Inside your gut are 100 trillion living bacteria, known as the gut microbiome. These living bacteria control how you break down the food that you eat. Over time, modern life destroys many of these fragile bacteria strains, as you encounter stress, sugar, antibiotics and environmental toxins.
When this happens, digestive function decreases, and your digestive acids are weakened. Instead processing smoothly through your body, food sits in your body and ferments, producing uncomfortable sensations like reflux, gas and morning bloating.
When this happens, we often take “antacids” which further deplete our digestive enzymes. Actually, what we need is the exact opposite; we need our digestive process to be more powerful, not less, so that the food will be properly broken down and passed through the system.
The feeling of bloat in the morning is due to the fact that food remains inside your system, that should have been processed and expelled. Ideally, you should be having at least one bowel movement per day. For optimum gut health, this happens in the morning, clearing your system of the previous day’s waste and giving you a fresh start.
Instead, what often happens is that we rush out of the house, and don’t have the first bowel movement until after the first cup of coffee – or sometimes, not at all. Then the food waste sits inside the body, stored in the bowel, fermenting and releasing toxins.
Tips to beat the bloat?
• Drink unflavoured goats milk kefir every morning before food. A powerful probiotic like kefir helps to put the good bugs back in your system, restoring your digestive power.
• Set your alarm for 30 minutes earlier, allowing your body to gently wake up and get going. This gives you time to expel the previous day’s waste from your system, setting your up for the day.
• Drink a cup of warm water and lemon first thing, to get your digestive system going.
• Take digestive enzymes and HCL with pepsin before meals for 3 weeks, while you take your first course of kefir + prebiotic. This will boost your digestive process until the kefir and the prebiotics can kick in and begin to heal your system.
• Take 1 teaspoon of psyllium husk mixed into warm water, before bedtime. This will ease the process of waste through your system, helping to get things going in the morning.