Ep. 107: Burping, Gas, and Bloating? 5 Gut Clues You Can’t Ignore

Burping after meals? Bloated by the end of the day? Constantly gassy no matter what you eat? In this episode, Dr. Heather breaks down what your gas might actually be trying to tell you. From low stomach acid and slow motility to SIBO, dysbiosis, and bile flow issues, you’ll learn why gas is often more than just an annoying symptom. Gas is a clue that digestion is breaking down somewhere. She also walks through what different types of gas and bloating can mean, plus simple ways to start getting relief and stop blaming food for a deeper gut issue.

Are you a practitioner looking to advance your clinical skills AND build a profitable practice? 

Introducing...

The HTMA Edge: The one functional test that every practitioner needs to understand to get their clients FASTER results and have a more profitable business 

12pm CT/ 1pm ET

1 CEU available for RD's 

Early bird pricing $29 through June 13th! 

Connect + Next Steps

Want daily education, stories, and gut-friendly support?
Follow Dr. Heather on Instagram

Ready for personalized 1:1 support and a clear plan?
Apply for gutTogether®

Want a chance to win a free HTMA Bundle? Leave a rating & review and email it to happygut@drheatherfinley.co with [PODCAST REVIEW] in the subject line! We choose a new winner every month! 

Transcript

Dr. Heather Finley 0:03

Welcome to the Love Your Gut Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Heather Finley, registered dietitian and gut health specialist. I understand the frustration of dealing with GI issues because I've been there and I spent over two decades searching for answers for my own gut issues of constipation, bloating, and stomach pain. I've dedicated my life to understanding and solving my own gut issues. And now I'm here to guide you. On this podcast, I'll help you identify the true root causes of your discomfort. So you can finally ditch your symptoms for good. My goal is to empower you with the knowledge and tools you need so that you can love your gut and it will love you right back. So if you're ready to learn a lot, gain a deeper understanding of your gut and find lasting relief. You are in the right place. Welcome to the love your gut podcast.

