IBS Success Story: How Ian Stopped Diarrhea, SIBO, and Hiked The Himalayas Symptom-Free

Jessie (00:00): Welcome to the IBS Nutrition Podcast, your go- to source for navigating the complex diagnosis of irritable bowel syndrome. Here, we dive deep into IBS and discover the power of diet and lifestyle to find freedom from your IBS symptoms. Whether you’re newly diagnosed or have been managing IBS for years, you are in the right place for relief. I’m your host, Jesse Wong, FODMAP dietician and a gut expert. For years, I suffered from debilitating gut symptoms that kept me out of work, feeling constant discomfort in my body and anxious around food. Today, I’m in control of my IBS, able to eat the food I love again, travel whenever I want and spend quality time with loved ones. It is my mission to help you do the same and transform the way you live with IBS. Let’s get started. Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of the IBS Nutrition Podcast.

(00:53)Today, we have a very special guest joining us. His name is Ian. It’s a he. And I think this is the first time we have a past client coming onto the podcast to share his story. Not her. We have a lot of female clients sharing their story, but this is the first time we have a man. And Ian struggles with IBS diarrhea along with SIBO, and he had a 180 degree turnaround when we worked together a few years ago. And last year, Ian even took a trip to the Himaliance and he wants to share his gut journey with us. So welcome Ian, and here’s a little bit of introduction here. Ian, along with his wife, Jenny, are both yoga teachers, meditation teachers, and life coaches. Together, they co-founded and continue to operate Thrive Hot Yoga, two yoga studios in the Metro Detroit area going on 19 years.

(01:50)They co-founded Thrive Breakaway 10 years ago and have led nearly 20 international yoga retreats since. They are also certified high performance mindset coaches with the Proctor Gallagher Institute and coach together under the Banner Thrive Mindset. Ian has a 12-year-old son and a nine-year-old daughter. He lives and works in the Metro Detroit area. Welcome, Ian.

Ian (02:19): Jesse, thanks for having me on.

Jessie (02:21): Well, thank you for coming on here and sharing your story. And wow, what an accomplishment. Owning a yoga studio for 19 years and also a retreat, yoga retreat for the past 10 years and went on nearly 20 international trips. That’s a huge accomplishment.

Ian (02:43): Yes. And one of them, as you mentioned, was in Northern India in the Himalayas last fall. And we can get into that a little bit later on, but yeah, it’s been quite a journey with my wife on the path of yoga and meditation and health and wellness. And at the same time, even though I’m tuned into a lot of that, doesn’t mean I don’t also sometimes have problems or challenges or obstacles or gut issues, GI issues. And that’s when I sought you out some years ago.

Jessie (03:16): Yes. Well, let’s talk about this. Well, we worked together, I think, in 2023, so it’s been about three years. Now, let’s talk about who you are and what your life was like before having more gut issues or being diagnosed with IBS or SIBO.

Ian (03:35): Sure. So the SIBO diagnosis, just to give it a benchmark, was during the time of the pandemic and the business shutdowns. So that’s how I calibrate in my memory when this all happened. So that was around maybe 2020 to 21. I know you just said 2023, but in the early 2020s. And prior to that, I had been operating my yoga studios with my wife and we had our kids. And really the GI issues, I didn’t really have as much ongoing GI issues other than a serious abdominal surgery prior to that in 2009. So I had appendicitis that went wrong. And I was misdiagnosed by a few doctors because atypical presentation with appendicitis. For example, the lower right side is where most people feel pain that alerts a doctor to appendicitis, and I had pain in the upper left. But I tried going to an Ayurvedic doctor.

(04:48)I tried different herbs and supplements and a few different medical doctors. And because of the atypical symptoms, they were not able to tell. It was appendicitis until I collapsed one day on my living room floor, holding my stomach and my wife drove me to the ER. That was many years before we started working together, but that was something that triggered multiple surgeries, partial colon removal. It took me a year and a half to recover from the surgeries because they’re open stomach surgeries. They take everything out, put it back in, and I had to go through two rounds of that and had a bowel obstruction and so forth. So it was a extremely difficult time and close call with my life. And my wife had to sit by my bedside for months as I was recovering. And after about a year and a half of that recovery, I felt like myself again.

