Wellness by Luke Coutinho: Punching the air

You’ve just had a great sweat sesh and you feel amazing about getting your daily dose of endorphins

You’ve just had a great sweat sesh and you feel amazing about getting your daily dose of endorphins. But… you feel bloated! Bloating post-workout might seem counterintuitive, but many people complain of it. Here are some reasons for the post-workout bloat and how you can combat it.

A bloated stomach usually occurs due to trapped gas, so removing it is key to reducing the bloat (Hexcode)

No gap between meal and workout

It is always advisable to leave a minimum of a 2-2.5-hour gap between your meal and workout. Working out immediately after a meal can interfere with your digestion as movement redirects the blood flow from the digestive system to the limbs. This can slow down digestion and leave you feeling bloated.

Gulping water during the workout

Have a habit of drinking water between exercises? You can definitely take small sips, but avoid gulping it down. Drinking a lot of water while working out can also leave you feeling bloated and uncomfortable, mostly because of the feeling of fullness and the sodium imbalance in the body. Besides that, gulping water when your respiration rate is already fast means that you end up swallowing air.

Mindlessly chugging protein shakes

Yes, we need protein. It is the building block of cells and muscle. We need protein to be lean and to perform, but many people take it the wrong way, over-consume it, and still don’t get the results they want. Consuming protein isn’t just about quantity. It’s also about quality and how efficiently your digestive system breaks it down and releases it into your blood.

While it is the right practice to eat a protein-rich meal or drink a protein shake post-workout, chugging a protein shake can lead to bloating and indigestion, if your stomach doesn’t have the right ratio of good and bad gut bacteria, or the right amount of stomach acids or digestive enzymes to break it down. Undigested protein can leave you feeling bloated.

Lifestyle tips to beat the bloat

Chew well

The simple act of chewing can sometimes be the only thing you can do to combat bloating. When you eat your food too quickly, you fail to use your teeth to break down the food into smaller particles, thus sending larger chunks of food into your stomach. This leads to the stomach producing more acid and enzymes to break down the food that your mouth should have taken care of already. This paves the way for acidity and indigestion. Furthermore, these undigested pieces of food travel down to your small intestine, irritating the mucosal linings of the intestine and causing gut inflammation, bloating, more acidity, and an imbalance of the gut microbiome. Ever experienced bloating after eating a heavy meal too quickly? That is due to bad gut bacteria behaving the wrong way and trapped gases, just because you ate too quickly and did not chew.

Fennel post meals

Spices like cumin (jeera), black pepper (kali mirch), bishop’s weed (ajwain), fennel seeds (saunf), thyme, and parsley have carminative properties, meaning they prevent flatulence by supporting the digestion of foods which are otherwise tough to digest and might form gases in individuals who have weak gut health. In the traditional ways of Indian cooking, these spices are a part of the recipe anyway, but the simple practice of chewing fennel seeds or saunf after meals can help prevent or ease bloating. Plus, fennel is a mouth freshener!

Vajrasana right after your meal

Vajrasana is perhaps the only asana you could do on a full stomach. This pose is best done right after a meal as it helps support digestion by directing all blood circulation towards your digestive system.

Anti-bloat tea

Even a simple brew of coriander seed can help flush out excess and trapped water from your system, making you feel better.

Here’s one recipe that really works well for our patients:

• 1 litre water

• 2 tbsp jeera

• 1 tbsp coriander seeds

• 1 tbsp fennel seeds

• 1 tsp ajwain

Soak overnight, boil the water in the morning and reduce it to half. Strain it, pour into a bottle and sip throughout the day.

Luke Coutinho practices in the space of Holistic Nutrition—Integrative & Lifestyle Medicine and is the founder of You Care-All about You by Luke Coutinho

From HT Brunch, October 8, 2022

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