Top 10 Helpful Nutrition Tips to Improve Your IBS Symptoms
If you suffer from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), you have to deal with uncomfortable symptoms such as abdominal pain, bloating, gas, diarrhea, or constipation. But you can feel better by adjusting the foods you eat. Keep reading to learn the Top 10 Helpful Tips to Improve Your IBS Symptoms.
I’m a dietitian who has felt these unpleasant and painful symptoms of IBS, so I understand what you are going through. Fortunately, there are nutrition strategies you can use to alleviate your IBS, and I have personal experience with these tips, which I’m going to share with you. Of course, everyone is unique, so it’s best to try each of these and pay attention to how you feel.
1. Follow the Low FODMAP Diet
What are FODMAPs?
The Low FODMAP diet was one of the first things I implemented to improve my IBS symptoms. An article in the Clinical and Experimental Gastroenterology journal in 2016 found that the Low FODMAP diet is up to 86% effective in improving symptoms in those with IBS. But what are FODMAPs? FODMAP stands for Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides, and Polyols. These short-chain carbohydrates are highly fermentable in the gut and poorly absorbed in the small intestine. For people with IBS, foods high in FODMAPs can lead to symptoms such as bloating, abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation, and gas. Some high FODMAP foods include onions, garlic, apples, beans, and milk.
Phases of the Low FODMAP Diet
The Low FODMAP diet is an elimination diet, meaning you eliminate the high FODMAP foods for a little while to improve your symptoms and then gradually add them back to determine which foods are causing your symptoms. There are three phases in the Low FODMAP Diet: the elimination phase, the reintroduction phase, and the personalization phase.
First, you remove the high FODMAP foods for 2-6 weeks to see if your symptoms improve. Using the Monash University FODMAP Diet app is extremely helpful for identifying high FODMAP foods and the appropriate portion sizes. Next, you reintroduce each type of fermentable carbohydrate in different quantities to see which foods trigger symptoms. And in the last phase, you create a long-term eating plan that incorporates the foods and portion sizes you tolerate the best.
Tips for Success on the Low FODMAP Diet
Preparing and carefully planning are essential to succeeding with this diet. First, start with my Guide to the Low FODMAP Diet. It can be helpful to tell those you live with in advance that you will not be eating certain foods for a little while so you can determine which foods aggravate your symptoms. Also, working with a dietitian who specializes in IBS can provide guidance and help ensure your diet is nutritionally balanced. Finding low FODMAP recipes and meal plans can help you take the guesswork out of what to eat.
Some challenges can arise if you eat out at restaurants, as they may contain many high FODMAP ingredients. Inform the restaurant of your food sensitivities to prevent triggering symptoms. If invited to a friend’s house, bring foods you can tolerate.
2. Identify Other Trigger Foods
While the Low FODMAP diet is proven to help find the carbohydrates that may cause your digestive symptoms, other foods may also trigger problems. Foods high in fat, caffeine, spicy foods, and alcohol may cause IBS symptoms, even if they are low in fermentable carbohydrates.
Take notice if any foods trigger digestive issues such as diarrhea, acid reflux, or abdominal pain. Every person with IBS has different levels of tolerance to these foods, so it’s important to pay attention to your symptoms.
Keeping a food diary is one way to help you track your symptoms.
3. Keep a Food Diary
Keeping a food diary is a helpful tool to identify your trigger foods. Write down what you eat and any symptoms you notice.
Even writing down your emotions, such as happy, sad, stressed, anxious, or calm, you may notice a pattern between your emotional state and your digestive symptoms. An important aspect of IBS is the mind-gut connection, which highlights the communication between the brain and the digestive system. Stress, anxiety, and emotional well-being can significantly impact your gut function, potentially triggering or worsening IBS symptoms.
How to Keep a Food Diary for IBS: Step-by-Step Guide
1. Record All Food and Drinks:
Write down everything you eat and drink throughout the day, including portion sizes, ingredients, and meal times.
2. Track Digestive Symptoms:
Note any digestive symptoms, such as bloating, abdominal pain, or changes in bowel habits. Include the time they occur to identify patterns.
3. Log Emotions and Stress Levels:
Document your emotional state and stress levels at various times during the day, as these can impact IBS symptoms.
4. Review Regularly:
Review your diary to find correlations between certain foods, emotional states, and digestive symptoms.
5. Identify Triggers:
Use the patterns you observe to pinpoint potential dietary or emotional triggers. This will help you make informed adjustments to manage your IBS more effectively.
