YES - You can heal your hot mess gut WITHOUT an elimination diet!

Dietitians get a bad rap for being the food police. While I can't speak for every dietitian out there, I actually want my clients to be eating a BIGGER variety of foods for gut health! And, no ... most often, gut healing does not include elimination diets when you partner with me. I frequently get asked how my clients still see results without following a strict elimination diet, so decided to get into that today!

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Transcript

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instead of thinking as dieticians, as food police and elimination diets and all of that, Really thinking about us as partners through this, to help you be more personalized in your approach and ultimately expand your diet and create resilience in your gut so that you can handle those stressors without them sending you all the way back, because life is stressful and it's always changing. There's good stress. There's bad stress. And it's all about helping your body be as strong as possible so that whenever those stressful times come or those vacation times come or whatever. You're able to enjoy it, or you're able to power through it. Without being a complete wreck by the end of it. Hey, everyone. Welcome to The Nourished and Thriving Show. I'm your host, Katie Lovitt. I'm a registered dietitian on a mission to help you increase your impact and legacy on the world while healing your gut and reducing your IBS symptoms. I'm so grateful to have you here. Each week I'll inspire you to live vibrantly and provide valuable resources and information that empowers you to take bold action towards your health goals. Before we dive in, make sure you follow or subscribe to my show wherever you're listening so you never miss an episode. Ready? Let's go! All right guys. We are. FAC and, you know, I was thinking about, what do I want to share with you guys this week? What topics am I hearing coming up over and over again? With my clients or with people when I'm talking with on Instagram. For those of you guys, you don't know if you don't follow me on Instagram, man, it's a party over there. Like I'm posting new content almost every single day. I'm talking with man, like almost a hundred of you guys each week. It is boppin. So make sure you're following me on Instagram. I have my links down in the show notes, but if you're wanting even more content, if you're wanting to reach out and talk with me personally, That's really the best way to get in touch. So I was thinking through all of that. And one thing that kept coming up over and over and over again you know, over the last couple of weeks, Is elimination diets. And just the shock of, you know, Wait. You can't. You don't have to eliminate foods. How do you help somebody? Every gut reset I've ever done has had a really strict elimination diet. It's either been like that. Or people messaging me and we're talking and they're like, well, I don't really think that what you do is going to help me because I've worked at the dietician before I've done elimination diets, and it didn't really help. Or. You know, we're talking and we really connect with each other and somebody is like, well, you know, I don't really want to start in the next month or so because I have a big trip coming up or I have a really stressful time. And I know I'm not going to be able to stick with whatever strict diet that you put me on and whenever we're working together, And I think that this is a really misc, common misconception with dieticians is kind of viewing us as the food police and, you know, making you take out all of the delicious foods that you love having to adhere to a super, super strict diet. And, you know, let me tell you that is the case sometimes, right? Like with some dieticians, I think. Every practitioner is completely different. Everyone has a different approach. I do know people who do have their clients follow a super strict elimination diet. You know, whether it's low FODMAP, Murray, IP, or whatever it is. And for people who are wanting something like that, it can be a great tool. My approach and experience with it is just that. A it's super stressful. B it's not sustainable. So people have this like all or nothing mentality about it. And what ends up happening is those results don't last, right? Like you're feeling fantastic on this elimination diet, but then once you're starting to reintroduce things to try and figure out your triggers. Or you're off of the diet because it's come to an end. Or you stop the diet because it becomes unsustainable. You don't really know where to go from there. And you're trying to like piece together a plan to kind of stay with it and not stay with it. And you just ended up kind of back where you were. And so I just really don't feel like it's sustainable. And second of all, it's just not necessary. I've helped hundreds of people heal. Their hot mess guy is I call it if you've been around for very long, you know, I've used that term a lot. I've helped people do that without having to follow an elimination diet and You know, I just don't feel like it is necessary because it's not most often the actual underlying root issue. Now the things with these elimination diets is. You're removing common triggers. Like what me, like run down for you. How these elimination diets are supposed to work. You're eliminating common triggers from whatever. Philosophy or approach you are working with. So if it's AIP or whole 30 or low FODMAP, there's all these different philosophies on what these foods can cause triggers and those foods can cause triggers. So you're kind of in one of these camps of elimination diets, You're moving. All of the common triggers within that approach for a certain amount of time. Normally, ideally it's only supposed to be for two or three weeks. I'm actually going to go through a different kind of an example where that's not the case and actually can be helpful in a minute, but bear with me for a sec. Normally a couple of weeks, it's not meant to be on