image of desiree nielsen RD in kitchen, eating an apple

As a gut health dietitian with IBS-D herself, I get it: bloating is a BEAST. And it’s actually a lot more complex than most people realize…but in over a decade of practice, I’ve learned a lot of tricks and tools for getting to the bottom of things with clients. So if you’re trying to figure out how to get rid of bloating, I’ve got some concrete and practical tips to help you figure out what to eat, how to eat, and a few sneaky (and sometimes surprising) lifestyle approaches to beat the bloat.

Bloating seems like such a simple thing, but it actually took me years of working in private practice, leading up to me writing my own cookbook focused on gut health nutrition, to really understand that bloating was not a single, uniform experience that could be fixed with a one-size-fits-all solution.

So before we go any further, you’re gonna need a way to figure out what kind of bloating you might be dealing with. The best strategy is to start keeping a basic food and symptom journal, and then review it against what you’ll learn in this blog post. Even if it’s not immediately apparent to you, your journal will be so helpful to a doctor or dietitian.

The other thing you need to know, because there is a lot of misinformation spread about bloating online, is that it’s totally normal to get bloated sometimes. Occasional bloating isn’t a sign of anything bad…because literally, everyone toots! Studies have shown that the average person generates 0.6-1.8L of gas per day…even if they don’t realize it.

For lots of people, the passage of gas through the digestive tract causes no symptoms and is a sign of a healthy, happy gut. But some people experience frequent burping or belching, uncomfortable abdominal bloating, pain and lots of gas.

If this sounds like you and you have significant ongoing digestive issues, the first thing to do is get a check up with your health care practitioner to rule out any serious underlying causes. Then, come see one of our experienced dietitians to help make taking care of your gut a little less complicated.

First things first: do you have bloating, or distention?

Your experience of bloating might be totally different from someone else’s. It might be a feeling of excessive fullness after eating. Some people have bloating with gas (from either end), and it might be painful. Some people get relief after going to the bathroom, some people wake up bloated, while others find that their bloating builds as the day progresses. What you might be surprised to know is that while bloating often feels like too much gas, research suggests that it isn’t always the case. All of this is bloating…but distention is when these feelings are connected to an actual, physical increase in the size of your waist. It can be measured.

So…why the heck I am so bloated?

Because bloating doesn’t look the same for everyone, you might expect that it has multiple causes…and you’d be right! What causes bloating for one person might not be the same for another. It could be one, or a combination of culprits. Also, let me set the record straight and say that bloating is a symptom of something else, not a medical condition unto itself.

So while we’re gonna get into basic everyday bloating triggers, I want to remind you of the conditions that can cause excess bloating to encourage you to see your doctor before you do anything else: irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), celiac disease, constipation, gastroparesis, cancer, endometriosis, or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO).

If your bloating is accompanied by any of the following symptoms, you should see a doctor immediately: blood in your stool, difficulty swallowing, recurrent vomiting, unintentional weight loss, fever, or jaundice. 

Basic, everyday causes of bloating…and their fixes

The all-too-common internet trope is, if you’re bloated, you’re intolerant to something, so cut it out. Not so fast! Intolerance is real, but it’s not always the real issue. So we’re gonna start with some super basic causes of bloating that have nothing to do with elimination diets. This is where you should start.

  • Swallowing air, via gum chewing, or talking with food in your mouth, or drinking fizzy drinks. I’m looking at you fizzy drink fans (also me). All that gas has to go somewhere…up or down.
  • Eating too quickly, and not chewing properly. Also me. The better you chew your food, the more efficiently you will digest it, leading to less sluggish digestion and fermentation in the gut. This includes drinking nutrient-dense smoothies too quickly! This seems too simple to be a thing. But it can absolutely be transformative for some folks.
  • Overeating at a meal, especially large, higher fat meals that slow down the gut. Worth noting, if we wait too long between meals, or skip meals altogether, we tend to overeat at the next one. Prime bloating situation.
  • Constant snacking + grazing. For someone with sluggish motility, constant food in the gut can eliminate the “cleaning cycle” of the gut called the migrating motor complex. Giving your gut a 3-4 hour break between meals can help activate it.
  • Sluggish digestion, due to slow stomach emptying, inadequate fiber intake, or constipation. Constipation is super common and a major underlying cause of bloating as you’re literally full of stool.
  • Rapid dietary changes, such as increasing your fiber intake too quickly. Friends don’t let friends fibermaxx.
  • Dysbiosis: imbalance in the intestinal bacteria due to food poisoning, traveller’s diarrhea or lifestyle.
  • Stress. After constipation, this is the most overlooked cause of bloating in my opinion.
  • Sitting all day in too tight clothing. Tight waistbands impede the movement of the gut and can lead to painful, trapped gas. Try lower waist pants. Or size up. Or wear more flowy dresses. This is a far more common trigger than you think.

