After being told she would live with ulcerative colitis symptoms for the rest of her life, Amanda Diamond reclaimed her health through diet, nervous system healing, sleep, and stress regulation — proving that layered lifestyle changes can dramatically improve chronic inflammatory bowel disease.

Amanda Diamond had always pushed herself to perfection — in the military, in motherhood, in her work. Eventually, her body pushed back.

At 19, she joined the military, and at 21, was deployed to Afghanistan for nine months.

“That tour had a whole assortment of stress and fatigue — doing night shifts, challenges with eating and sleeping,” she recalls. “It had a major impact on my body, on my nervous system.”

When she returned from her tour, she felt anxiety and depression, but didn’t connect them with post-traumatic stress. Still, she realized the military wasn’t a good fit for her and closed that chapter of her career.

Amanda pressed on with motherhood and starting a business. But not long after giving birth to her first child, digestive symptoms came on and grew increasingly worse.

Well beyond typical irritable bowel, she experienced pain and bleeding. To postpone the daily pain, she would often wait until dinner to eat.

“All of the stress and trauma and hardship that I put my body through… would be creating this ripple effect of health consequences,” she says.

A Diagnosis of Ulcerative Colitis

Adding to her stress, Amanda faced a healthcare system with long waits for appointments and referrals to specialists. After two years of searching, she received a diagnosis of ulcerative colitis — an inflammatory bowel disease that causes inflammation and ulcers in the lining of the colon, often leading to abdominal pain, bleeding, urgency, and fatigue.

The doctor’s blunt words laid out a frightening future.

“He said, ‘There’s no cure. This is a chronic illness. You’ll have this for the rest of your life. The treatment options are medication. What’s probably going to happen is your body’s going to adapt to those meds, they’re going to stop working, and then we’re going to have to progress you to stronger meds — and you likely will have to have a portion of your colon surgically removed at some point,’” Amanda recalls.

Amanda felt she had no choice but to try medications, including anti-inflammatories and steroids. While they took the edge off of her symptoms, they didn’t erase them.

She was a single mom with no health insurance. Was it worth it to spend several hundred dollars every month out of pocket for so little relief in return?

Plus, the medications brought unwanted side effects.

“One of the scariest moments was developing ocular migraines. I couldn’t see,” she says.

When she asked her doctor about diet to relieve symptoms, he quickly dismissed the topic. His only suggestion: avoid fiber and stick with white bread.

“He basically laughed in my face and said, ‘What you eat makes no difference.’ That just didn’t sit right with me,” she says.

Only later would she learn that most doctors receive minimal training in nutrition and that conventional medicine can lag years behind emerging research.

Emerging evidence suggests diet is an important modulator of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Patterns high in processed foods and sugar correlate with increased risk and progression, while plant-rich, whole-food diets are linked with reduced risk and inflammatory biomarkers.

Healing from Ulcerative Colitis

Then, her mom mentioned that a naturopath had recently opened a clinic about a 90-minute drive from her home in northern Ontario — the first in the region. After all Amanda had been through, she figured a few more hundred dollars wouldn’t hurt for the chance to get an alternative opinion and approach.

In the more-than-hour-long appointment, that doctor was the first to ask her about her life history, stress, and trauma.

“I’m going to have you feeling better soon,” the naturopath said.

“This was the first practitioner who actually gave me hope,” Amanda reflects.

The naturopath suggested shifts that seemed small, but quickly helped: an elimination diet to find food triggers, a few targeted supplements, prioritizing sleep, reducing stress, and self-care tactics.

“My symptoms improved by about 75–80% in the first two weeks,” she says.

That progress inspired her to keep going. Over time, she realized healing wasn’t just about food or supplements. Over a few years, she learned how to be gentler with herself and to work through some of the trauma from her tour and earlier years.

“A lot of this healing work was letting go of expectations I had for myself,” she says. “Allowing myself to have hard days, allowing myself to rest… so much of it was mental, emotional, and mindset work.”

Living a Life of Balance

Today, Amanda lives a full life with ulcerative colitis well managed. She experiences the occasional flare — most often when travel throws off her diet, sleep, and stress levels — but typically she knows where her boundaries are.

If she experiences symptoms, they are usually short-lived, and she knows what she needs to do with her diet or self-care to bring her body back into balance.

“I could almost reverse a flare-up just by taking really good care of myself — sleeping, breathing exercises, meditating,” she says.

Her experience led her to become a health coach and functional nutrition coach supporting others with chronic illness and chronic symptoms, whether formally diagnosed or not. From her training and personal experience, she’s learned what usually works — or doesn’t — for IBD. For example, our guts need plant fiber, but she encourages clients to choose soluble fiber and go slowly, often starting with cooked vegetables.

Amanda’s Tips for IBD Care

For those with IBD, she recommends a few key steps to start healing on multiple levels:

  • Hold onto hope — Find stories of others (like Amanda) who have recovered from something similar and shift your mindset to one of possibility.
  • Focus on foundations, not perfection — Diet matters, but sleep and stress are non-negotiables.
  • Understand healing isn’t linear — Consistently embracing healthy habits adds up over time.
  • Track everything — Keep a record of what you eat, your sleep, and stress levels, and look for patterns in symptoms. That also informs conversations with practitioners.
  • Know your body — When you’re deeply tuned to what works and doesn’t work for your biology, you can adjust to keep yourself feeling your best.

“I know my body so well now that I know what I can get away with — and what’s too much,” she says.

Find and follow Amanda at amandadiamond.com, on Instagram at @CoachAmandaDiamond, and listen to her podcast, The Healing Chronicles.

The Steps That Helped

  • Elimination diet — Removing common inflammatory foods and slowly reintroducing them helped her identify triggers and reduce digestive symptoms.
  • Nervous system regulation — Prioritizing sleep, breathing exercises, meditation, and stress reduction helped calm flare-ups and support long-term stability.
  • Foundational lifestyle habits — Focusing on basics like consistent sleep and restorative routines proved more powerful than chasing complex protocols.
  • Targeted supplementation — Strategic use of practitioner-guided supplements supported gut repair and reduced inflammation.
  • Letting go of perfectionism — Releasing rigid standards, people-pleasing, and self-pressure allowed her body the space to heal.
  • Learning her body’s patterns — Tracking food, sleep, stress, and symptoms gave her data to notice triggers and respond early.

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