Why is bloating a common symptom of perimenopause and menopause?
Hormonal changes can really have a huge impact on your digestion. They can slow everything down, causing symptoms such as a bloated feeling in the stomach, cramping, and wind. You get bloated, you can get constipation, or maybe experience a little diarrhoea.
Hormonal changes can also reduce the production of stomach acid, and that will have a huge impact on how well your food is digested in the stomach. If it's not digested well in the stomach, that will cause problems right the way through the digestive tract, including lots and lots of bloating and wind.
Foods that can make bloating worse
If you experience bloating, especially after eating, then cutting out or limiting certain foods from your daily diet can make a big difference when it comes to tackling this symptom. Here are a few common trigger foods and food groups to be aware of:
1. Processed foods: These include things like microwavable meals, carry-outs, foods that are very high in salt, and sugar, and white flour.
2. Fatty foods: These are foods that are high in saturated fats including fried foods and fatty red meat. A lot of fatty foods can also give you feelings of nausea, not long after you've eaten.
3. Cruciferous vegetables: These include foods like broccoli, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts.
4. Onions: Some people find this a problematic food that can bring on bloating.
5. Bean and legumes: Now, it's quite interesting. You can see already that some of these are quite healthy foods, and you might think that this is to do with unhealthy foods, but some really healthy foods can be big culprits as well.
6. High fructose foods: These are things like apples, grapefruits, and melons.
7. Gassy drinks: This is quite logical if you think about it. If you're drinking things that are already full of gas, that's going to have a huge impact on stomach function.
8. Gluten: This encompasses a huge range of foods. It's your bread, pasta, crackers, biscuits, and cakes. Also, although it's not gluten, you can look at crisps as well. They're another big trigger.
9. Dairy products: That's things like your cow's milk, cow's cheese, and yoghurt as well.
What can help ease bloating after eating?
So, what can help to sort this one out? There are lots of simple things that can help. Here are a few things I recommend:
Identify your food triggers
Do a food diary for a couple of weeks. Not every food listed will be an issue for you. It’s a very individual thing. For some of you, it may be one group of foods. For others, it's something else.
Knowing specifically what food or food groups act as a trigger can make it much easier to then change your diet, even sometimes quite subtly.
So how do you do a food diary? For those that have never tried it before, you're looking ideally at doing it over a fortnight. You would just have a little diary. You write in it everything that you eat on a daily basis, what time you eat it, and also the drinks that you are drinking and when. Then, you note down when you start to get the bloating.
Very often you will find that there's a link and you realise, "Oh, I always get bloated at 3pm in the afternoon and that's on the days that I have a sandwich for my lunch." So, you know then that probably wheat, or if you have the same thing in your sandwich every week, then it may be the contents of the sandwich that you're eating that could be causing your bloating issues.
So, writing everything down and being totally honest about what you're eating can help, because it could be that little something that seems healthy that may be causing all the problems. So, it's a really good idea to be really thorough with this, and hopefully that will give you a good idea and hints as to any links what you're eating, when you're eating, and what's causing the problems.
Once you have identified which food groups are causing this, you just slowly cut them out of your diet.
Don’t eat large meals
Eating large meals can have a huge impact on bloating too, because larger meals are harder to digest. So, I recommend eating little and often to help support better digestion.
Chew well
If you chew your food really well, that's going to improve digestion all around. If you're swallowing big lumps, if you're eating on the run, then your stomach is going to have a real problem breaking everything down, and that's going to compound all these problems too. And chew your food slowly. You should be sitting down for at least 20 minutes for each meal and not just chomping at your desk or whilst watching the TV.
The reason for this is that it takes at least 20 minutes for your, "I've eaten enough” hormones to kick in. And one of the reasons so many women who are going through perimenopause and menopause have cravings and weight issues, is that they're eating too quickly. And then that, "I've eaten enough” hormone doesn't get produced, so no matter how much you eat, your hunger hormone is whizzing around your system. Just taking your time to eat slowly at each meal can therefore have a really positive effect on weight control.
Low FODMAP diet
FODMAPs are classes of simple, short-chain carbohydrates that are not well broken down in your body. A lot of people do tell me that cutting out high FODMAP foods and going on a low FODMAP diet makes a huge difference really quickly, and eases their bloating and discomfort.
Bitter herbs
Now, bitter herbs are those that have a bitter taste, and what they do is, the minute you eat them or take them as a tincture, they stimulate the production of all your gastric juices. They're getting your whole digestive tract ready for eating. And that will ease the burden on your stomach and the rest of your digestive tract. So, you can look at herbs such as yarrow, gentian, dandelion, and centaury for this purpose.
Support your friendly bacteria
I also recommend that you protect and support your friendly bacteria, because they make a huge difference to bloating as well.
A lot of bloating is sometimes caused by an imbalance of friendly bacteria in the digestive tract. So, you can look at probiotic foods such as live yoghurt. There are dairy-free live yoghurts available now, and for those who can tolerate dairy, it might still be better to look at sheep's yogurt, as it can be slightly easier to digest than yoghurt made from cow’s milk. There are also other fermented foods such as kimchi and kefir. Real sauerkraut can be really beneficial too, and you can also take a probiotic supplement on a daily basis.
You might like to try Molkosan Fruit Digestion. This is an aid for general digestion which can be taken on a daily basis in a little bit of water.
A.Vogel Molkosan Fruit Digestion | Provides gut health support | Suitable for Vegetarians | 200ml
£8.99 (200ml) In Stock Get it tomorrow, 18th July.
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Stay well hydrated – but don’t drink when eating
Water is important for your digestion, but try not to drink whilst you're eating, because that would dilute your digestive juices. So, don't drink anything half an hour before you eat, and don't drink anything until half an hour's passed after you finish eating. And that's another one of these little hacks that can make a difference really, really quickly.
So, I hope you found this one helpful. It's such a common problem and so many of us experience this at some time or another.
If you have any more questions about this, if you have found what helps you and the bloating, or if there are any specific foods that really bloat you up, then please share them with us. We love to hear your stories.
Until next time, take care.
You may also find these topics helpful:
Menopause & bloating: what causes it & how to beat the bloat
Bloating after eating during menopause
5 signs your digestion is struggling during menopause
