Why Do I Feel Bloated on a Ketogenic Diet

Are you feeling like your belly is swollen up like a balloon? You may be experiencing keto bloating or keto distended stomach. Find out how to combat bloating on keto diet to relieve this uncomfortable feeling and look your best.

Bloating can be a side effect of any new diet you start since you are drastically changing the way you eat and the foods you eat. Keto diet is no different. It is quite the change from how most people are used to eating regularly.

Keto bloating can be a common side effect when starting the low carb diet and can feel like it's minimizing all of your efforts.

Bloating can cause tightness, pain and stress in the belly. It is something very irritating and uncomfortable. Few factors cause bloating. The bloating caused by the ketogenic diet is called keto bloating.

If you're experiencing keto bloating and gas which is seriously affecting your everyday life, keep on reading.

Why are you experiencing bloating on Keto diet?

After starting a ketogenic diet, it becomes difficult for the digestive system to handle the change. The reason is ketogenic food is not a type of food the digestive system is used to. As a result, the guts start expanding with bad gasses. It is due to bad digestion. Following are the details of the reasons for bloating due to the keto diet.

Common causes of bloating related to the ketogenic diet are:

• Not enough fibre
• Food intolerances
• Cheating on keto diet by eating too many carbs
• Too many sugar alcohols
• Dehydration

Keep on reading to dive deeper into all of the reasons to 'why do I feel heavy on keto?'

Top 5 Reasons for Keto Distended Stomach:

1. Eating Too Many Carbs

Cheating on the keto diet by eating too many carbs will lead to many negative side effects such as weight loss stalling, headaches, and bloating. Carbs also make your body retain water, therefore, making you feel heavy and swollen.

To get back to ketosis, and keep on losing weight, all you need to do is reduce the amount of carbs and you should lose the water weight within a few days and experience a reduction in bloating.

2. Food Intolerances

This point may repeat a few of the important information but it is necessary to explain. Food intolerance is defined as poor digestion, and due to poor digestion unpleasant feelings like bloating,  nausea and bad gasses. The keto-food is used by some people and its elements are quite different from normal food like it is very low in carbs and fibre. We have discussed above that how both the low level of carbs and fibres are causing keto bloating.

But food tolerance is much more than just bloating. It can even cause heartburn, diarrhoea or stomach pain and tummy pain. The keto-food can cause it too. These problems are correlated with each other, for example, food intolerances can cause bloating. It is because both depend upon the metabolic and digestive systems of the body. It is very important to fulfil the requirements of the body if you are following the keto diet to stay away from food intoleraances, especially keto bloating.

3. Too Many Sugar Alcohol

The Keto diet contains a lot of sugar alcohol. These are the main parts of protein bars, toffees and other keto food. The four main sugar alcohol in keto-friendly foods are xylitol, erythritol, sorbitol and maltitol. According to a few types of research, maltitol is not very keto-friendly sugar alcohol.

These sugar alcohol are low in carbohydrates. This implies that can cause keto bloating. The reason is our metabolism is used to generating energy from carbs. When we eat keto food which is less in carbs. The metabolism process tries to generate energy for the body from fats and proteins. This is not a usual practice for our metabolism process and hence it causes disturbance in digestion as well. The irregularities in the digestive system cause some gasses or the generation of more air inside the body. As a result the keto bloating take place. The one main issue is no that the body of the keto bloating cause it to feel fat but the gas can sometimes be very painful and not easy to bear.

4. Not Enough Fiber

Another feature of the keto-friendly diet is that it contains a lesser amount of fibre. Less amount of fibres implies that the food will stay longer in the IG. It means a lot of fermentation of the food will cause an excessive amount of gas. Again this gas causes the feeling of swelling or fat belly and tightness. That is how the low amount of fibre in keto-friendly food causes keto bloating.

Fibres are also helping the digestive system. However, a few types of research show that a higher amount of fibres can also cause the bloating effect. It means the keto diet doesn't have a required level of fibre to avoid bloating. This is very interesting as fibres are very important for fitness. But their intake must not be lower or higher. They can affect in either way. However, specifically for the Keto-diet, the keto bloating is caused by not having enough amount of fibres.

Try adding some low-carb high-fiber foods into your diet such as flax seeds, chia seeds, broccoli, and cauliflower.

5. Dehydration

Keto-diet can cause thirst more than any previous diet you have been following. It is because the keto diet can cause a lack of water level. Keto-food can disturb the water level in the body.

This not only causes dehydration but can also disturb the electrolyte balance of the body. The main reason is dehydration and the imbalance in electrolytes also called electrolyte imbalance can cause problems for the digestion system. The digestion system effect is the biggest reason for bloating.

The people on the keto diet must drink a lot of water. More than normal to avoid keto bloating. However, the increasing level of dehydration may not just be solved by drinking water.

One may need to find a good doctor to solve the issue. The keto bloating caused by dehydration can be severe and should be treated by a professional.

Conclusion

Keto-diet can cause bloating and it can be very painful and difficult to bear as well it feels like swollen belly. The most important factor of bloating is a low level of carbs as well as fibre.  If you are taking on the keto diet you need to make sure that you are fulfilling the other body requirements. Otherwise, it can cause indigestion, food intolerances and of course bloating.

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Why Do I Feel Bloated on a Ketogenic Diet

Source: https://ketomillenial.com/bloating-on-keto-distended-stomach/

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