4. Implement Balanced Meals
Eating regular, balanced meals is vital for preventing IBS symptoms. Including a good source of protein, vegetables, healthy fats, and low FODMAP carbohydrates with your meals promotes a healthy, nourished body. These nutrients help to keep you full and prevent frequent snacking.
Having 2-3 balanced meals with 3 to 4 hours in between meals without eating helps your body activate the migrating motor complex or MMC. The MMC occurs in a fasted state and is a type of peristalsis from the stomach to the end of the small intestine or terminal ileum. It promotes the passage of indigestible food, bacteria, and debris along the gastrointestinal tract. So allowing your body a break between eating helps to promote healthy digestion. So limiting or avoiding snacking between can prevent IBS symptoms such as bloating and constipation.
5. Practice Mindfulness and Mindful Eating
Since IBS is a condition of the brain-gut axis, our emotional and stress states can significantly affect our IBS symptoms. Mindfulness, defined as the keen awareness of our emotions and body without judgment through mindful eating and deep breathing, can be very impactful. Christine Cherpak’s review article in the Integrative Medicine Clinician’s Journal discusses that mindfulness-based stress reduction programs have been shown to promote parasympathetic nervous system dominance, informing our body to rest and digest.
According to Cherpak, mindfulness practices have incredible benefits on digestion. Mindfulness modulates the stress response, reducing inflammation, improving motility and peristalsis, increasing digestive enzymes, gastric juices, and bile production, and improving nutrient absorption.
How to Use Mindfulness for IBS
Stress is one of the main triggers of my IBS symptoms, as it is for many others. Here are some recommended ways to use mindfulness for IBS that I practice regularly to maintain healthy digestion.
- I use mindful eating by eating and chewing slowly, savoring each bite of food, and listening to my hunger and fullness cues.
- I set aside time to eat without distractions, such as watching TV or working, to better tune into my body’s signals.
- I take deep breaths throughout the day whenever I feel stressed and before meals to calm my nervous system.
- I use gut-directed hypnotherapy, which is similar to meditation. Using the Nerva app was a game-changer for me!
When you eat mindfully, you are more likely to be in a relaxed state and can reduce the stress and anxiety often associated with IBS. To read more on mindful eating, read my article Mindful Eating vs. Intuitive Eating.
6. Use Portion Control
Portion control is an essential part of managing IBS. Eating large meals can overwhelm the digestive system and trigger symptoms such as bloating, cramping, and abdominal pain. For people with IBS, the digestive tract may be sensitive to the volume of food consumed, which makes it necessary to eat more manageable portions throughout the day.
Using mindful eating, pay attention to how you feel when you eat a smaller meal versus a larger meal. Using your hunger and fullness cues, avoid eating until you are overly full. One trick I like is eating on smaller plates to prevent overeating. Also, measuring my portions using measuring cups or a scale is helpful to track how much I am eating.
By practicing portion control, you can have a more balanced and comfortable eating experience, which can help you manage IBS better. Portion control can also help with weight management. Eating smaller meals throughout the day may be helpful if you want to gain weight, while eating 2-3 meals each day may help with weight loss or maintenance.
7. Stay Hydrated
Staying hydrated is essential for managing IBS symptoms. Proper hydration helps regulate bowel movements, which is important for those with either IBS-D (predominantly diarrhea) or IBS-C (predominantly constipation). For those with IBS-D, drinking enough water helps to prevent dehydration associated with water loss from diarrhea. For those with IBS-C, adequate water intake helps to soften stools and promote regular bowel movements. Inadequate water intake can lead to constipation and hard stools.
Here are some tips for staying well-hydrated:
- For optimal hydration, drink water throughout the day instead of large amounts all at once.
- Drink at least half your body weight in ounces. For example, if you weigh 150 pounds, your goal should be 75 ounces daily. If using metric, multiply your weight in kilograms by 30 to get milliliters daily. For example, someone weighing 68 kg should drink at least 2040 milliliters daily. Drink even more fluids if you exercise, are in hot weather, or are experiencing diarrhea or constipation.
- If you need to add some flavor, herbal teas, clear broths, and lemon-infused or cucumber-infused water can contribute to your overall fluid intake.
- Limit caffeinated or carbonated beverages as they can trigger IBS symptoms in some people.
- Limit alcoholic beverages due to the dehydration effect and aggravate IBS symptoms.
- Check the label for ingredients. Some specialty coffees, teas, flavored waters, and sodas can contain high FODMAP ingredients such as sugars, artificial sweeteners, or inulin.
8. Eat the Right Amount of Fiber
Fiber is vital when managing IBS, but it’s important to remember that everyone has a different tolerance level to fiber. The recommended fiber intake is 25 grams for women and 38 grams for men. I recommend gradually adding fiber to your diet. Increasing fiber quickly may result in digestive symptoms like gas, bloating, and abdominal pain.
