You Blew It and Ate Too Much. Bloating and Fatigue, Oh My!

ByMike Collins

One of the popular questions we get is something to the effect of:

I blew my diet yesterday, and now I’m bloated. What do I do?

Now it’s the Sunday After.

Bloated and Fatigued?

woman bloated and fatigued after eating too much
You’re not alone. Most people overeat from time to time, but for some it’s a regular occurrence that leads to uncomfortable bloating and fatigue.

Next comes the sweatpants, Game of Thrones marathon, bloating, fatigue, disinterest in moving much, and growling hunger pangs, which triggers the ahhhhh f*ck it when you open the fridge door.

Ok, so you over indulged yesterday with copious amounts of Ben and Jerry’s Caramel Core, and half full a bottle of 2012 Caymus Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon with a plate of stinky cheese.

No sweat, here’s what you do:

  1. Save yourself the time and effort of beating yourself up over it and move on to number 2.
  2. Read the rest of this article where I’ll tell you how to re- balance yourself after yesterday’s feast, and how to avoid falling back into the pit with your leftovers.

Once you’ve gathered yourself together you may at first be tempted to swing back the other way and try not to eat all day to undo the damage. While this is a lofty ambition, it’s not wise nor necessary.

Here are some things you can do to re- balance yourself and put yourself in a resourceful position to resume domination of your ambitious goals.

8 Steps To Eliminating Bloating- Your Re-Balancing Playbook

1) Drink water and or green tea with lemon. Lots of it. Chances are you took in a lot of salt during yesterday’s conquest. Many people report having heartburn and bloating after taking in too much sodium.

Drinking water will help you flush out the sodium and re- balance your body.

2) Eat plenty of vegetables- fat burning fibrous vegetables. Asparagus, broccoli, spinach, green leafy salads.

These are full of fiber and will help clean the pipes. They are also chock full of anti- oxidants, which will help quench the free radicals caused by number 3.

3) Get sweaty in a rigorous weight training or bodyweight workout today. Take advantage of your full glycogen stores and high blood amino acids levels from your excess feast.

Chances are you’ll have a very strong workout with all your stores topped off. You’ll also get to work on burning off those excess calories.

4) Get your heart pumping with some cardio exercise as well. Again, take advantage of the benefits bestowed upon you from the delicious meal(s).

I favor a nice high- intensity cardio workout, quick and efficient. I also suggest splitting the workouts up ie, don’t do the strength training and cardio back to back.

Do the weights or body weight in the morning and the cardio in late afternoon.

Studies have shown that splitting up your workout can be beneficial and provide greater calorie expenditure. Another benefit of splitting the workout up is that you’ll be fresh for the cardio, instead of dragging yourself through it.

5) Avoid starchy carbs. Rice, pasta, bread. Listen, your glycogen stores are filled to the brim, if not overfilled already. Any “spillage” will result in increasing fat stores.

Here’s the better solution. Fill up on fibrous vegetables in place of the starchy carbs.

This way, not only are you avoiding spillage of carbohydrate, but you’ll be setting up a fat burning environment.

The fibrous carbs will help manage your insulin levels, where your body fat will be released into the blood stream as fuel for those workouts above!

6) Toss the belly fat-building leftovers or give them to people who are in need. You enjoyed what you had, and now it’s time to get back on track. Taking in any more junk will only dig yourself in deeper.

If you give to people who can really use it, you’ll feel good about it too.

7) Don’t wait! Get back on the horse right now. Listen, the longer you take to get back to eating properly, the harder it will be. You’ll undo all your positive conditioning. Not to mention, you’ll have to burn off that many more calories.

8) Prevent it or ease the blow Next time you’re on a planned cheat day, or in a situation where you may over indulge, trying supplementing before hand with some psyllium husk.

Psyllium husk is a form of fiber that can help you limit your caloric intake by filling you up.

Taking a teaspoon or two in a full glass of water about a half hour before you plan on eating may help balance your blood sugar and make reduce the urge to keep eating.

An extra benefit here is that the psyllium husk may also reduce inflammation and puffiness helping along your weight loss efforts.

-Mike