Ep 64: Top Tips for Uncomfortable Bloating

 

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Transcriptions:

SPEAKER: Dr. Heather Finley

Dr. Heather Finley: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Love Your Gut Podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Heather Finley, registered dietitian and gut health specialist. I understand the frustration of dealing with GI issues because I’ve been there and I spent over two decades searching for answers for my own gut issues of constipation, bloating, and stomach pain.

I’ve dedicated my life to understanding and solving my own gut issues. And now I’m here to guide you. On this podcast, I’ll help you identify the true root causes of your discomfort. So you can finally ditch your symptoms for good. My goal is to empower you with the knowledge and tools you need so that you can love your gut and it will love you right back.

So if you’re ready to learn a lot, gain a deeper understanding of your gut and find lasting relief. You are in the right place.

Welcome to the love your gut podcast.

Hello, hello and welcome back to the next episode of the love your gut podcast. Today’s topic is highly requested and we are going to be diving into one of probably the most common complaints that I hear from clients and from followers and listeners of this podcast, which is uncomfortable bloating. I know how frustrating it can feel to be bloated.

I was bloated for like 20 plus years. So when I say I get it, I. truly get it. Whether it’s that tight, puffy feeling after meals or the discomfort that seems to just linger no matter what you do, you might feel like you’re six months pregnant by the end of the day. You might feel like you’re bloated when you wake up, whatever pattern your bloat is showing you.

I’m glad you’re tuning in today. We are going to talk about some top tips for quick, just easy bloat relief that you can implement literally like right now as you are listening to this episode. But here’s the thing. If you don’t address digestion at the top. Things like how you chew, your stomach acid, digestive enzymes, then the downstream fixes won’t last.

So hear me when I say that we are going to talk about some bloating tips, but I also am going to walk you through the root causes of bloating and how to identify what might be driving your discomfort. Because if you truly want to heal and find lasting relief, that’s what you need to do. Also, if you are a practitioner, I have a very exciting opportunity for you on February 5th, which is about a week from the time this podcast is going live.

I am hosting a free webinar called Back on Tract, pun intended. It is designed for dietitians and health professionals, so health coaches, nurses, etc. If you want to learn how to confidently tackle complex GI cases and get better client results, decrease burnout and build a really sustainable, exciting business without relying on endless elimination diets and fixes that don’t work for your clients, then be there.

The link to register is in the show notes, and I’m really, really excited about this. I have not done a live training for health professionals since like 2021. So really excited to do this, but we are going to just jump right in on this episode into some quick tips for bloating relief. We’re going to start with the easiest, most actionable tips. These are things that you can do today to feel better. Number one, it’s going to sound obvious, but chew, chew, chew, chew, chew your food. I know this sounds basic, but how many of us actually chew our food thoroughly? Probably none myself included. If you’re swallowing half chewed bites, your stomach has to work a lot harder to break it down.

And you’re going to learn later in this episode. Why you probably don’t have enough stomach acid either, and that’s further exacerbating your bloat. So we’re going to aim for 20 to 30 chews per bite to really kick off digestion. You really want your food to be kind of mush by the time you swallow. So chew and chew and chew some more.

Number two, take a walk after meals. This does not have to be long. It does not have to be intense. This is not like for exercise. This is for movement, enjoyment, perhaps some sunshine. A gentle 5, 10, 15 minute walk after eating can do wonders for your digestion. It helps your body move food through your digestive tract.

It reduces gas, bloating, that can happen when food lingers too long. I actually saw this TikTok. this was probably like six months ago, this lady was talking about how she goes on a fart walk after eating and I was dying laughing that she called it that. So maybe you can implement that for yourself, but I will have to find the tick tock.

I don’t even go on tick tock. I think maybe somebody sent it to me, but it was hilarious. So, okay. Tip number three. So we’re going to stick to the script. Activate your vagus nerve. So your vagus nerve is your longest cranial nerve. It connects your gut and your brain and it plays a huge role in digestion.