(05:49)And the surgeon said it takes four to six weeks for the scars a couple months for the scars to suture themselves up or to heal. And that was partially true, but to get my energy back took a full year and a half. And I remember one day waking up and feeling like myself again, but it was a long road. So from that moment on, I was a little more variable with GI symptoms, whether it was constipation or diarrhea or things going on, aches and pains in my gut, but things didn’t really present anything serious until the SIBO that you just mentioned and into the pandemic and our businesses shutting down as the way that the government responded, closing down brick and mortar businesses. So we’re a fitness business and there was a theory out there that if you’re huffing and puffing and working out next to people, you’re at more risk of getting sick or whatever.

(06:49)So hindsight’s twenty twenty, but we were closed down for the better part of a year. And you’ve probably heard the phrase, some people take their stress and their gut. Well, it was a kick in the gut to me to have my livelihood at risk and trying to raise a family and have two businesses shut down without any … At least in the thick of it, nobody knew what was going to happen. It could have gotten continued to get worse. And so my personality tends to just keep moving, take care of business, take care of my family, and then my gut takes the stress of it. And so that’s when the SIBO symptoms started flaring up. And not sure if I’m going too long-winded for you here, but SIBO for the listeners stands for small intestine bacterial overgrowth. And what happens is rapid weight loss. I think I lost 30 pounds in a month or in two months, something like that.

(07:45)You can’t really hold anything. You’re not throwing up, but everything’s moving through you really quickly. And I went to a few different doctors and tried different herbs and supplements and nothing seemed to be helping. And my family doctor had seen you on Instagram at some point and was impressed with your posting and your content. And that’s how I came, she referred me to you. And that’s when we had our first interview together.

Jessie (08:15): Yes. Your family physician, Dr. Heather, she was wonderful. She also has her own private practice now. And we collaborated. I think at our first appointment, we talked and then we didn’t quite work together just yet. And then you went somewhere else. Do you mind talking a little bit about that?

Ian (08:34): Yeah, I think I had tried … I went the route of a different doctor at some point and going through B12 supplements and trying different … And even the Ayurvedic doctor and acupuncture and trying different things that I were kind of in my known database of my personal care routine and yet nothing seemed to be … The symptoms did not improve. And I ended up going back to Dr. Heather Koza a few different times. And that’s actually when she was alerted to there’s something more serious going on and referred me to you.

Jessie (09:13): Yes. And I wanted to bring that up because for a lot of people who are listening, who are trying to deal with IBS, a lot of the times people think that I just need to find the right supplements. When in reality, gut disorder is a lot more complicated than that. And oftentimes you don’t need the supplements. And sometimes people may need the supplement, but you have to find the right one. We recommend very few supplements, and Ian, you know this. And one of the things we do recommend is fiber supplements, but even choosing the right type of fiber supplements can vary from person to person, so we don’t make any blanket recommendations.

Ian (09:50): I do remember … So I was big into taking probiotics at the time, and they’re all over commercials and the shelves of grocery stores and whole foods. And so I was just guzzling probiotics and different brands because it says on the bottle, it’s good for your gut health. But at the time it was not good. I was overdoing it and making things worse. So I don’t take any more probiotic, unless I’m traveling to a foreign country or very tiny doses here and there, probiotics are not in my necessary routine anymore. Right.

Jessie (10:25): And I think too, that was my conclusion to why you probably got SIBO’s more intestine bacteria overgrowth. But is that your recollection because of finding-

Ian (10:39): I can’t 100% know, but I think I was aggravating. I think what I was doing was making it worse. And I think that I know in my patterns of when I’m stressed or not, various symptoms will flare up migraines or back pain or GI issues. So I know it was probably the most stressful time of my life to have our businesses shut down and still be providing for a family. So it was maybe a hundred or a thousand times more stressful than any stress I had experienced. And that’s when the GI issue started flaring up and my personal supplement routine I don’t think was helping and it may have aggravated it.

Jessie (11:20): Yes. Well, now tell me about, well, share with the audience, what was the biggest challenge or frustration prior to working together?

