What My Bloated Belly Taught Me About Worthiness (And Why Your Gut Issues Might Be Trying To Tell You Something)

I was standing in my bathroom yesterday, fresh from the shower, completely naked. Just me, the mirror, and my bloated belly that I've been nursing through SIBO recovery, an increase in estrogen patch, reverse dieting and glycogen repletion for weeks now.

I reached for my deodorant, lost in thought, when I looked up and saw him in the mirror , my partner, Matt, standing in the doorway. Just... watching me.

And I panicked. Like low key almost into attack mode.

"Hey, what are you doing? Stop." The words came out sharper than I intended, defensive, almost angry. "I'm bloated and I feel terrible and I don't want you to see me like this." “You can’t just freaking sneak up on me like that”.

He wasn't offended. More saddened. In fact, he came back moments later, stood in the doorway again, and said simply: "I love you. I love you the way that you are."

And I... couldn't receive it.

Instead, I stood there, mortified, feeling exposed in a way that had nothing to do with being physically naked and everything to do with a wound I thought I'd already healed.

The Wound Beneath The Bloat

I'm a nutritional scientist. I run a wellness practice helping perimenopausal women reclaim their metabolic health. I understand the physiology of bloating. I know my gut is healing. I know I am adjusting to higher HRT. I know I am inflamed. I know this is temporary. I know, intellectually, that my worth has nothing to do with how flat my stomach is on any given day.

And yet.

In that moment, I wasn't a 40-year-old woman with an honors degree (in nutrition and epigenetics) and a business and decades of personal development under my belt. I was a little girl being called "taffy"—fatty backwards—by my own family. A little girl being told to hold her stomach in all the time. A little girl learning that her body, her belly, her physical form was something to be ashamed of. Something that made her unworthy of being seen, of being chosen, of being loved.

I thought I'd done the healing work around this. I really did. But my reaction and sobbing told a different story.

I've unpacked my childhood wounds in therapy. I've built a career helping women break free from the exact body shame that was inflicted on me. I've trained my body to run ultras, to ride 100km gravel races, to be strong and capable and resilient.

But standing there in my bathroom, feeling seen when I didn't want to be seen, I realized:, there are layers to healing that we don't even know exist until life brings us to a moment that cracks us open all over again.

And sometimes, those moments happen when we're naked, bloated, and standing in front of someone we love but who has also hurt us.

Why I Couldn't Receive His Love

Matt has, historically, made me feel deprioritized. Unsupported. Even abandoned when I was seriously ill and needed him most—patterns that are tough to navigate when you're trying to build a life together. I've been carrying a lot of hurt around feeling unseen emotionally—and yet here he was, quite literally seeing me physically in a way that felt unbearably exposing.

There's a paradox there, isn't there?

I want to be seen. I want to be cherished. But when it happens—when he's standing there looking at me with what I can only describe as tenderness—I panic. Because being fully seen means being fully vulnerable. And vulnerability with someone who has hurt you before? That's terrifying. Something I was well acquainted with for many years in my marriage.

But there's something deeper here, too.

The part of me that reacted so strongly wasn't just afraid of Matt's judgment. She was operating from a belief that's been with me since childhood, I have to be a certain way, lean, smooth, not bloated, not messy—to be worthy of love.

And when I'm in recovery mode, when my body is doing the unglamorous work of healing, when I'm not "optimized" or in control? That part of me feels desperately unsafe albeit subconsciously.

She whispers: "Don't let him see you like this. If he sees the real you—the imperfect you, the bloated you, the human you—he'll choose someone else. You'll be second again. You'll be abandoned again."

How Unhealed Wounds Live In Our Bodies

I've spent the better part of the last year healing my gut. SIBO showed up after my first ultramarathon—The Valley Ultra backcountry trail race that broke me open physically and emotionally in ways I'm still processing.

I've tried antimicrobials, dietary protocols, prokinetics. And the prokinetics are finally helping, which makes sense when I connect the dots. Because the body does keep the score and this was yet another layer I needed to heal.