So simple practices like gargling, humming, singing, all these things can help tone this nerve and keep your digestive system running smoothly, which is what we want. My kids love to take deep breaths before eating. We kind of have this mealtime ritual of praying and then taking some deep breaths. If you’ve been at my house for a meal, then you have likely done this with us before.

They get really into it. So you can implement this for your family. next sip on ginger, fennel, or peppermint tea. You could do one of these, all of these, a mix of these, these herbal teas are great for soothing and upset stomach. I like buying loose leaf tea and making it, myself. but you can, Buy bagged tea as well.

I like using Mountain Rose herbs for just bulk tea. I’ll put a link in the show notes if you want to check it out. but tea is great. Ginger is going to help stimulate gut motility. Fennel and peppermint are going to help dispel gas. Kind of relieve that like sore stomach feeling. A combo of these is really great.

You can add lemon, you can add honey, whatever works for you. And then lastly, Try the I love you massage. This is a gentle abdominal massage that can help relieve bloating by stimulating gut motility. You’re essentially going to trace the letters I L U on your belly. So you’re going to start at your right hip and go up towards your ribs, massaging like 20 to 30 seconds.

So that’s the eye. Then you’re going to start at your right hip, go to your ribs and go across to your left ribs. so that’s the upside down L and then you’re kind of getting the just now, then you’ll do an upside down U and that’s going to help encourage things to get moving, especially if you’re dealing with slow motility or constipation or trapped.

gas. Our clients like to use a little coconut oil or some kind of oil to help do this. They’ll do it before bed and find that they have a better bowel movement in the morning. you can also do it when you wake up before you get out of bed or both. and it can work super great. So while these tips are great for immediate relief, they really are just the tip of the iceberg.

If you want long term relief from your bloating, you have to dig deeper and address the root causes. So today on this episode, we’re We are going to dig into the five common root causes of bloating and how to figure out if they’re a part of your picture. There are tons of root causes of bloating. So please don’t hear this episode and think, well, none of those apply to me.

So I must be broken. There are tons of root causes. I’m just going to cover the top five, but know that there are many, many more. So number one. is poor meal hygiene. So we talked about this a little in the quick tips, but let’s dig a little bit deeper and talk about why meal hygiene is foundational to digestion.

It is foundational because how you eat affects how you digest and often how you eat is a lot more important than what you eat, especially if you’re bloated, regardless of what you eat. That was a mouthful eating. isn’t just about getting food in your stomach. It is a full body process that begins in your mouth.

So when you rush through meals, you eat while you’re multitasking a la eating while you’re working, driving, et cetera, grab and go. You are going to miss out on the first critical step of digestion, which is salivation. So saliva doesn’t just moisten your food. It contains enzymes like amylase and lipase, and these things start breaking down carbohydrates and fats in your mouth.

Salivation also acts as a signal to the rest of your digestive system, which basically lets your stomach, your pancreas, your liver, your gallbladder, no, Hey, food is on the way. We need. digestive support. So here’s why this matters. Stomach acid production is very important and saliva helps stimulate the production of stomach acid.

So without enough stomach acid, food is going to sit in your stomach longer because your stomach has to fill with acid in order to empty. So this will affect bowel emptying. It’s going to lead to gas and bloating and fermentation. Stomach acid also activates enzymes and helps break down proteins. A lot of our clients deal with low stomach acid from H pylori, from low mineral status, from poor meal hygiene, from stress, from all the things.

Next up is bile flow. So bile flow is, is very important, especially if you don’t have a gallbladder. So don’t tune out if you think, Oh, well, that doesn’t apply to me. I had my gallbladder removed. This is even more important. Salivation triggers your liver and your gallbladder to start producing and releasing bile, which is essential for digesting fats.

