miss the bloat - how to avoid bloating

Feeling bloated? Your diet and eating habits could be the cause

We've all had those miserable days when we can't even get our "fat" jeans to zip. Our stomach resembles a water balloon, and we feel like we've gained 10 pounds in two hours. We are uncomfortable, we are irritable, we are bloated.

There are many reasons why this happens, and most of them have to do with how we eat. We make poor food choices, try new fad diets, eat on the run, chow down on sugary energy bars, overeat or skip meals altogether. Then we expect our digestive system to take care of it all. When we were kids, it probably did work that way. But as we age, our system produces less of the digestive acids that break down food and can't handle the resulting imbalance and overload. And so we get bloated.

While this may sound depressing, there are a variety of natural ways to get rid of both the causes and the discomforts of bloating, and many of them are as simple as changing our diet. Herbs in the form of teas can soothe symptoms, but if the problem is chronic, we'll need to examine our overall lifestyle to get rid of the problem for good. But before we talk treatments, we need to understand what's going on inside.

First Things First

You should consult your physician to rule out a serious medical digestive disorder before you do or take anything or make any radical changes. If you feel bloated or have cramps or diarrhea, Barbara Kravets, CCN, LCN, clinical nutritionist and director of nutrition for a chain of natural food stores in Chicago, advises consulting a health professional to make sure you don't have an inflammation, yeast infection, malignancy or a disease like diverticulosis, Crohn's, ulcerative colitis or celiac. Kravets warns that food allergies--particularly to wheat, dairy, corn and soy--can also cause bloating, although the exact reasons are not understood. Once you rule out serious diseases, you can treat bloating with common sense (including patience), a healthy diet, good eating habits, acupuncture, herbs and supplements. There are several tricks to pinpointing the causes of your discomfort and then taking positive action to remedy them. It's worth doing because treating bloating is about more than just putting an end to the discomfort. Poorly digested food may pass inappropriately from the gut into the bloodstream and can contribute to inflammatory responses, among them arthritis, asthma, type I diabetes and fibromyalgia, says Kravets.

Gut Reaction

To understand what's making you swell, you must be on a first-name basis with your gastrointestinal (GI) system--and granted, that's not most people's best friend. "The digestive tract is a complex site of interactivity between foods and the digestive system," says David Riley, M.D., an internist, homeopath, yoga teacher and founder of MEDigy, a web site for integrative medicine. The digestive system includes the "gut flora"--yeast and bacteria--as well as chemicals that process the food. Different foods produce different reactions, and some of them, especially carbohydrates, will produce gasses that cause bloating, Riley explains.

When you alter the balance of what you normally eat, you can get bloated. If you switch to a vegetarian diet, for example, which usually means more carbs, your digestive juices and gut flora need time to adjust their output and work on the new family of foods you're feeding yourself.

GI Brewery

Eating a lot of refined carbohydrates, such as bread, pasta, potatoes and rice, is one of the most common causes of bloating. These foods break down into sugar quickly, and sugar, when worked on by acids, ferments and creates gas. In addition, people who suddenly increase their consumption of fiber will often feel bloated because the gut reacts by producing additional acids and flora, a byproduct of which is gas. So if you've recently changed your diet to one that revolves around refined carbs or have increased your fiber by adding more fruits and vegetables, you're likely to be at even greater risk as your system struggles to get used to processing the different foods. When you alter your diet, Riley explains, "you have to re-educate your whole system. In the process of things sorting themselves out, you may have some symptoms of bloating." But most of the time, he says, the discomfort abates as the body adjusts.

Highly refined sugars cause bloating in the exact same way, says Kravets, "because sugar is easily fermented by bacterial and fungal organisms in the gut, which produces gas and alcohol." Grains and sugars are what cause beer and champagne to fizz, so you can imagine what the combination can do to your GI system. Studies have shown that as many as 61 percent of patients who suffer from chronic bloating and other GI discomforts have detectable levels of alcohol from maldigested and malabsorbed carbs, Kravets says.

So what is the proper diet? There isn't one across-the-board answer. But according to Kravets, bloating may be reduced--even avoided--by a few simple steps. First, cut back on (or eliminate) simple sugars. Then, take a probiotic (such as acidophilus, available in the refrigerated sections of natural food stores) to increase the beneficial organisms in your digestive system. If you do increase your fiber, do it slowly. Drink plenty of water, and strive to maintain good and frequent "bathroom" habits.