We’ll also be encouraging you to get to know your poo type and symptoms, so you can track how these change throughout the programme.
From week one we’ll dive into different topics like eating habits, food intolerances, fibre, stress and exercise, so you can learn more about how these affect trigger IBS symptoms.
At the end of each week we’ll ask you to choose which action steps you’re going to make - this is the important part! We’ll be asking you to commit to making some lifestyle changes which might not be easy - but we’re here to support and guide you.
Alongside the weekly lessons, you’ll have access to a library of recipes (which include meat and fish, vegetarian and vegan meals). The recipes are designed to give you a healthy balance, whilst limiting some of the foods we know can aggravate symptoms.
As you move through the programme, you’ll also have the option to create your own meal plan using the recipe library and our clever meal planner tool.
This is an entirely self-paced course - so you can work through the weeks at your own pace. If you need to repeat a week or spend a bit longer on a topic, no problem!
At the end of each week, you’ll find space in the TIG workbook to write down the action steps which will be most meaningful changes for your symptoms. There’s also space for your thoughts and reflections on the week - this is a really helpful way to look back on your journey and learn about what’s working for you.
You can have IBS for years and never know. I had it for a long while but always dismissed it as some sort of stomach cramps, until they began to become regular and eventually it became the norm. At the time, little was known about IBS and it’s symptoms which made it harder to talk about and for people to realise it needs to be dealt with. Thanks to technology, intelligent researchers and people speaking up, we now know that this is not something you have to put up with and IBS is now considered a serious condition”.
Irritable bowel syndrome can be described as a group of symptoms (syndrome), which mostly come from the bowel (the large intestine). Importantly, none of the gut shows any signs of disease in IBS (this is a positive thing!) but the way in which the gut functions is altered. Remember that the gut is a muscular tube, which contracts and relaxes in waves, in order to push food through the digestive system.
In IBS, the motility (movement) of the gut changes, causing symptoms and changes in bowel movements (pooing!).
If the motility is sped up (the contractions get faster), you can experience symptoms like diarrhoea and needing to empty your bowels urgently, as food and liquids move through your digestive system faster than normal. If motility slows down (fewer contractions), you can experience constipation and bloating.
To say the bowel is irritated is quite a good description as it can feel like that - but it doesn’t really cover exactly what’s going on. More recently IBS has been renamed a functional gut syndrome, which is more helpful, as is describes a gut which is functioning differently to normal, which is exactly right!
So just remember - in IBS, there’s no disease, but gut is functioning differently to normal, causing symptoms like bloating and tummy pain.
IBS is a invisible condition (it’s not one we can’t see under a microscope!), and it’s rarely talked about, which is surprising given that it is so common - affecting up to 1 in 5 people at some point in their lives.
IBS can affect people of all ages, but it’s most common in people aged 20-30, and is twice as common in women as men. However we are also seeing it affect more people in their later life.
As symptoms fluctuate it can mean that we don’t get diagnosed, as we may easily dismiss the symptoms as a problem tummy that we just learn to put up with. Another reason is that IBS leads to confusion is because there are some less obvious symptoms of the condition. These include:
