BLOATED? 3 Holistic Tips You Can Do NOW (From A Gut Health Dietitian)

November 18, 2023

What does breakfast have to do with your bloat? When we eat breakfast, we trigger a reflex known as the gastrocolic reflex. This reflex controls the motility of the lower GI tract following a meal by telling the bowels to move when it senses the presence of food in the stomach. Erratic eating and skipping meals can mess with these reflexes. Without these reflexes functioning properly, food can sit around too long in the stomach and upper intestines and cause inconsistent bowel movements. This means that you can be more prone to slowed motility and things like constipation, acid reflux and ahem, BLOAT. Your body likes consistency and therefore, it gets stressed under conditions of prolonged fasting like skipping bfast - that alone can hinder digestion and cause someone to be more predisposed to bloat due to the disruption of the reflexes and cleansing waves of the gut.
What can you do: Be consistent and shoot for a breakfast within the first 1-2 hours of waking that consists of protein/fat/fiber-dense carbs. Something like eggs + potatoes + avocado is LOVELY. Avoid empty stomach coffee which can also be a gut stressor. Think: calm, de-stressed, consistently fed gut = less bloat!

There is a goldilocks effect to supporting your gut when it comes to bloat. In general, we want to avoid prolonged fasting upon waking (see tip #1 above) by eating enough and at somewhat regular, consistent meal and snack times to support the body's needs and keep it from going into a state of stress. BUT, we also don’t want to be grazing on snacks all day long. Why? This actively hinders the Migrating Motor Complex (MMC); this is the cleansing wave within the gut that helps sweep up residual undigested food and move things along to support the peristaltic movement waves of the gut. When we take mindful breaks of ~2.5-4 hours between meals/snacks we activate this cleansing wave (as well as overnight of course!). Without activating the MMC during the day we can run the risk of undigested food that hasn’t been ‘swept along’ hanging out too long and causing the bacteria within the gut to ferment it and cause gas/bloat. Think: ‘old trash that has been sitting out on the curb too long’.
What you can do: Eat regular meals and snacks throughout the day, seeing if you can leave ~3 hours between most eating increments and making sure meals are filling enough (with sources of protein, fat and fiber-dense carbs) to keep you full. Pass on picking at the bowl of nuts or candy sitting out in your office!

Bitter foods and JÜJ digestive bitters are by far my favorite way to support an increase in digestive secretions to support better digestion and prevent bloat. They actively help us increase our natural stomach acid, digestive enzyme and bile flow to help us properly break down and absorb our food. In my years of clinical experience specializing in gut health, suboptimal digestion is one of the most common root causes of belly bloat that I see in my clients. Bitters are a wonderfully safe and broad spectrum remedy in that they upregulate our natural digestive juice output without replacing anything or causing dependency.
What can you do: Eat bitter foods with each meal and consider digestive bitters before meals; I like eating things like arugula, radish, raw cacao and broccoli sprouts throughout the day - you only need small amounts at each meal. AND, I love 5-7 drops of JÜJ digestive bitters directly onto the tongue before meal times.