Your 4-Step Plan for Life After the FODMAP Diet

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Doing all the phases of the FODMAP Diet usually looks something like this:

• You learn about the FODMAP Diet (the short-term learning diet that helps you find your unique IBS triggers and control your symptoms) and start changing the way you eat

• You eventually get the hang of it, and your IBS symptoms improve

• You test high-FODMAP categories to find your personal tolerance levels

• Along the way, you learn a ton of valuable information about all the things that affect your digestion (both food and non-food factors)

• You’re more empowered when it comes to IBS than you’ve ever been.

This is awesome. But where do you go from here?

How do you know you’ve been successful? When are you actually finished?

The end goal of the FODMAP Diet is rarely explained. If it’s not supposed to be a lifetime diet, what should you be eating for the rest of your life?

Short answer: You should bring as many high-FODMAP foods back into your diet as you can while keeping your belly happy.

This is “your unique lifetime eating style.” It’s unique to your FODMAP tolerance levels (based on testing those various FODMAP categories) AND what you enjoy eating. For example:

• You may want to move toward a plant-based diet

• You might want your diet to fuel you for a fitness goal, like running a marathon

• You might want to get back to the family recipes and comfort foods you love, but modified to keep your belly happy

Today, I want to give you a simple framework to go from, “What’s next after to FODMAP,” to a lifetime eating style you love.

Your 4-Step Plan for Life After FODMAP

Step 1: Figure out our tolerance for all the high-FODMAP foods you’ve been missing    

Testing each FODMAP category through the reintroduction process helps you determine your tolerance level for ALL the foods in that category, but how much should you eat?

Go through the Monash app. List out the high-FODMAP foods you can bring back into your diet and an estimated serving size based on your tolerance for that food’s category.

If you had a moderate tolerance for wheat and want to eat rye bread, start with one slice. If you have no issues, you might try two slices next time. 

Do this with all the foods you love. You can take a casual approach, or add one new thing every other day. Soon, you’ll know the portion sizes that work, and you can start enjoying them regularly.

Step 2: Experiment with frequency

Now that you’ve brought back the foods that don’t trigger your IBS, it’s useful to understand how many high-FODMAP foods you can tolerate in a day or in single meal.

Do some experiments. If you have a moderate tolerance for wheat, can you eat toast at breakfast, half a sandwich at lunch, and a serving of pasta for dinner?

Step 3: Revisit other factors that impact digestion

At this point you’re regularly enjoying high-FODMAP foods in the amounts you can tolerate. If your IBS symptoms are fully in check, fabulous! If you have symptoms more than you’d like and can’t link them to a specific food, then take a look at other things that impact digestion.

For example, have you started eating larger portions? Are you skipping meals or eating late at night? Have you stopped exercising or moving as much throughout the day? Have you started a new medication or supplement that might be causing side effects?

Step 4: Take on a new health goal 

The FODMAP Diet tends to be all encompassing. Giving it your focus likely helped you succeed, but that probably forced you to put everything else on the back burner. 

The momentum you’ve built by taking control of IBS puts you in the perfect position to tackle a health goal you’ve put on hold for months, maybe even years.

Do you want to finally get to your happy weight? Kick sugar? Go vegetarian? Keep refining your lifetime eating style? Now's the time to go for it!

Ready For the Next Step?

If you're ready to create your lifetime eating style or tackle a NEW health goal ASAP, save time and get valuable support in Calm Belly Club, our members-only online community. As a member, you get access to Free To Eat, my comprehensive guide to the reintroduction phase!

Navigating the FODMAP Diet for Vegetarians and Vegans

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If you're a vegetarian or vegan who just learned about the FODMAP Diet (the diet that shows you how to manage IBS symptoms), you might be freaking out right about now.

Why? The FODMAP Diet requires that you eliminate most legumes, a huge variety of fruit and vegetables, not to mention wheat and certain nuts. So what's left for you if eating meat isn't really your style?

