---
title: "When Gut Healing Becomes the Thing Holding You Back"
entity: "blog"
canonical_url: "https://www.drlovink.com/blog/when-gut-healing-becomes-the-thing-holding-you-back"
markdown_url: "https://www.drlovink.com/llms/blog/when-gut-healing-becomes-the-thing-holding-you-back"
lastmod: "2026-09-06T15:02:51.000Z"
---

I can't remember what came first- the gut issues or the way I started restricting food to manage them.

What I do know is that I've had constipation for as long as I can remember.

In high school, I dreaded going out with friends because I never knew when the bloating would hit. Eventually I noticed that if I delayed eating, I could sometimes delay the symptoms. That became my first coping strategy.

What started as symptom management slowly turned into chronic restriction. I wasn't trying to be thin. I wanted to feel comfortable in my body. I wanted predictability, control, and relief.

Instead, restriction led to disconnection. Food became the enemy, my symptoms got worse, and through most of my 20s I battled an eating disorder that was often invisible but always present.

The irony is that I was constantly trying to heal my gut. I followed influencers, wellness blogs, and later, much of what I was taught in naturopathic medical school. The message was the same everywhere: gluten is bad, dairy is bad, sugar is bad. Intermittent fasting is the key. Detox. Cleanse. Try keto, paleo, carnivore, anything but what you're eating now.

Each message fed my fear and deepened the spiral. It was all wrapped in the language of healing, yet it only ever offered short-term relief, if any. Meanwhile, my system didn't feel safe, and the more I tried to control my gut, the more stuck it became.

## The turning point

Two years into practice as an ND, I hit a breaking point, as a patient and as a doctor. I was doing everything "right" and still unwell. So were many of the people I was treating. If that was true, maybe we needed a different framework altogether.

So I questioned everything I had learned.

I went back to the evidence, let go of food fear, and rebuilt trust with my body. I also started learning the gut-brain-microbiota system as a whole, instead of its separate parts.

It didn't happen overnight. But the more I understood about the gut-brain connection, the physiology of motility, and how restriction disrupts rhythm, the more my symptoms made sense. They were responding to a system that was dysregulated, under-fueled, and on constant high alert.

The same was true for my patients.

Elimination diets, gut protocols, and micromanaging every meal weren't working long-term, because we were treating symptoms instead of supporting the system.

That realization reshaped my clinical work.

Over more than a decade of caring for women with chronic constipation, IBS, and other Disorders of Gut-Brain Interaction (DGBIs), it has become the foundation of how I practice.

## When wellness becomes a disguise for disorder

We live in a culture that praises restriction and glorifies discipline, especially around food. For those of us with chronic gut issues, that blurs the line between what's genuinely healing and what's quietly harming. A sincere attempt to "eat clean" or "reduce inflammation" can slide into patterns that disrupt the very system we're trying to fix.

A lot of what's sold as gut healing is disordered eating that has been normalized, polished, and wrapped in wellness buzzwords. It promises healing and delivers more fear, disconnection, and dysfunction.

Disordered eating (and sometimes a full eating disorder) is common in people with chronic gut symptoms. It doesn't always come from a desire to be thin. Often it comes from a desire to feel safe. Sometimes it starts with body image, sometimes with symptoms, and it usually becomes about control, predictability, and chasing ease in a body that feels anything but easy.

The more you restrict, the more foods you fear, and the more you micromanage your day to avoid symptoms, the more dysregulated your gut becomes. More restriction leads to more symptoms, more symptoms lead to more restriction, and you end up exhausted, anxious, and still not better.

The body you're trying to fix doesn't need more rules. It needs rhythm, nourishment, and a regulated system. Relief comes from consistency and safety, and from supporting the gut-brain-microbiota network in ways that actually work.

## Signs your "gut healing" habits might be holding you back

Use this quick checklist to spot the subtle ways restriction, food fear, and over-control might be keeping your symptoms stuck. It's about awareness, not shame. Once you can name a pattern, you can start to shift it.

- ☐ You delay or skip meals to avoid symptoms
- ☐ You feel anxious eating in front of others or before plans
- ☐ You've cut out multiple foods or food groups to manage symptoms
- ☐ You feel guilty or panicked after eating certain foods
- ☐ You're afraid to eat unless you're at home or near a bathroom
- ☐ You believe the "perfect" diet will solve your problem, and you've tried almost every elimination diet out there (paleo, keto, and so on)
- ☐ You feel like you're doing everything right and still not getting better

## Why your healing habits might be keeping you stuck

If you checked off several boxes, you're not alone.

