3 best ways women can reduce bloating

Women are all too familiar with digestive bloating – the struggle to fit into jeans or trying to hide a bloated tummy with a long, loose-fitting shirt. For many women it seems as if tummy weight appears almost overnight.

Unfortunately, bloating can be a part of daily life. It’s not unusual to experience it shortly after eating a meal even if portion sizes were small. Add to this, women can also be prone to constipation, indigestion, and irritable bowel syndrome.

Before throwing your hands up believing there’s nothing that can be done to reduce tummy bloating and other symptoms, there are things women can do to beat it back.

Understanding bloating in women

To beat back bloating it’s important to know the causes. For women, there can be many factors contributing to this:

· Hormonal shifts during PMS

· Perimenopause

· Menopause

· Pregnancy

Any of the above situations can cause a woman’s body to retain more water, decrease bile production and delay in elimination. Hormones also play a significant role in bloating in women. Hormones can slow down the movement of food through the digestive system leading to constipation. When the movement of food is delayed, this allows food to ferment in the digestive tract which produces extra gas. Excess gas results in tightness and puffiness in the belly often causing extreme discomfort.

Hormonal shifts, especially in premenopausal women, can affect food choices. Cravings for chocolate, ice cream, or other sugary foods is not an uncommon urge for women. But when a woman indulges in excess sugar, this only makes the situation worse as unhealthy bacteria and yeast feed on these sugary carbohydrates, making bloating and gas inevitable.

Since so much of your well-being is based on a well-functioning digestive system and balanced gut flora, it’s worth taking the time to know how to keep bloating at bay as much as possible.

3 ways women can beat back bloating

1. Make careful food choices

The first step in reducing belly bloat is by making wise food choices. This can be done by doing the following:

· Limit consumption of processed white breads, pastas, and baked goods. Skip sugary alcohol and yeasty beer.

· Eat more vegetables, leafy greens, and nuts. Pay attention to whether you tolerate cooked or raw veggies better. Have more fruit, some whole grains, beans, and lentils, all foods that provide fiber. Your good gut bacteria love to feed on fiber and the more you feed it what it wants, this begins the process of crowding out bad bacteria that lead to bloating.

· Incorporate more fermented foods into your diet. Fermented foods are necessary for a healthy bacteria to grow and will boost their numbers in your gut. The more good bacteria living in your intestinal tract, the more digestive enzymes your body produces and the less bad bacteria are able to thrive. Choose fermented foods such as kim chi, yogurt with live active cultures, green tea, sauerkraut, tempeh, miso, natto, kombucha, and kefir.

2. Give your gut bacteria a jump start with probiotics

· Probiotics – probiotics help crowd out the bad bacteria causing symptoms. There are several high-quality probiotics on the market but get suggestions from a pharmacist when choosing one. Probiotics can help calm bloating, gas, indigestion, and nausea. They can also help re-establish and build healthy colonies of beneficial gut flora.

· Prebiotics – In order for probiotics to flourish, prebiotics are necessary. Prebiotics are a favorite food of probiotics. Foods that contain prebiotics women should eat more of include leafy greens like spinach and kale, onions, garlic, soy, and whole grains, walnuts, dark chocolate with at least 70% cacao content, oats, red lentils, leeks, and apples. There are also prebiotic supplements but keep in mind that it can take several days for your body to adjust to them and could initially cause bloating.

· Digestive enzymes – Digestive enzymes help your body to break down food. Your pancreas makes digestive enzymes but as an example, women with lactose intolerance lack the ability to make enough lactase, a digestive enzyme necessary to break down the sugar found in milk called lactose. Choosing acidophilus milk or where the lactose is already broken down, can be a good choice which should reduce bloating and digestive distress from drinking milk for some women.

3. Prevent constipation

· Keep well-hydrated – It is recommended that women should drink approximately nine 8-ounce servings of water each day. All beverages, including coffee, tea, fruit juices, milk and water contributes to this amount. Your body needs a lot of liquid to process waste and to encourage regular bowel movements. Water is always the best choice to drink and avoid sugary beverages

· Fill up on fiber – Fiber is a woman’s friend when it comes to preventing constipation. The average woman should strive to consume approximately 25 grams of fiber a day. Foods particularly high in fiber include raspberries, beans, lentils, whole grains, pears, apples, almonds, popcorn, barley, and avocadoes.

· Everyday exercise – To have a healthy digestive system it must be kept in motion. Too many hours of inactivity or sitting around takes a toll on digesting food. Physical movement increases blood flow to your organs and digestive tract in addition to revving up your metabolism. Frequent movement such as taking a brisk walk helps push trapped gas that often accompanies bloating.

By practicing the above suggestions, bloating can usually be relieved effectively. But if bloating continues, it could be a sign of a more serious health issue and should be addressed with a healthcare professional.