Emotions

Two steps forward… one step back

/ Sacha Walsh / Leave a comment

Gloden Grass-ID12824-640x426

My blog posts are few and far between I know, life has been keeping me busy!

I have almost finished a Graduate Diploma Degree in Counselling and I volunteer one day a week supporting adults and young people who have lost a loved one and who are struggling to cope. It can be hard work, but I enjoy it, and I learn so much about resilience, perseverance in the face of insurmountable obstacles, but most of all about love. Because the only reason grief and loss is so hard is because we love so much.

The other four days a week I am working on a new business which is in a completely different space, and somehow this seems to work for me. But, yes, I’m very busy.

How am I managing to also balance my two kids and all the prep and cooking needed on the low fodmap diet?  Continue reading →

A tale of recovery and hope

/ Sacha Walsh / 14 Comments

Low Fodmap For Life

This is going to be a brief post for those wonderful people who follow this blog. I’m sure many of you follow me because you are clutching for information on the low fodmap diet (it is so complex and hard to come by). Others perhaps like to hear about new recipes. I apologise to you, because I have been quite lax on both accounts. This post is to share a little about why, not as an explanation or excuse, but to illustrate the real life experience of someone living with IBS, a family, and way too many commitments. And how depression crept its way back in.

Continue reading →

Sometimes I stumble…

/ Sacha Walsh / 13 Comments

Low Fodmap For Life

As my children are still relatively small (4 and 6 years),  I am a newcomer to the “school holiday” experience, which I have mostly found to be chaotic, busy and with all semblance of routine thrown out of the window. So I was well and truly ready for us to return to routine at the start of this week – my sanity was noticeably starting to fray and my exercise routine and sugar-free state also in tatters. Continue reading →

My sugar-free experiment

/ Sacha Walsh / 2 Comments

Low Fodmap for LifeLast week I completed my 8 week experiment of quitting sugar (read about why I decided to take this on here) and my conclusion is that it was definitely worthwhile! I have mentioned in a previous post, here,  about some of the benefits that I saw, and these continued to build. Towards the end it started to become second nature. Even my husband who was a real fruit bat and chocolate lover found that it was so beneficial that he is going to keep going. However, in the past week I have learnt something very important…

Continue reading →

Giving yourself permission to grieve

/ Sacha Walsh / Leave a comment

Low Fodmap For Life

As I am approaching the 3 year anniversary of following the low fodmap diet I have found myself reflecting more and more on my experiences adjusting to life with a restrictive diet. One of the themes that keeps rising for me is around loss and feelings of grief that I struggled with. On paper, this idea of experiencing grief around food seems ridiculous, however on closer examination, it could be that if we do not allow ourselves to fully experience our feelings of loss when it comes to food and this restrictive diet of ours then we can unwittingly create resistance to change.

Continue reading →

Feeling a little embarrassed…

/ Sacha Walsh / 2 Comments

Low Fodmap For LifeI must admit to feeling a little shame-faced today.

My step-mother-in-law is a very kind lady and she has really taken to heart some of my diet modifications and health messages over the years: don’t feed the kids too much sugar, I am gluten free, low GI foods are best….

Taking on board my messages, yesterday she arrived armed with enough food to feed an army and so full of pride for covering off the key points above Continue reading →

I say ‘good-bye’ to cauliflower for good this time

/ Sacha Walsh / Leave a comment

Low Fodmap for LifeI am not one to give up easily, and must admit that I can be particularly stubborn in many aspects of my life. I really, really like pizza. I posted about it last week here to share a great buckwheat pizza base. My body also really appreciates it when I primarily base my eating around low carbohydrate options as much as possible (I’ll post more about why I do this at another time). So this helps explain why I was so excited last week to have mastered the art of making cauliflower pizza bases Continue reading →

Body Image and IBS

/ Sacha Walsh / 7 Comments

Low Fodmap for LifeIssues around body image for IBS sufferers is something that I feel is not talked about enough and consequently I feel quite strongly that I would like to bring this topic out into the open.

To get started, lets explore the term: body image is defined as “perceptions, thoughts, and behaviors related to one’s appearance.”1

IBS can have a significant impact on how we feel about ourselves in terms of physical and emotional wellness Continue reading →