Latest / The Body Rhythm: Nervous System Health, Digestion & Daily Rhythms for Women / Ep. 13 Why You Feel Bloated Even When You Eat Healthy (It’s Not the Food)

Transcript

Ep. 13 Why You Feel Bloated Even When You Eat Healthy (It’s Not the Food) · The Body Rhythm: Nervous System Health, Digestion & Daily Rhythms for Women

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Body Rhythm Podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Chelsea Johnson, talking all things diet, lifestyle, health, and healing with a dose of heart and soul.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the body rhythm.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: And today we're asking why your digestion changes when life gets stressful.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: If your digestion feels unpredictable when life gets stressful, this episode I hope will connect some dots.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's so much conflicting information out there.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Gluten is bad, keto is best, ginger shots fix everything, protein bars are healthy.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: No wonder we're all so confused.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so today I want to simplify this and bring it back to something much more simple, much more personal, which is your body, your appetite, your digestive fire.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'd also like to let you know that I am guiding a 14-day spring reset this April focused on calming stress and studying and supporting digestion.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll share a bit more at the end of today's episode.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get to it.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is the truth that no one likes to hear.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: So when clients, friends, family ask me what they should eat or what they should do for their digestive system, I can offer general guidance, you know.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: But the truest answer is it depends.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: It depends on your unique body, it depends on the seasons that we're in, it depends on what is happening in your life, depends on the time of day that you're eating a specific food.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: So my niece plays volleyball, she does swim, she is in the ninth grade, she obviously has different needs than me, than a woman in my 40s.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: She asks me all the time what to eat for sports.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: My answer is gonna be a bit different than how I would talk to a woman who is closer to my age.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Someone with a more fiery driven energy needs different support than someone who has more slow and sedentary energy.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that person is gonna have something different than someone who has more anxiety or racing thoughts.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Someone who is under chronic stress, someone who is experiencing burnout or overwhelm has a different digestive capacity than someone whose nervous system is regulated, whose nervous system feels steady.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, morning digestion is different from evening digestion.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Midday is different than morning or evening, summer digestion is different from fall and spring, and so all these factors kind of come together as we begin to explore what it is that works best for you.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Digestive wellness in Ayurveda is not a one-size-fits-all approach, and the real work is learning to recognize what your body needs and when your body needs it.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: In Ayurveda, we call digestion agni.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: It is digestive fire, it is digestive capacity, it is your appetite, your metabolism, your digestive enzymes, it's the ability to take in food, take in experiences, and transform it into nourishment.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Agni also is the ability to digest life experiences, to be able to take in those experiences, metabolize them, keep what you need to keep, and then let go what no longer serves you, what you no longer need.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so our digestive fire, our Agni is transformative.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: When our Agni is strong, we feel a steady hunger.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: We feel hunger when we wake up in the morning.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: We are able to eat and digest food well, so we don't have or we have very minimal digestive symptoms such as bloating or gas or constipation or heartburn.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Our energy feels stable throughout the day.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: When our agni is disrupted, our appetite fluctuates.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps we're not hungry in the morning, perhaps we aren't hungry at lunchtime, right?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: We have more digestive symptoms such as bloating or gas or heartburn.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Our cravings intensify, inflammation begins to build, and so we often override our agni without realizing it.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we override our agni by eating in front of screens and missing our fullness cues because we're focused on external stimuli.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Missing fullness cues can look like not paying attention to the first small burp as we're eating.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: When we stop eating, when we do this first full burp, we're giving the digestive system enough room to digest everything that we've given it.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: When we eat to a feeling of heaviness and stuffedness, then our digestive organs don't have enough room to do all of the metabolizing and breaking down that we need.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's one way that we override Agni without realizing it.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: We also do it by skipping meals when we're busy.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: So Agni really is best and is at its greatest capacity when we're on a steady rhythm, when we eat breakfast at the same time every day, lunch at the same time, and dinner at the same time.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is because we are giving the body cues that it knows to start gearing up for a meal to get digestion ready to go.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And when we skip meals and we get off of this rhythm, Agni doesn't know when it sort of needs to start getting that bonfire ready.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: When we graze or graze without appetite, so when we graze, it requires our Agni to always be on, it never gets a chance to reset.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so ideally, we would like to eat a meal and give our Agni enough time to process the entire meal and get itself ready for the next meal.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: But when we graze, then our Agni is always digesting and it never gets a chance to sort of reset for the next meal.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: When we eat late, our digestion is naturally weaker, and so our agni doesn't have as much capacity as it does earlier in the day.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's important to remember that digestive fire has a rhythm, it is strongest in the middle of the day.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's the best time for our biggest meal, that's the best time to eat our heaviest foods, right?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: If we're gonna have pizza or Thai food or hamburgers, let's eat it in the middle of the day when our digestive fire is at its best.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is when our body is most able to handle those complex digestive meals.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so keeping the evenings for lighter, simpler meals, things that don't require so much from our digestifier, things like soups, well-seasoned fish, maybe some nice sauteed greens or vegetables, making things well spiced so that they're easier on our digestion.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: When our digestion is incomplete, when food isn't fully digested, when we override our agni, then this creates what Ayurveda calls ama or toxic buildup.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this toxic buildup begins to be distributed throughout the entire body.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And ama forms when we eat without hunger, when we eat beyond capacity, when we stuff ourselves, when we don't pay attention to that first burp, when we eat heavy foods, when digestive digestion is weak, when we eat late at night or late night snacking, when we eat while stressed, right?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: All of these things begin to create ama in our system, and over time the ama begins to circulate throughout the body, and this contributes to inflammation and can contribute to more inflamed digestive responses.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Think of SIBO, ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is why digestive symptoms and immune symptoms are often connected.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: These symptoms are usually the result of a long time of ama being circulated throughout the body and Agni being weak.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: So there are different patterns of appetite.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I don't like to label yourself.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: We can get too caught up in the label, but these are just patterns to begin recognizing in yourself, maybe in your family and friends.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: So there is fiery digestion.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is strong appetite, irritability if you skip meals or being hangry.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: This type of digestion naturally gravitates towards more fiery foods like pizza, salsa, hot sauces, right?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Fire likes fire.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Slower digestion can look like low appetite in the morning, prefer one large meal in the daytime, craves sweets like uh cakes and ice cream.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: The third type of digestion is variable digestion.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's ravenous, sometimes no hunger at all, sometimes you can skip uh meals all day and then realize how you got to dinner time and you haven't eaten anything.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Stress can often push us into the variable category.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's important to note because digestive shifts are often stress shifts, they are often connected, and so looking at emotional eating, let's be honest, we all eat emotionally, and the key isn't to eliminate it.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think we can.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: The key is awareness.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe when you feel like a craving, place a hand on the heart and the hand on the belly and ask what it is that I'm needing right now.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: What is it that this craving would give me?
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Would it give me a sense of grounding?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Would it give me a sense of sweetness?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Would it give me a sense of love?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Am I truly hungry or am I wanting something else?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Am I trying to soothe something else?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're trying to soothe something else, maybe it's choosing something warm, simple, and easy to digest.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you're craving sweetness or love, right, maybe it's that piece of chocolate cake or that ice cream, can you eat it in a loving way with intention, not stuffing it in your face and then it's gone and you still have that emptiness inside that that feeling that still isn't soothed?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: But can you take a time, a moment, to eat that thing that you're craving with awareness with outside distraction?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: For me, when I am craving something at nighttime, I used to crave peanut butter and jellies for the longest time, but now I have turned that into a spiced turmeric milk with a little maple syrup, and it satisfies without overwhelming digestion.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: It has the spices to help Agni, but it also has that little bit of sweetness, which for me who has a variable appetite, that little bit of sweetness, that soothing comfort comes through with the maple syrup added.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Some things that are generally easier to digest is fresh foods, foods from the farmer market, seasonal foods to where you are.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: So fruits and vegetables that are in season in the area where you live.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Naturally, these support our bodies more than foods that are shipped from long distances.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Minimally processed foods support digestion.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Our body doesn't have to deal with these complex ingredients to break down.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Warm, moist, cooked foods are always best or better than raw and cold foods.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is because our agni is naturally fiery, it's naturally warm and hot.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And when we put raw and cold foods on it, for instance, a salad, we're like throwing water onto our digestive capacity.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: So we just want to be a bit more mindful that we aren't throwing water on the digestive capacity that we need to process the foods a little bit better.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: And also our internal environment is warm, it's moist.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: So some warm, moist foods maybe to incorporate our stewed apples, which are easier to digest than raw apples.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Raw apples tend to induce bloating and gas.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Stewed apples, when they're stewed on the stove with a little bit of cinnamon, some cardamom, maybe a clove or two, are easier on the digestive system because they are spiced and they are warm and they are moist.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Soups are easier to digest than protein bars.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Cooked veggies are easier than cold, raw salads.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Many healthy foods or what we consider healthy are actually hard to digest.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Protein bars because they're dry.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Large raw salads are cold and rough.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Raw carrots and broccoli are dry and cold.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we begin to think about this, what are the qualities of the foods that I'm eating?
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Then we begin to really bring holistic digestive wellness into our experience.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this doesn't mean that you can never eat those foods, right?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe not all the time.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if it's summertime and a nice salad would be really great.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's already hot outside.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: The body is already likely very, very hot, and a salad might be really, really good, or a nice veggie smoothie, right?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: If we already have a fiery digestion, some of these raw, cold foods actually can balance that fire.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it really depends on our unique body chemistry, the time of the year, and what's happening.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: So portion size, your stomach is about the size of your cupped hands.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's usually about the size that you want your portions to be.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: What would fit in front of your cupped hands?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: The first burp is also a beautiful cue to pay attention to.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that goes into food goes into us.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: The soil quality, how it was grown, how it was harvested, the emotional state of the person preparing it.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: For instance, if we're eating at a restaurant, cooking can be a meditation when we prepare the food with presents.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: That quality transfers to those that eat the food that we prepare.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so, food then is not just about nutrients, it's about energy.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just like to leave you with this that digestive wellness from a Ayurvedic perspective isn't about perfect macros, it's not about restriction, it's not about cutting entire food groups, it's not about following trends.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: It is eating when hungry, eating your largest meal in the middle of the day, choosing warm, digestible foods when you're stressed out, recognizing emotional hunger and calming your nervous system.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because digestion is deeply tied to stress.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: If your life is overwhelming, your digestion will reflect it.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're noticing that your digestion has been feeling unpredictable, it's heavy, inflamed, or it's tied to stress, I Am guiding a 14-day spring reset in April focused on calming the nervous system, studying and supporting digestion, and simplifying food choices and creating a daily rhythm.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of managing symptoms alone, you'll have structure and support, and you can learn more in the show notes.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining me on this episode of The Body Rhythm and be well nourished.