0:55

If you have ever had to do that little awkward sidestep away from someone or have had to blame your stomach noises on just being hungry or the dog, or sit in a meeting, on a plane at dinner or in bed at night, just feeling like you are. A balloon, then this episode is for you because gas is one of those symptoms that people laugh about on the internet. But when you're the one dealing with it, it is so not funny. It is so embarrassing. It can make you feel self-conscious in your own body. It can make you wanna avoid intimacy. It can make you not wanna go out to eat. It can make you anxious to be in a quiet room. And for a lot of women, it creates this. Constant low grade stress of what is my stomach gonna do today? Honestly, gas is one of those symptoms that gets brushed off the most. People are told like, that's normal. Everybody's gassy. You probably just ate something weird. And yes, some gas is normal, but constant, painful, smelly. Burping after meals, bloating that just builds all day. Or just feeling like your stomach is staging a protest against you every time you eat. That is not normal. Gas. Your body is communicating something to you and that is what I wanna help you decode today on what that something might be. Because I want you to feel confident in your body. I want you to feel less embarrassed about your GI symptoms and how to understand where your digestion is breaking down. I will never forget one of our clients, she was actually a GI nurse. We actually have worked with several GI nurses now, and she told us that her gas was so embarrassing that at work she would literally just blame it on her patients. She's like, I mean, thankfully I guess I work in a GI clinic, but she's like, this can go on no longer. This is how. Much shame people carry around this symptom. Even someone who worked in GI all day, someone who understands bodies symptoms still felt so embarrassed enough to hide it and, and blame it on somebody else. So. If this is something that you've dealt with, I want you to know that your body is not just randomly producing gas for no reason. So let's break it down. First, I wanna talk about just a, lay the ground rules here, because I don't want this episode to make you panic every time you burp some gas. Is completely normal. If you eat a giant bowl of broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, black beans, onions, garlic, a super fiber heavy meal, you may notice some gas, and that doesn't automatically mean that something's wrong. Gas is a byproduct of fermentation. That's part of what your gut microbes do. So we're not aiming for zero gas. But what I'm talking about in this episode is when the gas becomes constant, uncomfortable, embarrassing, painful, socially limiting, or paired with other symptoms like bloating, burping, reflux, constipation, loose stools, fullness, pressure stomach noises. Feeling like your food just sits in your stomach like a brick. That's when we wanna start looking a little bit deeper and ask, why is this happening? 'cause your body doesn't just randomly make too much gas. It's often a digestive clue that we can look into. And that brings us to a really important piece, is what gas actually means. So at its core, gas is fermentation. That's it. Gas is what happens when microbes break down food. And again, that's not inherently bad. You need bacteria, you need fermentation. You need a healthy microbiome. The problem is when fermentation is happening too early, aggressively in the wrong place, um, or in a way that just creates too much pressure or discomfort, that's when you feel it. You start burping after meals, your stomach gets really distended. Your pants don't fit by 5:00 PM That's when you feel like you need to hold in your body all day long. A simple way to think about this is. Your digestive system is like a long food processing line, so food is supposed to get broken down in stages, but if one part of that line slows down or breaks down and it gets overloaded. Food starts to be where it shouldn't be. And when that happens, the microbes get involved. And when microbes get involved, you get that fermentation. When that fermentation builds up, that's when you get gas. So I wanna walk through today five of the biggest gut clues that gas can point to. So reason number one is something that I should probably do more specific episodes on. If you would be interested in an episode on this, let me know. But number one is low stomach acid or weak top down digestion. So the first place that we wanna look, when someone tells me I'm burping after meals, I feel full really fast. Food feels really heavy. I feel bloated almost immediately after eating is the top of digestion because digestion doesn't start in your intestines. It starts. Way earlier. It starts with even your thoughts about food and salivation. So it starts with smelling your food, chewing your food, saliva, stomach acid, enzymes, your body, getting into that rest and digest state so that it feels safe enough to actually break down food. So if you're not breaking down food well at the top it creates that ripple effect downstream. And an easy analogy to think about this is if you don't break down food well, like in a blender at the top, the rest of the digestive assembly line has to work way harder. You can think of it like if you're sending giant chunks of food down a conveyor belt that was only designed to handle smaller pieces. Everything below it has to overcompensate. The food is gonna sit longer, it's harder for it to digest. It's more likely to ferment, and then the bacteria further down have more food to feast on. So the common clues might be burping after meals, bloating soon after you eat fullness after only a few bites. Heaviness, reflux, nausea. Or feeling like food just sits there. This is where so many people miss the mark because they're burping, they're bloated. The assumption is typically I have too much acid. But honestly, most of the time it's the opposite. Too little stomach acid can create a lot of chaos in the gut because stomach acid helps to break down protein, it helps to sterilize, kill off any unwanted things. It helps to trigger digestive enzymes. It supports your mineral absorption, and most importantly, it prepares the rest of digestion to do its job. So when that first step is weak, the rest of