#actuallyibs

*I know most of these you've probably heard a million times, to the point of rolling your eyes at them. I get it, I had the same reaction. They sounded like platitudes from healthy people to me too. But after seeing a dietician whose advice I trusted, I tried them, and they really helped.*

I made the main points in bold to make it easier to skim through.

Fiber, and I don't mean the fiber pills. They might help some people, but for me they were a nightmare, like sandpaper going down your throat. The way my dietician told me, was to up my fiber intake through the food I eat in a day. So basically, take my usual meals and switch a few bits out to ones with more fiber in them. For example my chicken sandwich now has whole wheat bread, which raises the dietary fiber to 4g instead of just 1g.

My dietician wanted my daily fiber to be 15g and slowly work up to 25g. It's been almost a month and I've managed to have it at least at 9g and at most 18g. Not sure I can get it higher with my current foods yet, but its huge progress for now.

Anyway, point is, even with that small amount of fiber per day, its made a huge difference. I started to gradually have more regular poops within 2-3 weeks. I only used Miralax once in all that time!

Fibrous snacks are a quick and easy way to up your fiber on low fiber days. Like sunflower seeds for example are 14g, which can quickly get you up to the fiber goal of the day. But one thing you need to pay attention to with those, is the serving size they use in those measurements. I like to use measuring cups to keep track of the exact amount of fiber, plus it helps me not distractedly eat the whole thing of honey roasted peanuts.

Water is another thing that helps. I know, I hate the taste of water too. But flavored water is a great fix for that. Cutting down on caffeine helps too.

If you get bad gas or bloating, a great way to help with that is to cut down on carbonated drinks. I completely cut them out of my diet and it helped so much in lowering my gas and bloating and the pain that comes with them.

My body: *revolts*

Me: