Something that confuses pretty much every man with IBS. And actually, a lot of people, even these "IBS coaches" and so-called gurus.

You eat something… and BOOOM! Within minutes your gut kicks off. Bloating, cramps, diarrhoea... the whole works.

So you think: “Hmm, it must’ve been that [fill in the blank food] I just ate".

Logical, right?

Except… not really...

Because once you understand what’s actually happening in your gut, you’ll have a better understanding of your gut so hopefully you can stop blaming the wrong food and start seeing the real pattern underneath your symptoms.


Does this sound like you:

“Everything I eat just goes straight through me"
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I regularly get guys asking me about this, and see comments like “I can’t eat anything - whatever I eat gives me symptoms straight away”. Or, “My food goes straight through me”.

And that’s a horrible place to be – thinking you can’t eat anything, and feeling like every food triggers symptoms. You should be able to eat and enjoy your food.

And then these guys, maybe even you, start adding more and more things to your list of foods you think are triggers for your symptoms.

Then before you know it, you’ve got a list as long as your arm. Not good.

Especially when I go through these guys’ food and symptom diaries and find they’ve been blaming, and avoiding, the wrong foods!

Which is sad really. Because these guys were missing out on loads of foods, and foods they liked as well... all because the timing fooled them, understandably, because why would you know this stuff – you wouldn’t know. You don't know what you don't know.

But obviously as well, and you’ll know yourself, people saying “avoid this, this and this because they’re IBS trigger foods”, which is nice that these people are maybe trying to be helpful, but.. everyone’s triggers are not exactly the same, so what triggers symptoms for Gary won’t trigger them for Bob.

IBS triggers aren’t a one-size-fits-all.
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So you’ve eaten your lunch and then BAM!

Your symptoms have flared up. Again. 

Say for example, you had a chicken omelette with some salad, and a nice yellow banana with a little spoon of peanut butter (yum). Cool.

But then within minutes, your gut’s going crazy!

And naturally, you think to yourself, “Damn it, that means I can’t have any of that again” or maybe you blame just one or a couple of foods you’ve just eaten, “Right, it must be the banana” or “It must be that lettuce, or maybe it was the chicken... I can’t have that again”. (Gutted).

So you add those foods to your list of 'foods to avoid'.

And maybe this keeps happening? You eat a meal, get symptoms, blame the foods you’ve just eaten… and before you know it, like so many men I see, your list of supposedly “safe foods” – their words, not mine – gets smaller and smaller.

By the way, I don’t think it’s very helpful to say “safe foods” because it implies there’s “unsafe” or “bad” foods and can reinforce an unhealthy attitude towards foods, and increase anxiety around certain foods or anxiety around eating altogether, which is never a good thing. And I don’t want that for you.

And, before you know it, as their list of foods they think they can eat gets smaller and smaller, so does their food enjoyment, their confidence and morale.

So let’s unpack what’s going on...

What is causing symptoms straight after eating?

So your small intestine is nearly 7 metres long and your large intestine is about 1½ metres.
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And so your food has got quite a long way to travel, let alone what the gut needs to do, and how long it takes for each of the sections within the gut to do its job. Because the stomach needs to do its thing, the small intestine has got three parts to it and the large intestine has four.

And, depending on things like what you’ve eaten, how much you’ve eaten and how your gut is working, depends on how long food takes to pass through the whole system from your mouth to your bum, but roughly, for normal transit time, this can take about 14-58 hours.

Now, given how long it actually takes for food to move through the system, do you still think that food you’ve just eaten has literally gone straight through you?

No, exactly. What you’ve just eaten hasn’t directly caused your symptoms, and loads of people get this wrong.


So that’s the first reason why what you’ve just eaten isn’t necessarily your symptom trigger, and I’ll explain what I mean by that in a bit, but what else could be causing your symptoms after eating?

Reason #2 is a thing called your gastrocolic reflex – you’ve maybe heard of it?

Well, this is a reflex in your large intestine that’s triggered when food hits your stomach. There’s also the gastroileal reflex in the small intestine.