Fiber comes in two forms: soluble and insoluble. Soluble fiber absorbs water and forms a gel-like substance in the gut, which can help regulate bowel movements, including diarrhea and constipation. Insoluble fiber adds more bulk to stools and helps improve constipation. However, insoluble fiber can be irritating to the gut lining, so it should be eaten in moderation or cooked to soften it.
If you are on a Low FODMAP diet, you want to choose high-fiber and low FODMAP foods. Check out my article for the Best High-Fiber, Low FODMAP Foods!
Food sources of soluble fiber include:
- Bananas
- Oats
- Oranges
- Chia seeds
- Flaxseeds
- Lentils
- Sweet potatoes
Food sources of insoluble fiber include:
- Kale
- Potatoes with skin
- Kiwi
- Blueberries
- Raspberries
- Quinoa
- Oatmeal
9. Try Probiotics
Probiotics are beneficial bacteria that can support gut health and may play a role in managing IBS symptoms. The gut microbiota are microorganisms living in the digestive tract. People with IBS may have an altered gut microbiome, which can lead to symptoms like bloating, gas, and irregular bowel movements.
Knowing which probiotic supplement to take can be tricky because so many are on the market. According to a systematic review and network meta-analysis study completed in 2023, the researchers found:
- Bacillus coagulans MTCC 5856 and Bacillus coagulans Unique IS2 are among the most effective probiotics for improving abdominal pain.
- Lactobacillus plantarum CCFM8610, Lactobacillus plantarum 299v, VSL#3, Bifidobacterium bifidum MIMBb75 were significantly superior to placebo in alleviating abdominal bloating.
- Bacillus coagulans MTCC 5856 and Saccharomyces cerevisiae CNCM I-3856 were among the most effective probiotics for improving the Bristol stool form scale in IBS-D.
Overall, the researchers recommend choosing probiotics to target your specific symptoms, whether it’s bloating, abdominal pain, or IBS-D. In this study, no probiotics were found to improve bowel movement frequency in those with IBS-C.
10. Eat More Fermented Foods
Another way to improve your gut microbiome is to eat more fermented foods. You likely already know that yogurt is a healthy, fermented food. But there are so many other delicious fermented foods to try, such as kefir, sauerkraut, Kimchi, kombucha, tempeh, and even certain cheeses such as Swiss, Parmesan, and Gouda. Even if you don’t tolerate dairy, many plant-based yogurts have live active cultures.
Fermented foods improve digestion, promote immunity, and may also promote weight loss. Eat fermented foods in small portions and monitor your tolerance.
Conclusion
Managing your IBS symptoms takes an individualized approach since everyone’s symptoms and response to treatment are a little different. In summary, strategies like following a Low FODMAP diet, practicing mindful eating, staying hydrated, balancing fiber, and adding probiotics or fermented foods can significantly improve symptoms.
Listening to your body and how you respond to the different strategies is essential. Keeping a food diary to track how you feel after eating different foods is another helpful tool. I recommend working with a registered dietitian and gastroenterologist specializing in IBS to help you navigate the various treatments.
Feel free to share your experiences with your IBS journey in the comment section below.
Also, subscribe to my email newsletter to receive helpful tips on improving your IBS and get IBS-friendly recipes sent directly to your inbox!
References
Cherpak CE. Mindful Eating: A Review Of How The Stress-Digestion-Mindfulness Triad May Modulate And Improve Gastrointestinal And Digestive Function. Integr Med (Encinitas). 2019 Aug;18(4):48-53. PMID: 32549835; PMCID: PMC7219460.
Deloose E, Janssen P, Depoortere I, Tack J. The migrating motor complex: control mechanisms and its role in health and disease. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2012 Mar 27;9(5):271-85. doi: 10.1038/nrgastro.2012.57. PMID: 22450306.
Nanayakkara WS, Skidmore PM, O’Brien L, Wilkinson TJ, Gearry RB. Efficacy of the low FODMAP diet for treating irritable bowel syndrome: the evidence to date. Clin Exp Gastroenterol. 2016 Jun 17;9:131-42. doi: 10.2147/CEG.S86798. PMID: 27382323; PMCID: PMC4918736.
Xie P, Luo M, Deng X, Fan J, Xiong L. Outcome-Specific Efficacy of Different Probiotic Strains and Mixtures in Irritable Bowel Syndrome: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis. Nutrients. 2023 Sep 4;15(17):3856. doi: 10.3390/nu15173856. PMID: 37686889; PMCID: PMC10490209.