Ian (11:31): Just that nothing I was doing on my own was helping. And like I said, my known database of things I typically do to feel better and wasn’t helping, whether it’s massage or acupuncture or more yoga or going vegan or vegetarian or trying this natural doctor, this naturopath or that, those have helped in the past at various times for different things. But in this case, it was really more dramatic. The dramatic weight loss really had me concerned. And I think actually my family doctor suggested I talked to a GI doctor as well. So I went to a specialist and went to you and kind of had parallel paths then moving forward.

Jessie (12:18): Yes. Because of your significant weight loss, and I think you went to the GI for a session and then you didn’t quite want to do the scopes, if I remember correctly, but there shouldn’t be … Now, IBS does not cause weight loss. If a person has weight loss and is rapid weight loss like yours, that is a red flag. You should always seek out to a legitimate healthcare provider right away. And because your case was so significant, I said, “I think I recommended for you to think you need to do the scopes to make sure everything is okay.” While it may just be IBS and maybe it’s just SIBO, but we don’t know for the extent of your symptoms. Yeah. What did we do together and what really helped you?

Ian (13:04): Right. So it’s good to talk about how the tide turned, right? So the tide turned for me from just things being frustrated and getting worse or not getting better to … I don’t remember when I had the colonoscopy, but getting on the path of a specialist and seeing you, I just started feeling more confidence again that there was a path, I could chart a path forward that was known, not to me, but to you and to the GI doc, I felt a sense of hope and confidence return just right from the beginning. And the low FODMAP diet, tracking food, tracking bowel movements, et cetera, on things on a daily basis was very eye-opening for me. And if I recall right, you put me on a low FODMAP diet and for an extended period of time, some number of months, and then we slowly started working back in the FODMAPs in varying degrees.

(14:05)And I remember at some point, plus you had different courses, the mindful eating challenge and different video modules and so forth. And I went through all of those programs, which were very educational and kind of caused me to just pause and realize that eating can be more of a ritual, not just something you have to get done in a busy life.

(14:30)So that was a very eye-opening time for me. Even though I’m into health consciousness things, it was still, I’m also a very busy guy and have a lot of responsibilities. And sometimes back burner, I just eat rushed or eat on the go, that kind of thing. And that’s not very great for your GI system, especially if it’s under stress.

Jessie (14:51): Right, right. Yes. But we stabilized your diarrhea first working with your GI doctor, getting SIBO treated. And because now I want listeners to know usually we don’t put patients on the low-format diet for this long, but given Ian’s situation and how significant the diarrhea was, your gut just needed more time to heal before we feel like it’s at a good place to start reintroducing FODMAPs, which is actually really good for our gut. But if your gut is very sensitive due to a variety of reasons, and in Ian’s case, it was because of SIBO, then FODMAPs can aggravate symptoms and can cause more symptoms. Now, let’s talk about maybe your food reintroduction journey.

Ian (15:41): So I do remember measuring my blueberries and things like that. And if I ate too many, then I would just pass food too quickly, that kind of thing. That was my challenge. But reintroducing, I actually really loved the food tracking process. It became enjoyable for me, not necessarily weighing and measuring things, but you get into a rhythm of even if you’re not measuring and weighing things like portions, like this many berries or this much grains or this many vegetables and certain types of veggies and grains and fruits. So my awareness around food intake just went to new heights, which has been valuable for me ever since. And I don’t remember exactly how I reintroduced certain foods, but I just went by your instruction and a little bit more quantity of this or a little bit more quantity of that. And you do that for a few days and you see how your gut responds.

(16:39)And if there’s no bloating excessively or no excessive constipation or diarrhea either way, then you can kind of feel more confident in that food and move on to the next. And so yeah, that process was very eye-opening for me. And if someone’s listening who hasn’t gone through that yet, and that sounds daunting like it might be at first, but really it’s just about becoming more aware of what you’re putting in your body, which we all should strive for anyway. And because one thing I learned that’s valuable from Aruveda is that food can be medicine for your body, but it’s not just you could have healthy food, but be eating in front of watching the news. And that’s not going to be your stress hormones go up when you watch the news, even if you’re eating healthy food. So there’s all these things to kind of calibrate if you want to feel good in your gut.

(17:34)And when you feel good in your gut, you generally feel good in your body as well as your energy and your thinking and your sleep and everything. So it’s all connected.

