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IBS Hints for Holiday Parties, Christmas Dinner, Kwanzaa, and New Year’s

Published by tummyblogger December 17th, 2007 in Gastrocolic Reflex, IBS Triggers, Strategies

When you are working on controlling IBS, and being in charge of what you eat, these events can wreck the best self-control. Not only are the holidays stressful in and of themselves, but they take away the one thing you can usually control — what you eat. Here are some hints for being away from home, faced with lots of food that is problematic.

First:

This means that you start eating with a neutral food or with a soluble fiber. Another IBS blog linked here and said that meant a bowl of milk and fiber cereal. No, that’s INsoluble fiber (and milk is a trigger). What I mean by soluble fiber (SF) is a soluble fiber supplement such as FiberSure ™(inulin is the main ingredient) or Heather’s Organic Acacia Tummy Fiber ™(acacia powder is the main ingredient) or, possibly, store brands of soluble fiber supplements that use guar gum. Take some of this with you in a small travel bottle–with a half - teaspoon measuring spoon. After you do the hellos and greetings, before eating or drinking anything, grab a small glass and your small travel bottle, and mix some room-temperature water and soluble fiber supplement, and drink it. This calms down the gastrocolic reflex, which would otherwise react badly to just eating the first thing at hand.

Second:

    No alcohol.

Alcohol is one of the triggers for IBS. It will not relieve stress. If you want alcohol to relax your social anxiety, just think of the drink you want as relaxing your bowels in unwanted ways, either stopping the muscles that pass material along, or relaxing control over elimination - maybe not at the party, but somewhere down the road.

In Some Order:

  • NO ice water.
  • NO holiday ham - or as little as possible
  • NO turkey dark meat or skin
  • NO vegetables drenched in butter/margarine/fat
  • NO soda

Strategies:

    Bring your own bottle. Use whatever will look wicked, but refuse to share. In the bottle will be:

  • Room temperature water, or
  • Soy or rice milk, or
  • Soda gone flat, or
  • Cold soy “coffee”
  • Your own favorite IBS-safe smoothie

    • depending on the crowd.

Style:
Beforehand, write yourself into a movie script about someone carrying off a mild social deception with style. Give yourself friendly lines that sort of fit what people think they know about you. It might be

“I’m following the diet my guru tells me to, so I can’t . . .”
“This is my brand new holiday strategy, to . . .”

I like the “guru” one, for obvious reasons, and for subtle reasons. What is subtle is that your host/hostess doesn’t know who this is, and will (perhaps) be reluctant to undermine the discipline the guru has imposed — even if the only guru in your life is you. You may think of some other authority figure. Some ideas are:

I’m participating in a strictly controlled medical study, and can’t . . .
I’m taking a medicine and can’t . . .

    My own strategy, long ago, was “I’ve had hepatitis and can’t drink/have shellfish/have fatty foods . . .” - but in this day and age that’s not really going to conquer your social anxiety.

Two more hints:

  • If you are going with someone you know pretty well, clue him or her in on your strategy, and even practice a few scenarios.
  • If you have a “fiction” to attribute responsibility to a guru or medical necessity, and the host/hostess or someone else starts to push and inquire, there’s always the strategy of “Oh, there’s the door!” or “I forgot something from my coat pocket. Where are the coats?” or “Didn’t I just hear the phone?” or, of course, “That’s my cell phone. I’ve got to take this call.”

Please write in and share your favorite hints, or comment on these. Look at the dark turquoise line that says (usually) “no comments.” Click on those words, and you will be able to leave a comment. When you write in a comment, that phrase at the bottom will change to “Comments: (1)” and you’ll be on the board with your comment attached to this post, and with my thanks.

HAVE HAPPY AND MERRY HOLIDAY EVENTS!

4 Responses to “IBS Hints for Holiday Parties, Christmas Dinner, Kwanzaa, and New Year’s”  

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  1. 1 Hassan Dec 31st, 2007 at 7:50 am

    Thanks for the good advise, but to see how is gum arabic is of high content dietary soulabe fiber and other visit www.shop@darsavanna.com

    Regards

    Hassan

  2. 2 jim Jan 11th, 2008 at 5:32 am

    Long before IBS, I cut almost all sugar from my life. Over every offer of a Christmas cookie I found myself explaining in detail how I had awful sugar crashes blah blah blah. Finally I just settled on saying, “Sugar and I don’t get along,” with a little wrinkle of the nose and a little shake of the head. Nobody’s pried beyond that yet!

    I’m just now figuring out life with IBS and I’m sure I’ll be saying a lot of “__ and I don’t get along” as I figure out what foods I should avoid.

  3. 3 tummyblogger Jan 15th, 2008 at 6:14 pm

    Dear Jim,
    Thanks for your hint on how to decline foods gracefully. I wish you well with getting IBS under control.

    All the best,
    Tummyblogger

  4. 4 Rosie Jul 25th, 2008 at 1:02 pm

    What a great article,a member of my family suffers from IBS and I am always on the lookout for more hints and tips to relieve their suffering

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