Never fear, veggie lovers, this post is your getting started guide. You'll learn:

1. What to do first

2. How to create delicious meals with variety so you don't die of boredom

3. The best (meatless) protein options

Watch the video get all the tasty details, or keep reading for the key points (and a bunch of great resources!)...

Getting Started with FODMAP as a Vegetarian or Vegan

What To Do First

Here's my general advice for approaching the FODMAP diet as a vegan or vegetarian: Instead of diving right in, spend a week or two learning the ins and outs of the diet. Get the Monash app (the most reliable, up-to-date reference) so you know the foods and serving sizes you should be eating.

>>> IF YOU DO JUST ONE THING: Go through the app and make a list of all the foods you CAN eat and then start building your meals around those. 

Meal Planning Without Boredom

When you're coming up with meal ideas, focus on meals you can play around with. That way, you can have a handful of different meals made with the same core ingredients to create a FODMAP meal plan that works for you.

For example, if you eat quinoa or brown rice, you can combine that with your choice of low-FODMAP veggies like zucchini, tomatoes, salad greens, bell peppers, carrots, etc. You can roast, saute, or steam them.

Then you can add olives, cheese, nuts, seeds, sun-dried tomatoes, tempeh, avocado, canned lentils, canned chickpeas, hot sauce if that's your thing. Just check your serving sizes, and you'll discover more variety than you think!

>>> TIP: Small amounts of canned lentils and chickpeas, as well as red lentils, are low-FODMAP. Check the Monash app so you're sticking to the correct serving size (too large a serving and you cross over into the high-FODMAP range). You can eat these legumes more than once a day - just space them about 3 to 4 hours apart.

Use different herbs and spices to create different flavor profiles. For example, you can have a curry bowl one day and a Mexican-style bowl (avocado, ancho chile powder, cilantro) the next day.

Think about soups you can create with this method. Gluten free pasta and risotto are two more foods that can be prepared with different ingredients every time.

Your Top Protein Options:

You could probably guess this one: tofu and tempeh. Soft, firm and extra firm tofu are low-FODMAP.

Silken tofu is processed differently and retains some of the liquid from the pressed soybeans where those FODMAPs are found, so avoid the silken variety.

With tempeh you're in the clear. Although it's made from whole soybeans, the fermentation process reduces FODMAP content. Just be sure to check the ingredients if you're buying tempeh that's already seasoned. The best bet is to buy it plain and dress it up yourself. Tempeh contains even more protein than tofu.

Cooking tempeh and tofu:

• Tempeh has great earthy flavor on it's own, but you can dress it up any way you like. I usually cut it into cubes and sear it in a pan with with a little stir fry sauce made with tamari, lime and sugar.

• When it comes to tofu, try baking it. It gives it a satisfying texture, and you can do a big batch to use for several days. Here are some recipe ideas and cooking instructions for both:

Get to Know Tempeh

Recipe: Tempeh with Charred Peppers and Kale
-Omit onion; add more bell pepper or carrot if desired; add scallion tops

Calm Belly Kitchen: Brown Rice Noodle and Veggie Stir Fry
-Replace Shrimp with Tempeh

Monash Blog: Tofu Scramble Recipe

How to Make Baked Tofu

Remember This, Veggie Lovers!

Finally, remember that it's temporary. You do the elimination phase to confirm your FODMAP sensitivity. Then if it does improve your symptoms, you slowly bring back high-FODMAP foods. You'll learn your tolerance levels so you can have a lot more variety and flexibility in your diet.

