We’ve all
been there. One hand is clutching your stomach while your other hand is leaning
forward and reaching for that last piece of chicken. You know you’re full, but
everything is so damn delicious. Anyway, you worked out yesterday so it’s okay.
Or was it last week? Doesn’t matter, this chicken is filling that caloric deficit
right now, so it’s all even.
The food coma
is something we all experience now and again, but if you’re experiencing it
every time you go out to a restaurant or every weekend, then something’s got to
change. It’s not normal to feel sleepy, sluggish and bloated after
every meal. You know this and I know this, 90% of the time the
culprit is simply overeating.
But what
about when it’s not? What if you’re eating healthy, not overeating and yet
you still feel sluggish and bloated afterwards? That’s where digestion comes
in. Unfortunately most of us aren’t even aware that the eating habits
we’ve developed as a society are causing us to feel this way.
Here are the top 3 unhealthy habits I
recommend avoiding at your next meal
Drinking lots of water with your meal
Feeling
confused already? A nutritionist telling you NOT to drink water? Hear me out.
Water is wonderful. And it’s great to have with your meal in small sips, for
the purpose of helping the food along the digestive tract. But drowning your
meals with multiple glasses of water is just going to give you indigestion and
make you feel bloated afterwards.
When food
enters your stomach, a substance called hydrochloric acid (HCL) is secreted
from the stomach lining to help begin the process of digestion. HCL
is super acidic — after all, it needs to be in order to break
big chunks of food into tiny, absorbable nutrients. So if you start
chugging back water with your meal, you’re going to dilute
the hydrochloric acid and thereby dampen (pun intended) its efforts.
If it helps
to paint a picture, imagine a pool of water in your stomach with bits of food
floating around, the acid just kind of fizzing out trying to do its
job. Feeling gross and bloated already? Good, don’t do it!
Solution:
Drink lots of
water either an hour before or after your meals. Only sip on
a glass of water throughout your meal
Eating lots of starch and protein together
Steak and
mashed potato. Burger and fries. Eggs Benedict. All the glorious
combinations that make us want to pass out on the couch after. Eating large
amounts of starch (e.g. bread, pasta, rice, potatoes) and protein (e.g. fish,
chicken, beef, eggs) at the same time can cause indigestion and acid
reflux.
This is
because protein has a much slower rate of digestion, and starches digest much
faster into simple sugars. Technically speaking, starches should be saying
“hasta la vista” to the stomach pretty quickly and entering the next stage
of digestion in the small intestine. But because they’re all mushed up with the
protein in the stomach, they have to hang around and wait for hours until the
protein finishes digesting too.
And when
starches hang around too long, they ferment i.e. release gas which causes us
to belch every so eloquently
Solution:
Eat your
starch first, follow it up with protein afterwards. Don’t sweat it if you’re
having a small portion of starch alongside your protein, the key is not to
overdo the rice and potatoes. P.S. you can eat your veggies
with starch and protein, either combo works well!
Having ice-cold water with your meal
Yep, I’m back
to talking about water again. And here you thought all there was to water was
drinking it. Nay friend. When it comes to temperature of drinking water at
a meal, opt for room temperature instead of cold. Ice-cold water constricts blood
vessels, so it hinders the body’s ability to digest food and absorb nutrients.
Ice-cold water
will also solidify any fats that are being eaten making them difficult to
digest as well. Plus, your body’s energy is going to get diverted from trying
to digest food to trying to regulate your body’s temperature. Sooo much
unnecessary exhaustion
Solution:
Think
Japanese. Order some hot water (with lemon, optional) or green tea before the
start of your meal and slowly sip on it to prime your gut for optimal
digestion. Always tell the server “no ice” and “room temperature.”
Keep in mind that these tips are for optimal
digestion. If you suffer from weak digestion, these are far more applicable to
you than someone who rarely suffers from feeling bloated or sluggish after a
meal. These tips are also more crucial when you have a big brunch or
celebratory meal coming up — basically, when you know a food coma is
just around the corner.was written by Alina Islam, a wonderful Certified Nutritional Practitioner from Toronto, Canada.
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