Feeling bloated after eating? – that uncomfortable, puffy sensation often felt after an over-indulgent meal. It occurs due to an excessive build-up of gas within the digestive system, and for many, can be easily avoided.
However, if you’re experiencing frequent and regular bloating, it could be due to something more serious. It can also lead to other symptoms such as cramps and constipation.
It’s therefore essential to understand more about what can cause your bloating, and also what steps you can take to prevent bloating after eating in the future.
What causes bloating after eating?
There are several reasons as to why someone may experience bloating after eating. The most common cause is food intolerance, where the digestive system produces internal gas as a reaction to the food that you’re eating. That gas then gets trapped, leading to bloating.
The same process also happens when eating food too fast or eating portions that are too big as the digestive system struggles to break down food.
Another cause for feeling bloated after eating is swallowing too much air while eating. This can lead to the air becoming trapped within your digestive system. Inhaling excess air can happen when talking whilst eating, chewing with your mouth open or continuously chewing gum.
There are also medical reasons that could be a cause, including irritable bowel syndrome, a condition which affects the digestive system, or coeliac disease, a more severe illness in which the immune system attacks its own tissues when eating gluten.
How can I prevent bloating?
More often than not, the best way to prevent bloating is to make sensible alterations to your eating habits. Often, this means avoiding indulgent foods that are well known to initiate bloating, such as fried or fatty foods.
Fizzy drinks should also be cut down on as they’re especially troublesome. By consuming these drinks, you increase the level of carbon dioxide within your body – a fundamental cause of bloating.
For some people, there are more specific trigger points which can cause you to feel bloated after eating. Try cutting down the number of dairy products or wheat products in your diet. Cruciferous vegetables, such as brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and cabbage, can also cause problems, so try to switch out those veggies for alternatives.
While doing this, keep a food diary of everything you eat and drink. Make sure you take note of whether you feel more or less bloated. This will be crucial for helping you to identify what foods are causing your bloating and where you may have an intolerance.
Find your intolerances
A food diary can give you a good indication of where your intolerances lie. In turn, this can help you reduce bloating after eating. But if you want to know for sure what’s causing it, an intolerance test could be the answer. Our Advanced Bioresonance Test is a quick and simple way of getting a comprehensive body health check-up of 978 items in an easy to use home-to-lab test. This test also comes with a 30-day follow up, which will provide you with additional support. You’ll also get free recipes and advice to help you get the most from the test and make positive changes to your lifestyle. Try it today and wave goodbye to bloating after eating.