More FODMAP Diet Plan Resources for Vegetarians and Vegans

http://thefodmapfriendlyvegan.com/product/fodmap-friendly-vegan-ebook/

https://www.amazon.com/Low-Fodmap-Vegan-What-When-Anything/dp/1570673373/

A very helpful resource for vegan menu planning I found through Kate Scarlata's website: http://blog.katescarlata.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Vegan-Menu-Planning-Low-FODMAP.pdf

I do have one vegan recipe on my website, and I love it. It's great as leftovers too: https://calmbellykitchen.com/blog/vegan-nut-loaf-low-fodmap-gluten-free

More meal and recipe ideas:

Monash Blog: Eating Vegan on a Low-FODMAP Diet

Meat Free Meals the Low-FODMAP Way by Stephanie Clairmont, RD

If you’re ready to dive into the FODMAP Diet, then check out our ebooks!

What is the end goal of the FODMAP Diet?

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The FODMAP diet is sometimes called a journey, yet the end goal of this "journey" is a vague and shadowy place. 

It's a lot easier to explain things that are black and white, like taking FODMAPs away. But since life AFTER the FODMAP Diet looks different for everyone, it's a lot less clear cut.

You wouldn't start off on a journey without a destination (or at the very least, a certain transformation) in mind. So today we're looking at the big picture of the FODMAP Diet, or the true end goal.

Knowing what you get in the end makes it a whole lot easier to work hard and persevere.

Hint: the end goal is NOT to give up all high FODMAP foods forever.

Watch the video to go deep on this topic, or read the key points below!

KEY POINTS:

The FODMAP diet is not a lifetime diet.

You shouldn't stay on it indefinitely because:

• It's nutritionally restrictive

• It's socially restrictive

• And (most importantly) it's not necessary

So what's the end goal?

To put it simply, it's to have control over your symptoms, NOT to eat as few FODMAPs as possible.

Less FODMAP = less symptoms isn't the whole story.

If you're taking away food with no specific purpose, you're causing yourself more work and more deprivation.

The goal of the elimination phase is to:

1. Confirm you're sensitive to FODMAPs

2. Hit the reset button on your body

3. Learn what other factors play a role in your digestive symptoms

Once you've done that it's time to move to the next phase which to test your personal tolerance to specific FODMAP categories. From there you take all the awesome knowledge you've gained and create a lifetime eating style.

Still not convinced? At this point you've taken away all FODMAPs and felt better but until you test each category, you don't really know why you felt better - wouldn't that be great to know!?

What does a lifetime eating style look like?

• You're confident about your food choices because they're based on real knowledge about your body

• You don't feel "sick" or like you have to police every bite because you have some flexibility - For example, there's no need to avoid every possible instance of garlic in your chicken broth

Conclusion

The FODMAP Diet is a learning process. That’s great news, because it means you don’t need to worry about success or failure, only learning what you want to know or not.

Once you’ve learned the information you’re seeking about FODMAPs and your unique body, you can create new eating habits, new routines…in other words YOUR new normal.

The end goal, then, is to eat and make food choices based on knowledge about your body. It’s a pretty great goal to strive for, don’t you think?

Curried Deviled Eggs with Chile-Lime Salt (FODMAP and gluten free)

Curried Deviled Eggs with Chile-Lime Salt (FODMAP and gluten free)

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What’s a better Easter appetizer than deviled eggs? First off, you avoid wasting all the eggs you used for dying - win! But deviled eggs are also healthy, easy to make low-FODMAP, and totally delicious.

I also like this easy app because you can play around with the ingredients to create different flavor profiles.

A recent favorite of mine is a curried deviled egg. Curry powder is a mild blend of spices typically used in Indian cooking - turmeric, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, fennel, cardamom, red pepper. 

There are endless variations on the curry spice blend, but what you’ll typically find in supermarkets is referred to as “sweet curry powder.” It’s an earthy soft-orange color and has a mild flavor.

Curry powder takes care of your seasoning, but I jazzed up these deviled eggs with homemade chile-lime salt. It’s a simple combo of sea salt, lime zest and chile powder that looks special even though it takes about a minute to make.