Jessie (17:43): And I want to reiterate on what you said about reintroducing food. So we do have a PDF that you can print out and follow the instructions on how much of what food to eat for different groups of FODMAPs for challenge purpose. And it’s usually over three days. We don’t usually have our patients track all the foods they are eating because it’s not always necessary. And for Ian is a temporary thing that we did back in the days. And because Ian’s case was so more severe, I would say, than others because of the weight loss components to it and an extremely sensitive gut, probably due to past trauma in the gut area as well. And for Ian, I think if I remember correctly, we have you take picture of your food and your stool to kind of see what you’re eating, what your stool looks like.

Ian (18:39): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the tracking process of taking pictures after going to the bathroom to the food that you’re eating, the meal, all of that was very enlightening for me from start to finish the food, the intake to the elimination process. For me, I’m kind of scientific thinking, I kind of geek out with that. It was interesting to me to, this is what helps keep us alive as our routine, what we eat, our choices, how much we’re eating. Quantity was a big thing for me too. I was a chronic overeater my whole life and it doesn’t show up on the scale for me, but it shows up as feeling sluggish and feeling in a food coma and so forth. So it’s really quantity, what you’re eating, how you’re eating, it’s very enlightening to go through that process. And I think most of your clients, I think struggle with constipation versus the diarrhea side of IBS, but I think either way, your life is better off learning these skills whatever way your GI system tends to get aggravated.

Jessie (19:52): Right. Well, because you have been on both side of the spectrum, right? So let’s talk about your SIBO a little bit. How was your SIBO treated?

Ian (20:03): Well, I think, again, this is a few years ago, but when you go to a medical doctor, your SIBO, it’s really a process of elimination. They don’t just tell you 100% if you have SIBO. It’s kind of a process of elimination of things. And then they treat it with a very expensive ultra high dose of antibiotics that costs $1,000 or 5,000, something crazy like that. And for a very short while, they smack you with this ultra high dose of antibiotics, which I think I did. And then you put me on the Cultural and helped to rebuild the gut flora after that. So that was somewhere along the process also, which I can’t know 100%, but I think it helped as well.

Jessie (20:52): Yes. If I remember correctly, I think I told Dr. Koza, your PCP that I suspect SIBO, we need to get you tested. I think Dr. Koza tested you, did a breath test with you to get you the SIBO diagnosis. And then you brought that to the GI and the GI prescribed the antibiotics. So the antibiotic Ian is talking about here is Xifaxan or rifaximin. It is one that is actually very safe and have a lot of research backing it. And it’s very safe because it only stays in the GI tract. It does not get into the bloodstream. So it doesn’t affect other parts of your body. And it helps. It’s one of the only evidence-based ways to treating SIBO. Now, there are different types of SIBO, and sometimes it’s a different combination of antibiotics. But for Ian’s case, I think rifaximin was the only thing you need, and you only needed one dose, and your gut symptoms started getting better, and then we just kept you on the lofomab diet, and also working on expanding the food to rebuild your gut microbiome.

(21:54)So I do want to say that if you do have SIBO, don’t be afraid of antibiotics. I think that’s something we hear from patients a lot because antibiotics have such a bad rep, but sometimes if you need it, it can be lifesaving and it can really help somebody feel better a lot faster. Okay. Well, tell us about … So we worked together, I think, in 2023, if I’m correct.

Ian (22:22): With SIBO, it was in the pandemic era. I’ll just say that coming out of the business shutdown era, which I think was 2021 and 22, but I could be wrong. But then I worked with Brooke, your partner last year with a different type of GI flareup.

Jessie (22:40): Yes. Do you want to share about what happened last year and what made you come back to our clinic for a second round?

Ian (22:46): Sure. So 2025, so that was less than a year ago. It was in the summer and we had three retreats planned at Europe because I remember we were about to go to Greece and I started feeling a sense of blotation or cramping that was not going away and trying different laxatives and different herbs and eating more fiber. And through the whole kitchen sink at my known strategies for feeling bloated or like I’m stopped up and nothing seemed to be working. And I had that little red flag go off in my mind like, “This could be serious again and I shouldn’t mess around.” So I drove myself to the ER and they put me in a CAT scan and identified inflammation of the lower left side colon and possible diverticulitis or diverticulosis. Sorry, I don’t know which one exactly it is, but there was some definite inflammation of the colon wall, which causes a thickening that the doctor said if a pipe is like this and it thickens and the wall can’t really see there, but it’s like the pipes get more narrow, the wall thickening.

