One of the hardest parts of managing an autoimmune disease isn’t always the symptoms. It’s explaining to people you love that the foods you grew up eating are now foods your body has become sensitive to. As a nutrition coach and autoimmune patient, I know that navigating conversations around food sensitivities and autoimmune disease isn’t easy. However, there are actions you can take to navigate family meals without having to choose between supporting your health and appeasing your family.
I will never promise that it will be easy to navigate family meals when you’re dealing with food sensitivities or autoimmune disease. We all face unique challenges. However, there are three ways you can protect your health without creating avoidable tension with your family.
1. Trust What Your Body is Telling You
You live in your body every single day. Even if there have been moments when you have felt disconnected from your body, we have innate body wisdom that tells us what feels good for our body and what doesn’t. When you choose not to eat something you know won’t leave you feeling good, you’re not being picky. You are using knowledge from past experiences to inform future decisions. Trusting that you know your body best allows you to make choices that won’t trigger a flare-up, pain, fatigue, or digestive issues.
2. Have Conversations Before Gathering
I know that having difficult conversations might feel stressful, but avoiding them creates unnecessary tension at family meals. If your family doesn’t know you have food sensitivities, or there are certain foods you need to avoid, how can they accommodate you? That’s why having these conversations ahead of meals means your family can swap out ingredients, or you can even offer to bring a dish that accommodates your food sensitivities. Either way, communicating ahead of the meal enables you to protect your body rather than feel like you’re pushing through at every meal.
3. Not Every Environment Deserves Access to You
Despite how proactive you are, some family members may be uninterested in accommodating your food sensitivities. They might not understand that a ‘little bit’ will actually hurt you. Even though it’s important to advocate for yourself, every family gathering shouldn’t have to feel like you’re gearing up for war. If you’re constantly feeling stressed, pressured, or dismissed, it might be time to opt out of these family meals. Will that cause some tension? Yes. Is that tension worth avoiding feeling physically sick afterward? Also, yes.
If you’ve ever felt in the past that attending family meals has caused you to feel that you’re making a decision between protecting your health and appeasing your family, I hope today gave you an alternative. Trusting our body, communicating our needs, and ensuring our environments accommodate our needs are ways to navigate family meals with food sensitivities. While this isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list, I hope that it has given you a place to start.
Do you have any other strategies that have helped you with navigating family meals with food sensititivies and autoimmune diease? If so, let us know in the comments!
