The holidays are a time to enjoy, and often, a wise option is to use moderation when it comes to our favourite holiday foods and drinks to limit a sense of discomfort and gas and bloating that we tend to associate with too much indulgence.
However, what you may not be aware of are the underlying reasons why you might tend to feel so bloated and gassy even going into the holidays, which obviously feels even worse during and after the holiday season.
The main process at play is called fermentation, and it involves bacteria and yeast that are living in your gut.
Some fermentation is a good thing, and it produces helpful things like short chain fatty acids for your brain and certain vitamins for your immune system and metabolism, but other forms of fermentation involve fungus and yeast and other bacteria that produce gas as a byproduct.
If you think of your gut as a garden and the bacteria and yeast as the weeds and flowers, if you have more weeds than flowers, you are going to be more gassy and bloated.
What contributes to the “weedy garden”?
- Make sure you are having a good bowel movement daily – Drink 1-2 litres of water per day, adding a little magnesium citrate, which helps hold water in the stool and helps bowel movements pass a little easier if you are not having great bowel movements daily.
- Fertilize the flowers: Add a higher dose probiotic to help add more beneficial bacteria to offset the weeds in the garden as well as adding more fibre, which also feeds the good bacteria.
- Weed the garden: Using certain fibres along with ingredients that address the yeast and bacteria that are out of balance will leave fewer of these microbes around to ferment sugars and carbs, and therefore can help lower the gas and bloating.
