BEING BLOATED EVERY DAY IS NOT NORMAL.
But sadly, many of you walk around with some type of gut dysfunction and label it as "it's always been this way," which can greatly interfere with your health and fitness goals. Within this article, I will tackle the lowest-hanging fruit for improving digestion and eliminating your bloating for good.
I am also writing a follow-up article to this to dive deeper into the food intolerance and hormone side of the house. Regardless if those two items are at play, the two variables I am discussing must be handled first and in conjunction.
The Basics
So first, cover the basics!
We NEED to make sure we are nailing down the basics. This is low-hanging fruit that everyone should be doing, regardless of whether you experience bloating!
Many times, just these few tweaks COMPLETELY ELIMINATE bloating. They cannot be ignored.
So let's create a checklist here:
ARE YOU…
Drinking at least 100 oz of water a day?
Start tracking your water intake today. Most people drink less than 60oz of water daily!
Eating between 25-40g fiber a day?
Most Americans eat less than 12g of fiber a day! No wonder you can't shit.
Getting in at least 8,000 steps a day?
Low movement leads to low gut motility as well. Get that blood flowing!
Chewing your food?
Digestion begins in the mouth. A big culprit to bloating is not taking time to eat and chew your food.
Limiting water intake during a meal?
When you drink a lot of water during a meal, you dilute your digestive juices that are released when digesting food, causing slower food breakdown.
Managing your stress response?
BREATHE. We will be diving deeper into this, but being in an overly stressed state chronically will cause havoc on your gut.
Reducing your processed food intake and eating the majority of whole foods?
Processed foods are more inflammatory and, therefore, harder for our gut to digest versus whole foods. Fat loss/health is more than just calorie balance. Being in a chronically inflamed state turns fat loss into a mountain when it should have been a molehill.
Are you doing ALL of these things?
If not, start here!
Stress Management
Second, start taking your stress management more seriously.
Besides the basics of digestion, stress is the second underlying culprit of bloating and more severe digestion issues.
Why is that?
You might have heard the phrase, "our gut is our second brain." It's true because there are more neurotransmitters in our gut than in our central nervous system. And when we are stressed, our sympathetic nervous system is activated (fight or flight) to protect itself against danger. Our brain does not differentiate between a job interview and being stalked by a bear.
Stress is Stress
When we are chronically stressed, we might experience symptoms such as:
- Stomach Ache
- Nausea
- Diarrhea
- Heartburn
- Bloating
- No Appetite
If you experience these symptoms daily, ensure the basics are covered, like we discussed, and assess your stress levels.
Ways to Reduce Stress to Reduce Bloating
I'm not going to state the obvious, like "just breathe" or "go for a walk." No shit, Shirley. Thank you for that.
Self-care practice is necessary but let's go deeper!
Practice Daily Gratitude
Often, we may not be able to eliminate the stressor, but we can manage how we respond to it. How we respond to stress starts with our mindset.
Write down three things you are grateful for each morning so that your mindset is already positive for the day. That way, when you encounter a stressful event, you approach it with a better perspective (Is it really a big deal or just an inconvenience?) versus letting it derail your day.
Set Better Boundaries
The stressors in your life may not be life or death, but they may be too many. Women, especially, are prone to overstretching their capacity for others and not taking care of themselves. When we constantly rush and meet everyone else's needs, it builds resentment over time and leads us to turn molehills into mountains. We become reactive and irritable.
Ringing any bells?
If you find yourself lashing out at every situation, we suggest taking a step back and evaluating where your time and energy are going.
Take Responsibility for Your Environment
Who here operates well in chaos? How about around toxic people? How about in a dismissive work environment?
No one? Yeah, I didn't think so.
Here is a hard truth: YOU are the only one responsible for your environment and those in your life who may or may not be toxic.
If you are surrounded by negativity, you will constantly feel that dark cloud follow you no matter how much personal development work you do on yourself. Yes, you should always work on yourself, but you should also audit who you surround yourself with. Simply creating a circle of A Players in your life will lift a massive weight off your shoulders.
What I stated above will make more of a dent in your stress than "taking a bath" or "getting your nails done" ever will. Those things are fine, but what if we address WHY we are stressed in the first place?
A LOWER STRESS LIFE = BETTER DIGESTION = NO MORE BLOATING
Results
And while we are on the topic, I want to share my client Alex's progress with you. She eliminated her bloating and lost body fat by following the basics and managing stress.
This is not a result of a crash diet or extreme workout measures. This 11-week transformation resulted from the basics and simply managing stress better.
Sometimes the answer is not some crazy SIBO protocol or mold toxicity. Those "diagnoses" are pretty poppin' these days. Most times, we simply need to eat whole foods and stop stressing the fuck out.
But of course, sometimes our gut issues are deep-rooted. So keep an eye out for next month's article, where I will dive deeply into the intolerance and hormonal side of gut health.
Alycia Israel is a nationally qualified NPC figure and bikini competitor and raw powerlifter. She has a master’s degree in exercise physiology, is an NSCA-certified strength and conditioning specialist, and an ISSN-certified sports nutritionist. As the former personal training coordinator at Ohio State University for seven years, she currently owns and operates Alycia's Barbell, an online training and nutrition business that helps clients lose fat for life or jump on the competitive bodybuilding stage. She can be contacted at alyciafit@gmail.com.
Sincerely,
Dale Guidry