(24:03)And so things can get more backed up and you feel like what’s going on, like the stool, the poop is not able to round the bend and exit. And so that was multiple days of kind of backing up in my system because of the inflammation towards the exit of the colon. And so they put me on liquids for a few days and bedrest and things settled down again. And I think when I got home, I sent you an email right away.

Jessie (24:36): Right, right. And you worked with my team dietician, Brooke. How was that experience?

Ian (24:43): Yeah, that was great. She was very professional and I went back to, there’s a different approach than with SIBO from the years before. And the medical doctors recommend zero fiber after a diverticulitis flareup because fiber reintroduction too quickly can aggravate, can trigger people’s symptoms, again, is what they described, whether it’s more pain or cramping or bloating. I think the doctor was joking, but he said white bread and hotdogs for a few days, and that’s not what I eat anyway. But I had to seek out whitebread and pasta and things like that that I normally wouldn’t eat and just went like Plain Jane diet for maybe the first week or two and then slowly started reintroducing fiber foods or whole grains and different types of vegetables and so forth in that I’m summing up a few months here, but yeah, it was a slow reintroduction of fiber again, tracking foods, monitoring quantity of foods and how much, which again, I love doing anyway because I kind of geek out with that.

(25:55)It just helps me be more mindful with my eating routine and cooking and so forth. And within my target working with Brooke, Jesse’s partner was looking ahead to the fall knowing that I had a trip to Northern India and we were staying in villages eight hours away from a city through winding roads. And so just going to the ER is not really possible for this 10-day trek I was going on. And I was vacillating between should I cancel this or not. And I remember seeing a testimonial on your website of a client who traveled to Croatia for a few weeks and didn’t have any flare-ups and was so thrilled. And I was like, “That’s going to be me. I’m going to report back to Jesse and Brooke that I tracked the Himalayas and I had zero flare-ups, zero fear, and that actually came to be. (26:56)” So here I am reporting that as a testimonial.

Jessie (27:00): I love that. And I’m sure people listening to the podcast will feel very encouraged knowing that no matter what type of GI symptoms or disorders that they’re dealing with, there is a way forward with medical treatments or working with a dietician or usually we recommend a combination because we can’t do all things medical. Medical doctors can’t do nutrition things, but it’s a combination having a team behind your back to help you rebuild your strength and really help improve gut function. Yes.

Ian (27:32): Yeah. And one thing that Jesse and Brooke both, they both have in a similar approach is if I bring up an idea to one of you, the first thing you think, “Well, there is or there is not science behind that idea.” And it’s kind of like your mantra. So I think in the kind of holistic health world, everybody’s just used to grabbing the next supplement or you see an ad for this and the supplement world is probably a billion dollar multibillion dollar business and it feeds off of people’s fears and it looks really good and you just want to get the next thing that’s going to make you feel good. And yet, I mean, I’m not bashing all supplements. There’s probably some value to supplements out there. But with Jesse and Brooke’s approach, it’s very much like, “Well, what’s the science behind that? And let’s see if this has been tested or if this product has third party tested.” So they slow down my tendency to just scramble through the whole foods aisle and grab supplements that may or may not help GI symptoms unless you really know what’s in them or how to use them properly or what’s really going on with your own symptoms and how to treat it.

Jessie (28:45): I love that. And Ian and I are still working together on rebuilding the strength on more of the sports nutrition and the fueling side of things. And recently you told me, Jesse, you told me to buy this brand of supplements for whatever you were taking. We’re not going to say what it is. It’s a multivitamin or it’s just a vitamin that Ian needs. And that was something I told you five years ago. Actually, I look back on your notes, we worked together in 2021. So it’s been about five years. Sorry, I said 2023 earlier, but it’s been about five years. And you’re still following what we recommended back then because like what you said, the supplement industry, I just did a quick Google is about $70 billion, 2024 to 2025. It’s a huge business. And like you said too, some of them are legitimate, but most of them I would say are not really out there to service, but they’re out there to make a profits.