What to do if you’re super bloated, right now

If you’re feeling bloated right now, theory is great, but you want relief, fast. These are a few things that might help.

  • Drink some strong peppermint tea. Peppermint is a carminative, meaning it helps to relax the gut muscles which can ease the pain of bloating. Use 2 tea bags per cup, steep it 5 minutes, squeeze out the tea bags into the cup and sip. Or, take enteric coated peppermint oil as needed. Just note that peppermint can make reflux worse.
  • Move your body. Gentle exercise, like a slow 15 minute walk helps improves gas clearance from the bowel AKA a fart walk. You can also search “yoga for bloating” for some abdominal twists and compressions that help move things along.
  • Chew fresh, pickled, candied or dried ginger or sip it as a tea throughout the day. Ginger helps with stomach emptying, so this is especially helpful if your bloating feels like over fullness, and comes soon after a meal.
  • Chew a few organic fennel seeds after a meal. Fennel is a traditional remedy for gas and improving digestion.
  • Apply heat. A hot water bottle – or a hot bath – can help ease things along.
  • Try soft, lower fat foods for a couple of days if it’s really bad. If your gut is sluggish, the texture of food arriving into your stomach matters! Anything you can do to pre-blend your meal before swallowing will help to give things a break. Think smoothies, blended soups, easy to digest foods like rice, tofu, baked sweet potato and yogurt. And as much as we love our healthy fats, you want to aim for low fat foods right now, as fat naturally breaks down slower in your stomach. 

What you won’t see us recommend are digestive enzymes for bloating. While many people feel they work for them, we don’t have a good evidence base for their effectiveness. If they fit the budget, they are probably fine for an occasional rescue remedy. However, digestive enzymes aren’t fixing the underlying cause of bloating so if you find you are reaching for them daily, better to get some one-on-one advice from a dietitian.

How to get a handle on bloating, for good

  • Consider food intolerances if the basics don’t do it for you. Maybe it’s celiac disease. Maybe it’s FODMAPS, which are fermentable carbohydrates that can be poorly tolerated, especially by folks with irritable bowel syndrome and other digestive issues. Lactose is a common one. Talk to your doctor and dietitian.
  • Investigate sneaky sources of fermentable fiber in your diet. If you love those sugar free candies, or high fiber sodas, the fermentable fibers they contain may actually be causing your bloating. Time to ditch ’em.
  • If journalling helps you realize that you don’t eat enough high fiber foods, increase fiber SLOWLY. It takes time for your gut to get used to fiber…and you definitely need to drink more water. Ideally, add 3-5g of fiber at a time, daily, until your gut adjusts. Only then you do add another 3-5g to your day.
  • Increase your soluble fibre specifically, if you’re constipated. Fibre helps people with sluggish colon motility or weaker pelvic floor muscles by bulking up their stools. Why is this important? Because they are easier to pass! In our practice, we like psyllium husks. Start with 1 teaspoon daily, working your way up to a tablespoon over a few weeks. Make sure you drink LOTS of water.
  • Try not to eat when super stressed or rushed. Digestion is hindered in these states, due to the brain-gut connection. I advise clients to do a full minute of box breathing (4-4-4-4) before they eat to slow down and get into “rest and digest” mode.
  • Avoid alcohol. It can irritate the gut and dehydrate, leading to constipation and microbiome changes.
  • Try to go 12 hours overnight without food, to allow for multiple Migrating Motor Complex (MMC) cycles to happen! The MMC helps clear gut contents through. Finish dinner by 7:30PM and then don’t eat breakfast until 7:30AM. This is NOT intermittent fasting.
  • Manage your stress! Stress can actually be an enormous contributor as there are very deep and complex connections between your brain and your enteric nervous system, with what happens in one area affecting the other. Write out a list of your favourite activities and try to do one a day. If exercise is one of those activities, lucky you, as you can kill two birds with one stone (ugh, I really do hate that expression!) as exercise helps promote movement in the gut and clearance of gas.

Like I said, bloating is SUPER complex and it would be impossible to distill it all down into one blog post…but I hope you found a few tips and aha! moments here to help get you started on the path to better.

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