Do You Feel Bloated After Eating?
Many people often feel so bloated after eating that they come to believe it’s normal. The truth is that bloating is not at all natural. When you feel bloated time and time again after eating your meals, it generally means that something’s wrong.
The causes of abdominal discomfort can have a physiological origin. However, in a significant number of cases, they’re due to bad eating habits. Bloating can appear as a result of eating low-quality foods. Alternatively, you may feel bloated because of bad habits when planning out your diet.
Eating too fast
When eating, it’s very important to take as much time as your body needs. There are lots of consequences when you eat your meals quickly, whether it’s breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
If you eat in a rush, you’re sending food to the stomach that hasn’t been chewed properly. This may make it difficult for digestive enzymes to stick to the food. That’s what makes digestion so much harder on your body. This then creates gases and tension in the abdominal area.
When you wolf your food down too quickly, you’re also taking a lot more air into your digestive apparatus. This habit tends to put excess air into your stomach and creates that discomfort you feel.
And to top it all off, eating food quickly can lead you to eat even more. That’s because it takes the stomach at least 20 minutes to send the message to the brain that it’s full.
This delay makes it very likely that when the brain finally receives the message that the stomach is full, you’ve already overfilled it. In that case, the abdominal wall has to expand in order to “make room” for the extra food you ate.
Carbonated beverages
It’s not hard to see why drinking carbonated beverages can make you feel bloated. These types of drinks contain gases that the liquids release when they get to the stomach. The carbon dioxide ends up building up in other foods, which makes digestion harder. That ultimately leads to the feeling that your stomach is bloated.
These incidents tend to be even heavier when you combine carbonated drinks with your main meals. Nevertheless, drinking them at times other than breakfast or dinner is no guarantee that your stomach won’t be affected. Instead of having your meals with a soft drink or a beer, it’s always a better choice to have a cup of water or even wine.
Eating fiber
Everything in life should be a balance. When you decide on what you’re going to eat for the day, the balance should be your main operating principle. It’s true that a lack of fiber in your diet can cause constipation (a condition that tends to be accompanied by bloating). On the other hand, an excess of fiber can also be counterproductive.
These types of problems tend to affect people who try to change their eating habits radically. When you increase your fiber intake with the foods you eat, you should do so gradually. If you try to suddenly eat a lot more fiber, you run the risk of ending up with intestinal irritation.
Intolerance to some foods
Feeling bloated after eating is one of the classic symptoms of intolerance to specific foods. Some of the more common substances people tend to be intolerant to are gluten, lactose, and fructose. Seafood and the skin of some fruits can also cause adverse reactions in people.
It’s true that experts consider these allergies to be mild if their only symptom is intestinal discomfort. However, it’s always a good idea to identify the ingredients your body doesn’t agree with and to keep them off of your menu.
Fried foods can make you feel bloated
Most people love foods that are cooked with a high amount of oil. For example, french fries are popular all over the world. However, no one is going to claim that there are benefits to eating them beyond their delicious taste.
The key link between fried foods and a bloated midsection is that these foods absorb a lot of the oil where you cook them. The oil then becomes a part of their molecular structure. Because of this, it takes more time for the stomach to digest them. They might even come to ferment within your digestive tract.
Say “no” to stress
Aside from being selective about the foods you bring to the table, avoid falling into the negative pit of stress. This is one of the best pieces of advice to help you avoid feeling bloated after eating.
This will help you avoid eating meals uncontrollably. When you’re stressed, you tend to eat quickly. You can’t chew and savor your food properly and you may eventually feel bloated. Remember that good digestion begins in the mouth.
