I didn’t make the connection between adding more plants to my diet and my digestive woes. In an effort towards healthier eating, I removed many things from my diet— adding in more fiber and decreasing my meat consumption. I couldn’t figure out what was making me sick, so I heaped even more flax seeds on my daily salad and my morning oatmeal—thinking the extra fiber would improve my digestion.
I had become a shell of my former self—exhausted all the time, bloated, gassy, and more emotional and stressed out than I’d ever been. Finally, I did a 25-day reset with a carnivore diet, and it was the best I’ve felt in years. Until I worked on this story, I didn’t understand that fiber might be problematic.
Extreme diets aren’t a good idea for the long term, but restricting problematic foods for a time—and leaning on intuition—could be an essential part of managing diseases and healing the gut. It’s a theory being teased out in research and among dietary experts.
One study published in January indicates eating more fiber is not a one-size-fits-all solution to digestive health. In fact, it’s one type of food that warrants a more individualized approach.
