IF YOU CAN RELATEto any of the following, you qualify as
a fully paid up member of the “always on” generation: you
rarely switch off; your next “free” weekend with no social
bookings is a few months away; you grab a quick lunch and
eat it at your desk or en route to a meeting; your work emails
are on your phone for easy access; you take supplements to
boost your energy/efficiency/diet/health; drink coffee as
rocket fuel; you prioritise deadlines and friends’ birthday
celebrations; and you’re the first to sign up for the next-big-thing
exercise class or mindfulness seminars. To top it off, you’re
proud of how well you manage to fit it all in.
Congratulations – you are a well-rounded, hard-working
and possibly even over-achieving, regular human being in
- But, even in this age of “wellness” and self-care, modern
women are suffering from an epidemic of unexplainable,
seemingly uncontrollable bloat, with more than 60 per cent
experiencing discomfort.
Case in point: an ELLE colleague. She is achingly stylish,
with a minimalist aesthetic that is super-cool in its effortlessness.
Her hair is always perfectly sleek, she considers her outfits with
precision (because clothes are part of her passion), she is
mindful of what she eats (since she would prefer to maintain her
healthy weight), exercises when she can and, on the advice of
a nutritionist, doesn’t touch gluten or dairy. But even so, her
belly expands as the day goes on and, in her own words:
“Every time I’ve got a lot of work on, without fail, my sideways
silhouette looks preggo.” She has “busy bloat”, and it’s
becoming an all-too-familiar downside of modern life that
leaves us unbalanced and exhausted.
It’s likely that bloating has little to do with your diet. But we’ll
start with eating habits. The age-old side effect of beingwaaay
too busy? Skipping a meal! You’d expect that consuming less
would result in a flatter stomach, but a period of downtime for
your gut is likely to lead to overcompensation next time you eat.
Dr Robynne Chutkan, author ofThe Bloat Cure, explains: “If
there are long periods of time where nothing is moving through
the gut, it becomes a little inactive, which can make you more
likely to bloat after your next meal.”
When you do eat, are you cramming it in between
appointments, quickly grabbing something while you carry on
working on that thing you’ve got to do? A fast pace of life can
induce a fast-food habit, in the literal sense of the term. Eating at
your desk or in the company of your laptop – even you,
healthier than thou, who eats a perfectly balanced, protein first,
nutritious meal – means two unwelcome side effects. First,
without others around for pacing, we tend to subconsciously
eat more when dining solo. Overloading your digestive system
in one sitting, even with “good” food, is the most common cause
of bloating. Second, you’re likely to be rushing – and when
you rush, you tend to eat incorrectly. Aerophagia (the excessive
swallowing of air) is another symptom of our busy lifestyles.
Dr Chutkan explains that gulping air is becoming more
prevalent the more we multi-task. Scrolling through your phone
during lunch diverts your attention away from proper technique
— mindfully chewing, pausing between bites and sipping water.
And think exercise is helping? In many ways, absolutely, but
anything that encourages you to breathe through your mouth- a cold, allergies, intensive workouts – can also make you
susceptible to aerophagia.
Eating well, in all its avocado and green-juice glory, can
also lead to bloating. “Foods such as fibrous vegetables and
fruit sugars can create gas by the way of fermentation,
subsequently bloating the gut,” says holistic health expert
Marie Reynolds. Beans, lentils, pulses, onion and broccoli can
all result in bloating.
It’s not just aboutwhatyou eat, butwhenyou eat it. We
already know that eating a large meal late at night is not great
for digestion, but how does a constantly changing schedule
affect it? “Within our body, we have the autonomic nervous
systems – one system controls our ‘feed and breed’ responses,
while its counterpart controls our ‘rest and repair’ functions,”
explains Reynolds. “These systems ideally switch over at
around 7pm, meaning digestive enzymes slow down and
digestion is more difficult. Due to the fast pace of modern
lifestyle, our autonomic nervous system is frequently thrown
off-kilter, which is why ‘busy bloat’ occurs.”
The coffee (and occasional Coke Zero, if we’re honest) that
keeps us going during a particularly manic week may be part
of the problem. The caffeine is doing other things besides
temporarily boosting your energy level, namely countering the
eight glasses of water you’re conscientiously consuming
(unless you’re too busy, of course). Caffeine is a diuretic
that contributes to dehydration, which leads to a stagnant
intestine that – guess what? – causes bloating. Added to that,
our meals are sterilised, our water is chlorinated and our
antibiotics are indiscriminate, destroying both the good and
bad bacteria in our belly, leaving our microbiome (the
community of microorganisms in our gut) unbalanced. “While
we may be protected from harmful bacteria, we are
not consuming any of the good bugs that are vital for gut
health and robust immunity,” says Carla Oates, founder of The
Beauty Chef. “The modern food, water and medicine we>
171
WELLENESS