So a few things: 1) Hard to say what it is without seeing your GI test panels, but I can tell you for sure what you're experiencing is not normal, so you guys will find something that will need some "cleaning up" with a proper protocol. 2) Sweet potatoes specifically can be "hard" on a dysbiotic gut. They're very starchy, high in fiber, have some fructose, and could be feeding the "bad" bugs in your gut. Also having them in an "elaborate" meal (i.e. with lots of fat, protein, veggies) may be too much for your GI/digestion to handle if gut is sensitive. I had to give up SPs for a while when healing my gut; couldn't even have a couple bites without blowing up. Now I can eat SPs all day long and I'm fine... The answer = fix the gut: diagnose, kill the bad guys, repopulate with more of the good! 3) You may want to start eating smaller portions and more frequent meals (to maintain caloric needs if training). Your meals may be too "rich" in all these whole foods and you're just not able to digest that much at once. You eat well, but smaller portions at a time may be good w hen healing the gut to not overwhelm it. Ben and I just talked about this on sports nutrition - no it won't screw up your blood sugar/insulin to eat more if you have the plan right. Also in that show we talk about the MAX amount of fat and protein grams you can absorb per meal and it's worth your while to make sure you're not going over those amounts. That's all very basic advice and not necessarily giving you the steps to heal, but you really need to do testing to dive deeper into your needs. LMK what tests you're running and keep us posted!

Also, I'd test for SIBO if you haven't already. Also, keep an eye on all other "fermentable carbohydrates" for now, which could be causing you issues.

Thanks, TP! I remain a work in progress! But the pieces are coming together. With chris we're running OAT and blood.

I feel your pain! Not fun. I had some issues in the past that Tawnee helped me clear up with some health consults with Erica Cowan, ND. Cutting back on FODMAPs and eating smaller more frequent meals helped a ton. Making sure to thoroughly chew and eat in a relaxed (i.e., rest and digest) state was also key for me vs. inhaling food between meetings. My gut panel had low diversity so targeting certain bacteria strains with probiotic supplementation has really cleared things up. I almost dare to say that I have an iron gut now.

Good to know! I'm curious--did you notice any reduction in body fat once you fixed your gut issues? I feel like I'm hanging on to a little more body fat than I should given my diet/exercise...

Interesting that you bring that up because I had a similar experience. Normally my weight and body fat would drop during race season but that didn't happen to me last year when I was having gut issues. When I focused on healing my gut I did notice by body fat drop a little even when my activity level went down.

I think Grace Liu talked about that during Tawnee's interview with her a few months ago. Seems to make sense.

Got my blood work back and it looks great. Got my OAT results back and...less so. My gut definitely needs fixing, which is annoying because I feel like I do everything right dietarily. Bleh. Will consult with Chris Kelly 3/20, hopefully earlier, and get this stuff FIGURED OUT.

Just traded emails with Chris Kelly--my yeast has INCREASED since my last OAT! To quote our new wordsmith potus: SAD! Ordered a GI test to see if there's something more going on here... Woo!

Hey Greg - I was just reading through this. Have you healed that up? I also feel like I do almost everything right (I'm sure I could clean a few things up but whatever) and I am holding on to some extra body fat and just feel like I have a big bloated stomach all them time - I'm thinking about doing that FODMAP app that Tawnee was talking about.

Hey, shannon! I've been working with Chris Kelly and we're getting rid of my yeast overgrowth. It seems like avoiding FODMAPS is good, but not a solution in and of itself. Avoiding things that exacerbate the problem is not the same as fixing the problem, seems to be what I keep hearing. Hopefully we can get rid of my yeast overgrowth and then I'll be good to go!

FYI--we're currently addressing my yeast overgrowth with something called Biocidin. It's a pleasant tasting tincture. That, plus Grace Liu's probiotics. We're also using something called Atrantil to manage symptoms in the meanwhile and it seems to work pretty well. Pretty straight forward protocol. Hope it works, as the bloat has got to go!