So if you’re eating quickly or under stress, bile flow is going to be sluggish. It can cause fats to go undigested, which will lead to bloating and discomfort. And then lastly, pancreatic output. So salivation will also send signals to your pancreas to release digestive enzymes. And these enzymes are crucial for breaking down carbohydrates, proteins, fats, etc.

Lastly, deep breaths. So before your first bite, do those five, just deep breaths. There’s many different breathing exercises, but Any kind of deep breath will do to get your body into rest and digest mode and calm your nervous system. Especially if you’re having food fears and thinking, is this going to make me bloated?

Can I tolerate this food? What’s going to happen? La, la, la, la, la. The whole process that happens after that. So deep breaths, calm your nervous system. It’s really going to help. So when you focus on meal hygiene, you will notice that you are bloated less. You have more energy because your body’s processing food the way it’s designed to.

It sounds like such a simple and dumb shift. And a lot of times our clients roll their eyes at us when we talk about this with them. And then they come back and they’re like, Oh my gosh, you were right. This makes such a difference. So I hope that you will test this out and try this. All right, root cause number two is poor digestion. So kind of building off of the poor meal hygiene, what I really want to talk about more is stomach acid, pancreatic output, and bile flow. So these three things are really important for being able to break down your food. These organs are the powerhouses of your digestion.

They produce stomach acid, digestive enzymes, bile, which all work together. So if any part of this process is impaired, bloating is a common result. So let’s start with stomach acid. Stomach acid is critical for digestion. Your stomach should be almost as acidic as battery acid. It’s going to break down proteins.

It’s going to activate digestive enzymes. And a really important part is it kills off harmful pathogens from food. So if you’re exposed to something, your stomach acid can actually prevent you from getting the stomach bug. Getting salmonella, getting food poisoning, etc. When your stomach acid is too low, it can lead to undigested food, fermentation, and bloating.

It can also lead to slower bowel function, which we’re going to talk about in another root cause. When your stomach doesn’t fill with acid, it won’t empty as quickly, leading to sluggish bowels, etc. One of the most common reasons for low stomach acid is actually an infection called H. pylori. which is the most common infection in the world.

This can suppress stomach acid production and H. pylori thrives in the stomach lining and can lead to bloating and reflux and poor protein digestion. you might be dealing with H. pylori if you’re bloated, especially after high protein meals, you have acid reflux or a burning sensation, you have chronic burping or even bad breath.

I always say look out for the three B’s, so bloating, burning, and burping. You really want to work with a practitioner if you have H. pylori. It’s really easy to pass this via saliva and other bodily fluids. You can even get it from pets, but getting rid of it is really important. You can use things to improve stomach acid production, such as digestive bitters.

I would not recommend using apple cider vinegar or betaine HCL without consulting a provider. You can do more harm than good with some of these things. but digestive bitters can be really supportive. especially the non alcoholic ones. If you have any kind of stomach lining, irritation, et cetera.

Next is bile flow. So your liver produces bile and your gallbladder stores and releases it to help emulsify and digest fats. So if you have sluggish bile or even if you don’t have a gallbladder, you still have bile flow. It’s just not getting ejected from the gallbladder. Like it normally would, but we don’t want to have fats go undigested.

This will lead to lots of burping after high fat meals, feeling heavy after meals, greasy or floating stool, kind of that stool that you feel like you have to wipe a ton. This can be an indicator of sluggish bile flow or gallbladder issues. poor hydration, low fat diets, ironically, can cause bile flow issues because you need cholesterol to help with bile.

Hormonal imbalances like estrogen dominance, stress or sluggish liver. one of my favorite tools for the gallbladder is castor oil packs. It’s really effective at supporting the liver and bile flow. And you gently just place this over your liver. with castor oil, it can promote lymph drainage. so you’re going to put it over your liver with a wool cloth.

Typically we use the Queen of Thrones one. I’ll put the link in the show notes. really easy to use. You can do this for, 30 to 60 minutes while you’re watching TV at night. You can wear it overnight. Sometimes people recommend that. Of course, Consult your health care provider. This is not medical advice, but that’s typically what we recommend for our clients.