(29:44)They have to report that back to their shareholders. And they promise a lot of things, but the US really doesn’t have any good regulation on the supplement industry. There’s no regulation unless something goes awful Totally wrong and there’s no way really for us to know what’s in the supplements unless they’re third party tested by a reputable third party. Now, there are many third party testing labs. We don’t know if all of them are legitimate because we don’t know how to do the test ourself, but there are a few that we usually recommend. USP, NSF, and informed choice or informed sports is the other one that we would usually recommend. If you’re buying a supplement, look for those logos on there. USP is the logo that you will see most of on most pharmacy supplements.

Ian (30:35): So I think my big fear of going to India was that I was going to get sick just from the water or from, I don’t know, the food if food wasn’t washed well or if it was washed with different bacteria that we’re not used to as Americans. And a few people got some minor stomach upsets out of our whole group of 20 people. Then they had maybe a day of diarrhea or some stomach cramping and then just bounced back really quickly. I was not one of those people. But when I think back to looking at what we ate there, all the food was fresh and from the land farmed locally and cooked in traditional ways with herbs that were not from the grocery store, but grown on the land or gotten from the nearby market that was grown on the land. And it was one of the best parts of the trip was we had private chefs along with us using locally stores foods and fresh herbs and grains and vegetables and curries.

(31:40)And it was some of the best food I’ve ever had. But when I think of my usual routine of grocery shore shopping or going out to carry out, we’re not getting a lot of variety of nutrition and colors of vegetables and so forth. And so I think I got more healthy varieties of fiber and soil-based natural probiotics and prebiotics. I think I returned from India. My gut was healthier than I’ve ever been because of just the natural sources of foods and vegetables and herbs and spices. And also the love that was cooked into the food that people cooking for us were very sweet and loving and just took care of us in such a beautiful way. So I saw it as a very beautiful opportunity to improve my GI health, even though I was afraid of going there and getting sick. The 180 opposite happened and that was a huge … I’ll never forget that.

(32:40)It was really an amazing thing. And now when I … I know you’re supposed to … I don’t know if this is science, but you’re supposed to eat the colors of the rainbow. Ideally, you see different colored foods have different qualities of nutrition in them or different types of fiber. So my takeaway from my India trip is taking time to eat, even laughter. We’d be sitting around the campfire and laughing and eating. You’re digesting your emotions, your relaxation, your laughter, all of this I think contributes to our GI health. Whereas I think in the States, we get so busy and we’re just jamming food down our … Especially if you’ve got kids that meals can be not the most relaxing. And it was a very precious moment for me to have that time in nature, in the mountains, fresh food, laughter, connection. It was quite magical for me.

(33:45)And the way that you and Brooke worked with me, the inflammation had gone down. I had a CAT scan earlier in the year and a CAT scan again. And it was shown that the inflammation from the diverticulosis had gone away. And the doctor said, however, you can bring your symptoms back through stress or through quantity or quality of what you’re eating. And that’s under my umbrella of responsibility. So it’s how I choose to live in my day-to-day life and how I choose to eat and shop for foods and get too much carry out or restaurant food.

(34:28)I think that there’s such a culture of rush and speed eating and rushing through things. And it’s like meals can sometimes be an annoyance. If you work a lot and you got to go take lunch or work through lunch at your computer, it can wreak havoc on the balance in your GI system. So if any listeners are … If this is interesting and you’ve listened this far into it, how you approach your meal and your food, it’s almost a, maybe this is the yoga teacher in me, but it’s almost like a sacred experience to bless your food and to turn off the TV and maybe even flip your cell phone over so you’re not seeing the notifications coming through where your blood pressure might spike as you’re eating because something stressful comes through your work text or something. So it’s not just the food, it’s not just the fiber.

(35:22)It’s something that as individuals we can take responsibility for in a more mindful way versus just finding the right doctor, finding the right supplement for a quick fix. So I’m in it for the long term and I haven’t perfected it. I’m a coach myself, but coaches need coaches and there’s tiers of coaching and mentors. And Jesse, you’ve been a huge support for me for awareness around GI health and not just foods, but respecting the whole process start to finish of what happens with food and how we approach it.

