Intuitive Eating with IBS/GI issues

our inner picture of our outer self healthy behaviors. I had a much bigger role at all health than the actual number on the scales. Internal dialogue can be so powerful and often it's super negative and critical in a way that we wouldn't talk to other people that we care about. When you start to share your story, that gives other people the courage to share theirs. I know you would be proud now of how far you have come in your relationship to food, exercise, and to yourself.

I felt freedom, I've gained relationships. I've found my true sense of self worth. There's one thing I need you to take away. You're going to be okay. Welcome back to Elway today. We're joined by Victoria Myers. Will put everything in the show notes, but she's at Victoria Myers Underscore, and she's a registered dietitian, founder of Nourishing Minds, nutrition podcast, host Nourishing mind Podcast, and she is such a wonderful voice of reason in the space, really navigating difficult topics

when it comes to intuitive eating. So my favorite part of your philosophy is that you're helping people let go of unhealthy obsession with healthy eating. So we cover orthorexia a lot here, but I think it's so helpful to have an expert, a registered dietitian, come in and say the rigid rules are actually giving you anxiety and stress and this mindset isn't healthy. So wellness without obsession simple to the point. I love it. Hey, thank you so much, and thanks for having me. I am so excited to

be here. And today we're gonna be talking about intuitive eating and I be yes. So we're gonna keep it super basic, break it down, and really help with something very challenging, which is I have a medical condition that requires me to eat a certain way and so I can't eat intuitively. So that's probably something you hear a lot right, Yeah, and I think it's complex. I'm sure we're gonna get into all of that, but like sometimes you can and sometimes you cannot. It depends on like

the root cause of it. Well, we'll get into all this, I'm sure though. I'm excited too, So let's just go from the top. What is IBS and how is it diagnosed? Okay, So IBS is irritable bowel syndrome, And honestly, usually it's a diagnosi by a gas or intestional doctor. That is a diagnosis of like everything else gets rolled out. And I always say to clients or potential clients, like that's a good thing. We want silly actises to get rolled out, we want crones and ulcer to clients get rolled out.

But a lot of times people get kind of slapped with this diagnosis of IBS, which means you have a certain criteria symptoms like gas pain, bloating, diarrhea, crossipatient or alternating diarrhea and constipation, and then a lot of times they just kind of get sent on their way or given medication and not really told what else to do. Another common thing that is they're often told to follow a low FOM diet which I'm sure we'll talk about that today too, which is an evident space approach to

help with IBS. But again, a lot of times people get told to follow up for long term and they don't get told anything else outside of that. So I think it's just like a lot of confusion around how to navigate and cope with IBS. I will even say, from my clinical perspective specializing in orthodoxy and disordered eating, so many people that have disordered eating have digestive issues. Those two go hand in hand. So a lot of times people get the diagnosis of IBS, but what if

it's because they have disordered eating? And I think there's that like huge part of the conversation that really gets missed and maybe not even at the thought of a g I doctor. They're just not well understanding or maybe not well educated on that particular part of why that person might have digestive issues. But that's basically the basic way you can think of it. It's a diagnosis where

everything else gets ruled out. You get told you have IBS, and often from there just told nothing like just manage your symptoms basically. So I think you said something super important just to highlight that the disordered eating can cause digestive issues, which then gets labeled as I B S. A lot of different things can happen to the body

whenever you develop disordered eating. But in a really basic way to think of it is if you're not eating in a fuel, your body starts to shut down, and a huge thing it shuts down because your body doesn't see this as like necessary to survive is your digestion. So it makes sense save from that really basic perspective of why people develop digestive issues. And then even if we add orthoox, say to the conversation, y'all know this because you all talk about orthrooxee a ton on your show,

But what are people eating when they have orthorexia? Super high fiber foods, they're intermittent fasting, They're going, you know, eating all these gluten free foods which have all these extracted fiber sources in it, so much things that can cause symptoms. So as you can see, it's already like super complex to say like what specifically causes the symptoms, but it's all definitely interconnect it together. Okay, I'm gonna come in from the other side as someone who would

actually do certain IBS or even Crones disease. I do not have crones, but I would. I this was years ago, haven't thought about it in a very long time, but I knew if someone had Crones and they were reading this book and it was going to help their digestion and follow this diet to a t, I wished for the life me. I can't think of the name of it, but it doesn't matter. But I then went to buy that book because it provided this protocol to have a

healthy gut. But I didn't have what she had, But yet I wanted to follow it because I thought it was going to get me beIN because then my body would be functioning and I could only allow myself these foods that came from the earth. There wasn't process things or the added fiber like you're talking about. But I was trying to eat a certain way to fit a certain disease that I did not have to think back on it. It's so perplexing to me that that was

where my brain was. Disorder eating or the orthorexia, I don't think just comes in a form of like following a you know, South Beach or some diet. That's for all I know that I followed people with certain stomach issues or gastro intestinal issues, and I have tried to follow their meal plan because it was so restrictive. You're making me think of a client I just saw this

week that said the same thing. Amy. She was like, you know, I am intermitted fastening, I'm going keto because I follow this person that talks about cancer research at this And then it's like, I think that's what happens with the orthoris. You just keep in taking more and more and more information and you keep adding more and more diets on top of the point where you're not eating basically anything at all, and it's like, well, why are we actually doing it? The clients similar to you,

and it was like, I don't even know. I don't even have any of these things. I just felt like I had to to have help, right. Well, I think that the chief complaint with digestive disorders that are applicable to all is bloating. And I feel like I could do an entire podcast on my dislike for the way we come at bloating, because it's not always bloating and it doesn't always need a solution. But Amy, when you said you know you were following people with these digestive things.

I'm envisioning you following somebody who's saying, here's how you fix your bloat, and then here's the protocol. But her bloat is because she has a didgestive disorder, and therefore you're on a protocol just because of this one symptom that she is displaying. Does that make sense? Yeah? No, I mean I think we take on what we're what we're doing is a disservice to ourselves. I mean, first of all, when we're eating disordered, that's that's a disservice

to ourselves. But when we take on somebody else's chronic illness and make it our own because not I did not think I had what she had. But for whatever reason, I thought because she was trying to live her healthiest lifestyle to cure herself, I'm using her as a I'm not even talking about one person in particular, her or him. Because I then started to follow every little move they would make. I thought, somehow I'm a healthier, thinner person. Saying it out loud, I'm like, how in the world

did I ever think that would make sense? Because I was deprived, I was restricting things that I didn't need to restrict because I don't have that chronic illness. I think that's the thing with the orthorexy though, is most of us have experienced I too have orthorexy, which is why I'm so passionate about it. We want to emulate others.

I vividly remember following at Jelian influencers and mean like I want to eat like them because I want their lives and their thinness and they're this and they're that.

And that's why I think orthorexy has gotten so worse over the recent years is because there is a social media aspect of it where you do see these people, even if they do have a chronic health condition, they you still see it in it's like highlight real version of it where you're like, I want that too, and then you develop the same roles that they have and you have no idea if that person is personally struggling

with disordered eating or not well. So let's say someone listening does have IBS or they do have something where they have to restrict certain things for the betterment of their health. That's a fact. Not me over in La La and just trying to do that to myself because I want to have all these strict rules are wanted to excuse me past tense, But what are the IBS restrictions? Like if someone has to be that way, how does that complement intuitive eating? And how do people get through that?

That is your field, So we're focusing on that today, But correct me if I'm wrong. We could kind of insert like it's an equation. And if you've got another illness causes you to medical condition that causes you to eat a certain way, how do you also do that without creating a disordered pattern because you do have to

have restriction for your health. Okay, I love those question so much, and I am gonna quickly caveat and say real quick sometimes with disordered eating, when you are recovering, you're gonna have some digestive issues initially as your body recovers.