And then lastly, kind of the last, organ. At least involved in the first part of digestion is your pancreas. And this helps with the release of enzymes that breaks down carbohydrates and proteins and fats into smaller molecules that your body can absorb. So if your pancreatic output is low, you may experience bloating or gas or even nutrient deficiencies.

bloating after eating, especially high carb or high protein meals, fatigue or food comas after meals can indicate pancreatic output is low. Floating stools, undigestive stools, off colored stools, so if you’ve got like yellow stool. Digestive enzymes can be helpful here, I wouldn’t just take a random enzyme, elastase, which is a marker that we can see on stool.

Stool testing that will show us a bit more about pancreatic output. You can also eat smaller meals to just slowly reduce the workload on your pancreas, but ultimately you want to address the upstream piece. So making sure you’re salivating, making sure you’re addressing the stomach acid piece. Chewing your food, getting your stomach, to produce enough acid where it’s then signaling your gallbladder, your liver, and your pancreas to produce enough enzymes, for food breakdown.

The next piece is stress. So before you turn this off and think, that does not apply to me, stress is actually one of the most overlooked contributors. to bloating and poor digestion because it impacts your body in ways that you might not realize. So I hope to provide perhaps a different perspective on stress.

When you think of stress, you might picture like work deadlines or family obligations, but stress isn’t always in your head. And this is something that we common commonly see with our clients is your body doesn’t know the difference between. Whether you’re worried about eating the quote unquote wrong food, or actually being chased by a tiger, your nervous system reacts the same by flipping into fight or flight mode.

So in this state, digestion will just take a backseat because your body is focused on survival and not breaking down your last meal. So here’s how stress shuts down. Digestion. Number one, it suppresses stomach acid production in fight or flight. Your body. stops or slows the production of stomach acid because it’s not worried about breaking down food.

If it thinks it’s being chased by a tiger, it will also reduce enzyme output. So it will suppress the release of digestive enzymes and then will also contribute to sluggish gut motility. Chronic stress will move blood flow away from the gut and to your muscles because again, you’re getting ready to be chased by a bear.

So this can slow down the bowels. or speed them up really fast, which can also be a problem. So stress is not always emotional and it’s important to recognize just what stressors you might have. things like under eating, too little or skipping meals. This sends a signal to your body that resources are scarce, triggering a stress response.

Chronic under eating can also slow your metabolism, slow down digestion and worsen bloating. Food fear, obsessively worrying about eating the wrong foods. is a stress. When you eat in a state of fear or anxiety, your body isn’t in rest and digest, which can amplify bloating mineral deficiencies. We see this all the time.

Low levels of magnesium, potassium, sodium, et cetera, can make it harder for your body to manage stress. And you burn through more minerals. when you are stressed. So magnesium, for example, is known as the relaxation mineral because it helps calm the nervous system. A deficiency can keep you stuck. Same thing with potassium.

This is the stress mineral. So when you’re more stressed, you use more. Most people don’t even get enough potassium helps with muscle contraction, AKA gut motility so it can slow down there as well. And then even over exercising, so movement, it’s great for stress relief, but overdoing it, especially if you’re not eating enough is a stress.

And then also having underlying gut infections is a stress. If you have Candida, H. pylori, a parasite, whatever it is, this is a stress on your body. So we want to look under the hood and see what’s going on in the gut and address it to reduce stress on your body. some questions to ask yourself. Does your bloating get worse during stressful times, like busy work weeks or anything that’s more emotional?

Do you often feel rushed or anxious while eating? Are you under eating, over exercising, relying on caffeine to get through the day? Those can be some signs. So just some simple things that you can do. Number one, shift into rest and digest mode. Just take three to five deep breaths before you eat. This is going to activate your vagus nerve support your nervous system with minerals. If you haven’t done that yet, supporting your minerals is a great way to support your stress. So a simple adrenal cocktail, Any kind of mineral mocktail is going to be great. I have plenty of episodes on this as well as a mineral guide that you can download with several ideas.

