Shedding unwanted puffiness

Do you feel depressed at times not being able to fit into your favorite pair of jeans? Do you feel like you have gained so much weight and inches after eating one meal? Do you feel frustrated that even though you are following a diet that is supposed to slim you down, you still feel swollen in the middle? Every woman goes through the feeling of being bloated before her period, but there are other reasons for the unwanted puffiness.

Human anatomy reminds us that the body, just like the earth, is 70 percent water. Daily, our bodies perform the delicate balancing act between holding and excreting water. Diet, kidney function, cardiovascular health, digestion and hormone balance can change the body’s water metabolism.

Diet can promote either dehydration or water retention. Some foods have a diuretic effect, causing water loss, while others encourage the body to hold water, leading to bloating and water retention. Ironically, deficiency in fluid intake may cause water retention. Experts explain that decreased fluid means increased toxins that the body cannot get rid of through the kidneys, so it holds water to try to dilute these unwanted products.

Many women experience bloating and water retention before their menstrual cycles, with some holding as much as 10 pounds of excess water weight a week or two before their menstrual flow begins. A relative excess of estrogen activity causes water retention associated with premenstrual syndrome (PMS). Many, but certainly not all, menopausal women may experience more pronounced PMS symptoms such as water retention, irritability, mood swings, and sore breasts.

How To Avoid It

The feeling of puffiness, aside from an upcoming menstruation, may be a result of poor food choices, trying new fad diets, eating on the run, pigging out on sweets, overeating, or starving. When we were children, our digestive system could easily adapt to such dietary changes. However, as we age, we produce less of the digestive acids that break down the food. Our system cannot handle the resulting imbalance and overload, so we get bloated.

Herbal teas can alleviate the symptoms but a total lifestyle change for the better is the long-term solution. Barbara Cravets, a licensed Chicago nutritionist and nutrition director of a chain of health food stores, cautions that you should see your doctor when you feel bloated or have cramps or diarrhea to rule out much more serious problems like an inflammation, yeast infection, malignancy, or a disease like Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis.

Aside from PMS and bad eating habits, bloating can also result from a food allergy. Cravets identifies the common culprits as wheat, dairy, corn, and soy. Various foods produce different reactions but carbohydrates, in particular, can produce gases that cause bloating.

Bloating can also result when you suddenly change your diet. If you shift abruptly to a vegetarian diet, for example, the increase in carbs and fiber creates an overload that your system is not used to. Eating a lot of refined carbohydrates such as bread, pasta, potatoes and rice is also one of the most common causes of bloating. Incidentally, please observe that these are also the high-glycemic-indexed foods that are said to cause obesity. Maybe, the resulting leanness is due to the elimination of puffiness.

Cravets says that highly refined sugar causes bloating "because sugar is easily fermented by bacterial and fungal organisms in the gut, which produces gas and alcohol." Beer and champagne fizz because of the combination of grains and sugars. So you can just imagine, according to Cravets, what happens inside your digestive system when grains and sugar mix.

So what is the bloat-free diet? There are no hard and fast rules but Cravets offers these simple tips:

• Cut back or eliminate simple sugars. Limit salt, dairy, and refined foods.

• Take acidophilus or a probiotic to increase the beneficial microorganisms in your digestive system.

• If you are increasing your fiber (fruits and vegetables), do it slowly.

• Drink plenty of water.

• Maintain good and frequent bathroom habits.

• Chew your food very well (the easier you can digest food, the less bloated you feel).

• Eat slowly and talk less while you eat (to prevent yourself from swallowing a lot of air).

• Reduce stress and get plenty of exercise (going for a walk after a meal does wonders).

• Try natural diuretics such as cranberry juice, kelp, parsley and watercress.

Cravets notes that since the lack of acids and over-supply of it have the same symptoms, people always make the mistake of taking antacids when they are bloated and full of gas. This makes matters worse as undigested foods are passed on to the small intestines. This leads to bloating, cramps and diarrhea. So next time you take an antacid and it does not work, you know that you do not have an excess amount of acids. Go to your doctor, you may lack healthy gut flora and digestive acids or worse, you may have a different medical problem (like cancer).

Good Food Choices

Dr. Andrew Weil, America’s favorite doctor, claims that proper diet and exercise can help eliminate bloating. He emphasizes that excessive amounts of salt in the diet can cause water retention. Hence, one should avoid heavily salted foods and increase intake of foods that are high in other important electrolyte nutrients such as potassium, magnesium, and calcium. Good food choices include celery, green leafy vegetables, and whole grains.

