When Your Gut Takes Over the Day

There are some things you do not fully appreciate until your body gives you a live demonstration.

The night my gut had other plans

For me, it started in the middle of the night.

I woke with a gnawing, gripping pain in my stomach. Not a mild “something feels a bit off” sensation. This was deep, cramping, insistent and completely unfamiliar. I tend to have what I would describe as a fairly cast-iron gut, so when my digestive system does make itself known, I pay attention.

At first, I did what most people would do. I got up and thought, maybe I just need to go to the toilet.

Nope.

Then, as soon as I stood up, I thought I was going to throw up.

Also nope.

And so began that very special kind of digestive purgatory where your body seems to be applying pressure from every direction, but refuses to offer any obvious exit strategy.

I could not get comfortable. I could not relieve it. I couldn’t poo or throw up. I could not lie in a position that made the pain ease for more than a few moments. I tossed, turned, curled up, stretched out, got annoyed, got worried, and eventually, somehow, went back to sleep.

When the day has to be surrendered

When I woke the next morning, it was immediately clear the day was not going ahead as planned. There was no version of me driving around Brisbane, sitting in appointments, focusing on clients, or pretending to be a functioning adult too far from a bathroom or my bed. So appointments were cancelled, the day was surrendered, and I did what we often tell other people to do but occasionally resist doing ourselves.

I went back to bed.

The rest of the day had that proper “you are not well” quality to it. Hot sweats, cold sweats, a thumping headache, nausea, an unrelenting churning in my gut, and the kind of fatigue that makes television feel too ambitious. I could not read. I could not watch anything. Even scrolling felt like too much input.

I just slept.

My stomach felt bloated, fizzy, unsettled and pressurised. I kept thinking, when this finally moves, there is going to be trouble. But trouble never really arrived in the dramatic fashion I expected. It just sat there. Heavy, loud, uncomfortable and vaguely threatening.

Food was absolutely off the table. Not in a disciplined, noble, fasting kind of way. More in a “if you bring food near me, I will not be accountable for what comes next” kind of way.

I probably went 36 hours, maybe longer, without eating anything. The thought of food made me feel nauseous. Thankfully, I could sip water, so I did that across the day in between long stretches of sleep.

By the next day, I was clearly not right, but I was better. I was able to pass a bowel movement, although it was not exactly something I would describe as normal. I had some stewed apple because it was the only thing that felt vaguely appealing and gentle enough to contemplate. Across the next few days, I ate lightly, kept things simple, and tried not to put any extra pressure on a gut that was clearly trying to recover.

Eventually, things settled.

These things happen. I am fairly sure I can trace it back to something I ate on the Sunday. There were one or two foods that only I had eaten, and one of them was the likely culprit. Whether it was gastro, food poisoning, or just a very unhappy digestive response, I had enough clues to know this was probably an acute incident rather than something more ongoing.

The realisation

But the real lesson came in the week after. Once the worst of the pain had passed, I noticed I was thinking about my gut far more than usual. Not dramatically. Not obsessively. But enough.

When I left the house, I was aware of where the public toilets were. I was cautious about what I ate. I had lost some of the easy trust I usually have in my body. And that was after one episode. One week and a bit of digestive discomfort, uncertainty and caution. And what played on my mind was the poor buggers who live like this.

There are people who plan their day around their bowels. People who avoid eating before a commute because the risk feels too high. People who know every public toilet between home and work. People who decline invitations, avoid unfamiliar restaurants, restrict food, avoid travel, and silently calculate how long they can safely be away from a bathroom.

When you live like that long enough, it does not just affect digestion. It affects confidence, social life, work, nutrient intake, energy, cognition, and the amount of mental space available for everything else. Digestive symptoms can become a full-time risk management strategy.

When food becomes threat assessment

I worked with a client who had been living this way. They had a long commute, around an hour and a half to two hours each way, and they would not eat before getting on the train. Not because they were trying to be healthy. Not because breakfast did not suit them. But because the fear of needing to use the bathroom while trapped in transit was too much. So they started the day running on empty.

Then, when they did eat, the choices became smaller and smaller. Food was no longer about nourishment, pleasure, satisfaction or variety. Food was about threat assessment. Will this set me off? Will I bloat? Will it trigger pain or that urgent need to go? When can I safely eat so I am not interrupting a meeting, a commute, or a normal day?

By the time we started working together, they had tried multiple diets, eliminated more and more foods, and ended up with a very narrow version of eating.

This is incredibly common. People often start eliminating foods because they are trying to help themselves. And in the short term, it can feel like the only thing that gives them any control.

But over time, a heavily restricted diet can create its own problems. Nutrient gaps can emerge. Food fear can increase. Gut bacteria may become less diverse. Energy and cognition can start to be affected. And the digestive system can become more sensitive, not less.

That is a hard place to live.

Why a targeted approach matters

With this client, we did not start by throwing random gut remedies at them or handing over another list of foods to avoid. We took time to understand what was happening, what had already been tried, what patterns were showing up, what felt unsafe, and what they were actually willing to do. Then we worked in phases.

