Top tips to beat the bloat!

PART 2

By Louise Belle BHSc (Nut Med)

Are you sick and tired of feeling heavy and bloated? Here are some more strategies that you can incorporate into your diet/lifestyle to improve your digestion and reduce bloating. These carry on from the tips in PART 1, which you can read here.

  • Load up on fibre: Fibre is so incredibly important for your entire digestive tract! It feeds the good bacteria in the gut, scrubs the lining of the intestines to remove waste build up and encourages healthy and regular bowel motions. Ensure you include a large variety of fruit and vegetables in your diet to meet your fibre requirements. A fibre supplement such as Fibretone can be good to boost your fibre intake.
  • Apple cider vinegar: Take 1 tablespoon in a glass of water before a meal for improved digestion! This wonderful vinegar stimulates bile acid release and stomach acid which are vital for digesting your food. If you aren’t breaking down your food properly, you can be left feeling gassy and bloated.
  • Get that bile flowing: The cells of your liver manufacture bile, then transport it to the gallbladder for storage. When you eat a meal, receptors trigger the gallbladder to release bile, to break down and digest the fat component of your meal. Bitter foods such as rocket, dandelion, cacao, kale, brussels sprouts, fenugreek, black coffee and dill support healthy bile flow. Taking a good quality liver tonic is also beneficial.
  • Stress less: Have you heard of the flight or fight response? Basically, when we are stressed our bodies pump out adrenaline and cortisol in preparation of danger. When it does this, the blood rushes away from the digestive system and as a result, the digestive system is not well equipped to digest food. Take deep breaths before eating, think happy thoughts, focus on how delicious your food is and partake in stress reduction activities in between- such as yoga!
  • Get herby: Did you know that some herbs have antimicrobial properties and can help to improve the health of the gut? Be sure to include plenty of fresh herbs in your daily diet by throwing them into salads or on top of soups. Oregano, thyme and clove have been traditionally used to assist with indigestion, abdominal bloating and flatulence. These are best taken in the form of essential oil capsules, such as BactoClear.
  • Keep a food diary: If you’re bloated all the time, it could be possible that you have underlying food intolerances. Keeping a food diary can help you to identify foods that may not agree with you. It’s very simple to do: simply write down what you eat at each meal (list all the ingredients) in one column and then make notes in the second column for any symptoms you may experience, such as bloating or cramping. You may start to notice a trend with particular foods. When you identify these, remove them from your diet and see if it helps.

If you find that you just can’t get relief from the bloating, and you have other symptoms such as fatigue or sluggishness, skin problems, headaches, allergies, reflux and fluid retention, you could benefit from doing the Dr Cabot 15 Day Cleanse.

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