Most of the women I work with have done everything "right."

They've followed the gut healing advice, cut out the foods, and tried the protocols, and they still feel bloated, constipated, and stuck.

That's not a personal failure.

Polished wellness narratives, social media advice, and well-meaning late-night Googling overlook the complexity of the gut-brain-microbiota network, and they skip over the toll restriction takes.

So how can something that looks so healthy, and gets so much praise, make things worse?

## Let's break it down clinically

When your body is stuck in survival mode (skipping meals, undernourished, constantly on alert), your gut feels it first.

Here's what happens physiologically when disordered eating habits take over:

- Delayed or skipped meals blunt your gastrocolic reflex. This reflex helps trigger a bowel movement after eating, and it needs consistent stimulation to stay strong. It's also strongest in the morning, so delaying breakfast or fasting often suppresses one of the best signals you have for regularity.
- Your nervous system stays in fight-or-flight. Restriction, food fear, and hypervigilance keep your body on high alert. Digestion gets deprioritized, motility slows, bloating worsens, and gut-brain communication becomes dysregulated.
- Undereating is a common and underrecognized contributor to constipation. If you aren't eating enough, you probably aren't getting enough fibre either. But it goes deeper. Motility is energy-dependent, and chronic undernourishment tells your body to conserve resources, which dampens the reflexes and muscle contractions you need for regular bowel movements.
- Your microbiota diversity declines. A varied diet supports a resilient microbiome. Long-term restriction, especially removing whole food groups, can starve beneficial bacteria and increase sensitivity to ordinary foods, which feeds the cycle of food fear and symptoms.
- Pelvic floor dysfunction can worsen. Chronic straining, withholding, and poor coordination between the pelvic floor, breath, and abdominal muscles (all of which anxious toileting habits can make worse) disrupt normal elimination and add to the feeling of incomplete evacuation.

So while restriction can feel like control, physiologically it creates more dysfunction.

And emotionally, it's exhausting.

The rigidity, the anxiety, and the constant second-guessing slowly wear down your quality of life. Food becomes something to fear, your body starts to feel like the enemy, and relief seems further away than ever.

AND it doesn't have to stay that way.

If any of this feels familiar, you are not alone, you have not failed, and relief is possible without restriction. I see this often in practice, and I've lived it myself.

You can rebuild trust with your body.

You can learn to support your gut in a way that works.

And you can feel lighter, more regular, confident, and grounded, not because you micromanaged your way there, but because you built support that works with your body instead of against it.

## An important note on eating disorders

Disordered eating exists on a spectrum, and for some people it crosses into a full eating disorder, even when it looks like "healthy habits."

If you're dealing with obsessive food thoughts, severe restriction, compensatory behaviours, or feeling out of control around eating, please know that eating disorders are serious medical conditions. Ideally they're treated before, or at least alongside, chronic gut symptoms, because an untreated eating disorder will keep worsening gut function and delay recovery.

You deserve proper care and support.

To learn more or find help, visit [nedic.ca](https://www.nedic.ca), a trusted Canadian resource for eating disorder information and support.

## Ready for a more personalized approach?

If you're done with one-size-fits-all protocols, food fear, and short-term fixes, 1:1 Naturopathic Care may be your next step.

It's built around the whole picture, and together we:

- Clarify your constipation subtype, so you understand why your gut behaves the way it does
- Reset with targeted tools, including short-term laxative use when it's needed to clear the backup and make space
- Rebuild your gut's natural rhythm through meal timing, nervous system cues, and reflex training
- Reinforce daily patterns that support steady gut-brain communication
- Reintroduce the right kind of fibre and food freedom, so your gut gets what it needs without restriction

This is a personalized, evidence-informed approach that works on the system behind your symptoms, not just the symptoms themselves.

If you're in BC, [book a free Discovery Call](https://drrachaelnd.janeapp.com/#/naturopathic-medicine)and we'll talk through what's been going on and whether working together makes sense.

If you're outside BC, start with my free masterclass, [Why Nothing Has Worked for Your Constipation](/why-nothing-has-worked-for-your-constipation/home)

You don't have to keep doing this alone.

Let's build a gut that works with you, not against you.

💛 Dr. Rachael Lovink, ND

BOOK A FREE CALL NOW