The bloating
keeps coming back.
You cut the foods. Maybe you did a whole protocol. It worked — for a few weeks. Then it crept back, and somewhere in there you started to wonder if something about you was different. It isn't. One step gets skipped, and it's the step that decides whether this holds.
Written by Liz Roman, FNTP, RWS, BC-NTP
Let me guess.
You wake up flat and you're swollen by three. You eat something "clean" and bloat anyway. You've cut gluten, dairy, sugar, then FODMAPs, then whatever the last article said. You've bought the probiotics. You've run the stool test. You've been told everything looks in range.
And you're still bloated. Still exhausted. Still guessing.
There was a version of you who just ate lunch.
She didn't scan the menu before she got to the restaurant. She didn't pack a backup meal for the birthday party. She didn't do the math on whether she'd regret it by nine o'clock, or keep a running list of the eleven foods that felt safe this month.
She just ate, and then she thought about something else.
What would you actually do differently if food stopped being a calculation?
That's the thing worth getting back. Not a flatter stomach for a few weeks. The version of your life where your gut isn't the loudest thing in the room.
Between meals, your small intestine is supposed to sweep itself clean.
There's a wave of contractions that runs from your stomach down through the small intestine when it's empty, clearing out leftover food and bacteria. Clinicians call it the housekeeping wave. Those growls you hear when you're not hungry? That's often it running.
Here's the part that matters: the wave only runs when you're not eating. Anything with calories interrupts it and resets the cycle.
So if that wave is impaired — by a bout of food poisoning years ago, by constant grazing, by stress, by a slow thyroid — bacteria that should be swept downstream simply stay. And multiply. And ferment your food before you've finished digesting it.
That's SIBO. And it's why killing the bacteria without restoring the wave is clearing a room without fixing the door.
Which is exactly what the research shows. Researchers tracked eighty people whose SIBO was successfully cleared with the standard antibiotic, then retested them:
Lauritano EC, et al. Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth recurrence after antibiotic therapy. American Journal of Gastroenterology, 2008.
Nearly half. In people whose treatment worked. That's not a group of women who did it wrong — that's a documented pattern, and it's what happens when the overgrowth gets treated and the conditions that produced it don't.
The Relapse Map
One question tells you what you're dealing with. Three tell you why it came back. The guide walks you through all four, and the assessment scores them for you.
Hydrogen, methane (now classified as IMO), or hydrogen sulfide. Different organisms, different test, different approach — and most women are never told which they have.
The housekeeping wave. The most common reason SIBO returns after successful treatment, and the step almost every protocol leaves out.
Stomach acid, bile, enzymes, and the valve between your small and large intestine. Four defenses that keep bacteria where they belong.
What opened the door — food poisoning, surgery and adhesions, thyroid, medications, hormones, stress. Until it's named, everything else is maintenance.
Hi, I'm Liz.
I spent eight years with chronic constipation, brain fog, fatigue and bloating, being told my labs were in range. I had a colonoscopy in college. The entire takeaway was "just take Miralax."
I took the Miralax. It made things worse.
So I went back to school, got certified, and ran the functional testing nobody had ordered. Hashimoto's. Dysbiosis. Fungal overgrowth. Not one problem — a system failing in several places at once, while every standard result came back unremarkable.
Nine years and thousands of women later, the ones I think about most are the ones who did everything right, got better, and watched it come back. I wrote this for them.
Built to be used, not just read.
Twenty questions, four scores. You finish it knowing your likely type and your dominant driver — which is the thing that determines what you do first. A safety screen sits in front of it, because some symptoms need a doctor, not a protocol.
What the test actually measures, lactulose versus glucose, and five result patterns in plain English — including the two that get read as unremarkable when they aren't. Plus four documented reasons a negative result can be wrong.
Motility, Gatekeepers, Type and Upstream — the mechanism behind each, what impairs it, and what supporting it looks like. You read yours first.
Prepare, Gatekeepers, Terrain, Motility. In that order, with the honest note that most protocols stop at week three — which is the best explanation there is for the numbers above.
Why the elimination phase was designed to last weeks, not years, how structured reintroduction actually works, and a straight page on what to do if food rules have stopped being about your gut.
The one-page protocol card, the four-week tracker, and a lab-request checklist built to hand across a desk so you walk in asking for the right things.
You don't have to research this. You don't have to work out the order, decode a lab report alone, or figure out what to say to a doctor who's already looking at the clock. The thinking is done and it's on paper. The assessment tells you where to start, the protocol fits on one page, and there are no brands or doses to buy your way through.
Real pages. Not a mockup.
Real women. Real relief.
Every one of these is a real client, in her own words, on camera.
Diagnosed with SIBO after years of bloating, nausea, and swinging between constipation and diarrhea — and several practitioners who couldn't help. Liz found parasite issues no one else caught. Those symptoms are gone now.
Anything I ate, I'd swell up to look 9 months pregnant — and no one could tell me why. Liz connected the dots and gave me answers I'll have forever.
I can play with my toddlers without needing to stop and sit on the couch. I make it through the day and I'm actually present. The whole mood in our house is better, because I feel better.
You've already spent the money.
None of that is coming back. This is $37 to find out whether the last round failed for a reason you can actually fix — before you spend another dollar guessing.
Add it up. Then look at the price.
Plus two bonuses below.
Because knowing isn't the same as being ready.
The Breath Test Prep & Decode Sheet
Most SIBO breath tests are ruined before the sugar is even mixed. The prep diet is specific, the fasting window matters, and several ordinary things skew the result. Women spend $150 to $350 and get back a number that means nothing.
This covers what to eat and avoid in the 24 hours before, what to ask your prescriber about pausing and how far ahead, how to collect properly — then how to read the curve you get back, and what to bring to a provider.
7 days inside FitMom Society
Your invite lands in the same email as your guide. Come in, look around, take what helps.
- Full access to every gut & hormone course
- Direct support from our expert team
- A private community of women working through the same thing
Normally members only. No obligation to continue after your free week.
You've been let down before. So this one's on us to prove.
Read it. Score the assessment. Use the printables. If it doesn't give you a clearer picture of what's driving your gut than anything you've been handed so far, email support@fitmom.co within 30 days and we'll refund you in full. Keep everything. No explanation needed, nothing to send back.
And if you work the four weeks and stall? Bring it to your Discovery Call. Getting stuck is information, not a refund problem, and we'd rather look at it with you.
Before you decide.
Stop guessing.
Start knowing.
By tonight you could know your likely type, your dominant driver, and exactly what to ask for at your next appointment. That's one read and twenty questions. It costs less than the probiotics you were going to buy anyway.
Send Me The Relapse Map — $37Instant download · 30-day guarantee · both bonuses included
Not sure which type you have?
Send yourself the three questions that point toward hydrogen, methane or sulfide — the first part of the assessment, free.