My gut wasn't just inflamed from bad bacteria or slow motility. My gut was holding decades of stress, shame, perfectionism, and the relentless belief that I had to be exceptional to be worthy.

The science and research has been piecing it altogether especially in the last few years.. The gut-brain axis isn't just a trendy wellness buzzword. It is literally and physically a bidirectional highway where our emotional states directly influence our digestive function, and vice versa. Your brain and your gut are connected by the vagus nerve, creating a two-way highway where your emotions directly affect your digestion, and your gut health directly affects your emotional state.

When we carry chronic stress (like, say, a lifetime of trying to prove you're good enough), our nervous systems live in a state of sympathetic dominance or fight or flight mode. And in that state, digestion literally shuts down. Gut motility slows. Stomach acid production decreases. The migrating motor complex that's supposed to sweep bacteria through your intestines? It stops working properly.

For years, I've been living in that state. Pushing my body through intense training while severely restricting calories. Subconsciously trying to outrun the "not good enough" story by being faster, leaner, stronger. Optimizing every variable because if I could just control everything, maybe I'd finally feel safe. And some part of me does.

But my body? She's been trying to tell me to stop. To rest. To heal. To let go of the need to be perfect. I have done so much work around this area and learned so much already..

And when I didn't listen, she gave me SIBO. She gave me brain fog. She gave me a metabolism so suppressed that even eating 1,800 calories while burning 3,000+ wasn't enough to lose weight and never mind adding perimenopause to the mix

She was saying "You're not safe. We're not safe. And until you deal with what's underneath all this striving, I can't heal."

The Perfectionism-Achievement-Endurance Connection

I see this pattern in so many of the women I work with.

We're high-achievers. We're driven. We build businesses, raise families, train for marathons, manage entire households. We're exceptional.

And often (not always, beneath all that achievement, is a wound we're trying to heal through performance.

We learned early, maybe from family, maybe from society, maybe from a specific experience that taught us we weren't enough—that our worth is conditional. That we have to earn love, approval, safety.

So we cope by being the best. By controlling everything we can. By pushing our bodies to extremes to prove we're worthy of taking up space.

We restrict our eating because maybe if we're smaller, we'll be more acceptable.

We train relentlessly because maybe if we're stronger, faster, more capable, we'll finally feel safe.

We optimize every aspect of our health because maybe if we do everything "right," we can control the outcome.

But when it comes to out bodies, our nervous systems never feel safe enough to truly rest and digest.

And they respond with:

• Gut issues and digestive dysfunction

• Hormonal imbalances (hello, perimenopause chaos) as if pain perimenopause wasn’t dramatic enough right?

• Metabolic suppression and stubborn weight retention

• Chronic inflammation

• Burnout that no amount of adaptogens can fix

Because the root issue isn't our protocols. It's the wound underneath the striving.

Why I Run Ultras (And What That's Really About)

I run ultras. I ride 100km gravel races. I push my body to its absolute limits. Because genetically I am good at it. I am built for it.

And for years, I told myself it was because I loved the challenge. The adventure. The pure endorphin rush. The way it makes me feel alive and capable.

But here's the other part of the truth I'm finally willing to see:

I've been trying to outrun the belief that I'm not good enough.

I've been trying to prove, to myself, to my family, to the world, that my body is strong, is worthy, is enough. That even though I was called "taffy" as a child, even though I was told to hold my stomach in, even though I learned that my physical form was something to be ashamed of—I could make my body do extraordinary things.

If I could run 50 km’s through the mountains, surely that meant I was worthy, right?

If I could complete a 92km gravel race, surely that proved I was enough, right?

But the finish lines never healed the wound. The PRs never made me feel safe. The achievements never filled the hole left by a childhood where I felt second, overlooked, not good enough. But I do love them and they did make me feel a sense of being alive and enjoying a challenge.

