3 ways to reduce bloating and boost energy

Can you believe the end of the year is almost here? Sometimes life feels like it’s moving at a snail’s pace and other days it feels like it’s moving at warp speed.

Either way, if you’re bloated and low on energy, every day is a struggle.

It’s a struggle to look in the mirror and feel good about yourself, to be present with loved ones, to be as productive in life as you want to be, and even to experience joy and happiness.

I’ve been there and many of my clients have too.  It’s not fun. So to help you stop the struggle, I’m sharing 3 ways you can instantly reduce bloating and boost energy.

Despite what is going on the world around us, and what feels outside of our control, the one thing we do have control over is our health.  When you tune out what is going on around you and tune into your body, the possibilities of feeling like your best self and having your best health are endless.

There once was a time when I was out of tune with my body too; seeking answers externally and spinning my wheels when my body was holding them all along.

Healthy is a way of being, not just doing.

You see, I was doing a lot of “healthy things”, but I wasn’t exactly embracing healthy as a way of being.  I was running my body into the ground daily and barely keeping it afloat with my so-called healthy eating and exercise habits.

For example, I was racing through meals and inhaling my food in a hurry to get to the next thing on my to-do list.  More often than not, I would chug down a breakfast smoothie on the way to the office, work while eating lunch, and rush home to eat dinner only to shovel it down so I could do all of my before bed routine things.

This is how most of us live life, always on the go suffering through bloating, low energy and a variety of other nagging health issues.

When we move through life like this, it drastically diminishes our ability to digest food properly leading to unnecessary bloating, poor nutrient absorption and a lack of energy (not to mention food cravings that also get triggered!).

Your body can only heal and digest properly in a relaxed state.

Therefore, one of the keys to getting rid of bloating for good and boosting your energy is learning to slow down around meal time, give your body space to digest, rest and repair.

In this week’s video and blog, I share 3 ways you can slow down around meal time to support digestion, instantly reduce bloating and boost energy.

Seeing who could finish their dinner the fastest was a game we played at the dinner table when I was a kid, and on top of that if you cleared your plate you got dessert.  My parents had the best intentions in the world, filling our plates with whole foods but eating fast and expecting dessert afterwards were some old habits I had to learn how to break in order to have my ideal health and weight.

Our modern fast-paced world doesn’t exactly encourage a relaxed eating state either.  Meetings often take priority over lunch periods, we sit in front of the TV or scroll our favorite social media feed catching up on the day’s happenings while we eat.

All of which triggers the sympathetic nervous system, also known as your fight or flight response. Originally this brilliant response evolved as a means of survival, if you ran into a lion while hunting, your fight or flight response would kick in so you could hightail it out of there by sending all of your blood flow and resources outwards for quick moving and quick thinking, and by deprioritizing actions such as digestion to conserve resources for your escape. 

However, these days your body doesn’t’ know the difference between a lion and the day-to-day stressors you encounter such as working through a lunch break and rushing through meals so you can move onto the next thing.  It responds the same, diminishing digestion in hopes of survival but leaving you feeling bloated, nutrient deficient and tired. 

The good news is, there are a few simple things you can do that don’t take much time or effort, to instantly flip the switch in your brain and body to get you out of the flight or fight response and into the parasympathetic rest and digest mode.

In a parasympathetic state, your body sends blood flow and resources inwards to nourish internal organs, effectively digest food and heal all of which reduces bloating and boosts energy!

Here are 3 ways you can slow down around meal time to support digestion, instantly reduce bloating and boost energy: 

#1- Before eating; inhale for 5 seconds, hold for 5 seconds, exhale for 7 and repeat 5-10 times.  
When you adopt the deep rhythmic breathing pattern of a relaxed person, your body automatically flips the switch from being stressed to in a place of rest and digest.  

This is a great tool you can also use during other times of the day to get into a relaxed state more frequently to allow more healing to happen.

#2 – Chew every bite 20 times or more.
Digestion actually begins in the mouth.  Your saliva contains digestive enzymes to help breakdown food before it hits your stomach so taking action to adequately chew your food reduces digestive stress that can lead to bloating and increases absorption of nutrients to boost your energy and healing all around. 

#3 – Put your utensils down between bites.
This is a societal thing.  Next time you’re around others eating observe how everyone is shoveling their next bite in their mouth before they are even done chewing the one they are working on!  

Setting your fork, spoon or other utensil you might be using down in between bites slows down the sense of urgency you might have to get through a meal, and it also reinforces the act of chewing each bite thoroughly for all of the benefits previously mentioned to reduce bloating and boost energy.

Putting these 3 tips into play will also help you be more present and in tune with your body when it comes to food.  You may also find that it’s easier to notice when you’re full to avoid overeating, how certain foods don’t work well for your body or that you’re able to go longer periods of time between meals without snacking because you actually digested the food you ate.

You can’t out-supplement, out-diet, or out-exercise a too-busy lifestyle or overworked body. 

It’s time to embrace healthy as a way of being, and not just doing by tuning everything else out and tuning into your body.

If you’d like to dive deeper into what is causing your bloating and low energy by getting your hands on the right lab tests and resources to find the missing pieces of your health puzzle, click here to schedule an Ideal Health and Weight Discovery Session with me.