Bloating and Gut Health

Cutting food out is a test, not a treatment. Almost everyone does the first half of the protocol and stops, which is why they end up eating thirty foods and still guessing.

The pattern is always the same. You are bloated, you read about FODMAPs or gluten or dairy, you cut things out, and you feel better. Relieved, you stay there - eating a narrowing list of foods, permanently, without ever finding out which of the dozens of things you removed was actually the problem.

That is not a treatment. It is an unfinished experiment. The low FODMAP protocol has three phases, and the one that gives you your life back is the second - reintroduction - where you challenge each group systematically and find your actual thresholds.

This is a digital guide, an instant PDF download, with three printable pages you fill in. Every figure is sourced to Monash, the ACG, the European and American neurogastroenterology societies and published meta-analyses, listed at the back.

What this guide gives you

• A two-week baseline log, printable, so you find out what your symptoms actually correlate with before you change anything. Most people skip this and then cannot tell whether they improved.
• Phase one with a hard stop date, real food lists, and the honest expectation that about one in four people do not respond - which is a useful result, not a failure.
• The full reintroduction schedule, printable - all eight FODMAP groups, the exact test foods, the three-day dose ladders, and a verdict column. This is the part nobody else gives you.
• The mechanism behind visible distension that almost nobody is told about - and the five-minute daily breathing protocol that addresses it.
• An honest account of SIBO, including why two specialist societies cannot agree on how to test for it and why a mail-order breath test is not a diagnosis.
• What actually has evidence - and the list of things being sold to you that does not.

The thing most people get wrong first

Get tested for coeliac disease before you go gluten-free. The blood test only works while you are still eating gluten. Go gluten-free first and you need a six-week gluten challenge - deliberately eating the thing that makes you ill - before anyone can give you a real answer. That one paragraph saves people months, and it is in chapter two.

What's inside

• The Bloating Card. One printable page: what needs a doctor rather than a diet, the five things to rule out first, the three phases with date boxes, and what has evidence versus what does not.
• The quick wins chapter that involves no food groups at all - and which for a fair number of people is the whole answer.
• Phase three, how to build the widest diet you can tolerate, plus what to do in a flare without dismantling everything.
• A chapter on when restriction has become the problem, because a bloating guide written carelessly can push someone somewhere harmful.
• Eight scripts for the appointment, and fourteen things people get wrong.

Who this is for

• Anyone bloated who is tired of guessing which food did it.
• Anyone who did an elimination diet, felt better, and never reintroduced anything.
• Anyone whose belly visibly changes size through the day regardless of what they eat.
• Anyone who has been handed a SIBO diagnosis and a long supplement protocol by the same person.

Who this is not for

Anyone with unintentional weight loss, blood in their stool, anemia, symptoms that wake them at night, or a new change in bowel habit over 45. Those need a doctor, not a diet, and the guide says so on the first page. It is also not appropriate for children, during pregnancy, or for anyone with a current or previous eating disorder without specialist supervision.

An honest note

This guide is educational information, not medical advice, and it does not diagnose anything. Elimination diets carry real nutritional risk and are best run with a registered dietitian. FODMAP values for specific foods get revised as new testing is published, so use a current reference alongside this guide.

What you get

• Instant digital download, delivered the moment you purchase.
• Print-ready US Letter, including three fill-in pages: the Bloating Card, the baseline log and the reintroduction challenge sheet.
• Reads on your phone. No app, no subscription, nothing to buy afterwards.

Details

Format: PDF (digital download). Scope: United States, current to September 2026. Delivery: instant download after purchase. License: single-user, for your personal use.

Cutting food out is a test, not a treatment. The goal is the widest diet you can tolerate.