Holy crap you guys, It’s been a while since I wrote a blog post. I’ve been so focused on youtube and Instagram the last few months that I just really neglected the blog, yikes. But I’m back (at least for now) and wanted to chat a bit more about bloating! Sounds so bizarre but it was such a popular topic on my Stories the last month and so many of you seem to be dealing with the same problem so I figured let’s get into it, shall we?
My severe bloating.
This year I’ve been experiencing the most uncomfortable bloating of my life. Now that I think of it, I’ve always been bloated but I didn’t realize how severe it was until I started getting breathing issues at night. My belly would be so bloated that I could no longer sit down without having trouble breathing by the end of the night. My chest would feel super tight, and I couldn’t take deep breathes in and out. I would have to start pacing around the house just to catch my breath. It got to the point where I couldn’t even sleep at night because I was uncomfortable and I couldn’t breathe. This was happening almost every night for months. Now I know breathing doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with bloating but for me it was. The few nights I wasn’t bloating everything was fine. I was able to breath and be normal.
Now I know a lot of people are bloated and that’s because bloating is normal. Even the slightest bloating can be caused from diet, lack of sleep, stress, exercise, nutrition, travel, honestly so many variables can cause bloating so just know bloating, in general, is normal. My kind of bloating was not.
The Steps I Took.
I received so many DM’s about bloating when I started to share my story. A lot of you were asking for help and for my suggestions. Honestly, I’m NEW to this as well and I would say go to your DOCTOR esp. if it’s as severe as mine but I have gotten a ton of advice from you guys and from my own Dr. as well and this is what I’ve been doing so far.
I ultimately decided to do a juice cleanse after Labor Day to clear my system and shed all the excess bloating. I did the Cleanse #3 available at Pressed Juice (very low sugar and calories). This cleanses obviously helped a lot but it’s not permanent nor long term. I just did it to refresh my body and start clean esp. since Labor Day was full of alcohol and junk food. (FYI there is no proven research that shows juice cleanses do anything but for me, it just works well for my body and my bloating disappeared short team.)
Long term, I cut out dairy and gluten. And damn, that made a HUGE difference. After 2 weeks of cutting those out, I was able to breathe regularly at night and my bloating had subsided tremendously. I visited my Dr. and she also suggested I cut out spicy food as my uncomfortableness and lack of breathing could be from severe heartburn, so I also did that.
On top of already exercising 3x a week, taking probiotics daily, eating clean organic and healthy meals every day, cutting out gluten and dairy, my bloating has subsided. I was already exercising and eating super clean before all this and was still bloated but cutting out gluten was a game-changer. I have been slowly incorporating dairy back, just tiny amounts on the weekends and noticed my bloating was manageable. I did try to incorporate gluten back in and my stomach went crazy, and I couldn’t sleep till 3 AM one night cus my belly was so uncomfortable. I’m meeting with my Dr. next week to do a few more tests and see what else it could be but at this point, I’m pretty sure it’s gluten.
I do want to note that a lot of people I talked to were complaining about their bloating but hadn’t changed their diets or wasn’t doing much exercise. So I think it’s important to evaluate your lifestyle, consult with your Dr. and try to eliminate things that could be causing bloating to start. Keeping your gut clean is probably the most important when it comes to excess bloating.
Now, what works for me doesn’t mean it’s going to work for you. I had an extreme case of bloating and we’re still trying to figure it but for now, I’m sticking to a gluten-free diet and so far it’s made a huge difference. I hope you guys found my story to be helpful!
Thanks for reading! See ya in the next one 🙂