu.
Similarly, too many onions and even small amounts of garlic do a number on me. But, I realized I can eat small amounts of onion, as well as green onions, green garlic scapes, and garlic oil*, which has been a game-changer. *Fodmaps, as types of complex sugars, are water soluble, so garlic oil absorbs the flavour but not the problem sugars.
For me, it's a journey in proportions, adapting, and paying attention to my body. I home-cook a lot, check menus before eating out for safer options, and roughly know how long I have before I should head home if I do decide to abandon all caution and dig into that garlic bread :)
Personally, I don't use apps. What works better for me is to have learned to eyeball how much of a 'problem' food i can eat before it becomes a problem, so I don't have to stress about super specific measurements.
That being said, Monash University is pretty much the ground-zero source of fodmap research and they have an app that I've seen strongly recommended. They also have a very informative blog and other resources if that's your jam.