Hello Beauties!
By far one of my most requested topics by you lovely ladies, I wanted to do a deeper dive in to some of the more common causes of this digestive disruptor and what you can do to beat the bloat! So lets dig in shall we?
Dreaming of a bloat free belly?
1. Stress- Before you roll your eyes at me for throwing the seemingly obvious and over discussed stress factor in to the equation , hear me out. When we’re stressed, we release cortisol our main stress hormone. Now the issue wth cortisol is that whilst its levels are high, many other important bodily functions get diminished or shut off, including reproductive system snd you guessed it, digestion. This is simply because your body views all stress as life threatening from an evolutionary survival point of view, so if you’re being chased by a mountain lion, the last priority of your body is going to be making babies or digesting last nights dinner, am I right?? The issue with this is that in our modern day we are exposed to more of a chronic stress in which it’s like a constant low level stress which spikes at various points of the day (Got bills to pay, deadlines on your job? Late picking the kids up? Can’t afford your rent this month?) and these are just external stressors- we also have many internal stressors (Drinking coffee or caffeine, inflammation in the body, pathogen invasions, hormonal fluctuations, blood sugar imbalance) and the issue with cortisol is that once its out, it stays out for many hours afterwards, so if you’ve just skipped breakfast for example and maybe had coffee instead, you’ve exposed yourself to a huge level of stress internally, triggered cortisol and elevated it for the rest of the day. Now, how is this relevant to bloating? Well, if you’ve got high cortisol all day, your digestion has been impaired to keep you alive, and you’re still shovelling food in to your body all day long, what do you think is gunna happen in your digestive tract? not a lot! All that food is going to be sat in a digestive system that’s effectively ‘sleeping’ and therefore not broken down properly, and will start to back up, ferment and rot, most likely causing constipation and, you guessed it- Bloating! that fermentation and slow break down causes a lot of gas to be released from your gut causing bloating, not to mention its just stuffed full of undigested food, bound to cause a fuller looking or distended stomach as we call it. So, whats the solution?
Take time to eat your meals slowly and mindfully, don’t grab and go!
Never skip meals and if you’re drinking coffee make sure its always on a full stomach
Sip on herbal teas such as chamomile, lemon balm, peppermint and ginger to keep that nervous system calm.
2. Digestive insufficiency- This ties in somewhat to the previous point in it’s effect but the cause is a little different. Let me explain, so as i discussed, food that is unable to be digested properly and fairly quickly in the gut is going to cause you many a digestive difficulty! In the point above this was due to cortisol impairing the proper functioning of your digestion, but what if its not the stress and your body is just simply struggling to break down the food itself? This is a really common cause of bloating and is usually caused by 2 things: 1. Insufficient levels of digestive enzymes and 2. Low levels of stomach acid. Lets break that down, so digestive enzymes are enzymes each with a type of food to break down for you, i.e protease breaks down protein, lipase breaks down fat, and amylase breaks down carbohydrate, either you have low levels of all of them or sometimes just one type, so if you get fatty stools or feel sort of nauseous after a high fat meal, it’s likely that you’re lacking in lipase, the fat ‘eating’ enzyme. Many things can cause this loss of enzyme function such as use of antibiotics, medications, processed foods, pathogens or even just lack or excess of calories. But ultimately, if you can’t breakdown the food properly, its going to be much harder to break down in the gut and hence causes a myriad of digestive issues such as bloating, stomach pain and also other health issues because if that food isn’t being broken down properly, you cant access and absorb the nutrition inside it. leading to deficiencies. It’s a similar deal with stomach acid and usually the same things that caused one will cause the other so most people have insufficient levels of both. But basically, low stomach acid means food isn’t being broken down and extracted properly and again causes undigested food left in the tract to ferment, rot, cause constipation and lead to bloating. Heres what to do:
Take a digestive enzyme supplement to have with meals
Don’t drink too much water with meals (leave 30 mins before and after) this dilutes them
Try celery juice on an empty stomach, or apple cider vinegar diluted in water and lemon water to a lesser effect to naturally increase stomach acid levels
In more severe cases you may need to supplement Hydrochloric acid
Eat more raw living foods, such as sprouts as they are high in living enzymes. But add them to cooked meals instead of large raw ones as these can be harder for the body to break down, further burdening digestion.
Don’t overeat, stop when you’re 80% full or eat smaller portions throughout the day
3. Food intolerances- Sometimes, if your digestive system is weak and theres other things going on such as damage, low gut flora, leaky gut etc, the body can start to develop intolerances to certain foods or proteins such as lactose in milk. If you continue to eat foods that your body has developed an intolerance to, then you continuously expose the body to inflammation and stress from trying to digest this food, this can cause any number of digestive symptoms but often will just manifest as abdominal discomfort and bloating as your body struggles to break down this food. It’s important to note here that its not necessarily that the food is a problem or ‘bad’ its just that your gut has been compromised in some way and is reacting to a commonly eaten food as a response if its been ‘triggered’ by it, so just removing that food isn’t the solution if you aren’t also working to heal your gut because it will just then develop an intolerance to a different food once you remove the initial offenders, until the root cause is addressed.
Try an elimination diet and/ or keep a food journal and note how you feel after each meal or when the bloating comes up and see if a pattern emerges from certain foods.
Take a food intolerance test
Try herbs such as slippery elm and marshmallow to soothe any inflammation and coat the digestive tract
So, in my experience these are the most common factors coming in to play when bloating is present, but It’s worth noting that based on you individually and your health picture, it could be something else entirely. For example, hormonal imbalances can heavily impact your gut function, for example if you have low thyroid function, this slows down gut motility and the speed of metabolism, so could be at the cause of the bloat, or conditions such as PCOS, also affects the digestive system too. It could also be a matter of the liver needing support as it’s also closely linked to the gut and if the liver is struggling, the gut tries to over compensate and can show signs of struggle such as bloating as a result. For this reason, it’s important to look at you as a whole and whats going on in your body so working with a health professional to help you investigate and put the pieces together is often invaluable!
So, if you need any help identifying YOUR root cause and want a plan tailored to you, book a session with me so we can work together! And if you have any questions leave a comment below and i’ll reply!
Lots of love,
Bella x