3 foods you thought were safe – but actually bloat you horribly

November 9, 2017 Ashley 0 Comments

You know what’s a bummer?

When you’ve been hitting the gym like a beast for weeks, Friday night arrives, you’re ready to go out…

And you’re also bloated AF.

What gives? You’ve been eating relatively healthy. Sparkling water’s replaced your soda addiction. Chomping a lump of gum’s become the way you make the hateful cravings pass. Hell, you’ve even booted the butter from your popcorn on “cheat evening”. And, despite all’ve this, you’re still rockin’ the Buddha bump tonight – when you’re planning on hitting the club with your salsa squad. Is this as good as it gets? Have you been wasting your time, suffocating in your own sweat?

Spoiler alert: Nope and nope.

First off, congratulations on making all’ve these changes. It’s hard as hail to change ingrained habits – like giving into food fixations or swilling fizzy soda drinks. Especially if you’ve been doing them for a while. So, good on ya for that. That said, now it’s time to up your game. Why? Because, unfortunately, these shoo-ins are doin’ you in on a tummy level. See, they’re probably not actually making you gain any real weight. But what they are doing is some supersized bloating in your belly – giving the illusion that you’re a bit bigger in the middle than you are and making you feel the same way as well.

First, there’s the gum. Between the sugar and gulps of oxygen you’re swallowing when you chew on tooth putty, you’re filling up like Violet Beauregard before you even realize it. Why the air pockets do it is kinda obvious. (It’s gobs of oxygen filling up your middle, puffing it out.) But less obvious is what the sugar alcohols do. Once they’ve snuck into your belly, the do a terrible job at digesting – and instead ferment when bacteria interact with ‘em. And, just like that, you’re a gassy gastric mess. Similarly, your bubbly water’s doing the same. Sure, it’s low cal. And sure they call it by a classy name like “sparkling”. But the bottom line’s that it hits your stomach gutter, and expands your gullet like a Mylar.

“Down here, they all bloat…”

And (speaking of clowns and carnivals), finally there’s the popcorn. Even without all the sizzling fat drizzled on it, this snack’ll stuff you like dietary taxidermy in no time flat. It doesn’t seem like it would, right? They’re just these quasi soft, sorta crunchy little mouth clouds. But that’s what makes them the ninja of the bloaters. Once in your tummy, one serving of these things’ll inflate to the size of roughly three to four tennis balls. (Yes, lit’rally.) Now, are we saying ya hafta trash your new food go-to’s lest you gain weight? Absolutely not. The thing to remember’s that bloating’s temporary. Fleeting. It doesn’t last. In fact, if walking around with a food baby doesn’t bother you, you can dismiss these tips altogether.

But if you don’t wanna rock a convex midsection after all that weight you worked to lose?

Well, then maybe save these sneaky bloaters for your next night in.