So just with that caveat being said, because I do think a lot of times an orthodoxic mind can amsuse that as a way to manipulate, like contuning food rules because you're getting symptoms from eating X, Y, and Z food, Well that might just be because you're body needs to normalizee eating that food. You need to gain weight, you need to eat more consistently. You need the microbine. Even

that's what's so cool about like our digestive health. As you eat more foods and you eat a buried, diverse site, you developed the literal bacteria to be able to consume those foods. So anyways, with that side note, I think that's a huge misconception with intuitive eating is that you can't practice it with medical condition And from my background, I think it just comes from maybe a misunderstanding of

what intuitive eating is. Because intuitive eating isn't just quote unquote eat intuitively or quote unquote listen to your body. It's ten principles from evilentivily in at least rise, and it's an evident space practice of how we basically eat from a self care eating framework, they describe it as like actions of self care, not self control. So as an example, someone with IBS, let's say they have id S and they discover that a low fall up diet which is theoretically only meant to be used for two

to six weeks maximum when I say fob up. Just to give you guys an idea, these are basically high fiber write foods that are very specific in causing senses with people with IBS, this is evidence space. But again the diet was really only meant to be used for two to six weeks maximum, and then from there you can personalize it and individualize it to the foods that you define to be your high trigger foods or the

cumulative effect of your personal fod mops. Obviously this sounds pretty nuanced, I'm sure, and that's why it's best to do this kind of work with a dietitian. But just because you have to have certain foods that you're decreasing in your diet, Let's say for someone falling a low fob up diet, they're decreasing hummus or avocados, cherries or chickpeas, which would be another example. Gluten it's not one, but

wheach is a fod MOP. They just need to avoid certain foods, but still can work on the other principles

of intuitive eating. So another example would be someone with with diabetes can still put their carbo hydrates that they happen need to match their insulin needs and still practice intuitive eating because you're still rejecting diet mentality, honoring your hunger, and making peace with food, challenging the food, please filling your fullness, advocating emotional eating, body respect, joyful movement into nutrition.

I think I missed one of the principles, but basically those are the principles, Like you can still practice all of these philosophies and believes while you still honor your health. That's the tenth and final principle. And it's such a critical part of this because intuitive eating is an anti

health or anti nutrition. It's just not about weight losses that means to obtain health or saying that thinness is the only way to pursue health or weight, or that you have to follow at this defined set of rules, because again, sometimes people need it. Some people need to account the carbohydrates, and that doesn't mean they can't do all those other aspects of intuitive eating. And then against someone with IBS, let's say it's not even fop box.

Let's say maybe they do genuinely need to be gluten free. Girl, you can still eat intuitively if you eat gluten free. You just need to eat gluten free foods. Now, what I usually see is people find gluten free as an excuse to not eat any carbohydrates at all. The thing I always, you know, challenge back to them is like, if you're practicing intuitive eating, you're still eating carbohydrates. You're just eating gluten free versions of carbohydrates. I'm so proud

of you. First of all, just the way you're spewing information so naturally from your heart and from your brain at once. It's just a beautiful fusion and you're just translating it. You just packed so much into just a few minutes of so whoever needs to go back and even like slow that down. There was a lot of

good stuff in there. So the protocols that doctors are oftentimes putting their patients on who have IBS, sometimes I've seen that someone may not have a history of an eating disorder or disordered eating, and then they develop one because of the protocol. So you know, someone who has a history of disordered eating might have a little bit more wherewithal stepping into the space of okay, this feels

a little reminiscent of my disordered days. But do you see that the onset of disordered eating can begin with a protocol? Yes? Absolutely, And I will say, like digging a little deeper, what I feel a lot of because we specialize in this, like this triangle of foremost suggestion and intuitive eating. We see a lot of times people get these extreme protocols from holistic natural path functional mess and doctors. And I love holistic approaches, like I promise

