Avoid Bloating: 4 Ways To Feel Better About Yourself

You know a woman’s worst enemy is her insecurities. As a teen, I struggled so much to come to terms with my body. I was never happy with myself and didn’t understand how to stop these negative emotions about myself. After many years of bringing me down, I finally decided to work on my mental as well as physical health. I identified the things that would make me feel insecure and I worked on bettering those aspects of myself. One of those things was my weight. I constantly felt like I looked puffy and never understood why I was feeling so tired. I finally realised that it was bloating that had become my naysayer. After every meal, I would feel horribly uncomfortable, so I decided to check what I was eating and started eliminating them one by one.

This tremendously helped in keeping track of what I was eating during the lockdown as well. While writing my book, Key to Good health, I was able to explore my healthy options and truly enjoy the food I was eating. Here are some of the best and worst things that you can eat when it comes to bloating:

Broccoli, Cabbage

There are some vegetables that take longer to process. Broccoli and cabbage are some of those vegetables that have a sugar called raffinose. This sugar needs the bacteria to ferment them which in turn changes it into gas, and thus makes you blast. However, if you eat some of these vegetables consistently, then your body is bound to become stronger and healthier and less prone to bloating. That is why, instead of completely avoiding them, you should have considerable amounts in time and preferably cook these vegetables. Cooking can soften the vegetable and not make it as uncomfortable as it would be if you were eating these vegetables raw.

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Legumes

You must have experienced this at some point in life: eating beans like peas, soybeans, lentils often cause gas in your body. Why? Because these are basically bursts of protein in a pod, rich with sugars and fibres that our body cannot absorb. It is always recommended to combine these legumes with digestible whole grains: say rice or quinoa that helps absorb the impact. It is always recommended to eat them in a small amount.

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Salty Foods

One of the sole reasons why people feel unimaginably bloated is because of high sodium foods in their everyday diet. Foods that have a lot of sodium in them can cause water retention which can balloon you up like crazy. And it isn’t that easy to walk away from high sodium foods as most of the snacks taste so good because of this one trait itself. Most processed and packaged foods like soups, bread, biscuits, chips, etc have surprisingly high sodium. This is why it is always better to cook fresh food instead of relying on prepackaged foods constantly.

Dairy

Here is a reason why a dairy doesn’t work: because you may be lactose intolerant. This you can tell if you feel gassy after a few slices of cheese or a glass of milk. Lactose intolerance is indicative of the fact that your body does not have necessary enzymes to break down lactose and this causes gas in the body. What you could do instead is steer clear of food that has lactose in them or you could rely on tablets that aid in lactose digestion.

Some of the foods that can help you reduce bloating is having cucumber: a source of a lot of water in your body. Bananas, papaya, fennel seeds, probiotic yoghurt, and ginger are some ways you can keep bloating in check.

Shipra Khanna is a celebrity chef who won MasterChef India season 2. For more recipes and food tips from Shipra Khanna, stay tuned to HerZindagi.