Episode 12: Is Protein the Missing Puzzle Piece to Healing IBS?

Women with IBS spend a lot of time thinking about food.
Most of the time you just want to have a healthy diet where you can eat the things you love without feeling sick afterwards. Or you want to eat the things you know support your body. Or ideally both! You want this simplicity without causing constipation or bloating or diarrhea. When you have IBS, food choices can take center stage because of the obvious connection to the digestive system. Food also has the power to heal, especially when you have IBS. One of the macronutrients that is such important for healing is protein. Without sufficient protein your body will struggle to heal and today we’ll dive into the how and why. Find the full transcript for this episode and other resources at HealingHerIBS.com/12 

Erin Maillo helps women with IBS who are sick of being sick reduce triggers, zap flareups, find peace and get their lives back.

For VIP one on one support, apply for Erin's Healing Her IBS Program here: https://healingheribs.com/work-with-erin/

Transcript

Women with IBS spend a lot of time thinking about food. Most of the time you just want to have a healthy diet where you can eat the things you love without feeling sick afterwards. Or you want to eat the things you know support your body. Or ideally both! You want this simplicity without causing constipation or bloating or diarrhea. When you have IBS, food choices can take center stage because of the obvious connection to the digestive system. Food also has the power to heal, especially when you have IBS. One of the macronutrients that is such important for healing is protein. Without sufficient protein your body will struggle to heal and today we’ll dive into the how and why.  Find the full transcript for this episode and other resources at HealingHerIBS.com/12
What Does Protein Have to Do with IBS?
To begin with, what is protein? Proteins are made up of amino acids which  are the building blocks that your body needs in order to function well and in order to heal. This key macronutrient has so many key functions in our body and can often be overlooked depending upon which circles you are running in. Protein is the essence of our body, and of our body’s structure. This macronutrient affects every system in the body—including the digestive system!  All hormones are proteins as well and every enzyme in our body is protein.The type of proteins that must come from what we eat are called essential amino acids. They are not made in the body and therefore need to be acquired through what you eat. Protein is essential to body growth and is especially important for those who have increased growth needs, like women who are pregnant or children who are growing. Those who are aiming to build muscle have higher needs and older people are recommended to increase it as well in order to counteract the muscle loss that comes with aging. There is fascinating research on longevity and the role muscle maintenance plays in aging well and aging strong. Researchers and doctors like Peter Attia and Gabrielle Lyon are great resources if you are interested in learning more on this subject.Women should know that if you are healing your IBS, you also have increased protein needs! Do you know if you are getting enough protein for your body to heal itself? It’s likely that you are not if it’s not already on your radar.
Tracking Your Macronutrients for IBS
How can you know if you are getting enough protein? The recommended daily minimum recommendation of is .8 kg of protein times your body weight. Therefore, if you are a 150-pound woman the RDA for protein would be around 55 grams of protein. It’s so important to keep in mind that this recommendation is the minimum amount of protein that someone would need in a day to avoid getting sick and is by no means the amount you should be eating for thriving and healing your body. If you hope to gain or maintain muscle, if you are active or if you are aiming to heal your IBS, your daily goals should be much higher than this RDA. Peter Attia, doctor and researcher and author of Outlive -The Science and Art of Longevity, recommends adults who intend to live a long healthy life should be doing weight training and eating closer to 2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, or 1 gram per pound. Therefore, a 150-pound woman would be aiming to get closer to 150 grams of protein per day. As you can see, this is a huge jump from what some government organizations recommend and from what other doctors and health experts doing cutting edge research on the subject are recommending. Do you know how much protein you are getting a day? Have you ever done any experiments to see how eating more of less of this macronutrient affects you in a day? These can be interesting experiments to do with yourself as you explore what eating plan feels best for you, supports you and helps you heal. So many women struggle with eating enough protein in a day and especially with eating enough high-quality choices that are going to help you get better.
How to Increase Protein for Gut Healing
As I talked about in Episode 9- Are you Getting Enough Fiber to Heal your IBS? getting enough of a certain nutrient can be tricky if you aren’t tracking your food intake. A lot of women assume they are getting enough fiber or that they are getting enough protein, and it turns out that after a few days or a week of tracking, they realize they aren’t at all. IBS is a diagnosis that requires you get real and honest about what you are eating and if you are getting the right amounts of the nutrients that you need. It requires you to be diligent and consistent. Healing IBS is often a long game endeavor that requires you to make long lasting changes to your life, routine and diet. Do you have the tenacity and follow through to track your food for? For many of my clients and women I have spoken with, having an accountability partner can be so critical for success in this area. If you find it simply too much to do on your own, consider finding someone to help you through the process. I help women with IBS in my four month long one on one program called IBS Breakthrough. Getting that one on one and long-term professional help and accountability can be life altering to your progress towards IBS freedom. If you can start on your own, begin by tracking your protein for a few days or a week without changing how you normally eat. This process can be a bit tedious if you aren’t used to using a food tracker like My Fitness Pal or Cronometer, and there are others. However, the data that you get will be well worth it f you use that information to help guide your future food choices. Once you know your typical protein intake and you determine the specific grams of protein that’s right for your body and your healing goals, you can get started in finding ways to increase your protein if that is indeed what you need to do. 
A few tricks that have worked for me are: 

 ·      Adding egg whites to my eggs or smoothies in the morning

·      Including a meat or legume in every meal 

·      Eating a protein rich snack like yogurt with peanut butter and apples

·      Adding seeds and nuts to dishes

There are so many ways to incorporate more of these amino acids into your diet that are fun and satisfying, I’m sure I will come back to this topic in a future episode!  In the meantime, focus on what pleases you and what you love to eat. Changing your eating habits can be challenging at first, but it you put what you enjoy at the center of these goals it can truly help make the process more pleasurable and so much more likely to stick. 
Thank you for listening to today's episode on protein.