digestion is just gonna be really messy. So this gas often feels or smells like burping upper GI pressure that like trapped air, heaviness, bloating quickly after meals. It's less often foul smelling gas and more like I feel like a balloon after I eat. So some tips that can help you if this is your pattern, slow down. Another reason is. Simple reason for this type of gas is actually swallowing a lot of air when you're eating, because you're eating really fast. You're not chewing well, you're stressed when you're eating, maybe you're talking too much, et cetera, like chugging liquids through a straw. You can swallow a lot of air, so slow down before your meals sit down, chew more than you think. You need to avoid eating in a rushed or stressed standing upstate. Support your stomach acid. You could use something like digestive bitters bitter foods. We love bitter melon tea. And then for meals that are harder to digest. Some people will benefit from enzymes, so you could talk to your practitioner about that because again, the better that you can break food down at the top, the less chaos that you create further down. So if gas is not showing up immediately. After meals, but instead it builds and builds and builds as the day goes on. That's when I start thinking more about movement, and this is a huge one. Honestly, A lot of gas issues are motility issues. If food and waste are not moving through your system well, they sit longer. When they sit longer, they ferment longer, and when they ferment longer, that gas builds. And this is why so many women will say, I wake up. Okay. But then by the end of the day, I look six months pregnant. So that's a pattern that we wanna look into because when gas and bloating progressively worsen throughout the day, I am often thinking, and our team is often thinking, slow transit. Constipation, like stagnation. So even if you're pooping every day, it does not automatically mean that you're moving things well. You could still be really constipated even if you have a bowel movement every day, because your bowel movements could still be incomplete. You could have trapped gas, you could have stool that's just hanging out too long, leading to more. Pressure back up. This is often when people get really confused because they think, well, if I'm constipated, shouldn't I just feel backed up? And yes, constipation and slow motility can create gas. Reflux, bloating, that pelvic pressure, hemorrhoids, incomplete emptying, and some very unpleasant smells. So that gas is typically more like dirty diaper, just kind of like stale, smelly gas. That can be a clue. Something is just sitting there too long because. It is, it just smells like something has been rotting. That is typically the type of gas that's associated with slower motility. When stool hangs out in the colon too long, that fermentation and like putrid smell can happen. That smell can be a clue. So if you're actively working on motility, one important thing that I want to share is that. You actually might notice more gas at first. That's not always a bad thing because if you have a lot of trapped gas, it has to go somewhere. So when you finally start moving your bowels and it's been stagnant for a while, it's very common for gas to increase temporarily. So that doesn't mean that what you're doing is wrong. It can mean that things are starting to wake up and you might have to pass some of the gas. So. You can go slower to make it more comfortable, but it has to go somewhere. So some tips that can help you if this is your pattern. Walking after meals can be really helpful. Supporting bowel regularity, making sure that you're actually fully emptying your bowels, not ignoring the urge to go. This is a big one if you have to go. Go. Because if you are always ignoring the urge to go to the bathroom, then your body will get out of the habit. You wanna make sure that you're eating enough food, consistently, you're spacing your meals. Supporting your nervous system, your vagus nerve, looking at minerals, hydration, motility support, because if your gut is not moving, it's so much easier for gas to accumulate. Sometimes gas isn't just things moving too slowly. It really is because there's too much fermentation in the first place. Which brings us to reason number three. Reason number three is you have too much fermentation happening. So this is the category where we start thinking about like SIBO, dysbiosis, microbial overgrowth. The classic pattern of healthy food makes me feel worse. We often have clients that are like, why do I feel okay eating like chicken tenders and a cheeseburger, but I feel terrible if I eat a salad or like a high fiber bowl. This is often where people also say like, garlic destroys them, onions, wreck them. No way on beans, cruciferous vegetables are a no-go. Fiber makes me bloated. Probiotics make me worse, and you might start to think like, okay, my body just can't handle these foods. But the truth is things like garlic, onions, beans, apples, asparagus, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, those foods are just highly fermentable. And so if your gut environment is off. Then the symptoms become louder, and these foods themselves are not creating the problem. They're just exposing the problem. So that's just a really important distinction is if you have too much bacteria in the wrong place and not enough digestive support. And your bowels are moving slow or can't empty, those foods often become the match that lights the fire. This gas often smells like it's more frequent, it's like more pressure. It's louder more like foul or possibly sulfur free. Sometimes people describe it as like rotten, sour, toxic room clearing or just like. You know, I can't be around people. Sometimes this pattern is the worst for many people because this is the more like embarrassing smelling gas. Oftentimes and not always, but oftentimes we will have clients that feel like they're fine until about noon or like mid-afternoon. And then the gas gets really bad as the evening goes on. And that's where they end up, like canceling plans, et cetera. So if you are struggling with this type of gas, some tips that can help your pattern is just temporarily reducing those fermentable triggers. If your symptoms are really severe, you could use enzymes like Bino, Fozy, fod, ate, any of