We focused first on calming the system and creating some predictability. We looked at the foundations, because the gut does not operate separately from stress, sleep, hormones, nervous system regulation, immune function or the way someone is eating across the day.

Then we began to reintroduce foods carefully and deliberately, in a way that felt safe enough for their body and their mind.

A few days into the process, they called to say they were already feeling better. By the end of the week, the bloating had reduced, the urgency had settled, and bowel regularity was starting to return. A week or so later, they said something I have never forgotten. They felt like they had got their life back.

That did not happen because we guessed better than the last person. It happened because the approach was targeted. It happened because we looked after things in the right order. It happened because we stopped treating food as the only problem and started looking at the whole digestive environment.

When the gut starts running the show

This is where digestive health can get very messy for people.

By the time many people seek support, they have already done a lot. They have cut out gluten. Then dairy. Then FODMAPs. Then coffee. Then alcohol. Then legumes. Then fruit. Then anything that contains flavour, joy or texture.

They may have been told it is IBS, their tests are normal, and they need to reduce their stress, which is not wrong, but is rarely a complete plan.

They’ve tried probiotics, digestive enzymes, peppermint oil, bone broth, collagen powder, fasting, carnivore, low carb, high fibre, low fibre, gut powders, greens powders, and at least one supplement that tasted like damp lawn clippings. And still, their gut is running the show.

Why this matters in midlife

This is particularly relevant for women in midlife. Many women notice changes in digestion during the perimenopause and menopause transition. Some develop more bloating. Some notice constipation becomes more common. Others swing the other way and experience urgency or looser stools. Reflux may become more prominent. Food tolerance can shift. Alcohol may become less forgiving. Stress can hit the gut faster. Sleep disruption can make everything feel worse.

This does not mean every digestive symptom is “just hormones”. That would be lazy thinking. But it does mean the midlife body is changing its operating conditions.

Oestrogen, progesterone, cortisol, thyroid function, insulin sensitivity, muscle mass, bile flow, gut motility, inflammation, sleep, stress load and nervous system regulation can all intersect with digestion. At the same time, many women are carrying more life load than ever. Careers, families, ageing parents, financial pressure, relationships, identity shifts, and the accumulating effects of years of pushing through.

The gut is not separate from that. It is often one of the first places the body starts waving a flag. And because digestive symptoms are so common, they can be easy to dismiss. But common does not mean irrelevant.

Common does not mean irrelevant

Bloating that changes what you wear, urgency that affects how you commute, constipation that leaves you uncomfortable, foggy and heavy, or food fear that narrows your diet to a handful of safe meals are not minor inconveniences. When digestive symptoms start influencing what you eat, where you go, how you travel, or whether you feel confident leaving the house, they are having a real impact on your quality of life.

These symptoms may not always be dangerous, but they can be deeply disruptive. And sometimes they do need further medical investigation, especially when there are red flags such as blood in the stool, unexplained weight loss, persistent vomiting, fever, severe or worsening pain, anaemia, night-time diarrhoea, a major change in bowel habits, or symptoms that are new and persistent.

But even when nothing sinister is found, people still deserve support. They deserve more than “your tests are normal” and “avoid the foods that bother you”.

They deserve more than being left to piece together a digestive strategy from internet forums, social media reels, and the supplement aisle.

Rebuilding trust in your body

Good digestive support is not about finding the one magical food to remove or the one miracle product to add. It is about understanding what is driving the symptoms, what has changed, what needs calming, what needs strengthening, what needs testing, and what order things need to happen in.

Sometimes that means simplifying food for a period of time. Sometimes it means reintroducing foods, not removing more. And sometimes it means looking at stomach acid, bile flow, enzymes, fibre tolerance, bowel motility, gut bacteria, immune activation, stress physiology, blood sugar regulation, sleep, or the hormonal terrain of midlife.

Often, it means helping someone trust their body again. That’s the part we don’t talk about enough.

When digestion becomes unpredictable, people lose trust. They stop trusting food. They stop trusting their gut. They stop trusting their ability to leave the house without a contingency plan.

And when that happens, the goal is not just symptom reduction. The goal is restoring confidence, safety and capacity.

Guessing can only take you so far

My gut episode lasted a little over a week. For some people, this has been years.

So if your digestive symptoms are starting to shape your life, if you are skipping meals to get through work or travel, cutting out more and more foods, or quietly accepting discomfort as your new normal, it may be time to get proper support.

Not because you have failed to figure it out. Because the gut is complex, and guessing can only take you so far.

And just because something is common, especially in midlife, does not mean there is nothing you can do about it.

About the Author

Mary-Leigh Scheerhoorn is a Nutritional Medicine and Lifestyle Practitioner, an Accredited Metabolic Balance Consultant, and the founder of Genesis Health and Lifestyle Solutions. She works with professional midlife women experiencing fatigue, weight gain, burnout and hormonal disruption, helping them restore energy, rebalance metabolism and regain confidence in their bodies through personalised nutritional and lifestyle medicine. Click this link if you'd like to explore working with Mary-Leigh.