He adds that according to Chinese medical thinking, very cold, raw, or excessively fatty foods increases "dampness" or water retention in the body. Therefore, he warns against iced drinks, fried foods, ice cream, and raw vegetables. Focus should be shifted to steamed vegetables, room temperature or warm water, cooked whole grains, and a moderate amount of fish or lean meat.

At least eight 8-ounce glasses (a total of 64 ounces, or 1/2 gallon) of filtered water should be consumed each day, he reminded us.

For supplementation, researchers have discovered that vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) helps reduce premenstrual symptoms. "Keep in mind that the B vitamins work best in combination with each other. A balanced B vitamin supplement is a better choice than taking vitamin B6 alone," he prescribes. Look for a B complex with 50 mg. of vitamin B6.

Fluid retention, causing abdominal bloating and swelling before the start of menstrual periods, can create a lot of stress to women who have distorted body images and obsessive fears of getting fat, he observed. Regardless, Dr. Weil is against the unhealthy habit of taking OTC or prescribed diuretic drugs, "which are likely to be harder on the system than retained fluid."

He concludes, "You can mitigate the problem of fluid retention by eating sensibly, restricting sodium intake in the premenstrual phase, and exercising. Regular black tea is a safe, natural diuretic that will work for you if you are not a regular user of caffeine. Two other herbal diuretics that I recommend frequently are corn silk teas and freeze-dried dandelion leaf. Both are mild and nontoxic. You can get cornsilk tea in health-food stores or make it yourself if you have access to fresh corn by steeping the silks in boiling water for ten minutes. Drink one cup two to four times a day. The dose for freeze-dried dandelion is one or two capsules two to four times a day," he concluded.

Use Of Diuretics

As Dr. Andrew Weil warns, "Please do not take pharmaceutical diuretics unless you have a real medical need for them (such as hypertension or heart failure)."

Let us investigate these medicines.

Thiazide or thiazide-like diuretics are commonly used to treat high blood pressure (hypertension). As diuretics, they are also used to help reduce the amount of water in the body by increasing the flow of urine.

The US Library of Medicines reminds us that in deciding to use a medicine, the risks of taking the medicine must be weighed against the good it will do. This is a decision you and your doctor should make.

Before a diuretic can be prescribed, the doctor should find out if the patient has allergies or has other medical conditions. Diuretics may increase the amount of sugar in the blood of someone with diabetes mellitus. It may also worsen conditions such as gout (or history of), lupus erythematosus (or history of) and pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas). Diuretics may also cause high cholesterol levels or high triglyceride levels.

Diuretics used in pregnancy, according to library data, may cause side effects including jaundice, blood problems, and low potassium in the newborn infant. As a rule, diuretics are not believed to be useful for the normal swelling of feet and hands during pregnancy. It may also decrease the flow of breast milk when used by a lactating mother.

In seniors or older adults, dizziness or lightheadedness and signs of too much potassium loss may be more prevalent.

Those who are taking diuretics should know that the medicine might cause you to feel unusually tired at the outset. You will also urinate frequently.

Taking foods that have high potassium content (for example, orange or other citrus fruit juices) can prevent loss of potassium from your body. You can also take a potassium supplement or take another medicine to help prevent the loss of the potassium in the first place.

Rare side-effects include: black, tarry stools; blood in urine or stools; cough or hoarseness; fever or chills; joint pain; lower back or side pain; painful or difficult urination; pinpoint red spots on skin; skin rash or hives; stomach pain (severe) with nausea and vomiting; unusual bleeding or bruising; and yellow eyes or skin.

You are losing too much potassium if you experience dryness of the mouth; increased thirst; irregular heartbeat; mood or mental changes; muscle cramps or pain; nausea or vomiting; unusual tiredness or weakness; or a weak pulse. Loss of too much sodium results in confusion, convulsions, decreased mental activity, irritability, muscle cramps, unusual tiredness or weakness.

Although less common, these side effects were also reported: decreased sexual ability, diarrhea, dizziness or lightheadedness when getting up from a lying or sitting position, increased sensitivity of skin to sunlight, loss of appetite, and upset stomach.

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E-mail mylene@bender-and-strands.com for comments and questions.