Is Bloating Normal?

Does your abdomen expand as the day progresses? Do you often experience a swollen abdomen after your evening meal? Many people start the day off with a relatively flat abdomen and find they become progressively more bloated. This is common, but is it normal or healthy?

Many people don’t feel comfortable in their digestive tract.  This is a shame because indigestion can spoil your day and ruin the enjoyment of eating.  Occasional bloating after eating high fiber foods such as onion, cauliflower and stone fruit is okay. However, if you feel bloated most days of the week, and experience gas, reflux or abdominal cramps, this is not ideal and requires fixing. It is usually an indicator of fermentation in the gut. That means having too much of the wrong microbes, which are feasting on the food you’ve eaten.

These symptoms are your body’s signal that something is wrong.  You cannot be entirely healthy if you have poor digestion.

In most cases, digestive problems are caused by eating foods that you cannot digest properly, or eating in a manner that doesn’t allow proper digestion.  The most common foods that cause digestive problems are dairy products and gluten.  Many people do not digest these foods properly and they are the most common cause of reflux, heart burn, abdominal bloating and irritable bowel syndrome.  Other foods have the potential to cause problems and they include soy, nuts, eggs and FODMAPs (fermentable fibers).

Bad digestion usually means bad microbes

If you don’t digest your food adequately, the bacteria and yeast in your intestines will feast on it.  This promotes the overgrowth of bad bugs in your bowel.  These bugs secrete gases which leave you bloated and can give you abdominal cramps.  The bugs also secrete toxins that gain entry into your bloodstream.  Once there, they can give you a foggy head, make you tired and irritable and even give you a headache.  You will end up with a very toxic bowel which will leave you feeling very unwell.

Strategies to reduce bloating

• Do a trial elimination diet for a month.  Eliminate gluten and dairy products from your diet, as well as any other foods you suspect make you feel unwell.  Be careful and read food labels thoroughly because even ingesting tiny amounts can ruin the trial. Eliminate high FODMAP foods from your diet for a month. You can find information about that here.
• Take a good quality comprehensive digestive enzymes supplement.  This will help you extract more nutrients from the food you eat.  That means less bloating and wind afterwards.  If you are taking stomach acid suppressing medication, abdominal bloating can become even worse.  You need hydrochloric acid to digest protein properly.  My digestive enzyme capsules contain hydrochloric acid and should make you much more comfortable after meals.   By getting more nutrients out of your food, a digestive enzyme supplement should also greatly improve your energy level.  Digestive enzymes are especially helpful to take when a meal is unavoidably rushed.  Some days are incredibly busy and you really only have five minutes to stop and eat.  Taking 2 capsules with that meal should help greatly.  You can also take digestive enzymes when you plan to overindulge; such as a family gathering or a restaurant meal.
• Take a good quality liver tonic like Livatone.  The herbs and taurine in Livatone promote increased bile production and secretion into the intestines.  You need bile in order to digest fat properly.  People who don’t digest fat properly can suffer with stomach pains and diarrhea after a fatty meal, or nausea or discomfort in the right upper side of the abdomen.  People with a fatty liver usually have poor digestion because their liver struggles with the ability to produce enough bile.
• Sip on a little apple cider vinegar in warm water before meals.  Add one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to ¼ cup of warm water before a meal.  The natural acids in the vinegar will help your stomach to digest protein.
• Probiotics help to reduce the risk of harmful parasitic gut infections that can cause all sorts of digestive problems. They also help to regulate normal intestinal contractions, thereby reducing the risk of constipation or diarrhea. Probiotics are found in fermented foods like sauerkraut and kimchi, or in supplement form.

The above statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease.