“Ive been significantly less bloated past couple of days, improving each day. Im so thrilled. The diet and probiotics are working!”
I got this email from a client yesterday. This is coming from a client who after a year of stress started getting bloating and GI distress. They contacted me as this is one of the issues that respond well with an anti-inflammatory diet!
When clients have GI distress, there is usually inflammation in the digestive tract, and the body can get super sensitive to foods, additives and vegetables. With this client, after asking about stressed in their life in the past year (and there was a whole year helping their mother with a really tough health issue and the constant care), then the chronic antibiotic use for sinus infections and colds, then steroids for an injury all contribute to this inflammation in the gut and also to the gut flora and integrity of the intestinal lining to degrade.
When I work with clients, I need to talk to them to find out the history. I always look at stress and ask if there has been any in the past which may correspond with when the symptoms originated. In this case, the stress was a definite trigger! And when you look at the body as a whole, the digestive tract can be affected by stress. For some it is diarrhea, constipation, bloating, fatigue, headaches, gassiness to name a few.
What you tend to eat during these times of stress can just make it worse. The body is in a state of stress, and usually we reach for wheat and sugar based items. These are both highly 
inflammatory, then the gluten in the wheat can also coat that intestinal tract (it is like sticky glue) and over time builds up and degrades the intestinal tract.
With this client, the initial steps are to identify foods that are aggravating the condition. Then we work on inclulding anti-inflammatory foods including cooked cruciferous vegetables, turmeric root, lemon in water and more.
We work on adding probiotics and anti-inflammatory fish oils to lessen the fire. then we will work on rebuilding the intestinal lining. This whole process can take over 6 months depending on the client or less.
But I do have to admit….i LOVE getting emails saying the symptoms are going away! Then we both know we are on the right track! The anti-inflammatory diet works on more than just pain, and it can work on getting you less bloated even in the beginning stages! Just like my client said ‘The diet is working!”
It can work for you, too!
Today I got this email:
“For the first time since a couple of days in JANUARY, I woke up to a pretty much flat stomach!! HALLELUJAH”