I'm 15, vegetarian, and trying to gain weight.
My stomach has opinions about this.

I'm 15 years old and I've had IBS symptoms since I was around 12. I didn't know what it was at first — just that I kept getting waves of cramping and urgency that came on suddenly, and sometimes left me in the bathroom for what felt like forever. Eventually I saw a doctor, got a diagnosis, and learned the name for what I'd been experiencing: Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

The thing about IBS that nobody really explains upfront is that it's not predictable in the way you'd want it to be. It's not like a strict allergy where you avoid one food and you're fine. For me, symptoms tend to come in waves — sometimes after eating, sometimes not, sometimes hours later. Stress makes it worse. Travel makes it worse. Eating too little makes it worse. Inconsistent eating schedules make it worse. There are days I feel fine and eat whatever and nothing happens, and there are days where I eat the same thing I always eat and spend part of the afternoon feeling awful. That unpredictability was — and still is — the hardest part.

At some point, I realized that the anxiety around symptoms had almost become its own problem. I play tennis, and before matches I'd get so worried about having a stomach episode during warmup that I'd barely eat anything. Which, it turns out, was actually making things worse — not better. Under-eating triggers symptoms too. I was stuck in a loop where eating felt risky, not eating felt risky, and I was losing weight while trying to avoid losing weight.

The situations that made it hardest

It's one thing to deal with a stomach issue at home, where the bathroom is right there and you can just lie down if you need to. It's a completely different thing when you're two hours into a hiking trail with your family, or in the middle of a school day, or eating out with friends who don't fully understand why you're being careful. The fear of being stuck somewhere without access to a bathroom became genuinely disruptive. I started saying no to things. Trips, certain events, anything where I couldn't easily leave.

I'm also vegetarian, which makes the weight gain side of this harder than it would already be. Most advice for gaining weight involves a lot of dairy, protein powders with sweeteners, or foods that were reliably bad for my stomach. Protein powders were a disaster — I tried several and they all made things significantly worse. Dairy in large amounts triggered symptoms. High-fiber foods that are otherwise healthy were a problem in bigger quantities. The foods that are easiest on the gut tend to also be lower in calories, which is the opposite of what I needed.

What actually helped

I started keeping a rough log — meals, how I felt afterward, weight on Saturday mornings, what else was going on that day (stressed? didn't sleep? traveling?). It took months before patterns started emerging. Some were obvious in retrospect. Giant meals were worse than smaller ones. Eating right before a match or a long car ride was usually a bad idea. Going too long without eating was almost as bad as eating the wrong thing.

Gradually I found foods that were consistently lower-risk for me: pasta, peanut butter toast, bananas, plain rice, oatmeal, simple sandwiches. Not exciting, but reliable. I also learned that portion size and eating pace matter almost as much as what I actually eat. Eating fast when I'm anxious is a reliable way to feel awful an hour later. These aren't universal rules — IBS is different for everyone — but they're what I've observed about my own situation over time.

I'm still experimenting. I still have setbacks. There are weeks where things go smoothly and weeks where nothing seems to work and I can't figure out why. I don't think I'll reach some permanent state where this is just handled. I think I'll be managing it for a long time, and getting better at managing it. That feels like a more honest framing than "I solved my gut problems."

Why I built this

When I was 12 and first dealing with this, I searched constantly for information. What I found was either very clinical (medical journals that weren't written for patients), very adult-focused (forums about fiber supplements and colonoscopies), or aimed at weight loss rather than weight gain. Nothing was written for a teenager who plays sports, goes to school, tries to travel, is vegetarian, and wants to gain weight without spending every other day sick.

GutGains exists because that resource didn't exist. It's not a cure and it's not a guarantee — I want to be clear about that. It's a collection of meal plans I've personally tested, a tracker to help you find your own patterns, and a perspective from someone your age who is actually still in the middle of this. The goal isn't to fix IBS. It's to feel less alone in figuring it out, and to have some practical starting points instead of starting from nothing.

If you have IBS-type symptoms and you're trying to navigate school, sports, social situations, and actually eating enough — this is for you.