Curried Deviled Eggs with Chile-Lime Salt (FODMAP and gluten free)

I like using a combination of mayo and plain yogurt, but it’s equally good subbing additional yogurt for the mayo if you can’t find a low-FODMAP mayo option. Curry powder doesn’t typically contain high-FODMAP ingredients like onion or garlic, but it’s always a good idea to check.

Serves 6 - Recipe doubles easily!

INGREDIENTS

6 large or extra large eggs
2 tbsp FODMAP-free mayonnaise (see note above)
¼ cup plus 2 tbsp plain lactose-free yogurt
1 tsp curry powder
1/8 tsp plus 1 tsp sea salt
Zest of 1 lime (about 1 tsp)
Dash chile powder (chipotle, ancho, or cayenne pepper)
2 tbsp chopped cilantro

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Add eggs to a large saucepan and add water to cover by about 1 inch. Cover pan and bring to a boil. As soon as water reaches a full boil, remove from heat and rest, still covered for 13 minutes.

2. Fill a large bowl with ice water. Carefully remove eggs from pan and transfer to ice water; set aside until eggs are cool. Peel eggs (may be done up to 1 day ahead).

3. Cut eggs in half lengthwise and add yolks to a medium bowl. Add mayonnaise, yogurt, curry and ⅛ tsp of the sea salt, and stir until combined. Scoop filling into egg whites and place on a serving dish.

4. Combine remaining 1 tsp sea salt, lime zest and chile powder in a small bowl. Sprinkle deviled eggs with chile-lime salt (you may not use all the salt; season to your liking) and cilantro. Serve chilled or at room temp.

Why Less FODMAPs = Less IBS Symptoms Is Wrong (Also, pizza!)

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During a group coaching session recently, one of my awesome clients asked if I had a great low-FODMAP pizza recipe that wouldn't trigger her IBS symptoms. I said no because I only use ONE recipe: my favorite classic, chewy-crispy, stone-fired pizza dough.

“So what gluten-free flour do you use?” Another client asked.

When I clarified that I use regular all-purpose wheat flour for my pizza, minds were blown.

In that moment a light-bulb went on in my head: No one talks about life AFTER the FODMAP Diet. 

You might not know you can bring certain high-FODMAP foods back into your life because nobody bothered to explain it.

You might know about avoiding high-FODMAP food and testing FODMAPs (i.e. the Reintroduction Phase), but what about the end goal of this process?

To put it plainly, less FODMAPs = less IBS symptoms isn’t the full story. The end goal is to eat some pizza, or crisp apples, or ice cream - or whatever food you’ve loved and lost!

The end goal isn’t to restrict all high-FODMAP foods forever. The goal is learning your unique triggers for your IBS symptoms.

When you know your personal triggers and tolerance levels, you can... 

• Bring back high-FODMAP foods that don’t cause your stomach issues

• Know what portions of high-FODMAP foods trigger your symptoms, and eat smaller amounts of those

• Stop avoiding “natural flavors” in foods that might have a tiny amount of onion or garlic

• Go to restaurants and not shy away from every bit of wheat and lactose on the menu

• Choose what you’ll eat based on solid knowledge of how food affects your body, instead of guessing and fearing the consequences

For me, this means my favorite pizza is back in my life - I learned wheat doesn’t trigger my IBS symptoms. Here’s what it means for some of my clients…

Testing FODMAPs and learning their personal triggers is how these ladies went from anxiety and restriction to having fun eating again.

And it doesn’t take tons of time or willpower to test FODMAPs. The key is to create your testing plan, set a date, and track your results.

In case you missed it, I designed a tool to make this quick and simple. Click here to get the FREE Reintro Checklist and Tracker for the FODMAP Challenge Phase!

Avoiding every high-FODMAP food 24/7 is good when you use it for a purpose: Learning about your body and giving it a clean slate. Kind of like hitting the reset button.

But if you’re doing it with no purpose or end goal, you’re depriving yourself of a huge variety of food when it’s not necessary.