And my body? She's been trying to tell me over the years to stop proving and start healing. And I have for a large part. Now I train carefully not like a crazy woman!

The Healing That's Harder Than Any Ultra

This is what I have learned in the last few years: healing isn't linear, and it's never fully "done."

I have done deep work. Years of therapy. Shadow work. Personal development. Building a life and a business that helps other women break free from the exact patterns I've been trapped in.

But wounds have layers. Yes like an onion lol.

I healed the cognitive layer and I understand why I developed these beliefs, where they came from, how they shaped me.

But the somatic layer—the body-level, nervous system imprint of being shamed as a child? That's been waiting for the right moment to reveal itself.

And yesterday, standing naked and bloated in my bathroom while the man I love looked at me with tenderness I couldn't receive—that was the moment.

This is what I'm learning needs to happen now:

Somatic healing, not just cognitive understanding

I can know intellectually that my worth isn't tied to my size. But my body needs to feel safe being seen when I'm not perfect. That requires somatic therapy, EMDR, somatic experiencing, embodiment work—that helps me process and release what's stored in my nervous system, not just my mind. Running and biking is part of this work..

Reparenting the little girl who was shamed

When that wound gets activated, I need to tend to her immediately. I'm practicing putting my hand on my belly and saying: "You were always beautiful. You were always worthy. I'm so sorry they made you feel like you had to hide. I see you. I love you exactly as you are."

Practicing being seen, intentionally

This is the hardest part. I'm learning to let Matt see me when I'm bloated, when I'm not "optimized," when I'm just... human. To receive his gaze, his love, his "I love you the way that you are" without deflecting or apologizing or hiding or hissing at him.

It feels uncomfortable. My nervous system screams. But I'm teaching my body that being seen doesn't equal being shamed.

Grieving what was done to me

I need to let myself be angry. Not just sad. Angry.

Calling a child "taffy"—fatty backwards—is emotional abuse. Making a little girl feel like her body is something to be ashamed of is cruelty.

I deserved adults who told me my body was perfect exactly as it was. Who celebrated me. Who made me feel safe and cherished, not ashamed.

I didn't get that. And that's heartbreaking. And I'm allowed to be furious about it. And I will never not accept my own child for whatever state he is in and I make sure to tell him that each day.

What Your Body Might Be Trying To Tell You

If you're reading this and something is resonating, if you're seeing your own patterns reflected here—I want to ask you some questions:

What wound might your body be holding?

What shame, what "not good enough" story, what childhood experience taught you that you had to earn your worthiness through achievement, through perfection, through making your body smaller or stronger or more acceptable?

What are you trying to prove through your training, your restriction, your optimization?

Are you running toward something? Or away from something?

What would it feel like to let yourself be seen—really seen—when you're not at your best?

When you're bloated. When you're tired. When you're struggling. When you're imperfect and human and just trying to survive the day.

What if your gut issues, your hormonal chaos, your metabolic struggles aren't failures of willpower but your body's way of asking you to heal something deeper?

What if your body isn't broken, she's just been holding what your mind couldn't process?

What if the prokinetics, the protocols, the supplements are only part of the equation—and the real healing requires you to finally feel safe enough to rest, to be vulnerable, to stop proving? I can almost guarantee there is.

A Work In Progress

I don't have this figured out. I'm still crying as I edit this. I'm still learning to let my partner look at my bloated belly without shame.

But I'm finally willing to see the rest of the truth..

My body was never the problem. The shame I carried about my body was the wound. And healing that wound? That's the work that actually transforms everything.

Not another ultra (although there most definitely will be for the fun). Not another perfectly executed protocol. Not another achievement to prove I'm worthy.

Just... letting myself be loved. Exactly as I am.

Bloated belly and all.

And maybe, just maybe, teaching my nervous system that I was always enough. That I was always worthy of being first. That I didn't need to earn my place.

I just needed to come home to myself.

I write honestly and openly about the journey because I am passionate about woman’s health and helping them feel strong, empowered and loved in themselves.