Your body is like, “Right, we’ve got food coming in here guys, let’s make room” – and food hitting your stomach activates these reflexes to shufty food along the small intestine through to the large intestine and to your bum, giving you the urge to have a poo.

And studies have shown that people with IBS can have a stronger gastrocolic reflex, and therefore contribute to symptoms.

Plus, people with IBS can also have a more sensitive gut, so symptoms can feel more intense.

And then there’s also stress – like putting petrol on the fire.

Picture this...

You’re stressed at work, say. You’ve got several deadlines, loads of meetings, shedloads of emails and messages coming in, your head’s all over the place. And you’ve not stopped all morning.

And to top it off, maybe you’ve also got some dramas at home like relationship issues, concerns about your work or career, money worries, or whatever it may be.

You grab lunch and eat it as fast as you can, maybe consciously or subconsciously, because you “need to get back to it”…

What state is your body in?

Your body is going to be in fight or flight mode – ready for action, tackling these real or perceived threats, and stress levels rocketing.

And I say "perceived threats" because it's how we think about something that can distress us - like having shedloads of emails to write isn't a real danger, but you can easily wind yourself up over it and get really stressed out over it.

So guess what? When your body's in fight or flight mode...

Digesting your lunch is low on the list of priorities – you’re body’s thinking we need to tackle these threats first. And this can lead to gut symptoms.


Now, remember earlier when I said the food you’ve just eaten may not necessarily be a symptom trigger for you?

Well, what I meant by that is the fact that your symptoms in that moment can’t be your immediate trigger and cause symptoms there and then.

Because like I said before – with how long it takes for food to pass through the system.

But…

That doesn’t mean the food you’ve just eaten isn’t a symptom trigger for you. Because it absolutely could be. It’s just that it hasn’t yet reached your small intestine or large intestine to cause symptoms.

When you’ve just eaten, that food is still cruising around in your stomach, getting mushed and mixed around like clothes in a washing machine.

And depending on things like what you’ve eaten, how much, the nutrient content, hormones, stress, certain medications, if you’ve got a condition which delays your stomach emptying like gastroparesis, that food can sit in your stomach for several hours before moving down into the small intestine and beyond.

And then once the food finally gets there, you could be in for a rough ride depending if it is an actual symptom trigger for you or not, like for example if it's high in fermentable carbohydrates.

So you could think of your gut like a conveyor belt...

Food goes on at one end, your mouth, then into your stomach, this then triggers those gut reflexes that I mentioned above, getting that conveyor belt moving things along.

Otherwise, it’s a bit like being at the checkout in Aldi or Lidl - if you don’t pack fast enough, everything piles up (- if you've ever been in an Aldi or Lidl you'll know what I mean, because they checkout faster than a 1000 gazelles!).

And your gut doesn’t want it all stacking up, so it makes room for the new food by those reflexes in your gut moving things along... So it's like “meal in meal out” – sending you for a poo to make room at the top end.

Now if the food already in your bowel contains triggers, like fermentable carbohydrates, then once that conveyor belt moves things along, your bugs that naturally live in your large intestine are like, “Yayyy, dinner time” and they start munching - fermenting those carbs and fibre, and this can lead to symptoms.

So this is why even if you eat a “trigger food” right now, there’s no physical way that it’s literally being fermented and causing you symptoms within five minutes – it hasn’t reached the intestines yet. Does that make sense, yeah.

So if you react straight away, it’s almost never the food you just ate.

That trigger is often several hours, sometimes a whole day behind you.

And that’s the sneaky culprit – delayed symptoms disguised as immediate reactions. This catches so many people out.

You think the food you just ate betrayed you.

But really?

The troublemaker was say, the pizza from last night.

Or the baked beans you ate at lunch earlier.

Or the protein bar you inhaled without chewing.

And because you don’t know any different, your brain naturally blames the most recent thing – so it’s easy to misdiagnose your own triggers.

And that leads to avoiding loads of foods, risking your health and wellbeing on fad diets, wasting money on dodgy supplements and treatments, and feeling stressed, frustrated, and confused.

But now you know better (because you've read this!), and you’ve got a better idea of what’s causing your symptoms.

"Ask for help not because you are weak, but because you want to remain strong"