Jessie (35:59): Yeah, I love this. And I’m just so glad you were able to do that trip without any symptoms. And like you said, you’ve probably came back feeling best for your GI health. And eating a variety is really, really key to improving your gut microbiome. We always talk about, I think gut microbiome or gut microbiome diversity is such a catchy term these days. Everybody’s talking about every supplement is saying that eat this, you have better gut microbiome. Now, we don’t know what better gut microbiome is because everybody have a different gut microbiome, but what we know per research at this time is that eating a wide variety of food, like you said, eating the rainbow is key to getting different types of fiber. And the different types of fiber will feed different groups of gut microbes. And that really is the only evidence right now, or the only scientific evidence of how we can improve our gut microbiome’s health and our gut function via food.

(37:02)And of course, for listeners who are listening, who might be on elimination diets, know that elimination diets are short term. You eliminate, reintroduce, and expand on your diet based on what you can and cannot tolerate. Don’t just cut food out because in the long run, that’s not good for your gut. Now, Ian, one last question for you. When we did the format reintroduction, did you have any food triggers?

Ian (37:26): I don’t remember specific food triggers other than certain quantities. If I reintroduce something too quickly, if I remember eating blueberries and I doubled or tripled the portion because they were fresh and so good. And then it’s like the blueberries just shot right through me. They didn’t even digest them. So I was like, “Okay, I’ll dial it back on the blueberries.” So that was really all I remember about it, but I don’t remember there being triggers other than my own choice of certain quantities of some things. I would quickly dial it back then.

Jessie (37:59): Yeah. I think from my recollection too, when you did all the food challenges, you were able to tolerate all of them after your get have healed to a certain point. So yeah, that’s great. And for anybody listening, don’t just cut food out. Heal your gut so that you can bring food back or identify at what quantity can trigger symptoms so that you know how much you can eat without triggering symptoms.

Ian (38:23): And if I could say one concluding point, if we’re concluding that my GI doc said recently who was looking at my CAT scans, he said, “Your colon can take a lot of abuse over the years.” It’s designed to take a lot of abuse, but at some point it catches up with you. And that’s where someone could have a diverticulitis or appendicitis or something can kind of eventually something gives. And I just thought that was an interesting perspective because whether it’s overeating or overeating certain types of things or overdoing sweets or alcohol or whatever patterns people get into, yeah, your body can take it for a while, but long term, it’s not a great strategy to do too much or too little of anything. And finding balance and giving yourself a chance to stop and recalibrate. Now, most people don’t stop and recalibrate until there’s a health crisis, including myself.

(39:29)So very few people I think would just proactively give their gut a break and rebuild it. But hopefully people don’t have to get to a crisis moment with their GI to know, respect it, respect the process of eating and food and your gut health because your quality of life is directly affected by your gut health, how you feel, whether it’s heartburn, reflux, constipation, diarrhea, blotation, all these things. So for me, there’s a huge benefit to you’re worth it. You’re worth taking the time to hire a coach, to go through a program, to pause and reset things and approach life more mindfully, and it pays off a thousand times more than the effort you have to put into it.

Jessie (40:22): Thank you. Yes. And we hear that a lot. It’s patients really trying a lot of things and they end up wasting years, if not months, trying to fix their gut. And then they come back and say, “Jesse, I can’t do this anymore. Can we really get things under control?” And like you said, it really does pay off when you have a better gut. And for me as a GI dietician, everything, your gut is the key part that absorpts nutrients. When you’re not absorbing nutrients well, nothing really feels very good, but love what you just said. All right. Well, Ian, thank you so much for joining the podcast and sharing your story.

Ian (41:06): Appreciate you. I appreciate Brooke if she’s tuning into this at all. And I hope your clients all experience great awakenings like I did working with you both.

Jessie (41:16): Thank you for tuning into the IBS Nutrition Podcast. We hope today’s episode has brought you closer to understanding and managing IBS. Remember, you are not alone on this journey and finding freedom is possible. For more on IBS, make sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platforms and please leave us a five-star review. We would really appreciate that. You can access links mentioned in this episode in the show notes to learn more about your type of IBS and how to identify your own food or lifestyle triggers. Register for our free IBS Masterclass, Three Steps to IBS Relief for our proven, holistic three-steps approach to managing IBS once and for all. Head to IBSdietician.com/masterclass2register. Until next time, take good care of your gut and hears to your health and happiness.