Tips for Healthy Digestion
The following points are to help you improve your digestion, naturally. It is important to understand that as you age, your digestive strength tends to diminish, especially if you have engaged in unhealthy lifestyle habits for a considerable amount of time. If you experience excess belching or gas, acid reflux or poor elimination, then this paper is meant for you.
For many of you, applying just a few of these tips will be enough to improve your digestion, while for others all of these recommendations will need to be utilized. Remember that healthy digestion is one of the most important components in your overall healthcare approach.
- Avoid large amounts of beverages with your meals. This tends to dilute the gastric juices which weaken your ability to digest food. If you need to drink some liquid, pure water is best. Consuming a glass of water 30 minutes before you eat helps prevent thirst during mealtimes.
- Make sure you chew your food well. Chewing your food thoroughly before you swallow takes the burden off of your stomach and intestines from having to break down the food so intensively. You were meant to chew your food, not breathe it in! Many digestive imbalances have completely been resolved when the time has been given to chew properly.
- The volume of food should be proportional to the time you have to eat the food. In other words, don’t try to wolf down a large meal if you only have 10 minutes to eat. Make the time necessary to sit down and enjoy your meal if it is substantial, or else purposely cut back on your food and eat it later.
- If taking digestive enzymes, take them before you eat — this will help them work better for you.
- For the more sensitive stomachs, you will find that certain combinations of food are more troublesome than others. The most common of these are when large amounts of protein are eaten together with large amounts of starch. Reduce one or the other significantly if you eat them together. For instance, if you are eating a steak and a baked potato, then it would be best to eat just about ¼ of the potato with the steak, or just 2-3 oz. of the steak with the full potato. This applies to all protein and starch combinations.
- Ditch the dessert! Or at least eat only a small portion. Sugar has a marked ability to disturb many of your body’s functions, and digestion certainly is one of them.
- Try to consume some raw vegetables with your meal. Sometimes the enzymes naturally present in the vegetables assist your body in the digestion of your other food. A raw, green salad with some carrots, tomatoes and cucumbers are a tasty complement to any meal.
- Make sure to avoid any foods that produce allergic reactions. Your practitioner can help to identify these for you. Common ones are wheat, dairy, peanuts and sugar.