I'm not like hating on anything. However, a lot of times they are told a laundry list of foods not to consumes. More than just go go bomb up or go gluten free. A lot of times they're told a list of I would dare say, like twenty thirty plus foods to not consume. And that's what starts to develop the disordered eating because it developed anxiety and starts and worry about these foods and never told that it's okay to start eating those foods again, are never told that like, hey,

this should only be a temporary solution. So yes, I can definitely see how protocols would develop that and it makes sense given these circumstances. And I think even if someone doesn't want to specialize in even disorders, we just all need to better understand how disordered eating man off us because it can so quickly happen from just a diet or dust a protocol. When you work with people who need diet, arry, I'm going to say rules in

place for their health and the long term. Is it better to be broad or specific when telling them what to eat or not eat? So, for example, cutting out entire food groups versus foods. And I'm genuinely asking, like, which could be less detrimental to their relationship to food, whether you're specific or broad? Do you know what I mean? Yeah, that's a hard question to answer. You're kind of having me over here. Think. I think it could just depend

on the person. I think sometimes maybe broad Let's say, just like gluten as an example, would be helpful because there's still so many foods that they can consume. As I was describing earlier, like you should still be able to eat carbohydcrates, You're just gonna go for ones that are for your gluten. This idea of avoiding specific foods, like I've seen things like avoiding green beans and spinach

and tomatoes and bell peppers. And usually that's coming from the guys that food sensitivity testing, which is not something I personally agree with. You know, I get it, And I guess you could say a low pop pop die is pretty specific. There's a very specific food that have fod mops in them. And like I mentioned that is an evident space practice, but it was never meant to be used for a long term, so I think it

could be used for short term solution. I just always like to emphasize that doesn't need you have to avoid all of those fob mops for the rest of her life either. Though generally speaking, once someone has done the personalization of it and they are, you know, doing this to manage their IBBEA symptoms, usually it's just things like garlic and onions. Maybe beans can be a pretty big one too, that they just need to eat less of overall,

And they don't even have to. It's not like someone like with siliac and flute and free It's not like they had to avoid that food forever or like completely eliminate it. Oftentimes it's just a reduction of it, if that makes sense. And would you say that cooking techniques could alter how the food is digested in the body. Oh? Yeah, I feel like cooking just always helps, right, So, Like, for example, apples are a really big fod mop. You can cook the apples. I love making like baked apples

with cinnamon and maple sirrup. Yum, so delicious. Like that's the way to make it easier to digest our onions garlet. That'd be another great example. So let's say you have ib us and you love guacamli, maybe you want to make hears without garlican onions and as an example, or if you do love garlican onions, maybe caramelizing the onions because that can help to reduce the overall farm upload something like that. That's where I think the knowledge of

nutrition and cooking practices can be really helpful. And working with a dietitian so that you know, when you get the long list of foods that you can't eat, you then go to somebody who could be covered by your insurance, by the way, and they help you sort through the weeds of what you can and can actually eat. And then even within the parameters of what you know doesn't work for you, is there also a way that this food doesn't need to be out of your life forever?

And that's obviously going to depend on the person. But I think it's something that we kind of forget and may not even have knowledge of actually is a better word? Yeah, yeah, And I mean my personal philosophy is this. I always try to liberalize the diet as much as possible. We believe in the all foods fit mentality, but again understanding

that sometimes medal folk conditions require otherwise. But I'm not about telling someone like, Okay, well you have these metal folk conditions, but let's also make dairy in gluten because they're inflammatory and you shouldn't eat them. I think that's just a completely different conversation. This whole idea of like things being inflammatory is not the same as saying, like,

follow temporarily a loophom off diet for your ibs. So let's say a client does come to you and well, you are working with them and they want to figure out how food makes them feel. Sometimes it's hard to recognize, okay, is this a period cramp? And my ovulating? Like why went through fertility stuff? So I became very in tune with ovulation cramps. I always thought because that's not my period. I always thought the discomfort I was feeling in my

stomach was a food related issue. But once I became in tune with what my body was doing on my minstrel cycle level, I realize, oh my goodness, I'm not uncomfortable right now because of something I'm eight. I'm uncomfortable because I'm ovulating right now, and I get really bad cramps during that time, and I could start to see

all the signs happening. So I say all that just to say that once we become aware of how our body is functioning and what's causing it, but I feel like even still without that knowledge, there's times where I don't know why I feel puffy, or I don't know why my stomach is uncomfortable, or is it journaling? How do you recommend to people to keep track of how it's making them feel and then make decisions based on that. Yeah,

