Pseudo-weight Part 1: How to release the bloat

From a flat, or ab rippled, stomach in the morning when you jump out of bed, to a food baby bump after you eat creating an inflated balloon like abdomen for the rest of the day. Ah yes, the bloating effect. You will probably find it encouraging to know that many people have trouble with bloating daily and do not even realise they have bloating because it has somehow become normal, and they put up with it.

Bloating can promote an illusion that you are bigger than you are. Did you know that by focusing on gut health and a reduction in bloating that you can “lose” a couple of clothing sizes in less than a week!

Bloating, or though it may not be a serious health issue, is often a symptom of something out of balance within the digestive system, hormonally, or in another body system such as the nervous system.

The digestive system is a key cornerstone to our health and wellbeing, as it is the main processing plant for extracting the nutrients our body needs from the food we are eating. Food is not the only reason we are living as all of creation has some life force that runs through it. However, on a physical cellular level we need nutrients to keep all systems working as they should. So, if the main system that helps nutrients to be accessed by cells isn’t running efficiently, we have a problem.

Bloating will often coincide with:

·         Low energy, due to lack of absorption of nutrients from the food we eat because of an inability to digest the food, or a lack of proper chewing.

·         Moodiness, because the gut is like a second brain, the neurology and hormone production in the gut is linked to the hormone production in the brain. This is often called the brain-gut axis. This means that if the gut balance is off, the production of mood hormones and cognitive brain function hormones isn’t optimal, which if left too long can contribute to depression and anxiety issues.

·         Poor immunity, as this can also result due to the first line of immune defence being in the gut lining. The gut lining contains immune cells, which are protected by the good bacteria that live in the gut. Thus, if this protection is out of balance, you are most likely to experience various health issues such as food intolerances (or if goes on long enough food allergies) and skin issues such as eczema/asthma/ acne as skin health is also directly related to gut health.

·         Stress, as this creates chaos and pulls all nutrients and blood away from the digestive system to the muscles so that you have enough energy to “run or fight”. Except most of the stress today doesn’t physically require us to run or fight, it is more a mental and emotional battle. Thus, if we are eating and stressing or don’t chew our food properly (because we are eating on the run and stressing to make deadlines or meetings) then we are going to run into problems with: proper digestion, lack of nutrients being absorbed from food for our body systems and energy, and effects on the health of our good gut bacteria forming one big messing cycle (circling back again to repeat the affects in the different areas mentioned above); resulting in bloating.

·         Knocks to the self-confidence and self-empowerment, as it often is linked with the chemistry of our brain it can affect how we see ourselves, and in turn demotivate us. It might be odd to think that bloating could have such a deep impact, but it is also the hormonal and neurological cocktail behind the bloating that creates unproductive thought patterns. The reinforcement of these patterns come when you are looking in the mirror and seeing a large belly; that in turn can leave on feeling demotivated, lacking confidence, and frustrated.

I hope this helped you to gain more awareness around the way that bloating can be a part of a greater cascade of health imbalances. If you resonated strongly with this and would like help to regain balance, please feel free to get in contact with me. Also following this article, within the next few days, will be the release of part 2 of this topic; where every day nurturing processes to assist in the reduction of bloating will be discussed and shared.