Why do we get bloated? What causes bloating?

Besides being pretty uncomfortable, it can actually make you look like you have more body fat than you actually do. It can even make others think you’re pregnant. Even if you’re a man. Embarrassing. Remember Ahhhnuld’s movie, Junior (if you haven’t watched it, you should. It’s where Arnold Schwarzenegger gets pregnant)? You don’t want that to happen to you.

Original source: here.

How do you avoid it?

Bloating is really just water retention. Simple? Yep. But figuring out why you’re retaining water can require a bit more detective work.

Here are a few reasons that you may be bloated:

Eating Too Much

The simplest and most obvious one is that you ate too much food. Even if it’s healthy food, it’ll bloat you.

Food Sensitivities

If you’re eating proper quantities, you may be eating foods you’re sensitive to. Notice that I said “sensitive” and not “allergic.” There’s a reason for that. They’re not the same thing. A sensitivity is subtle and delayed. An allergy is severe and immediate. You definitely know what you’re allergic to, but you likely don’t know what you’re sensitive to.

The most common food sensitivities are gluten (found in wheat, rye and barley), dairy (including cow’s milk, cheese, yogurt, butter, etc.), soy (including tofu, tempeh, miso, etc.), corn (including popcorn, corn oil, corn flour, etc.) and sugar.

With our clients, we use something called the “elimination diet” to figure out exactly what they’re sensitive to. In certain cases, we’ll also combine it with IgG food sensitivity testing.

After eliminating what you’re sensitive to, both bloating and body fat “miraculously” disappears without really any other changes to your body.

Dysbiosis

Huh? What’s that? Dysbiosis is an imbalance between “good” and “bad” bacteria in your small and large intestines. What’s the difference? One of my favourite speakers, Dr. Robert Rakowski has a simple explanation: “good bacteria take in food, poop out nutrients. Bad bacteria take in nutrients and poop out toxins.” And for the geeks who want to know the name of those toxins, collectively, they’re called “lipopolysaccharides.”

The solution is to kill off a few of the bad bacteria, and regrow the good bacteria.

Inflammation of the Internal Organs

When the internal organs are inflamed, water rushes to the “scene of the crime.” What causes inflammation? This takes us back to our previous points: eating foods that are pro-inflammatory, dysbiosis and others.

Various different organs can be inflamed: your liver, kidneys, intestines, ovaries, stomach, and others.

To identify whether there is inflammation in our clients, we’ll look at various blood tests, like hsCRP, homocysteine, AST, ALT, GGT and others. Oh, and let’s not forget the extremely advanced, high tech test. Just ask “how are you feeling?”

Short Summary

  • Bloating is water retention
  • What causes bloating?
    • Eating too much food
    • Eating foods that you are sensitive to
    • An imbalance between good and bad bacteria
    • Inflammation of the internal organs