I often spend time reflecting back at my earlier years, and sometimes it makes me question my entire mindset in the moment, and all the decisions I made. Many of them were terrible decisions which I am now still paying the price for.

Lets paint the picture, I am 18 years old with a mild case IBS. Looking back I made several truly astonishing mistakes, which I still regret now. My diet was truly awful, and it seemed like I was actively trying everything in my power to keep myself inflamed and continuously triggering my IBS with the amount of junk I consumed. To further make it worse, I simply accepted all the symptoms and kept carrying on like normal eating everything that made my guts irritated and made me feel generally awful. The icing on the cake was I never asked for help, sought help from a medical professional, or even attempt to think about my diet. I carried on my merry go way thinking it couldn’t get any worse. A decade later I paid the price with Inflammatory Bowel Disease which almost killed me the first time round, I was hospitalised for over two weeks and lost over 20kg and was bed ridden for almost a month. I was so weak that walking was too stressful on my body and almost triggered another flare up.

That was my wake up call, or so I thought. I vowed to make the changes, improve my diet, eat right, exercise, and really pay attention to my body and its reactions. Since then I have had four more brutal flare ups which have put me back to square one. I was a prisoner in my own mind, like screaming at the TV, I could only watch in horror as I kept binging the same rubbish over and over again. Logic and reason went out the window when I was hungry, only taste mattered, no matter the price I paid later. I could only watch in horror as I would consume the stuff I knew was so bad for me, but tasted so good. It provided me with a moment of happiness which overrides everything else in that moment, I would always pay the price later and always rue the decisions my past me would make. I was a prisoner in my own mind, my future me could only watch and rail against the bars, whilst my present self indulged.

I have previously spoken about habits, and this was one of the bad ones I had to kill. I have an insatiable sweet tooth which was impossible to beat, I couldn’t have one piece of chocolate, I had to eat the whole box in a single sitting. It was chasing that dopamine hit of that sweet sweet chocolate that made my taste buds and brain happy, but really upset my gut.

This was a monster I had to kill, and it was not easy. It has been such a tough battle and I still haven’t been able to beat it completely but I have made such huge inroads, but as I type this I am suffering again from my chocolate habit. But this time I have caught it earlier and sooner. With each iteration I get better. To escape the prison and slay the monster you often have to go all out. For me it was emptying the cupboards, removing everything I knew would cause me trouble if I binged it. Then I wrote a list, and did not allow myself to deviate from the list at all when I did my weekly shop. If you’re not on the list you’re not getting in my belly!

But with each day I keep track of what I am eating, and putting my rational thought into everything I eat. The biggest change I have made was taking up intermittent fasting. I always had the mindset that I should always eat at the first sign of hunger, which generally meant three square meals and snacks in between. But after countless hours of scouring the internet trying to find every remedy to calm down my flares, I eventually read something that made sense posted by someone on Reddit, and I’m probably paraphrasing it, but the quote went like: “How can you repair the road when there is still traffic flowing through it?” Like a light bulb moment, it made sense to me. How could I let my gut heal if I was continuously eating? It has been a game changer for me, but it was not easy at all.

Imagine trying to undo a habit of almost 3 decades. For 30 years I would wake up, and immediately have a sizeable breakfast, nothing else mattered. It was an automated response that as soon as I woke up, I would fly out of bed to eat, I was very food motivated. The first few weeks were hell, I would endlessly watch the clock, I would cave in and fail some days, the hunger pangs were intense for a good while, but day by day I began to gain control, and with each passing day it got easier. I’m now at a point where I need to remind myself to eat if things get too busy, sometimes I find myself having my first meal at 3PM after truly hectic days. There are plenty of resources online who can detail the benefits better than I can, all my evidence is anecdotal and it works for me, it may not work for you. I definitely feel better for it.

Its the small changes we can make every day which can help us break out of the prison of our own minds.

See you next time

Faz