Don’t let your gut health and food concerns detract from your festive enjoyment - 12 top tips
The festive season can be a particularly tricky situation to navigate when someone is living with gut-related symptoms and other anxieties around food. An increase in social eating situations, ordering from rich Christmas menus and drinking more alcohol all have the potential to provoke digestive symptoms, particularly in those already living with gut-related conditions such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS).
Concerns about food reactions and other digestive and gut-related symptoms such as bloating, abdominal pain, diarrhoea, constipation, nausea and reflux are one the reasons clients come to see me. I have also had first-hand experience of these challenges myself and know full well how anxieties about the food-symptom connection can not only compound gut health symptoms, but can give be detrimental to a person’s emotional relationship to food and their body.
Anticipatory fears about the onset or exasperation of symptoms around eating, and feelings of body dissatisfaction, are not uncommon and can make eating stressful. Overtime, disordered eating behaviours can also arise such as the restriction of foods - sometimes many different foods and sometimes whole food groups, restrict and binge cycles, and skipping meals to avoid symptoms.
And it works both ways, as disordered eating habits can be a major contributing factor to gut symptoms. Studies have shown that, of those diagnosed with a gastrointestinal disorder including IBS, 44% have disordered eating, and 98% of people with a diagnosed eating disorder also suffer from digestive issues.
What Can you do Now?
Here are my twelve top intuitive nutrition tips to help you eat with more ease and enjoyment this festive season:
It’s natural to use food to celebrate but ask whether you need to make food the focus of all your Christmas social events? If what you really value is quality time with friends and family, can you get creative about all the other ways you can do that without making it all about the food?
Check-in with yourself at meal times and ask “What food and drink sounds good right now AND would help enable me to feel the way I want to feel?” If you’re already experiencing uncomfortable symptoms and a sense of dissatisfaction with your body, it can be too easy to turn back to more of the foods that keep you feeling below par. Don’t! Reclaim your power to make a different choice and one that could potentially help you feel better.
Ensure you’re generally eating enough food so that you don’t risk becoming constipated or weakening digestive muscles. Constipation means food sitting in the gut longer, which in turn means more fermentation and more bloating.
Have a plan around social events - if there are foods you absolutely know you need to avoid due to allergies or intolerances then it may be worthwhile having a personal chat with the party host, offering to bring some alternatives, or checking the restaurant menu in advance. In some situations, it could even mean eating before you go out. This is definitely not something I’m recommending for everyone but I realise that for some people this can be better than making hasty or pressured food choices and eating things you genuinely need to avoid.
Wear clothes that are comfortable when you party. It may sound ridiculously practical but tight clothing when you’re bloated feels horrible and puts pressure on your digestive system. A stylish flowing or a-line dress might be just the job?
Chew, chew, chew - do not underestimate the power of chewing thoroughly when it comes to supporting digestive health and mitigating bloating. Slowing down and generally being more present whilst we eat is a skill that realistically may never be executed perfectly, but has multiple benefits to our experience of eating the more we do it. Festive eating may be a great opportunity to practice this.
Do not get caught up in judgemental thoughts when you do overeat or eat things that don’t work for your body. It’s very easy to chastise ourselves when this happens. The thing is everyone makes choices that don’t work for them from time to time! This is an opportunity to listen to and learn from your body’s signals, rather than shaming or blaming it.
Move your body this winter. Exercise prevents constipation by stimulating the muscles of the bowel. Even a brisk walk in the fresh air or doing a few mindful stretches or yoga posses can be super helpful to digestion, relieve gas and constipation and help support the mind-gut connection and nervous system.
If you are out a lot over the festive period, try to balance this out with periods of rest too. Sleep is an often overlooked factor when it comes to gut health. Lack of sleep contributes to the rise of stress hormones which can contribute to gut symptoms, and it disrupts the digestive tract’s natural overnight ‘house-keeping’ wave.
Tap into the power of natural supplements and herbal remedies to help you get through bloating. As a nutritional therapist, I know that different things will work for different people due to the underlying factors giving rise to gut imbalances in the first place. However, there’s lots of options to experiment with including probiotics, prebiotics, fibre supplements, apple cider vinegar and teas like ginger, fennel or peppermint.
Keep really well hydrated. Drinking enough water may help prevent bloating and constipation by softening the stools and allowing easy transit through the bowels for excretion.
If you realise that you’re fearing eating or are restricting foods because of gut/digestive symptoms, or suspect that your relationship with food may be contributing to your gut symptoms - and don’t have a plan to approach these challenges, then it may be time to take a longer term view and seek help from a nutrition professional who can help you work through this.
Which of my tips resonate with you the most? Which could have the biggest potential impact on your symptoms, or how you’re connecting with food and your body in general?
Pick two or three and commit to taking action, and reap the benefits this festive season.
Next steps
If you are struggling with your gut health, please check out my Rebalance programme here or contact me for an exploratory chat to find out more about how I can help you.
Do you struggle in your relationship to food? Would you benefit a fresh approach to eating that helps you take care of both your gut health and your emotional wellbeing?
My personalised approach brings together nutritional therapy with coaching in intuitive eating and behaviour change to help people eat and live more ease, energy and enjoyment.
Please check out my Reconnect programme here, or contact me for an exploratory chat to find out more about how I can help you.
