I was recently asked if there is anything in my relationship with food that still feels complicated. And, yes, there is: GI bugs and food poisoning, which I will here-forth refer to as gastroenteritis (or, the most dreaded part of parenting).

Before I had kids, I don’t remember getting gastroenteritis much, but now…it’s at least an annual tradition. Obviously stomach cramping, vomiting and diarrhea are unpleasant to all, but on top of that, not being able to eat with ease aggravates my food insecurity. Food insecurity is that piece that gets bothered when one feels food is being taken away. Thanks to years practicing intuitive eating, the yikes!-good-tasting-food-is-being-taken-away part of me doesn’t get irritated too often. However, one thing that definitely sends me into a tizzy is when a GI bug prevents me from eating. I’ve found a way to eat that doesn’t have me worried about weight loss or weight gain, so when gastroenteritis strikes I miss that ease-filled and pleasant relationship with food and body.

We recently had a particularly horrible stretch of viral gastroenteritis that LINGERED. Here’s how I got through it:

1. Accept that this is going to be hard for me. In the words of Ellyn Satter, “if you have been traumatized by trying to force yourself to eat by rules, it will take a long time before you can comfortably consider what is good for you when you choose food.” I.FEEL.THAT. When my stomach and intestines are out of commission, I can consider what is good for me – pedialyte popsicles, gatorades, saltines, BRAT foods – however, I cannot consider those foods comfortably yet. It’s more of a pained consideration since the behavior needed to eat those foods -that behavior being restriction in the form of a medically necessary diet– is one that sounds off alarm bells inside of me. It’s hard. I’m not able to easily accept that my stomach and intestines aren’t going to be working properly for a couple days +, but I can accept this is going to be hard for me given my history. Any forced food restriction (no matter the reason) will likely irritate one’s food insecurity a bit. For me, anything that disrupts typical digestion will be complicated to walk through.
   
   
2. Minimize aggravating my food insecurity. The nutrition recommendation of let your gut rest and stick to BRAT foods and clear liquids aggravates my food insecurity. I don’t care if this is the correct thing to do, that recommendation annoys me and is unhelpful. I’m going to need a different path through this. An approach I like is attempting to minimize aggravating my food insecurity by rhythmically eating foods the GI system will accept. For instance, breakfast = pedialyte popsicle, snack = saltines, lunch = gatorade + saltines, snack = pedialyte popsicle, dinner = banana, snack = toast. I prefer having some plan in place rather than going with the wait-and-see approach. It is not simple for me to follow the recommendation to “simply go without food for a bit.” This will be unpleasant for me because I would never comfortably choose restriction.
   
   
3. So much prayer. Available to me at any point throughout the day is the option to be grounded by engaging with Jesus. I would do this by meditating on scripture, sitting in silence, eagerly listening for guidance like I would from a mentor I respect, and/or praying to ask for help because this is hard for me. I want to minimize restriction, thinness, and food as idols. I love intuitive eating because it’s allowed food and body care to take up an appropriate amount of space in my life – not too much and not too little.
   
   
4. Roll the dice! There comes a times with any bout of gastroenteritis where you just gotta roll the dice: have a meal, see how it goes, it may blow up on you, but eventually you end up so hungry and unsatisfied by saltines that you need to eat a meal and see what happens.

The main benefit I want this post to serve is to offer solidarity that I really hate stomach bugs/food poisoning/stomach flus and find them hard to get through. I hate not being able to find pleasure and satisfaction in food. During these bouts of illness, the drive to eat gets turned on more than normal (as a side effect of restriction), but the ability to eat is turned down…then appetite pops in and out. It feels like chaos to me! I hate when my body is unpredictable. All this to say, if you hate GI bugs, I’m right there with you.