How To Eat Intuitively While Navigating Food Sensitivities
I was recently invited on the Healing Uncensored podcast by Sarah Small to chat about intuitive eating while navigating food sensitivities and dietary restrictions that come with specific ailments, including autoimmune diseases such as Crohn's Disease, Hashimoto's and Celiac Disease.I was kind of caught off guard at first as this is something I hadn't really considered before.
While I know many people suffer from food sensitivities, I suppose because I haven't been personally affected by having to navigate food sensitivities, I never realized how much of a challenge intuitive eating would be on top of managing food sensitivities.
We ended up having a great chat and some awesome insights came out of it. If you're interested, you can listen to the episode here.
But I wanted to continue to dive into this topic and I thought, who better to chat to than someone who has both suffered from countless food sensitivities (and healed herself from them!) and learned how to eat intuitively in the process than my dear friend, Kayla Saint-Onge!
The key takeaways?
Listen to your body
Ask yourself: "Does this make me feel good?"
If it doesn't feel right, something probably isn't right
Design a way of eating that works for you, even if it goes outside of what a specific healing diet or protocol suggests
Scientific evidence is great ... until it's nott
Pay attention to how you feel and if something isn't working for you, make the necessary changes to make it work for you!
Without further ado, meet Kayla Saint-Onge!
Tell us about yourself:
Back when I was 24 (I'm 31 now), I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease known as ulcerative colitis (UC). I will never forget the day I saw blood in my stool as I stared down at the toilet bowl thinking WTF? This is a common symptom of UC and unfortunately, one I became accustomed to seeing as my condition got worse and worse.
By the time I finally saw a specialist, I had already figured out that eating gluten really bothered me and instead of officially going for testing for Celiac Disease, I decided I would cut it out completely and start eating more gluten-free grains instead. In fact, the week leading up to my colonoscopy [to determine if what I had was actually UC], I recall making pancakes using quinoa flour and still experiencing extreme pain and knowing deep down, something was really, really wrong.
Long story short, I battled one month in the hospital before I was finally released and when I left, I had an entirely new outlook on life and how diet played a role in healing the body.
How did you start to navigate your food sensitivities? How did you overcome them?
I picked up a book called "breaking the vicious cycle" by Elaine Gotshall when I was in the hospital and began following the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) protocol immediately. Upon my release, the first thing I did was clear ALL my cupboards of the "illegal" foods that were listed as forbidden while on the diet. This process of cleaning out my cupboards was great because it gave me a fresh start. Everything in my kitchen needed to be "Kayla-friendly food" in order to feel like I wasn't a stranger in my own home. I needed to know my kitchen was a safe place.
But as a result of being on this diet for almost 2 years, I developed a very distinct way of looking at food. ANYTHING that was not seen as a monosaccharide became something that I would absolutely never touch.
I didn't pay close attention to how I felt while following the SCD because I believed that if I was following this scientifically proven way of eating, I would eventually heal. Two years went by and I only saw minor improvements. My quality of life was still nowhere back to where it used to be and I felt so let down wondering why it wasn't working for me.
Well as the universe would have it, I ended up speaking with a colleague who introduced me to a practitioner who did BIE (BioEnergetic Intolerance Elimination). This practitioner ended up being the answer to my prayers.
She did a series of energetic tests on a variety of foods only to tell me that I was intolerant to almost 80% of the foods I was eating.
Umm ... SAY WHAT?! Yep! All the almond flour, honey, nuts and chicken I had been consuming for the past two years, were actually foods I was intolerant to which is why I wasn't healing and getting better. After working with her diligently to balance all my sensitivities, I began to improve immediately. It was like night and day, especially when it came to certain foods that were known to cause me to flare.
How did you develop a fear of food?
Even after I was balanced through BIE for certain foods, there were still some that I just couldn't bring myself back to eating because of the traumatic experiences I had with them previously. One of those foods was quinoa. It sounds silly, but when I think back to those days when I was in so much pain, I associated it to when I had eaten quinoa and paired the emotion with that food.
So even though I had been balanced through BIE for quinoa and could technically eat it symptom-free, I was too afraid to eat it again. I knew BIE worked though because I had reintroduced other foods that would previously leave me in agony that I could now enjoy without any pain, but quinoa was one I struggled with for quite some time. A few others were dried mangos, coconut (in any form, be it shredded coconut, coconut butter, coconut oil, coconut flour), hemp seeds and peanut butter.
The way I approached food became very strict and narrow-minded. I put my head down for 2 years because I was convinced that if the SCD healed others, it could heal me too. I was really hard on myself and strived to be perfect following this diet plan. But if I ever ate anything that wasn't on the allowed list, I'd feel guilt and shame as if it was my fault for making myself sick and experiencing flare-ups.I lost my trust in food and my body. I often just wouldn't eat if I couldn't find something that suited my unique needs and would feel hungry most of the time, which I just got used to overtime.
How did you overcome your fear of food?
After doing BIE sessions on the regular and enrolling as a student of Holistic Nutrition, I became more open to food. I realized that one size doesn’t fit all; that specific diets/protocols work for some, but not for all.
And that maybe, just maybe, we aren't meant to follow a diet or protocol perfectly or to a T, because, well – every body is different!
Listening to what your body needs is the most important thing of all. That inner voice that intuitively tells us things doesn't lie – it knows what's up. Because that voice knew way back when, that the SCD diet was not 100% for me, but I didn’t want to believe it and kept pushing through painful symptoms anyway.
It's taken me 7 years to get to where I am now with food and throughout that time I've tried everything from the SCD, paleo, vegan, raw to now, where I simply eat based upon what I want and what I feel my body needs.
I don't fear foods. In fact, I don't follow a specific "diet" at all. I eat the foods that are needed for my body to thrive, which I've learned, is not any particular diet at all. I do have BIE to largely thank for that as it's given me the freedom to explore different foods and enjoy them again.
Having become a certified BIE practitioner myself, I continue to research different diets, protocols, and ways of eating to see which works best for each individual I work with. I am open to constant change and whatever my body needs. If something isn't working, I don’t force myself to stick it out if I intuitively know it's not right. I listen to that gut feeling and don't shut it out, because, at the end of the day, our bodies really do know best!
Learn more about Kayla and BIE over at balancedbykayla.com and get her FREE Kitchen Clean Out Guide!
Have you personally embarked on an intuitive eating journey while navigating food sensitivities? Share your experience in the comments below!