Skipping Lunch Before Meetings?3 Checks for an IBS Eating Plan

If lunch stays in the fridge because you have a meeting at two, tell your clinician that. The cost of your symptoms includes the meal you avoided and the afternoon you planned around it.

Three checks for the plan you have

1. Does it include a workable meal break? Ask how to apply the regular-meal advice to your shifts and meeting schedule. Bring a typical workday so the conversation can include the timing you can actually manage.¹
2. Are food restrictions being reviewed? If first-line diet and lifestyle advice has not helped, NICE recommends expert guidance on further changes, including diets that limit particular foods. Ask whether a dietitian should review what you have stopped eating.¹
3. Are you discussing the symptom that interrupts work? IBS medicine choices depend on symptoms. Explain whether pain, diarrhea or constipation is the problem you need help managing, then ask what the agreed plan targets.¹

Record the avoided meal as well as the symptoms

For your next appointment, describe one recent workday: what you planned to eat, what you ate, what you avoided and what happened during the meeting. Add the symptom and its timing. Keep the account factual, even if the day felt exhausting.

You can say: “I’m arranging my workday around not eating. Can we review the plan?” Leave with an agreed next step and a time to assess whether it is helping.

Bloated by Dinner includes a BellyClock log, a one-change-at-a-time tracker and a visit script. Use them to organize your observations for that discussion. See the book.