A single dietary changed eliminated my crippling anxiety

If you’d met me a few years ago, you’d have seen a bubbly, social, career-driven woman who always looked like she had it together. I was the classic people pleaser, always saying yes, always pushing myself to be the best, and holding myself to impossible standards. 

Behind the smile, though, my gut was screaming for help. 

I was in my early thirties, working long hours in a high-pressure job, constantly stressed, constantly ‘on’, and constantly unwell. I’d always been sensitive to certain foods, but over time, what started as occasional bloating or discomfort turned into full-blown digestive chaos. 

I’d get crippling stomach pain, brain fog, burping, bloating, itchy skin, you name it. If someone accidentally added garlic to a dish, I’d spend the night in agony.

And the stress and anxiety? It was relentless. I was never fully present. I worried about what might go wrong next, always. I looked happy on the outside, but inside I was running on fumes.

At my worst, even leaving the house felt like a risk. I didn’t know how my body would react, and the shame was huge. I’d make excuses to skip dinners or parties because I didn’t want to explain why I couldn’t eat this or that. I felt like I was letting everyone down, my job, my friends, myself.

Eventually, my body just said, enough.

I’d always had a pretty healthy lifestyle. Growing up on a farm, I’d dance, ride motorbikes and horses, play netball, spend all day outside. It was a naturally healthy upbringing. But once I got to uni, bad food and alcohol crept in. And I was ignoring the signals my body was sending me.

Looking back, my gut had been trying to get my attention for years. But I was too busy smiling through it, pushing through exhaustion, trying to be perfect and ignoring every red flag.

By my early thirties, it wasn’t optional anymore. I was constantly unwell. I went from a life of clear skin to crippling cystic acne. I lost my spark. Friends started saying, ‘You just don’t seem like yourself.’ They were right. I wasn’t.

When your gut is off, everything feels off. Food made me anxious because eating often made me sick, and the anxiety made my gut worse. It was a vicious loop I couldn’t get out of.

That’s when I found a doctor at the National Institute of Integrative Medicine (NIIM) who helped me focus on rebuilding my gut health. I was diagnosed with SIBO and low secretory IgA, which basically meant my gut was inflamed and exhausted.

I started a low-FODMAP diet (which restricts certain carbohydrates to help manage digestive symptoms such as bloating), cut back on alcohol and began experimenting with fasting. Not for weight loss, but for healing.

I’d heard about fasting from my mum, but it wasn’t until I listened to Dr Mindy Pelz on a podcast that something clicked. She talked about fasting as a way to reset the body, not punish it. She explained how, in ancient times, when we were injured or unwell, our bodies naturally fasted to activate healing. That was my ‘a-ha’ moment.

I’ll be honest. Fasting was rough at first. People talk about the benefits, the energy, the clarity, but they don’t talk about the hard part enough. The hangry mornings. The headaches. The mental battle of trying to push through old habits and automatic behaviours.

That resistance is real, and it’s something we should be more open about. Changing your relationship with food, and with yourself, isn’t linear. It’s uncomfortable. You slip up, you get frustrated, and you think, ‘What’s the point?’

In those moments, I had to learn the one thing I’d never been good at: kindness… to myself.

The harder I was on myself, the worse I felt. But when I started treating myself the way I’d treat a friend, with patience, encouragement and forgiveness, something shifted.

I began to see fasting not as deprivation, but as rest. A reset. And when I approached it that way, my body responded in kind.

I usually fast through the morning and eat twice a day, but I like to mix things up now and then. Dr Mindy Pelz recommends changing your fasting routine occasionally, so I’ll sometimes do her 30-day reset – which aims to align eating with menstrual cycles to achieve hormonal balance – or a longer 3–5-day fast with her. It’s been great for my gut health and helps balance my moods. 

Slowly, the bloating eased. The fog lifted. The constant anxiety – that jittery, hyper-alert state – started to fade. For the first time in years, I felt calm.

That’s when I realised it wasn’t just about food. My gut and my mind were speaking the same language, I’d just never stopped to listen.

As my gut healed, something deeper started to shift. I began to notice patterns, like how my gut would flare up when I said yes to something I didn’t want to do.

I realised my body was keeping score of every emotion I’d swallowed. Every ‘sure, I can do that’ when I really couldn’t. Every time I ignored my own boundaries.

I’d spent years thinking I was smarter than my body, that I could think my way out of stress. But it turns out my gut was smarter than my brain. It was forcing me to stop living out of alignment.

Fasting helped me reconnect with my body’s signals. It taught me to slow down, to rest when I needed to, and to stop overriding that quiet inner voice saying, ‘this isn’t right for you’.

Today, my life looks completely different. I freelance now. No more corporate stress or 12-hour desk days. I dance. I meditate. I walk my dog, Loki.

I also made one of the hardest and most healing shifts of all: I changed where I found my joy.

For years, my social life revolved around food and alcohol. Long lunches, after-work drinks, weekends built around what we’d eat next. But those things were inflaming my gut and draining my energy. They gave me connection in the moment but cost me days of feeling unwell afterwards.

So I swapped them for things that fill me up without the fallout.

I started dancing again, Brazilian funk and Afrobeats mostly, the kind of dancing where you don’t care if you look good doing it, because you’re so in the moment.

Then came improv and acting classes, which gave me something I didn’t know I needed: permission to play. To be imperfect. To fail gloriously and laugh about it.

I even learned to DJ last year, which is something I never would have done when I was stuck in that anxious, perfectionist mindset.

Those spaces still give me joy and connection, but they don’t make me sick. They fill me up in a way that food and wine never really could.

I also learned to rest. As women, we’re so conditioned to push through and ‘keep going’. Now, when my body says rest, I rest. And guess what? The world doesn’t fall apart.

My creativity has come back too. When your gut is inflamed, your brain is foggy. When your gut is calm, your ideas flow. The connection between mind and body still amazes me.

I cook simple, colourful meals (my shopping list is basically just the fruit and veg aisle). I still fast most mornings. It’s not about restriction, it’s about rhythm. Listening.

Healing my gut helped me set boundaries in every part of my life. I no longer say yes out of guilt. I no longer push myself until I crash. I no longer measure my worth by how much I can do for others.

Fasting taught me that healing doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated. It’s about creating space in your mind, body and your life. And it’s free.