How to enjoy your meals without bloating and discomfort!

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Women enjoying a picnic without fear of bloating or discomfort!

 How to enjoy your meals without bloating and discomfort! 

If you feel uncomfortable and bloated after eating it could be due to several factors.  Abdominal pain, diarrhoea or general discomfort after a meal could be because of a food intolerance, gut flora imbalance, or a gut infection.  If you are in a state of stress that can also lead to gut issues. Certain foods high in FODMAPs might also be a factor.   You might have been diagnosed as having irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). But there are ways of alleviating symptoms at the very least or even achieving relief altogether by getting to the root-cause.

How can nutrition therapy help my feeling bloated? Or with root-cause in IBS?

If you feel bloated after eating and uncomfortable, it doesn’t have to be that way! There are some very simple first steps you can take. These include considering if you are intolerant to a specific food or food compounds by monitoring when you have symptoms. If you can’t establish the culprits through monitoring, then consider the following:

 

    • Support digestion through supplements and lifestyle interventions

    • Test for parasitic infection, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth or yeast

    • Gut flora / microbiome balance

    • Try an elimination diet

    • Consider the low FODMAPs diet

    • Stress management

How quickly can I find out why I feel bloated after eating?

Sometimes it is very easy to work out what are your triggers.  In fact, I often find I can alleviate people symptoms just by making small changes to their diet!  See the case study below.

 

How long IBS issues take to resolve depends on the underlying cause.

Whilst a GP will do tests to check that you don’t have Irritable Bowel Disease (IBD) such as Ulcerative Colitis or Crohn’s Disease, there are no tests specific to IBS. A diagnosis is usually reached through a process of elimination. Diet is the usual factor in IBS with stress possibly acting as a contributory factor.

 

What causes IBS?

Sometimes it is very easy to work out what causes IBS. Most of the time though it is not just one factor. As mentioned, for some IBS may be due to a food intolerance, such as gluten or dairy. It could be due to an inability to manage foods high in oxalates, salicilates or sweeteners. Or IBS symptoms could be triggered by specific food compounds known as high FODMAPs foods.

 

What are FODMAPs?

FODMAPs stands for fermentable, oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols, which are all osmotic compounds found in foods. These compounds cause water to be drawn into the intestinal tract and are responsible for fermentation in the lower gut leading. This can lead to feelings of discomfort, bloating and gas. If you suffer with IBS you may feel considerably better on a low-FODMAPs diet. This diet can seem very restrictive at first and appear very complicated, but with a little professional help it need not be! Once symptoms have been considerably reduced, foods high in FODMAPs are gradually re-introduced. One category at a time is re-introduced, to ascertain what components of the high FODMAPs foods are the issue.

 

Should I be gluten-free?

You might find that going gluten-free alleviates symptoms of IBS. It is important, however, to establish if your issue is gluten, wheat or high-FODMAPs foods. By cutting out gluten, you will be reducing the FODMAPs load by reducing fructans. This may alleviate symptoms, but you won’t establish if it is gluten per se that is the issue or the FODMAPs. You may therefore be avoiding foods unnecessarily and making your diet more restrictive than it needs to be. It may also be that you react to wheat rather than gluten. Therefore, if this were the case, you could continue consuming barley, rye and oat without causing symptoms.

 

For more info, read the post on Could gluten cause my symptoms? By working with me, we can improve your digestive health and explore the underlying cause to resolve your discomfort and restore your gut to health.

 

Case Study

I had the pleasure of working with Sara, a young woman who consulted me as she generally felt terrible after eating. She regularly suffered from cramps and had sever blood sugar imbalance leading to feeling very distressed and grumpy when hungry. Sara also had difficulty sleeping which impacted her mood.

Within a couple of sessions, having made the recommended dietary changes, which included the removal of all gluten containing foods, she felt so much better.

Whilst in the past she had tried to cut out gluten she hadn’t been aware of all the hidden gluten. This time round she was a lot more successful and this was reflected in massive symptom improvements. As we couldn’t test for Celiac Disease since she couldn’t face re-introducing gluten into her diet we carried out a genetic test, which interestingly revealed that she did not have the genes that could predispose her to CD. Unfortunately, there are no markers (yet!) that can confirm if an intolerance is due to non-celiac gluten sensitivity.

Sara says: “Your help has completely changed my life for the better and if more people find you and get the help they need then that’s great!”.

 

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