Banish bloating
Is a bloated tummy a regular, even daily occurrence for you? If so, no doubt the discomfort of it feels like the bane of your existence.
Bloating can be created by myriad factors — sometimes it’s food intolerances or poor digestion, sometimes a sex hormone imbalance or an overworked liver. Uncovering and supporting whatever has gone awry is the key to effectively managing and resolving bloating.
Here are some of the common issues to help you identify which body system might need support:
Sex hormone imbalance
If your bloating rolls around regularly at a specific time of the month, it’s likely caused by either too much estrogen, not enough progesterone, or both. Sometimes referred to as estrogen dominance, it can be due to an overwhelmed liver (see below for more on this) or a relentless output of stress hormones interfering with ovulation and therefore good progesterone production.
Estrogen wants a menstruating female to conceive every month of her life – whether that is in her plans or not! As a result of this, estrogen makes sure that there is adequate body fat to ensure that the brand-new foetus survives. Challenges with estrogen metabolism can therefore also lead to additional fat storage, particularly around the thighs, bottom and hips, to better serve reproductive processes. Estrogen dominance in the second part of the cycle also promotes breast tenderness and fluid retention, leading to a woman feeling “puffy and swollen” and her clothes not fitting the way she would like.
For perimenopausal women, an estrogen dominance scenario can be created as ovulation becomes less regular (ovulation is the trigger for the surge in progesterone). They may notice a worsening of PMS symptoms and bloating during this time. If adrenal function is compromised leading up to or during perimenopause (from a relentless output of stress hormones), it is likely recycled estrogen and low progesterone are both playing a role in bloating.
If this sounds like you, depending on which life stage you're at, our Cycle Essentials or Meno Magic products may work to reduce or eliminate your bloating. Both products work to help balance sex hormones and support your endocrine system. Cycle Essentials is best for those across the menstruation years, while Meno Magic is best suited to women who are also experiencing common menopausal symptoms such as hot flushes and night sweats.
An unhappy liver
Your liver is responsible for transforming any substance that would be harmful to you if it accumulated inside you – think alcohol, preservatives, refined sugars, pesticides and other artificial substances (we call them liver loaders). If the load on the liver is too great for it to handle, those problematic substances can start to accumulate and may signal to the body to hang onto additional fluid to try to dilute their effects.
Our digestion and the health of our gut can also impact on our liver’s efficacy. If we’ve been stressed or prone to a touch of overindulgence and are struggling with poor digestion, the inefficient clearance of the by-products of digestion can also lead to bloating.
After years of over-consuming liver-loaders, and/or hormonal or bowel problems, the detoxification pathways of the liver can become ‘congested’, like traffic on a motorway. This can lead to a recycling of estrogen back through the bloodstream. Excess estrogen alone can lead to bloating, not to mention the ratio between estrogen and progesterone – through the menstruation, perimenopausal and post-menopausal years.
If you’re someone who knows in their heart that maybe they’ve been overindulging in liver loaders or who experiences chronic menstrual, menopausal or bowel problems, you may like to try Bio Blends Liver Love to help combat your bloating. It contains foods and herbs that support healthy liver function and efficient detoxification pathways. It can also help the body to clear excess estrogen through these detoxification and elimination processes.
An accumulation of waste products
If our digestion is compromised, it’s likely we aren’t absorbing the nutrients from our food as effectively as we could be. We also need a healthy gut microbiome and robust digestion to support efficient elimination. If we lose that and an accumulation of waste products occurs, it may result in IBS type symptoms, inflammation in the gut (and the rest of the body) and an overarching lethargy. The consequences of poor digestion will also flow on to other biochemical processes in the body (such as liver function, as explained above) as a healthy gut lies at the heart of all health.
If you feel that your body could use some help with its efficiency in eliminating waste products, Organic Daily Greens and Radiant Reds can assist with this and many other processes. The greens aspect of the powder is particularly potent - think of it like a vacuum cleaner, helping your body get rid of the rubbish you don’t need and enhancing your intake of phytonutrients (beneficial plant-based substances).