long-term. So for those of you guys, who've been to your GI doc and they just tell you to follow a low FODMAP diet. And definitely that is not the purpose of that kind of diet, and it can actually lead to nutritional deficiencies and it can actually make your problems worse down the road. And we're going to go into all of that in a minute. But you're supposed to follow it for a couple of weeks and then gradually and systematically start reintroducing those foods to test for your symptoms. So theoretically, you're cutting. All those feeds out for a couple of weeks. You're feeling. Amazing. And then you start reintroducing one thing at a time. Ideally like something every three days with like a small, medium and large dose. So you're doing small dose one day, medium dose, the second day, large dose, the third waiting three days, like a three, a washout period. And then adding in a second thing. So this reintroduction. Based can really drag out. And I've talked to some of you guys who are kind of over it by the end of that re-introduction phase. The thing that I see happening. Is, it just gets really muddy even with strategy, even with this like introduction and wash out and all of that. You start out feeling great. At the beginning of the reintroduction phase. And at some point over the next few weeks, your symptoms start creeping back in. But you can't really attribute it to any certain re-introduction or any certain food. You don't really know why or what happened. So then you're just in this really frustrating place of. You followed this elimination diet. You've done this really big pain in the rear reintroduction phase. You're not feeling great again, and you still really don't know why. So it's just like that frustration of it right now. Let me go into. A different kind of struct diet that may be followed longer term. That's going to be something like it's been researched for certain conditions. Where you're working hand in hand with a provider. So say you have diabetes that you're working to to reverse or cancer, and you're following something like a ketogenic diet. That's going to be something that's longer term while you're supporting your body as it heals. And you're going to be working hand in hand with a provider to do that. And those are for very special, unique circumstances. When it comes to healing the gut. Just removing those triggers does not work. It just doesn't work most of the time. There is one instance where it can be really helpful. And we're going to go into that in a minute, but most of the time the food is not actually the problem. There is a different underlying issue that must be identified. And I say issue, but really honestly, most of the time there's multiple issues that are underlying, that are contributing to your symptoms and they must be identified in order for you to get better. And so whenever you're able to identify those, your guy is allowed to heal. You have a plan in place to, you know, specifically strategically take action to do that. And those foods don't bother you anymore because that other issue is gone. Does that make sense? Okay. If you find yourself cutting out foods. And not even necessarily doing a formal elimination diet, but just kind of avoiding your triggers. The thing I see with this is over time, you're having to cut out more and more trigger foods. So when it first started, it was just one food that you were having to avoid. And then another and another. And then before, you know, it, the list of things that you have to avoid actually starts to be longer than the list of foods that you feel safe to eat. I've seen it happen actually all the way to the point of I can eat three foods and that's it. I'm eating the same thing every single day. And so, you know, that's really just kind of, one of the biggest concerns of following an elimination diet without strategy, reducing food triggers without figuring out what's actually going on. So let me give you guys a little bit of insight into how we work, what I do and how I'm able to work some sort of magic fooduh that. Yeah allows people's guts to heal without having to follow these diets. And let me just tell you, they are really difficult to follow. Like if you've ever tried to follow a low FODMAP diet, I never recommend anything to anyone that I haven't tried myself. And they're hard, they're tricky to follow. And it takes a lot of planning and changes. And so Yeah. So how, how am I able to do this? Well, first of all, whenever I'm working with people, Obviously, if something is. Instantly or like short term. Triggering your symptoms. I don't have you include it right away. Right. So, whatever things you're avoiding, because you know that they trigger flare ups or make you feel bad. We continue to avoid them in the beginning. Because we know that those are directly irritating. You. We know that those are directly irritating you and causing your symptoms to be worse. And. We don't want you to feel bad. And we also don't want to add extra stressors into your body as we're entering into this heal face. So that's the first step. Don't eat. What you know is a trigger for you. Second of all, we have to understand, like I said, at the beginning, I'm going to kind of beat it into Well, just a little bit. We have to understand those root causes. A lot of the time, this part of work is kind of like peeling, an onion it's layer and layer and layer, and like, This is something that I think mainstream medicine really gets wrong and misses the markup. They want something to blame. Everything on, they want a scapegoat. So the very first cause that they see they're like, yes, that is it. That's the thing. Fix it and you'll feel better. And a lot of the time people. May feel better short term, but then ends up getting worse again, or they don't get all the way better. And the reason that is is because oftentimes that's not the only cause of the symptoms. Most often there's multiple causes to these symptoms and you have to figure out. What all are the moving parts? Now a lot of the time, you don't know what all they are until you start