Behold, The Best Bloating Treatments to the Rescue!
October 1, 2022
BLOATING - no one likes it, no one likes the way it makes us feel or the way it makes us look or the way it makes us feel about the way we look.
Inside this issue:
8 Ways to Improve Digestion, Treat and Prevent Bloating
A Critique for Coffee and Digestion - is it causing your bloat?
The only time bloating would ever be beneficial is if we were boating in dangerous waters, in which bloating while boating may help you stay floating, but otherwise… no one likes the bloat!
So, with a budding brain thinking about your potential bloating tummy, I’m here to provide you with a handful of tips to help you reduce bloating and actively prevent it from coming back.
Ways to Reduce and Prevent Bloating
Seriously, one of the first and foremost important initial call outs I need to make is that WE NEED TO CHEW OUR FOOD MORE! Chewing our food helps activate enzymatic reactions from the middle of our gut all the way to our mouth, preparing for digestion and paving the way for an active healthy digestion after ingestion. We just need to slow down, breathe slow, and chew…chew…chew! Pause between bites, consider applesauce consistency before you chew and choose to take smaller bites if that helps you too.
Stop being so distracted at mealtime. You’re eating, not listening to music, watching Netflix or flicking through TikTok. Seriously, please don’t work at your desk and expect your brain to focus on your work while your tummy and tongue try their best to take care of the food you’re trying to eat. No, your body is a system and you need to reinforce the mind-body connection to support healthy digestion. You need to separate food and tech. You need to separate mealtime and work time. You need to put an end to speedy eating, working through lunch at work, and for dear grace.. enjoy what you eat.
Move Yo’ Body! One of the many prevailing issues of the human health and nutrition dilemmas today is that we tend to over-focus on either nutrition or exercise to improve our health but fail to see their necessary symbiotic integration. You see, moving our bodies for even just 15 minutes before eating, such as walking, yoga, or dancing can help circulate our blood flow, reminding muscles and fat that they are there to help us move. Likewise, if we can move for 10-15 minutes after eating, while remaining calm at mealtime, and relaxed while we enjoy some form of movement after eating we can help move fluid and bolus inside our digestive systems. Yoga and stretches focused on your hip flexors, pelvic floor, and abdominal core massage can all help support proper digestive flow, moving air and gas as well.
Consider the targeted support from digestive enzymes, digestive support teas and other drinks to support healthy digestive flow. [If you want specific help here, just let me know]. I like organic teas that use ginger, peppermint, senna, and other herbs and botanicals to promote digestive flow and proper breakdown of the food we eat. I also employ apple cider vinegar, aloe vera, and lemon juice as well as other supplements when warranted.
Consider the use of a probiotic to help support the proper balance of beneficial bacteria in the microbiome of our guts that help us digest and metabolize food. Sometimes, it is the imbalance of certain opportunistic bacteria or fungus that provoke our bloating stomachs and mushroom our tummies. When it comes to probiotics, quality counts. Quality quality quality.
Free yourself from the potential FODMAPs causing the majority of your complications with bloating by working through a short-term food elimination diet that helps you explore specific food sensitivities, such as personal sensitivities to apples (fructose), or sugar alcohols from chewing gum (polyols), lentils, beans (oligosaccharides) and other water soluble foods, or fermented foods like kimchi, kombucha, sauerkraut, etc. Use the popular MONASH FODMAP app on your phone to follow a low-fodmap food plan for 3 weeks and explore your personal digestive sensitivities. Highly recommend you consult a qualified nutrition pro while learning more.
Go slow when you increase healthy beneficial fibers in your diet. There are technically 4 types of fiber - soluble and insoluble, fermentable and non-fermentable fibers - which all play a unique and specific role in supporting our digestion when things are in balance. If we try to increase fiber foods too quick or focus only on one kind of fiber food to increase at an exponential rate, we risk the chances that we overwhelm our guts with more fiber than they can handle!
Put down the caffeine and carbonated beverages, especially around mealtime. Many of us already swallow too much air when we eat because we’re trying to eat too fast and carbonated beverages (minus ginger shots or gastriques specifically made to aid digestion). Caffeine can rev up the slow and steady digestion that we need with food and cause our phases of digestion to move too quickly before the next stage is ready. Coffee may help support bloating for some people but it really requires a personalized approach to learn more about how coffee can help trigger a response to help you empty your colon (caffeic acid) without provoking gas or speeding up digestion too fast.
On Coffee and Digestion
Coffee both acts as a diuretic (flushing out extra water) and potential provocateur for your bloating tummy due to its influence to overexcite the digestive system. Excessive coffee consumption can even lead to spasms within the colon and a great deal of discomfort. You can credit this to the above stated caffeic acid and the workings of the intestines through peristalsis (muscle contraction in the digestive system to help move food along) and the gastric-colic reflex.
As you probably know, coffee is pretty acidic. Everyone has a different “normal” digestive status when they first wake up in the morning and a morning cup of joe may or may not be benefiting your state of health depending on the pH balance of your gut and tummy. If you have a sensitive stomach, you may already recognize how acidic foods and drinks like coffee impact your hormones and gut feelings, such as nausea, queasiness, belching, incontinence or other symptoms.
Drinking coffee on an empty stomach will likely feel very different than drinking coffee after a light breakfast made of whole foods, healthy fats, and protein. Likewise, drinking coffee first thing in the morning versus after 45 min of gradual waking, morning light intake and a sprinkle of light to moderate activity will also impact how you feel when enjoying your cup of joe.
As I’ve said many times in the past, one of the most important steps in your personal health journey is to first and foremost - know thyself - deeply listening to your body and brain, how you feel physically and intuitively with food and beverages. After a stressful day and poor night’s sleep, your coffee intake experience will indubitably depend upon those last 24 hours. Many of us would benefit greatly by further exploring our personal relationship with coffee, our dependence on the common caffeine and sugar concoction, as well as how our mind and body truly feel with our coffee consumption.
Adding to the complexities and intricacies of someone’s specific coffee interactions, if you add anything to your coffee (anything besides drinking it plain “black coffee”) then there are going to be discrepancies between certain additives like cream, milk, sugar, sweeteners (natural, artificial, etc), and the composition of those added ingredients. In fact, many artificial sweeteners aren’t digested in your body at all and instead “pass through digestion” and can cause irritation, bloating or other symptoms.
Also, I can’t forget to mention that fact that many people consume very poor quality coffee, often laced with chemical flavorings and additives that have a direct impact on the microbiome, nervous system, and the all-important gut-brain connection.
As you can see, the conversations around coffee and digestion can be quite layered and require a very in-depth discussion to get to the root of the relationship between someone’s digestive health and their coffee consumption. All the more reason to consult a qualified health professional and maintain a close eye on your personal experience with a journal or other system to keep a record of your various symptoms.
For some people, coffee can play a beneficial role to help with passing healthy bowel movements, promoting a sense of clarity and cognitive performance, increase daily physical activity and suppress appetite, but we all need to understand just what kind of relationship we have with coffee.
Is it hurting us or helping us?
When is too much really far too much?
Is coffee helping me poop or causing me to have excessive gas and bloating?
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