Podcast episode by JJ Virgin (Ask the Health Expert) answering a listener’s question: “How do I rid bloating and make my stomach flat?” The host distinguishes between belly fat (linked to elevated insulin and cortisol) and bloating (gas or water retention), recommends lab testing for fasting insulin, fasting glucose, hemoglobin A1C and a 3-hour glucose+insulin tolerance test, and an adrenal salivary index for cortisol. For bloating she advises the "Virgin Diet" elimination of seven common triggers (gluten, dairy, eggs, corn, soy, sugar, artificial sweeteners) for ~3 weeks, trials of digestive enzymes (protein enzymes and lipase), caution with fructose, sugar alcohols (xylitol, maltitol), prebiotics (inulin, chicory), and legumes (with a gradual reintroduction hack). She also mentions SIBO as a possible cause (worse bloating throughout the day even without eating) and promotes a branded enzyme product (Safety Net Plus, now renamed Belly Rescue). The episode includes multiple sponsor reads (Earth Breeze, Wayfair, Monarch, Pacifico) and show promos.
Questions this episode answers
Gluten, dairy, eggs, corn, soy, sugar, and artificial sweeteners.
Fasting insulin, fasting glucose, and hemoglobin A1C; plus a 3-hour glucose tolerance test measuring both glucose and insulin.
An adrenal salivary index.
Safety Net Plus (renamed Belly Rescue).
Chapters
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How do I rid Bloating and Make My stomach Flat?
This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times bestselling author, celebrity nutrition expert.
And Fitness hall of Famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions and now I'm sharing what I found with you.
Welcome to Ask the Health Expert.
Chris K from Facebook asks, how do I get rid of bloating and make my stomach flat? Yeah, that seems to be the age.
Old question, but there definitely are some.
Important things you can do here. I will be right back with the answer. Stay with me.
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All right, bloating, flat stomach. Well, couple important things here because you want to know, is it bloating or is it fat? Right. If it's body fat. If you've got belly fat going on, there's two reasons that will really make you store fat around your waist. One of them is elevated cortisol and the other one is elevated insulin. And quite often you'll get the both of them. So if you've been eating a high carbohydrate diet, you've been snacking throughout the day, you're eating late at night, that will tend to make you more insulin resistant, especially if you've got a higher toxic burden. And when you do higher insulin makes you store more fat around your waist. Also, if you're under a lot of stress, you will also tend to store more fat around your waist. So your, your belly is really a good meter of. Are things going well on your insulin and cortisol? How do you know if those things are going on? Well, you can get a lab test at the doctor's where you look at both your fasting insulin and your fasting glucose and then something called hemoglobin A1C to really know if it's an issue. Though, what you do is you do a three hour glucose tolerance test where you look at both glucose and insulin. It's a glucose and insulin tolerance test for cortisol. I like to do an adrenal salivary index to see if I've got problems there. And especially elevated cortisol, elevated insulin can both make you store fat around your waist. So the first thing we have to go is, is it fat or is it bloat? So in this question you asked about bloat, so I'm just going to assume it's not fat, it's bloat. If it's bloat, what's making you bloat? You know, what's making you gassy? What's making you hold on to water? So it's either because it's either holding onto water or holding onto gas, and that area is probably more holding on to gas. So what things could be going on? Well, what I would tell you is do the virgin diet. Because the first thing I'm going to look at is are having a food intolerance reaction. One of the key signs of reacting to a food is gas and bloating. So in the virgin diet, I pull out the seven Most common foods to cause that, gluten, dairy, eggs, corn, soy, and then sugar and artificial sweeteners and pull them out for at least three weeks while you're healing your gut to give yourself a chance to get to your new normal, to reset. And then you go back and see what's doing what to you. You know, you get on and you see, gosh, if I eat this, do I get bloated? Do I have joint pain? Do I have headaches? Does my weight go up? Do I have cravings? The other thing is. So that's step one. Next thing. Sugar is a big one there, obviously. And of the sugars, fructose, especially. Now, the more fructose you eat, the better you get at taking it straight to the liver. But if you have any issues with fructose malabsorption or sugar in general, boy, can that make you gassy. The other one that can are sugar, alcohols, and one specifically like maltitol. But the big one I find doing that is xylitol. So you might be one of those people that really reacts to sugar, alcohols or prebiotics, inulin, chicory. And these are in a lot of these different foods now that are low carb. And it's not that these things are bad, it's just that they might be challenging for you. They might give you gas. So watch out for those prebiotic types of things because those can be problematic. Another one, legumes. When I was taping the Virgin diet, I discovered that you can't say legumes. Oh, I think it was sugar impact diet. It's legumes. It's legumes, not legumes. So legumes, of course, we know, can cause gas. Now you can actually condition your gut to be able to handle beans. And all you do here, I got this hack From My buddy, Dr. Alan Christiansen, is you do a tablespoon of beans every day for a week. That should do it for you. If not, you can use Beno. And then one other thing. Are you having any issues with digestion? This is why I think that we all owe ourselves a trial of digestive enzymes. Now, I use digestive enzymes whenever I eat. And so I do digestive enzymes specifically to digest proteins. Because as we age, if you're over the age of 35, probably your stomach acid is lowered. If you're under any kind of stress, your stomach acid is lower. And if you're not digesting well, you'll be bloated. The other one that can cause a problem here is if you're not digesting your fat well. So look at protein, digestive enzymes, and then look at things like lipase that can help you digest your fat well as well. And then one more thing that you have to think about, and that's something called sibo, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. And if you do have sibo, this can make you more bloated. It's something going on with your gut microbiome and the bacteria within it, and it can make you more bloated. And you'll know if you have this. One of the classic signs of this is if you get more bloated throughout the day, whether you eat or not, it's enzymes or food intolerance if you get more bloated as you eat. But if you don't eat and you get more bloated, then consider that it is sibo. All right, lots of stuff to unpack there. Great place to start, of course is do the virgin diet, try some enzymes. My enzyme product was Safety Net plus, now has been renamed Belly Rescue because that's what it does. So give that a try and then report back in.
This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert.
I do this five times a week, so make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribetojay.com foreign.
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