to move through it. And so as you start to identify these causes, you start to reverse them and repair them and make changes. And then observe, see how you're doing. See what else you learn about your body? My gut rehab program is actually laid out in a way to guide people through all of this. So that we get information from testing. Yes, we can actually see what is going on in the gut. But then there's also softer. Things that are caught softer stressors, I guess you could say on your body that aren't necessarily easy to see what the eye. It's not even something that I might be able to tell from, somebody's talking with them. It's something where you identify it in yourself. And that's where it's super helpful for us to partner together. And why people don't just seek me out as the expert, but really I'm an expert in gut health and nutrition. And my clients are experts in their own bodies and in their own lives. And then we come together and that's how we get really great results. So examples of stressors could be literal stress, emotional and mental stress and how you're managing it or not. Managing it. Past traumas that you haven't been worked through, maybe you're sleeping really poorly. Maybe you have some metabolic dysfunction, you have some blood sugar dysregulation stuff like that. On the gut tests that we do together, maybe it comes up that you have a bacterial infection or a parasite, or just an imbalance in good organisms in your gut. Maybe have inflammation. So those are all more tangible things that we can see versus the like mental and emotional stress. We can't really see that. Right. Maybe from listening to you, you, or, you know, reflecting on in conversation. We can understand, like, Hey, even though you say you're not stressed and you're managing it, fine, just talking with you, it sounds like maybe you're more stressed than you even realize. And that's often the case with women. We carry a heavy burden. We carry a lot, a big load. And then we may have other, you know, stressors coming in like environmental toxin exposure. So where are you using to clean your house with, what are you putting on your skin? You know, what kind of candles are you burning that you're then breathing in, it's circulating through your bloodstream and it's affecting your gut health too. So we really have to understand. All of these different causes. And work on them strategically one at a time in order to heal that gut and allow the body to restore. Function. Now sometimes here. Yes. A stressor can be food. Sometimes you are allergic to food. Sometimes food can turn on the immune system. That's local to your gut. And in those instances. Yeah. You know, it may be. Something where you do need to eliminate that food, but we're going in with a reason. Versus guessing and seeing what happens and hoping that something helps. Right. We're going in really strategically here. So then once you UN. Are able to identify all of the different stressors or some of the different stressors, and you're ready to take action towards them and then see where the chips fall. Right? Like you're taking some action and then you watch, I call this strategic short-sighted action because you take action towards the themes that you can see right now. And then you make observations and see, okay, what else, what else is still standing? What else is still getting in the way from me and my, you know, health that I want to. You know where I want to be with my health. So we're correcting those issues. That's about third step there. And then as we're starting to heal our gut and feel more confident in our bodies. As you're starting to have fewer symptoms and feel better and more energy and all of that. Then we start actually doing. The opposite of what you would expect a dietician to do instead of eliminating foods from your diet. We're actually looking at adding foods in adding the right foods in right more veggies, more nuts and seeds, more herbs and spices, more flavor. Because we know that as we have a variety of foods in our diet, We're actually expanding the diversity of our microbiome. And we know that a really diverse microbiome is a healthy microbiome and that's a healthy gut and a healthy us. So. I really wanted you to just have a little bit of a perspective shift with this. And instead of thinking as dieticians, as food police and elimination diets and all of that, Really thinking about us as partners through this, to help you be more personalized in your approach and ultimately expand your diet and create resilience in your gut so that you can handle those stressors without them sending you all the way back, because life is stressful and it's always changing. There's good stress. There's bad stress. And it's all about helping your body be as strong as possible so that whenever those stressful times come or those vacation times come or whatever. You're able to enjoy it, or you're able to power through it. Without being a complete wreck by the end of it. Right. So it's just about supporting our bodies to that. You can live your life and fully show up in all of that. So. That's all for today. Not all. Dieticians will put you on a super strict elimination diet. I just talked to you through how it works. How that's even possible and what to expect whenever you're working with somebody like me. So looking forward to hearing your questions, looking forward to chatting with you on Instagram and we'll talk next time. Thank you so much for listening to the entire episode. I hope you are feeling inspired and empowered to take bold action towards your health goals. If you enjoy what you heard, don't forget to follow my show so you never miss a new episode. And it would mean the world to me, if you left me a review, so others know what to expect from my show. Last, get in touch. Let me know what bold action you're taking. Let me know how you're inspired. Follow me on Instagram@the_healthygut_dietitian. I've put a link in my show notes for you, so you can simply click and follow. Come say hi, I respond to all my messages and I can't wait to get in touch.