Intense bloating & stomach pain & gas from food intolerances can affect your body image just as much as weight gain. Think about it: even if you’re fit, if you’re walking around with a painful, puffed-up stomach and a tight waistband, it’s hard to feel good physically, and therefore emotionally, in your body.
What exactly is a food intolerance? It’s a digestive system response to a food that irritates the digestive system or that the digestive system has a hard time breaking down. (Note: This is very different from a food allergy, which involves an immune system response.) Symptoms of food intolerance range from bloating, to gas, to stomach pain, to migraines or headaches, to diarrhea, to a runny nose, to feeling under-the-weather. Food intolerances are also common, affecting up to 20% of individuals.
Good news: it takes less effort to avoid symptoms of intolerance than it does to lose weight. Because really it just comes down to making a choice.
(1) Notice what’s negatively affecting your digestion/what’s triggering your symptoms. (For me, it’s avocado, nut butters and sorbitol in gum.)
(2) Consider making the choice to cut those foods out or limit your intake.
(3) If that’s hard for you, consider why you’re attached to those foods. (Have you identified them as necessary comfort foods? Can you choose a replacement that doesn’t bother your digestion and makes you feel good?
And maybe you don’t cut them out completely; maybe you just save them for the evening when you’re in stretchy pants and won’t be bothered by the bloating, etc. But if you cut out the foods you’re intolerant to, especially during the day, it’s crazy how different the body begins to feel. And it’s crazy how your body image can start to shift just because you feel good.
Remember: When your body feels better. It’s easier to feel better IN IT.
