Ostomy News Dietitian

Supporting your health in 2022 - the role of nutrition on your own terms

When you search for the hashtag #healthyeating on Instagram, there are over 40 million images and I bet you all my Christmas presents that they won’t all depict the same definition.

In a world where we know so much, we can’t seem to agree. With over 60,000 nutrition papers released each year, nutrition science is booming. It’s also fair to say everyone eats and everyone has an opinion; whether they can decipher a research paper or not, it doesn’t seem to matter.

The backbone of a healthy diet

Balanced eating doesn’t make the headlines very often in amongst the sensationalism, so it can sometimes be helpful to revisit the basics. By way of a refresher, it means eating a varied diet with foods from each of the food groups to include:

• Carbohydrates (wholegrain is good if your stoma allows this)

• Protein (from both animal and plant sources)

• A healthy balance of fats (with plenty of omega-3 to protect brain function),

• Dairy or fortified plant-based alternatives.

• Fruit and veg (in accordance with what you’re able to tolerate).

• So, how do you work out what healthy should look like for you in 2022? Let’s consider a few things:

Where are you up to with your wellbeing following your stoma?

What can be defined as a good day health and wellbeing wise, will differ depending on where you are in your stoma journey. It may be as simple as getting through the day with minimal ‘feedback’ from your stoma or you may be at the stage of getting more confident with your food choices and appetite and energy levels are good. Everyone progresses at different rates and there is no right or wrong or point that you need to have reached by a certain time.

What if the diet I eat doesn’t match up with what healthy eating should look like?

Diet and nutrition messages are everywhere, and it can be quite over whelming when your medical condition has led to you having to completely rethink your dietary choices.

It’s important to be compassionate with yourself and allow time for your gut to settle and adjust. Your diet may not look like it did before, but the body is very good at taking in what it needs from the foods you are having. For example, it is able to upregulate how much of a nutrient it absorbs or alter how much it excretes. Be patient and keep retrying things, seeking individualised advice where required.

Nutritional deficiencies are relatively rare, and if they do crop up, your doctor will be able to treat them.

It’s also worth remembering what you eat is one arm of wellbeing and is not the everything. Taking into consideration what supports your health and well-being more holistically is key – for example how you move your body, how much sleep you’re getting, how you manage stress and how much time you’re able to carve out for self-care and mental relaxation.

I want to lose weight; how do I go about that, taking my stoma into consideration?

Following diet plans or particular dietary rules and regimes in order to lose weight can feel like the best option - when someone else has done the thinking, and all you have to do is follow it, right? We’re sold this idea, from the diet industry that simple solutions are the key to our long-term success, but in reality, we’re humans and not robots and it’s a little bit more complicated than that.

Feeling bound by an external diet plan, that you’re then unable to follow, especially if you feel your gut doesn’t allow you to eat in the way they are suggesting, is going to leave you feeling frustrated and disempowered.

It’s in the diet industry’s best interests to make you believe they have all the answers, and you need them to succeed. Actually, the answers can come from your own body, but you have to listen to it. Start with the basics – ask yourself these questions:

How much of your eating is done in a way that allows your brain to clock it and give you the appropriate signals when you’re full?

If we’re eating when distracted – whether that be by screens or multi-tasking, we simply do not allow our brain to focus on the task of eating. It gets shoved into our sub-conscious and other things determine then how much we eat, outside of our own body, for example how much time we have available, or a portion size chosen by a manufacturer or food outlet.

Allowing your brain to feel true satisfaction from food allows you to eat portion sizes that feel in tune with your body and the appetite and hunger signals it gives you.

How much of your eating is planned versus reactive?

We try to cram a lot into our days and food is often an afterthought. Rather than judging yourself all the time, develop a curious voice as to what might be causing the habits you are trying so hard to break.

Making it easier for the brain to do the best thing.

Set yourself up to win – take a bird’s eye view of the context of your diet and lifestyle behaviours. This enables you to develop a will power free strategy, which is what we need as will power is a finite resource that will be used up by mid-Jan.

Your will power free strategy!

• Context – what or who is driving the behaviour you are trying to shift?

• Reward – how can you create reward for new things you’d like to become habitual? The brain thrives on remembering the stuff that is rewarding which encourages us to repeat it.

• Friction – how can you make the habits you’d like to change, harder to do?

• Cues – how can you set up your environment to make it most likely to happen?

• Mindset – What are the thoughts you are listening to and are they helpful?

The power of ‘when, then’ plans

You know your pinch points in the day or week. You can predict when food decisions get missed off the to-do list. This is not a case of meticulously meal planning or having endless Tupperware, but just taking that 5 minutes ahead of time to play out what you know is likely to happen, so that you can create some when-then options. When… happens, then I will …. Actively playing it out in your head in advance, saves conscious thought at the time and enables you to put a few things in place to make it easier for your busy brain to make a better choice.

Final Thoughts

Nutrition will always be an emotive subject with foods scrutinised constantly in the media. We love to make everything clear cut and assign labels – ‘good for you’, ‘bad for you’. In truth we cannot simplify nutrition science in this way, not least of all because we, as humans, are not all the same. Your relationship with food is as important as what goes on your plate. Be kind to yourself, focus on what the core of your diet looks like and how this can develop over time as your stoma journey continues. Let food play its part in nourishing you, without a side order of guilt that the diet industry will no doubt serve up to us soon.

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