Endo Series Part 2: The Most Important Anti-Inflammatory Eating Advice EVERYONE Forgets! 🤯

When people talk about nutrition for endo, they so often jump straight to what nutrients or foods to eat or avoid, for example “beware of gluten” “cut out dairy” “increase anti inflammatory foods”.

And I get it. This is where my mind goes too! Don’t get me wrong, looking at nutrients is lovely stuff. But there is actually one step prior that can make the biggest and quickest difference for symptoms - including improving energy and mood. And that is…

Eating REGULARLY and eating ENOUGH.

Sounds basic right? But let me tell you why is eating consistently and adequately is SO important.

Not eating enough or going for too long without eating long-term is perceived as dangerous to our body.

Your body doesn't know the difference between being too busy to eat vs. being in the middle of a famine.

All it knows is that going for too long without eating is unsafe. Especially in terms of low blood sugars. So in order to protect you, your body initiates a stress response by giving you a little boost in stress hormones like adrenaline. This boost is designed to help bring your blood sugars up and give you the energy to go find food.

But what this also does is sends us into fight or flight. 

Do you get HANGRY when you go for too long without eating? This is your body going into the fight response 🤬.

Or for the more anxious or nervy-types (I’m raising my hand here! 🙋🏻‍♀️) we can actually get HANXIOUS instead. This is that anxious or urgent feeling you get prior to a meal or snack. It's often perceived as "I'm too busy to stop for lunch!". This is your body sending you into a flight response 🫨.

Once again – in an effort to try to protect you. And what you should notice, is that once you eat something, everything seems a little better.

Spending our days in a fight or flight is not ideal at the best of times. But doing so when we have endometriosis is definitely not what we want. When we’re dysregulated from not eating regularly enough, we go full meerkat. On edge, watching out for the lion.

this is what I picture when I picture going "full meerkat" in fight or flight 😂

Although there are no lions in your vicinity (hopefully!), it can still make us anticipate pain or gut symptoms and even feel them more intensely. In fact, being in fight or flight can even cause gut symptoms because it takes us out of rest and digest.

​And I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but I’ll say it again. Stress is inflammatory.

That is exactly why making sure we’re eating enough food regularly is the bedrock on which anti-inflammatory eating is built.

If your eating is inconsistent, it's like we're building a house on a wobbly foundation. Nailing our regularity and adequacy first however, is the solid foundation we need before we then look at anti-inflammatory nutrients next week 🤗.

The next question I always get is, “so what does regular eating actually mean?”

Of course it’s going to look a little different for everyone based on their unique body and circumstances. But in general – I recommend people start by following a Flexible Rule of 3s.

“Flexible Rule of 3s = 3 meals, 2-3 snacks, roughly every 3-4 hours, ideally starting within an hour or so of waking up.”

Start by focusing on the regularity and try to not go much more than 4 hours without eating. This is how it might look - give or take a snack or two.

Your plate won’t always look like this and that is OKAY. Some days you may also find that you need all three snacks. On other days you may find you only need one. Use your body as a guide. 

Since you signed up to the email series – you might already have my anti-inflammatory snack guide which talks you through the buddy system approach.

This approach is GOLD for supporting a balanced nervous system and stable blood sugars. Essentially when you have a snack – try to pair two food groups together e.g. berries AND nuts or yoghurt AND trail mix or crackers AND dip. If you don’t have this factsheet yet, you can grab it here.

If you’re going from having long gaps between eating to incorporating the flexible rule of 3s, what you should notice is:

• Improved energy levels

• Improved mood &

• Reduced bloating

Who doesn’t want that!

Then and only then do we start to focus on the anti-inflammatory nutrients side of things - which is exactly the topic in this blog post here!

Happy consistency!!

Nadia xx