Going through the process and testing the different FODMAP categories is worth it because of what you get in the end: You know what triggers your IBS and what doesn’t so you’re free to eat without fear.

It can feel like discovering the FODMAP diet is what changes your life, but it’s not. 

Knowing your triggers is what changes your life - It breaks you out of food jail and leads you to freedom. And if freedom looks like pizza to you, you owe it to yourself to find out.

Leave a comment and tell me what you want your life to look like after FODMAP! Is the thought of eating high-FODMAP foods again blowing your mind? (and if you just want my pizza recipe, don’t hesitate to ask!)

You’re Missing Out on Delicious Food (here’s how to enjoy eating - even with IBS)

You’re Missing Out on Delicious Food (here’s how to enjoy eating - even with IBS)

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When you take away high-FODMAP foods and get relief from your IBS symptoms, it feels pretty amazing.

You work hard to eliminate every possible FODMAP ingredient from your plate so you can keep feeling good. 

You avoid going to restaurants whenever possible and turn down social meals.

You’re good at planning and cooking your own food, but the effort is exhausting and you wish you could just pick up pizza once in awhile.

It seems like you can count your “safe” foods on two hands, and stressing over every bite is wearing you down (or making you want to binge on Mexican).

Right now you’re missing out on delicious food, and you don’t need to be.

There’s a way out of this lonely, hungry place and it’s all about finding your unique IBS triggers.  

I’m here to tell you finding your triggers isn’t as difficult as you might think. It’s even a little fun, especially with this handy tool I created to help you along the way! 

Ready to challenge and reintroduce high-FODMAP foods?

Click to get your FREE Reintroduction Checklist!

Why Test High-FODMAP Foods?

You need to test FODMAPs for three reasons:

1. Right now you know you’re sensitive to FODMAPs, but you don’t know which ones

2. There’s a very good chance you can eat some high-FODMAP foods and still keep your symptoms in check - one study found only 33% of people with IBS are sensitive to fructose

3. You’ll be able to have much more variety in your diet which is important for gut health...but also important for living life and enjoying eating again

Who Should Test FODMAPs?

You're ready to start the testing process (a.k.a. the Reintroduction Phase) if…

• You saw an improvement in your symptoms when you eliminated FODMAPS

• You discovered the other factors that contribute to your IBS symptoms (stress, sleep, hormones, etc.) during the elimination process - and learned how to handle them

If those statements describe you, you’re ready to bring back FODMAPs and learn your unique triggers!

Through the Elimination Phase you gave your body a clean slate. Now it’s time to learn what FODMAPs are the culprits for YOU specifically - and which ones can be part of your life again. 

The #1 Tool You Need to Test FODMAPs

When I coach people through FODMAP testing, we approach it like an experiment - You’re collecting data about your body in an organized process. 

In the end, you use all this awesome info to create your unique lifetime eating style so you can stop policing every bite and start enjoying food again.

Having a simple tool to track your food testing results is essential. Why? 

• It lets you see patterns in how your body reacts to different FODMAPs.

• It clearly shows you how long it takes for symptoms to pop up - many people notice that it takes 1 to 2 days. This info is gold!

For every FODMAP category you test, you’ll start with a very small serving (so you’re never blindsided by major symptoms) and work your way up to a large serving.

As you go through the process you need to track the following:

1. The test food and its FODMAP category

2. Serving size

3. Any symptoms you experience up to 48 hours (depending on your body) after testing

You already know that FODMAP testing is the way to more food freedom - but it can be overwhelming, so I created a free Test Food Tracker that you can download and get started as soon as today!

It’s the same tool I use in my program Free To Eat, which guides you through the FODMAP reintroduction phase (Become a member of Calm Belly Club to get access to this program!).

This Tracker is a workbook that you can fill out on your computer (just save it to your device and you’ll be able to type into it), or print it out and write on it!

As an extra bonus, I added a cover page that helps you design your personalized testing plan. There’s also a place to fill in your start date - Put it on your calendar and commit to it. 

Remember, it’s not healthy (for your body or your social life) to stay in a strict elimination diet for more than a few weeks. More importantly, it’s not necessary!

Download the free Test Food Tracker and start planning. If I’d never learned my unique IBS triggers, I wouldn’t have known it was okay to eat my favorite pizza dough again - wheat is NOT one of my trigger foods.

Having more freedom and less stress in my diet was totally worth the effort, and that’s what I want for you too!

3 Ways To Deal with IBS Constipation (and 1 thing not to do)

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When it comes to managing IBS symptoms, smart eating is your first line of defense. Doing the low-FODMAP Diet is an amazing way to learn what foods trigger your symptoms AND what portion sizes keep your belly calm.

But sometimes supporting strategies are needed, which is why I'm doing a 3-part series on Calm Belly TV to help you deal with the 3 major symptoms of IBS: 

• Constipation

• Diarrhea

• Bloating

Fun topics, right!? Okay, they may not be fun, but there's a lot you can do to deal with these symptoms besides just watching your intake of high-FODMAP foods. That's what I'll be covering in the series. 

[Want to learn more about the FODMAP Diet and why it's so effective for IBS? Check out this blog post!]

Check out the rest of this series:

• Part 2: How To Deal with IBS-D (Try these 4 strategies in this order!)

• Part 3: 10 Ways to Beat Bloat

Now onto Part 1 of the series:

3 Ways to Deal with IBS Constipation (and 1 thing not to do)

Watch the video to go deep on this topic, or keep reading to get the main points.

Just the key points:

First thing's first: Calm Belly Kitchen is an educational resource and doesn't replace personalized medical advice. Check with a doctor before starting any new dietary treatment or supplement.

Let's recap: A low-FODMAP diet can help decrease constipation a lot, but additional treatments and strategies are often needed.

Why? FODMAPs are one of the major causes of IBS symptoms, but many other factors play a role in your digestion:

- The food you eat (fiber, fat, etc)
- Your hormones
- Bowel motility (how fast food goes through your system)
- Life stress 

In my experience and in my work with clients, I've seen that learning your personal trigger foods makes a huge difference. Still most people need supporting strategies to deal with constipation.

3 Strategies to Manage IBS Constipation with Diet

1) The food you DO eat is important, so include a variety of fiber: 

• Insoluble fiber: Adds bulk, pushes stool through the bowels; found in fruit and vegetable skins and whole grains

• Soluble fiber: Softens stool; found in fruit, veg, legumes, nuts and seeds (flax and chia are especially good for constipation)

• Resistant starch: Feeds the good bacteria in your gut with prebiotic fiber; found in under-ripe bananas, cooked and cooled potatoes, and legumes (canned, rinsed lentils and chickpeas are great low-FODMAP options)

>>> Water: Acts as a stool softener; important if you're taking soluble fiber products such as Metamucil

2) Fiber supplements

• Metamucil and similar products contain soluble and insoluble fiber

• Ground psyllium contains soluble and insoluble fiber

• Heather's Acacia Fiber contains only soluble fiber, which is thought to promote optimal bowel motility >>> works for both constipation AND diarrhea

3) Magnesium Citrate

• Helps relax bowel spasms so it does not cause a sense of urgency unless you take a very large does

• Has a gentle osmotic effect...so it pulls water into the bowel, softening stool so it's easier to pass

• Recommended not to exceed 900 mg/day

• Experiment to find a dosage that works for you

• Non-addictive

Solaray tablets and Natural Calm drink mix are two good options.

One Thing NOT To Do To Manage Constipation

Stimulant Laxatives (such as ExLax)

• Only use for a limited time and exactly as directed

• Stimulant laxatives are addictive because they reduce your natural bowel contractions and train your body to be dependent on their irritant effect

• Drink plenty of fluids to avoid dehydration