Sport I get bloated easily, ideas?

[bassman8]

I have a doctor's appointment in mid August and I'm going to discuss this with him, just so we're clear.

I have a problem with bloating... when I wake up, I look great. My abs look great and I look trim. Sometimes I'll stay this way throughout the day. If I pull my shirt taught, you can see my abs through it. Other times, I will get bloated in a beer-gun way and if I pull my shirt tight it looks (at least to me) like I have a huge gut.

First things first. I'm 5'5", ~125 pounds. I'm less than 10% body fat (but probably not too much less) and I'm in really good shape. I do not lift, but I run 2.5 miles every other day. The days I don't run I do A LOT of calisthenics of all kinds, variations of push ups being my favorite. I also do 100 crunches of different sorts when I wake up and usually before dinner or just before bed, every day. I walk EVERYWHERE, at least a mile day, but usually around 3 or 4. I also get maybe 5-30 miles in on a bike every week, so I consider myself an active person.

My diet is pretty simple. I do not drink alcohol or eat fast food of any variety. Every morning for breakfast I have about a serving and a half of Quaker Oats (like 3/4 cup of oatmeal) made with 1/4 cup skim milk and 1/4 cup water. I eat it plain or with cinnamon.

I eat lunch about 4 hours after breakfast with minimal snacking inbetween. If I do snack, it is usually on blueberries, homemade bread (2/3 white flour, 1/3 whole wheat) or a banana.

For lunch I eat a hardboiled egg drenched in hot sauce and a piece of fruit. I also usually eat a large part of the homemade bread, which is dense and filling... often eat that with hummus, which is homemade and made extremely spicy.

For a mid-day snack I usually eat more bread and hummus, but never a lot of bread.

For dinner I always have 2/3 green vegetables and 1/3 meat. I do not eat red meat, mostly chicken or fish just about every night, but some nights I will eat a salad of 1/2 lettuce and green peppers and 1/2 pinto beans (drenched in hot sauce). Other nights I will just eat a cup of broccoli or spinach and an egg. Any chicken or eggs I eat are always drenched in hot sauce.

OK, I am sorry for the book but I wanted everything out there and writing my diet out has made me realize that I eat A LOT of bread and spicy foods. I never eat to the point where I feel "heavy" after a meal, but I do like to stuff my face with oatmeal when I first wake up.

I eat a lot of hot sauce, and 95% of my sodium intake comes from there. I'm thinking that I may have IBS. Not to get disgusting, but I usually go #2 right when I wake up and then I usually don't go again for 24 hours, although sometimes I'll go again right after breakfast but my excrement looks extremely healthy.

I notice that when I get bloated, I go #2 a lot more and the texture is a lot more watery and less consistent. I drink a lot of water, I probably average around 3 liters a day.

I'm thinking I eat too much spicy foods and wheat products. I cannot live without oatmeal in the morning, but perhaps I should cut the bread out? Does any one have any thoughts?

 

[summer123]

I was going to suggest you had alot of could-be-bloat-inducing foods in your diet, your gut reaction (sorry for the pun!) seems to be with the hot foods and I'd go with that. Why do you feel the need to have the sauce to such an extent? are you using it as an appetite suppresant?

With regards to the oatbran and oat flakes, they are two different things. Oatmeal is far less bloat inducing (its normally the refined stuff that has the effect- not in every case but in most cases).

The fruit and veggies can also induce bloating and this is normal. Its nothing you can do anything about and to do with the breaking down of the fibers so that your body can digest them. Beans work in a similar way.

Try a few things, maybe not all at the same time but give each one a two week shot before gradually bringing it back into your diet, see if it has any effect:

Cut out the hot sauce- at the least cut it down but I suspect this will be harder to control or keep to a moderate level. It could be your addicted to the sugar in it which is not a good thing. Keep it out of your diet for a full 2 weeks, if after those two weeks you still feel you really want it, try adding chilli powder mixed with pepper rather then the chilli sauce as its very easy to get out of control with sugar filled sauces.

The amount of salt in your diet may mean you water retain. If your having things which are high sodium your body is likely to react by retaining water, this can be anywehre but does seem to happen around the face, ankles and lower limbs so may not be the cause of your bloating. Having said that there are always those that buck the rules! Your drinkng 3L a day, do you exercise alot? an hour of exercise a day would account for you requiring 3L a day, if your not doing an hour a day I'd worry that your body is requesting that much water and really do something about your salt intake, like fast!

Swap your refined carbs for complex carbs (not brown or white bread, eat multigrain bread instead, Wholegrain pasta and not white pasta, brown rice and not white rice...) this could help as some people are sensitive to refined foods and it can cause bloating. Maybe in the morning, have whole rolled porridge oats and oat bran, maybe not the oat flakes which sound like they are refined and have added sugar in them. (Check the label for the first 5 ingredience). I doubt it would be the bread alone. If your allergic to wheat and so bread, you'd be losing vast amounts of muscle as well as bloating and be feeling very tierd rather then soley bloating.

Protein wise, things will always cause gas, its what protein does and theres nothing you can do about it. Some forms however can react more then others, things loike beans and eggs can have this effect, maybe try swapping some of that with soya/tofu, meat, nuts or fish so your having more variety every day.