I love this question. I do have to say. I think what's so interesting to me is that we always go for food as like the reason we're experiencing something. I always want to clients, like I'm having a ton of symptoms this week. My first question to them is not what is your stress and anxiety levels like this week, because that is so underestimated for the way it gives us so many symptoms. It can cause that your ability, the fatigue, the lack of concentration, that puffiness, the bloating,

you can cause all of that. So my personal philosophy is always focusing on that first and foremost because it is vastly underestimated for how much like literal symptoms that can cause in your physical body to experience stress and anxiety. And then from there like, yeah, it's something going on your period? Are you on your period? Are you adolaying

this week? Do you potentially have pianass symptoms? And then you know, food for me kind of falls out that like the very bottom, and yes, again it can be those things, it could be a particular food. I think over time is an intuitive eater. You can start to discover what feels best in your physical body. And I like to be absolute with that. So like, as example, sometimes I eat a cheeseburger and I know it's not gonna make me feel but I enjoy the experience and

I eat it and move on with my life. But there is this idea you can definitely eat foods that makes you thrive and feel your best. But I do have to say, I think it's not always the food that's making us half symptoms. Does that make sense? Like I think we need to like not always good for food is like the first thing we ask for me.

I'm so glad you said that, and we covered that in our you know, the first part of that way, and one of the first four episodes kind of that the stress and anxiety even that we give ourselves over food could be causing all the other symptoms or yeah, have we been sleeping or what else is going on? So thank you for bringing that up and knowing that, yeah, there's so many under ying factors. But yeah, you're right, we always make food. The corporate water plays a role.

Are we exercising too much and causing certain stresses in our body? And do we need to take a break and relax. We've talked about so you know, all those factors are things that we quote unquote do the exercise, the food, the sleep. I mean, obviously sleep disturbances could be without our cause. But the important part here is that there are factors not within your control that cause

puffiness blow. You know, you talked about your menstruation, even if you're not you know, female or ovulating or whatever it is. The body is a chemistry project on its own, and I think I believe that this is so ingrained into us that like we control our physical state because that calories in verse, calories out mentality was just like drilled into us for so long, Like it's simple just do this, do this, burn more, eat less, you know,

and all your problems are solved. That we think we're in so control of our bodies that we feel like failures when we're not. And for me, that's where my mind goes when I think, how did we get here? Because listen, I I believe that food can be medicine. I believe that food is fuel. But it's not just about the food, right. I couldn't agree with you more. I I think we can use food like as you said, we can use food is mess, and we can use

food is fuel. But this idea that food is the end all beyond or the cause of literal every issue or condition we experience, it's just so unfair to me. And you know, similar to like this calories thing, calors out. I think what we've also recently have had happened in this health of wildness world is like you have a symptom, is this food's fault? You have this symptom? Is this foods fault? I think that's where we are even more

so with food. And I think it still comes down to like thinness and desire to lose weight, and like it almost always comes down like that's how people perceived health. But I also think it's very much this idea of like you have bloating a linate gluten, you have acne, don't eat dairy, you have something going on with this health condition, don't eat sugar. Sugar is the worst. It's just interesting to me, and I understand I have like this non diet being perspective. I'm always just like, huh,

that's so interesting. That's the first thing we go to. First thing. So true, and oftentimes it adds more stress, which then exacerbates the original problem that you were trying to solve. So that's kind of the framework where it's like, Okay, we need to step away from this vicious cycle that we keep throwing ourselves back into it, and we can.

