IBS Diet Plan

A personalized IBS diet plan is a vitally important component of a comprehensive irritable bowel syndrome treatment. In fact, the vast majority of affected individuals are able to successfully relieve their distressing IBS symptoms by simply making specific adjustments to their daily diet alongside using natural health supplements or even conventional treatment methods.

In order to personalize your IBS diet based on your individual needs, keeping a food diary is highly recommended. Since diet and stress play a major role in IBS development, if you record everything you eat, when your discomforts occur, reading your notes will be very enlightening. If the food diary indicates a reaction to a specific type of food group, such as dairy products, eggs, nuts or wheat, it will be worthwhile excluding that food from your diet for a couple of weeks to see what happens.

To become the expert of your very own IBS diet plan, try experimenting with the following items and food groups to see how your body responds to them:

• caffeinated drinks, such as coffee, tea, fizzy drinks
• dairy products, such as milk, yogurt or cheese
• artificial sweeteners, coloring or preservatives
• alcoholic beverages
• eggs
• nuts
• garlic
• wheat, which is found in most bakery items
• barley

You might also find reading our post about IBS treatment helpful.

What Else Can You Include in Your IBS Diet Plan?

• Get plenty of fluids, because dehydration will always make IBS symptoms a whole lot worse.
• Unless you have a lactose intolerance, consider including a small pot of live, probiotic yogurt in your daily IBS diet. Otherwise take a high quality, milk free probiotic supplement to enhance the level of important, friendly bacteria in your intestinal tract.
• Drink a cup of peppermint tea or infusion following meals to aid your digestive functions and to prevent painful abdominal spasms, which can be one of the most common symptoms of IBS. Alternatively you could take peppermint capsules instead, as this supplement  is well known for its calming effects on the GI system. Drinking fennel or chamomile tea right after meals would also be a highly beneficial remedy.
• Eat various foods that contain soluble fiber, because these foods can be a vitally important addition to your IBS diet plan. Soluble fiber – which is found in fruits, legumes, oats or root vegetables – is well known to aid in alleviating digestive dysfunctions and discomforts, such as diarrhea or constipation by becoming fermented into gases and gelatinous byproducts while absorbing extra water. You can never have enough of them!
• Aloe vera juice has countless health benefits, including potent anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties. This is what makes it an ideal part of any sufferer’s IBS diet plan.

The majority of experts are not particularly keen on elimination or exclusion diets unless of course it is completely unavoidable, for example in the case of an allergy. Since we all know that emotional stress is often a major contributing factor in the development of IBS symptoms, perhaps it is worth trying to reintroduce the excluded foods eventually to see how you respond. If your discomforts have gone and then recur, and you would like to keep excluding the food group for the long run, it is important consult a dietitian about how to effectively replace the nutrients this food group has provided.

Tags: ibs, ibs diet, irritable bowel syndrome diet

Category: Body, Diet, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)