those enzymes that are specifically targeted towards. Higher FODMAP or higher, harder to digest foods. Definitely not relying on elimination forever. Improving digestion before adding more fiber can be helpful. And then assessing whether you need to address SIBO or dysbiosis as part of your picture, we wanna look at your overall gut terrain, not just the food, because if your gut environment is off, your body will often tell you very quickly. Now another gas pattern that gets missed all the time when symptoms are less about fiber and fermentation is fat digestion. This one is so overlooked because people think gas. They usually think carbs, fiber, beans, sibo, but in some people, gas is actually much more tied to fat, digestion, bile flow, sluggish upper digestion. This is something that you wanna look at, especially when someone says. I feel worse after restaurant meals. Fatty meals wreck me. I get bloated after burgers, pizza, fried food, rich meals. I feel pressure in my upper abdomen. This might present more as like burping versus gas, but bile plays such a huge role in breaking down fats, helping things move, supporting the gut environment, keeping digestion flowing properly. When your bile flow is sluggish, whether you don't have a gallbladder or maybe you just have sluggish bile, you can get that bloating, that pressure, that heaviness, the upper abdominal discomfort, Grier floating stools, nausea. Gas after fatty meals and then downstream microbial imbalances. Typically this gas is like heavier like just off after richer meals, more like rancid. And sometimes it's not even the smell that people notice. It's more like the pressure. Like I feel like food is just. Sitting in my upper stomach or like under my ribs, that's a clue. If this is your pattern, something that might help is just pay attention to whether your symptoms are worse after higher fat meals support your bile flow, digestive bitters, bitter foods, maybe some specific targeted bile support, chew well, especially with richer meals. Try to not eat really heavy, large meals when you're super stressed. And then look for other stool clues like greasy stool floating stool, pale stool stool. That's like harder to wipe. That whole pattern is gonna matter and should be addressed. And then this last clue is probably the most important one because even if you figured out what. Type of gas you have, you can still stay stuck if you keep doing the wrong thing. So number five is you're treating food as the problem instead of digestion. This is where I see so many people get trapped because they're bloated, they're gassy, they're uncomfortable. The easiest thing to do is just make a list of bad foods or things that they just won't eat. At first, it might be helpful. Cutting these things out. You feel a lot better. You're less gassy. Your symptoms improve. You feel like maybe you got your life back, but then what happens is you're still stuck. You're stuck on fewer foods. That is just sim symptom management with a much smaller menu. So the part that I really want you to hear is when you keep removing foods, you might get temporary relief, which is maybe what you need right now, but you're not actually fixing digestion, motility, your microbiome, your bile flow, your nervous system, and that is what keeps you stuck. So this pattern can look like cutting things out, getting relief, getting sick of having to cut things out, symptoms coming back, and just cycling. So while it can be really helpful to look at your patterns you also want to look at maybe some testing to look at what's actually going on under the surface. Especially if you're someone who's like, well, everything makes me gassy. I don't even know what to eat anymore. I'm down to five foods. They still feel awful. That's your sign that this is probably not just the food. The goal isn't to just become someone who can only tolerate five foods. The goal is to become someone whose gut can actually do its job again. That's the goal. Not a more restricted life, not a smaller food list, not white knuckling your way through social events or relying on gas sex. Real healing eventually creates more freedom, not less. So before you, we wrap, I wanna give you just a quick. Cheat sheet before because I know that this will be helpful. So number one. What the different types of gas can mean. Number one, burping upper air, immediate bloating. We wanna thank low stomach acid, weak top down digestion, eating too fast, swallowing air, upper GI dysfunction. If it's more like dirty diaper, kind of poopy, stale smelling gas, think slow motility, constipation stool sitting too long, sluggish transit. If it's more loud, frequent reactive gas, especially after higher fiber FODMAP foods, think fermentation, sibo, dysbiosis, poor breakdown, et cetera. If it's more sulfur, rotten egg smelling, we wanna look at sulfur metabolism issues, hydrogen sulfide, protein breakdown issues, certain bacterial patterns, sometimes bile or microbial imbalances. And then if it's just that heavy, like. Gross after fatty meals. Gas, we wanna look at fat digestion, bile flow, sluggish, upper GI digestion, that like greasy floaty stool pattern. And again, those are not perfect categories. You might feel like, well, I fit into all of those categories, but hopefully they're helpful clues. Your body always leaves breadcrumbs, so you just need to know how to read them. So if gas is something that you've normalized or if you've just accepted like my stomach is sensitive, if you've been embarrassed, uncomfortable, quietly structuring your life around your symptoms, what I want you to know is that gas is not the problem. It's just the clue and the more you understand the clues, the easier it becomes to just stop guessing and actually start supporting your body in the right direction. Because your symptoms are not random. Your body is just communicating to you. You just need the right lens to interpret what it's saying. So if this episode was helpful, send it to a friend. Leave a rating and review. We still do our HTMA giveaway every month. So leave a review, send it to us so you can be picked for a free HTMA giveaway. And then if you're sitting here thinking, okay, it's time for help, reach out. Apply for one-on-one support. We would love to support you, and I'll see you next week on the next episode.