I couldn't gain weight.
My gut wouldn't let me. So I fixed it.

Okay so I'm 15 and I have IBS. Which honestly sounds like a thing you'd make up to get out of gym class. But it's not. It started when I was 12 — like really started — the kind of stomach pain where you're just on the bathroom floor for an hour and you have zero idea what you ate that set it off. Doctors were like: "Irritable Bowel Syndrome." Cool. Thanks. Here's a list of foods to avoid and good luck with that.

The list was basically everything. No onions. No garlic. No dairy. No gluten. No "high-FODMAP" stuff (look it up, it's a lot). I'm also vegetarian, so that already cuts out half the stuff people suggest for gaining weight. What was I supposed to eat? Like, rice? Plain rice? Forever?

Here's the thing nobody explains: IBS and weight gain are literally fighting each other. The foods that pack on calories — high-fat, dense, rich — are usually the exact foods that wreck your gut. Dairy makes me bloat. A lot of high-fiber stuff is a trigger. Artificial sweeteners in protein powders? Forget it. I went through three different protein shakes. All three destroyed me. One of them had me out of school for a day. Great.

The "just eat more" thing made me feel so broken

My parents said it. My coach said it. Random people on the internet said it. "Just eat more." Like I hadn't thought of that. Eating was genuinely kind of scary because I never knew when something was going to set me off. School lunch was a whole thing — explaining to people why I wasn't eating the pizza, or why I had to leave a match early because my stomach was destroying me. It gets old.

I tried to find something online for people in my situation. Every IBS forum is like 40-year-olds talking about fiber supplements. Every gut health account is selling something. Every dietitian video is for people trying to lose weight, not gain it. And none of it is for a teenager. None of it is vegetarian. Nothing said "here's how to actually get bigger without spending your afternoon in pain."

What actually worked (for real)

I started logging everything. What I ate, how my stomach felt after, my weight every Saturday morning. It took a while. Honestly like months before I saw any actual pattern. But I started to figure out which high-calorie foods my gut could actually tolerate.

White rice — calorie-dense, almost no fiber, my gut loves it. Peanut butter — high fat, high calorie, low-FODMAP if you don't go crazy with it. Avocado — same deal, healthy fats, gut-friendly. Firm tofu cooked in sesame oil — tastes way better than it sounds and doesn't set me off. Bananas for easy carbs. Lactose-free cheese in small amounts. Nut-based protein shakes that actually list their ingredients like normal food.

I built meal plans around all of this. Not "healthy eating" plans. Not weight loss plans. Just specifically calorie-dense, gut-safe combinations that got me from 115 lbs to 126 lbs, then to 139 lbs. My coach noticed. More importantly, I felt okay. Like, actually okay.

Why GutGains exists

I built this because I wish it existed when I was 12 and lying on the bathroom floor with no idea what was happening. If you're a teen with IBS trying to gain weight — especially if you're also vegetarian — there is genuinely nothing made for you. The info exists, but it's buried in medical papers and random Reddit threads and you'd have to already know what you're looking for.

GutGains is me putting it all in one place. 10 meal plans I've personally tested. A symptom tracker so you can figure out your own patterns instead of guessing. And real talk about what this is actually like — not clinical language that makes you feel like a patient instead of a person.

Your gut doesn't have to decide your future. Mine didn't. Yours won't either.