I think that that's the important thing. We can step back, and there is a way to have a healthy relationship to food with a dietary protocol and live way more happily and free. Right absolutely, if someone listening right now, I just want to speak to someone that's like, oh, well, shoot, I do have things going on. Working with someone like Victoria that knows how to navigate you through something like this will be helpful Because I am speaking from a

place where I don't have symptoms. You may have, Lisa may not. We don't have that. But if you're left after listening to this episod out and feeling like loss of what you're supposed to do, if you have the means to speak with an expert and work with them just to help you get started and really evaluate what do you have going on, do you think you really need to help. I feel like one of the worst things I ever did to myself was doing one of those blood tests where it told me what I can

and cannot eat. And I was advised to do that by not a certified nutritionist but someone that I was working with for a dietary plan. So I did that, and to this day, I have to remind myself Amy, it's okay you can have an avocado, or it's okay you can have an almond, or it's okay you can eat blueberries, because that test told me that I could not that those were my severe foods and I could not have them. But I mean, I tricked myself into thinking I needed that test done because I I wanted

to be thinner. So I would just encourage you if you're wanting to seek out help and do any sort of elimination thing to figure out what's going on, or you're wanting to get this blood test that will tell you what foods you're sensitive to. You ask yourself why you're doing it, because at the end of the day, I was doing it because I wanted to be smaller and it wrecked me. And even if that's not your goal, and it really is health and I think Victoria and

I would kind of say the same thing here. I feel like this could be a whole other episode on its own. But first of all, those tests are just profit centers, Like that's for me, that's absolutely okay, that's that's number one. But number two is the fact that they've incredibly high rates of false positive. So you're being told not to eat avocados or almonds amy, but that's not necessarily true, so your sensitivity could be wrong. And

then you've just eliminated all these foods. Even if it's not for thinness, it's because you just want to feel better in your body. You want to know what's going on inside that you can't figure out, and that is why elimination diet with an expert or registered dietitian hopefully somebody that you know is conscious of disordered eating can be a better fit to help you figure that out.

Although not necessarily more expensive, but definitely more time consuming, to kind of weed out food by food is really the way to go, and that's why it remains, you know, the gold standard of figuring out what to do. Yeah, I appreciate you mentioning that. Lisa and Amy, thank you so much for sharing your story. The truth is that they're just not evident space. And again, I love hollicic practices.

I'm quite a wellness junkie myself. But the truth is is if we don't have evidence space practice, we cannot say that these things for sure. How can Amy. I've heard countless stories like yours where they had this test, they were told not to eat X, Y, and Z food like you mentioned avocado and almonds, and then what happens is they developed fear around the specific foods for the rest of their life. And I'm gonna imagine that's not how the tests were originally meant to be used,

but it seems to be how they're using now. And we all have I d D in our blood like that tells us that we're used to have food, So I think I personally just have a lot of you know, obviously I have a different perspective on this test. It sounds like Lisa, you do too, um, but they're just not the end lb all to anything and definitely would work with the expert. But I have so much compassion if you have symptoms and if you're even trying to

navigate into it a eating. I had digestive issues first solid decade of my life, and I get how concerning they can be in perplexing and it makes you feel as if, like I know, for me, my quality of life was so impact that there were times when I couldn't leave the house. And that's why I love doing IVS work with into an eating because I remember what it was like. It was terrible. But I do have to say I think a lot of the answers that are out there right now, I am concerned that they're

just developing orthodoxy even more for most people. Awesome, Well, Victoria, we appreciate you coming on to talk about this with us, And again, if people want to find you on Instagram, you're at Victoria Myers Underscore and the Myers is M Y E R S. And I'm pretty sure, Victoria is going to be on an upcoming episode that you'll get to hear where we're gonna be talking about how to get your period back. It's that's something that you have lost.

So we'll be seeing you again soon. Victoria, thank you for having me