A little indulgence at Christmas is perfectly normal, but rich food and overeating can play havoc with your digestion, leaving you feeling bloated and uncomfortable. It’s not surprising – on average we consume three times a normal day’s food on Christmas Day alone! Follow my tips below to trouble-proof your digestion and avoid the Christmas bloat…
There are a variety of reasons why the holidays create more digestive troubles than the rest of the year:
- Being with others may mean you’re talking and laughing your way through your meals, which often results in eating faster (and more) than usual, making it harder for your digestive system to break foods down
- Heavier foods than you’re used to can trigger heartburn and reflux, or make IBS symptoms worse
- Many people drink more alcohol than normal, which can irritate the gut and cause bloating and discomfort
Does this sound familiar?
The good news is that although festive food and drink can be tough on the digestive system, it doesn’t have to be this way. Here are six tips to keep your digestion working smoothly:
1. Use your senses
The first step in the digestive process is often overlooked, but it’s a really important one. Known as the cephalic phase, it’s triggered when you see or smell food. You are literally whetting your appetite.
When you begin thinking about the delicious meal you are going to eat, you start your digestive juices flowing. The enzymes in your saliva help you break down your food more easily, so, when the time comes, your body is actually ready to start digesting the food before you have even cut the first slice – never mind actually put anything in your mouth.
It may sound an incredibly simple step – and it is – but these days we are often so busy that we don’t make the time to think about our food in this way. If you find you’re always eating on the go, inhaling a sandwich at your desk or having a TV dinner, this is a vital step you are missing out on. One trick is to be mindful and try and spend a few minutes thinking about your tasty lunch before you eat it to get the digestive juices going.
2. Chew your food
Remember what Mum used to say? Well, she was right! Chewing your food (the second phase of digestion) is key when it comes to good gut health. With proper chewing, you are mechanically breaking down the food into smaller pieces, so that there’s a greater surface area available for the digestive enzymes to work on.
And the bad news? If you’re not chewing properly, it’s highly likely that you’re not digesting your food properly. And that means you won’t be absorbing the vital nutrients either.
Not chewing also means the food you eat takes much longer to break down, and, as it hangs around in your digestive system, it can start to ferment, causing uncomfortable wind, gas and bloating.
Don’t worry about chewing a certain number of times – that all depends on what you are eating and various other factors.
Instead try this test: chew your food enough so that if someone asked you to spit it out, they wouldn’t know what you had been eating. Another sign you need to chew more is if you start to see undigested food in your stools.
3. Balance your stomach acid
Sales for heartburn tablets are skyrocketing because so many people wrongly assume that their digestive troubles are because of too much stomach acid. What nutritionists like me find more frequently in clinic is the total opposite! Getting older, stress and some over-the-counter medications can make your stomach acid levels drop to the extent that you don’t produce enough to digest food sufficiently.
Why is this important? The stomach acid you produce not only kills any bacteria in the food you are eating, it also breaks down the protein in your meal – think turkey and pigs in blankets with your Christmas dinner!
If you’re not properly digesting the protein in the food you eat, it can start to ferment, creating gases that force open the oesophageal sphincter muscle (a muscle flap) and what little stomach acid there is can escape. This is often mistaken for excess stomach acid, when it fact it’s the complete opposite.
So a burning feeling after eating could be a sign your digestion isn’t working as well as it should be.
One solution is to have a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar before each main meal – look for a raw apple cider vinegar with the ‘mother’. You can either take it neat or mix with some sparkling water for a pre-dinner drink!
There are people who genuinely produce too much stomach acid and, if you try the apple cider vinegar trick and it seems to make things worse, you can neutralise the acid by consuming a little bicarbonate of soda.
4. Take a digestive enzyme supplement
Digestive enzymes break down our food into nutrients so our bodies can absorb them. But as we age, we naturally produce fewer of these helpful enzymes. You can counteract this by increasing your intake of foods that are higher in them – eating pineapple or papaya before a meal can help.
If you aren’t a fan of these fruits, you could try a digestive enzyme capsule which will give your system a gentle boost to help it do its job properly. Book a call with me to discuss this if you think your digestion might need this extra help.
5. Time out
It’s important to space out your meals so the digestive system gets a chance to rest. This might require some self discipline if your house is routinely full of bowls of nuts or towers of chocolate boxes over Christmas.
Eating every 3-4 hours is a good benchmark to aim for, and gives the body enough time to completely digest the previous meal and have a break before you put it to work again. Of course there will be days when your eating routine falls out of whack, but don’t beat yourself up. Just try and get back on track the following day.
6. Walk it off
When you walk shortly after you’ve eaten, magic starts to happen. To start, a gentle walk lowers your blood sugar levels, so your body makes less insulin. As insulin is the fat-storage hormone, taking a gentle stroll for 15 minutes makes you less likely to store fat and gain weight. Walking can also help you digest your food better, according to research. This is because a gentle walk increases the speed at which the food moves through the digestive system.
So, if you know that your digestion suffers at Christmas time, then this year I encourage you to try these tips for yourself and see if any of your symptoms improve.
If you have been struggling with digestive problems for a while, let’s book in a complimentary health review. I can help you understand what might be going on in your gut and with my guidance you can take steps towards a resolution.
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