Find balance in your movement. If it’s a really stressful week and you’re not sleeping enough, maybe the HIIT workout’s not a great idea. go walking or do yoga or Pilates. working on your relationship with food. trying to address the food fear. And getting professional help can be really helpful for this because sometimes we need someone to speak that into us.

And then practice just daily relaxation. I’m not talking about meditating for an hour. I’m a mom of three and I run a business. I don’t have time to do that either. So I’m not going to tell you to do that. Five to 10 minutes of mindfulness, journaling, deep breathing, even spread out throughout the day reminders on your phone, to go off and just have the reminder, say, take three deep breaths. It doesn’t have to be super complicated. So when you reduce stress, you’re going to create an environment where your digestion can thrive. And over time, this is going to lead to less bloating, better nutrient absorption, and then overall improved health.

All right, number four is slow gut motility. This is one of the most common things we see with our clients that struggle with really chronic bloating and constipation. Gut motility is referring to how quickly food moves through your digestive tract. Your digestive system is kind of like a conveyor belt, so food should move at the right speed to ensure proper digestion and elimination.

When motility slows down, food sits longer than it should. This leads to fermentation, gas, and bloating. There’s a lot of things that will impact motility. Number one, nervous system dysfunction or function. So the enteric nervous system, also known as your second brain, controls how food moves through your digestive tract.

If your nervous system is stressed, then motility will slow down. Hydration and fiber intake. So dehydration is going to slow gut motility. You need water in your intestines to move things through. Minerals are going to play a big deal into this as well. You need minerals like magnesium, sodium, et cetera, to draw water to your bowels and then insufficient dietary fiber.

If you’re not eating 25 30 grams of fiber a day, your bowels will likely be slower. and this is kind of a Goldilocks mentality as well. We don’t want, more is not always better. More is not more. 25 30 grams. Maybe 35 grams and slowly working your way up. If you do a recall and you’re eating seven grams of fiber a day, don’t go straight to 30 slowly increase and make sure you’re drinking enough water with fiber.

You need more water mineral imbalances. Like I mentioned, magnesium, It’s going to draw water to your bowels, potassium is also going to be really helpful here as well. Potassium is going to help the gut muscles contract and then any underlying conditions like hypothyroidism. This is going to slow the bowels, SIBO, vagus nerve dysfunction, et cetera.

So all these things are going to affect how much the muscles of the gut contract. Remember, your gut is a muscle, so we need it to be in shape and contracting and moving things through. So some questions to ask would be, are you having fewer than one bowel movement per day? We should be completely emptying our bowels one to three times a day.

Do you feel bloated or uncomfortable after meals, especially as the day progresses? Are you bloated when you wake up? This can be a big sign of slow motility. And then do you notice incomplete bowel movements or this sensation of never going enough? if you’re going a tiny bit each day, or each time and you’re not fully emptying, then slow gut motility is probably at play for you.

And no probiotic is really going to fix that. So we want to address it. comprehensively. So you can support your gut motility number one by hydrating. Start your day with a large glass of water with a pinch of salt. Maybe squeeze a lemon. This is going to help support minerals. It’s going to support hydration.

Magnesium can be great. Citrate or glyconate are probably the two that we use the most. Citrate is going to be a little bit more appropriate if you’re constipated. Glyconate if you’re stressed or you have trouble sleeping. Movement, go for a gentle five to 10 minute walk. Like I mentioned, do the I love you massage, yoga, any kind of abdominal massage to help stimulate the digestive tract.

Activate your vagus nerve. You can see that all of these things kind of all go together. So some of these lifestyle habits are going to. support a lot of these underlying root causes. And then the last root cause that I want to tackle today, at least, is dysbiosis. So this is an imbalance in your gut microbiome.

