How To Avoid Bloating After Eating
Do you get bloated after eating?
Like, you know, you feel stuffed and your already huge stomach is even huger than it normally is.1While a bloated stomach always has the sensation of tightness, it’s not always accompanied by a gut that looks like it’s way past the due date to give birth to octuplets.
Damn, that’s unfortunate!
While bloating is normal and is experienced by nearly everyone at one point or another, it can be a problem if its occurrence is more regular than occasional. As an illustration, if you’re bulking and have to eat a lot to put on muscle mass but you become bloated after every meal, the frequent discomfort could possibly interfere with your willingness to continue pursuing your goal. The same goes if you’re trying to lose weight and have changed your diet. Bloating after every meal can make you want to give up, too.
That shit is clearly ¡no bueno!
But guess what?
There are a few easy things you can do to avoid bloating after eating by reducing or eliminating the buildup of gas in the digestive system.2Yes, that’s what bloating is!
Hormones and stress can cause bloating but the kind that comes and goes with eating is usually the product of too much intestinal gas. There are three ways this accumulation of gas occurs and causes bloating. One is by gas entering the body from outside of it as you eat. If this is the cause of your bloating, then the simple fix is to avoid swallowing air by taking time to eat. By eating your food slower instead of scarfing it down, gasses in the air like oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide won’t make their way to your gut in large amounts. Toward this end, you shouldn’t eat while talking or drink everything through a straw like a fucking kindergartner. Carbonated beverages are another way that gas is introduced into the body, so cutting down on soda and other fizzy drinks can also help.3That’s because soda contains dissolved carbon dioxide that becomes gas when the liquid warms to body temperature in your stomach. DUH!!!
The second way that gas can collect and prompt bloating is when gas can’t pass through the digestive tract because of backed up waste that doesn’t allow its exit. In this situation where bloating has to do with backed up plumbing, going for a walk can help provide immediate relief. The exact reason why walking, as well as many other activities like swimming, cycling, and yoga, are effective at dealing with constipation isn’t known but one of the theories is that movement mechanically stimulates muscle contractions in the intestines that move stool, which then clears the way for trapped gas to escape. Alternatively, your lazy ass can just as easily remain in the comfort of your home doing nothing and rely on a laxative to relax the intestinal muscles if the constipation is brought about by muscle constriction.
The above are ways to deal with constipation-related bloating when you’re in the middle of it but to prevent it from happening in the first place, you may find it helpful to increase your daily water intake or eat more fiber-rich foods. Regarding the former, dehydration can contribute to constipation by making the feces dry and hard on account of the body retaining water instead of using it to soften waste so it has easier passage to the rectum, where it can dump out of your asshole onto your partner during sex to satisfy their scat fetish.4Too much sodium is another cause of water retention and possible promoter of bloat by way of constipation. As a result, you may need to limit the usage of salt or cut down on salty foods. Drinking the recommended amount of fluid per day would make sure things are moving through the pipes as they’re supposed to. Concerning the latter, foods rich in fiber make you evacuate your bowels and shit with regularity so anal play isn’t the only action your poop-chute gets on a daily basis.5Sources of fiber that are good for preventing constipation include apples, prunes, kiwi, spinach, oats, and beans.
If you’re bloating after eating and it isn’t brought about by air or motility issues, then the problem might be due to the food itself, with you consuming something that produces gas when your gut bacteria tries to digest it. The solution? All you have to do is identify what food is triggering the response, which can be done by undergoing an elimination diet that strips away a particular food or entire food group and then adds it back so you can see how your body responds upon the reintroduction. Another option is to keep a food diary and record how you feel when you eat a given food.6To make your job of finding the responsible food easier, common items that are associated with bloat are fructose, lactose, eggs, gluten, sugar alcohols and artificial sweeteners, and foods high in FODMAPS, such as garlic, onions, apples, pears, watermelon, cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage. These items are difficult for some people’s bodies to digest, with gas getting produced and building up when it attempts to do so. As beneficial as fiber is, it can also be a culprit too, especially when you increase your intake of it too fast or eat more of it than the daily recommendation. Apart from stripping an offending food from your diet because of a food allergy or intolerance, you can also look into eating more fermented foods like yogurt and kimchi or taking a probiotic supplement. The benefit of either is that they aid digestion by adding more healthy bacteria to the gut microbiota so there are more organisms in your digestive tract that absorb excess gas and less that produce it.
As promised, those are a few easy things you can do to reduce or eliminate bloating, which is a normal part of digestion and isn’t that much of a concern unless you take steps to improve it and nothing changes or your bloating is accompanied by symptoms like pain, fever, vomiting, or bleeding. Such a sequence of events transpiring may be an indication of a serious medical condition that should prompt you to consult a gastroenterologist or other healthcare professional rather than a blog post on teh interwebz!
Glossary: bulk, diet, goal, hormones, yoga
