Ok I’m going to be brave and admit I’m about to turn 30 this year. As expected I’m outwardly devo cause, well, I’m leaving my 20’s that’s how we are meant to be right? But really on the inside… I’m not so much and have never felt better or as healthy in my life.

Call it growing up if you will, or maybe I’m on a heath kick and this eastern suburbs life is catching up with me. But I am happily becoming the person who asks “is this gluten free” or who will spend more time than anyone needs in the organic aisle at the local grocer seeing what’s new. And I’m glad about this, because I have finally after almost 30 years realised how to eat for my body.

For most of my adult life I have had a love/hate relationship with food, I’m not talking about those “chubby years” spent abroad either- though let’s face it London is not good on an Aussies waist line. (or bum or hips or chin or arms…. you get it) No when I say love/hate I mean while I enjoy dining out and love cooking I have never really understood the effect food had on my body. For most people I know, there are the normal foods to avoid when you have that dress you want to fit in for the weekend. Or the foods you eat when you need a pick me up in the form of a sugar hit and alike, but for me these foods generally had the opposite effect on me.

I spent years trying the “normal” way to eat and dieting myself silly to only get a small result. I had convinced myself I simply had an intolerance to dairy and stopped it entirely, I told myself I was cured because I now ordered a soy latte and got my burger without cheese (Mostly. Sometimes. Ok, never) but I persisted on this path and eliminated most dairy but especially cow’s milk for the better part of 6 years. I felt a little better to be fair and looking back now I can understand why but I still had all these other symptoms that I either couldn’t explain or to be honest didn’t make time to explore. I chalked these up to being busy, stressed, hormonal or someone sneaking milk in to something I ate… (I know, I know but I never said I wasn’t a little dramatic).

Then last year my symptoms started to get worse, I wasn’t just bloated and uncomfortable anymore, all of a sudden I was constantly nauseous so much so I was throwing up almost daily. If that wasn’t happening I was running to the toilet or battling stomach cramps. Add this to constant lethargy, the inability to sleep at night and a serious lack of concentration and you had my day to day. So after a quick and dismissive trip to the doctors where I was told well done for knowing you can’t have milk and checked for coeliac disease without any answers I just drastically stopped eating a lot of food (the typical ones we think are bad) as I had a serious case of fear about what would make me feel sick, this still didn’t help.

Thankfully I have always been the persistent sort and went back for a second opinion at a great doctors (Woollahra Doctors on Queen Street) this was big for me as I am as stubborn as they come and rarely admit when there is something wrong especially when it comes to me or *gasp* that I may not know what is going on and need some help. Que many lovely tests, lots of appointments and some exploratory day surgery and I was finally told I had acute IBS- Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Essentially and in layman terms there are a bunch of foods that my body can’t process (we refer to this as mal-absorption) and as a result these foods were sitting in my intestine and in turn were causing all my symptoms, not the most comprehensive description but it’s the most relatable. You don’t treat IBS with one quick fix, the most successful and common management plan is to follow what is called the Low FODMAP diet- I’ll cover more on this and what It means in a later post, cause wow I’m rattling on.

Now I’ve been happily calling my self a #lowFODMAPer for around 4 months and as mentioned earlier, have never felt better. I have energy like you wouldn’t believe, sleep like a baby and all my other symptoms have gone away completely.

I’m sharing this because I still want to go back and slap myself silly about what I convinced myself was normal for a 20 something female and feeling as great as I do now, it’s glaringly obvious how bad I was before. I would hate for someone who could get relief from IBS or even a smaller intolerance to struggle and not know what they can do. And also to be honest I really could talk for days about this, It’s changed my life that much.

So bring on dirty thirty I say, ain’t nothing stopping me now…… Well unless you count gluten and lactose and fructans oh and excess fructose. But no big right? I got this!

A Mrs x