And dysbiosis occurs when you have either too few good bacteria, too many quote unquote bad bacteria. This can also, translate to yeast or other pathogens. But essentially, these unwanted bacteria, yeast, or pathogens are outweighing the beneficial bacteria, leading to Excessive fermentation of food.

This is going to create gas, bloating, and a whole host of other symptoms like food sensitivities or irregular bowel movements. But here’s the key point. Digestion is a north to south process. If you skip over foundational issues like meal hygiene, stomach acid production, gut motility, and you jump straight to fixing your microbiome, maybe you jump straight into a SIBO protocol or, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten on the phone with someone and they’re like, I’ve done candibactin, AR, and BR twice or three times and it hasn’t worked.

Or I’ve done eight SIBO protocols and it hasn’t worked. I’m like, okay, What did you do to address your digestion, your motility, all these other things, and they look at me like a deer in the headlights. there’s been so many missed pieces, and it makes me feel so bad that they got a completely incomplete treatment.

But an imbalanced microbiome is often the result, not the root cause of poor digestion upstream. So some questions to ask yourself would be, do you experience chronic bloating regardless of what you eat? Do you have a history of antibiotic use, poor diet, unmanaged stress? Do you notice worsening food sensitivities or irregular bowel movements?

Do you feel six months pregnant with bloat by the end of the day? If you resonate, dysbiosis could be playing a role in your bloating. So there’s no quick fix for this because your microbiome is incredibly complex. And while, different probiotics or protocols or supplements may offer short term relief.

They rarely address the full picture. So restoring this is going to take time. It’s going to require creating an environment where beneficial bacteria can thrive. You can support your microbiome by eating prebiotic fiber, which you might feel like you don’t tolerate. So go low, go slow. garlic, onions, leeks, asparagus go really slowly and don’t I’ll link it in the show notes, but this is made from bovine immunoglobulins and it helps bind to and neutralize harmful bacteria. So this is especially helpful for calming inflammation and just reducing the microbial load. when you focus on these three things, you can slowly rebalance your gut, but really remember that what works best is when foundational digestion and motility issues are addressed first as I’ve mentioned, digestion is a north to south process, starting with salivation, meal hygiene, stomach acid production, enzymes, bile release. And then we finally get to the microbiome. So if you skip the upstream steps and you go straight into fixing your gut bacteria, you are very unlikely to see lasting results.

And that’s often why people hit a dead end with probiotics or gut protocols that aren’t addressing foundational issues. So if you are tired of feeling bloated and just guessing what’s wrong, I would really encourage you to check out Gut Tested. This is our testing package that includes testing and one on one support to help you identify these root causes if you’re not getting anywhere with what you’re doing for your bloating.

Or Overall GI issues right now, you’re going to do the stool test. You’re going to uncover what’s really going on. You’re going to get one on one support with an expert trained gut health dietician to create a plan tailored to your needs. And bloating does not have to be your normal. With the right tools, the right support, you can take control of all of this and have a long term plan to prevent it.

So I’ll put the link in the show notes if you want to check it out this is our great testing package for those of you that are really looking into, what your root causes might be. So just to recap this episode real quick, chew thoroughly, walk after meals, sip on herbal teas, and then look at.

Some of these underlying root causes while you’re doing that. So hormonal hygiene, stress, slow motility, bloating. Like I said, does not have to be your normal. When you work on these foundational things and you address the root causes, you can start to feel like yourself again. So I hope that this episode was helpful.

If you have questions, feel free to send me a DM on Instagram. I would love to chat with you. And as a reminder, if you are a practitioner, And you want to learn more about how to interpret testing, how to create comprehensive protocols for your clients. Make sure that you come to my webinar on February 5th, and you will learn exactly how to do that.

I’ll show you how to confidently address GI issues and build a practice that you love. So the link is in the show notes. Can’t wait to see you there. That’s all for today. Thanks so much for tuning in, and I will catch you on the next episode of the Love Your Gut podcast.