I stopped planning my day around my stomach. Six weeks in, I’d forgotten what bloated felt like.

By the time I booked, I was planning my whole day around my stomach. Fine at breakfast, uncomfortable by lunch and properly bloated by two. I’d started saying no to dinners out because I never knew how I’d feel.

What we actually changed

Priya didn’t hand me a list of banned foods. We kept a food and symptom diary for two weeks, and the pattern was obvious once someone looked at it with me: rushed lunches, lots of onion and garlic, and almost nothing between noon and dinner.

We tried a short, guided low-FODMAP phase, then spent most of the programme bringing foods back one at a time. That surprised me. I expected the list of things I couldn’t eat to grow, and it went the other way.

I still have the odd bad afternoon, but now I know why, and what to do about it. Last month I booked a table for my birthday without thinking twice.