Episode 13: Why Your Gut Bloats (And That’s Normal)
When Is Bloating Normal? How to Tell Everyday Digestion From a Problem
Everyone experiences bloating—but how do you know when it’s a normal part of digestion and when it might signal something more?
In this episode of Team Gut Girls, Dr. Whitney Baxter, Dr. Dominique Vanier, and Christina explain what’s actually happening inside your digestive system when bloating occurs. They break down why gas production is a normal and healthy part of digestion, how eating habits, stress, hormones, and bowel movements can influence bloating, and the signs that may indicate it’s time to investigate further.
You’ll learn why bloating often worsens throughout the day, how your menstrual cycle can affect digestive symptoms, and why slowing down at meals may be one of the simplest ways to support digestion.
Most importantly, you’ll discover the red flags that shouldn’t be ignored—including severe pain, sudden onset bloating, persistent constipation, changes in bowel habits, and bloating that occurs after only a few bites of food.
Whether you’re struggling with bloating yourself or simply want to better understand how your gut works, this episode will help you separate normal digestive processes from symptoms that deserve attention.
In This Episode:
• What causes normal bloating after meals
• Why gas is a healthy part of digestion
• The connection between stress and bloating
• Hormonal changes that affect digestion
• When bloating may be a sign of an underlying issue
• Practical tips to reduce digestive discomfort
• Questions to ask your healthcare provider
Because Better Gut Health Changes Everything.
00:00 What Is Normal Bloating?
02:56 How the Gut Works
12:29 Hormones & Normal Bloating
14:07 When Bloating Is Not Normal
17:42 What You Can Do
13: Why Your Gut Bloats (and That’s Normal)
What Is Normal Bloating?
Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: Hello everyone. This is Dr. Whitney, and I’m joined by Dr. Dominique and Christina, little babies. I hear some yapping. but we wanna talk about when bloating is normal. So this whole series is on bloating when other things are going on, but bloating’s one of those things that could be such a range of things, right?
So it could be just your normal digestive process. You’ve had a large meal, it’s gotta go somewhere. Or it could be something else going on, so something in the gut or our hormones or our immune system. We talk about MCAS or mast cell activation syndrome in another, podcast. So it’s really, I think, important to understand our digestive process of course, but then be in tune with when we’re unsure of like how to ask our [00:01:00] doctor or bring it up.
so I had a patient ask me a question, and I did get her permission to share this story, but she said, I’ve been doing all the things that we’ve talked about. I’m feeling so much better, but every time I eat a lot of beans or I’m eating too fast, I’m noticing I’m still getting bloated.” And she said, “But is that normal?”
And she could like self-reflect as she was talking about it, and I, like I wanted to clap and say, “Yes. Yes, that’s normal. That’s great.” Because we hear a lot on social media, and I’m sure patients ask you guys too, and friends and family ask me this all the time, like they get like really concerned about things that…
we shouldn’t just have a flat, perfect digestive tract all the time. Do you guys get patients who ask you these things too, or…?
Dr. Christina Carew, ND: Yeah. I often will tell people, on a cadaver when you open up the intestines, like they’re really flat. so people can just, [00:02:00] understand, oh, there’s times when there’s flat and there’s times when there’s things in them, whether that’s substance or air.
But, to think about, oh, it’s not like a heart, or a liver where it’s, always this, one kind of structure. And so sometimes even just thinking about, oh, it actually does change shape is actually really important to people.
Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I’ve had many conversations where, where, there’s a difference between, we’ll call it pathological bloating and normal bloating.
And when it comes to normal is that it’s often related to what somebody eats, although so is pathological. It can be anyway. But, and, and there’s, a typical kind of daily presentation, which is a little bit flatter in the morning, possibly flatter, after a bowel movement, and then we can progressively see a bit of expansion happen throughout the day just based on just, a space occupying effect of eating food, just like what Dr.
Christina just said.
How the Gut Works
Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. [00:03:00] So let’s talk about going on, like Christina said, it is a tube-
Dr. Christina Carew, ND: Yeah …
Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: all the way down with a whole bunch of different systems and mechanisms going on to get that food that we’re eating mashed up really small so we can absorb it. And then around this tube there’s all this muscle that has to churn it and move it down and out.
So there’s… It’s quite the process. so yeah, if you’re eating, little bits, slowly, three meals a day, lots of time in between to let it digest-
Dr. Christina Carew, ND: Totally …
Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: then you might not notice much. Yeah. And we shouldn’t really notice much. But it makes sense if you ate, a protein rich meal that takes a bit longer to be digested or it’s Christmas, everyone’s lying down after dinner.
You brought your sweatpants to your family’s house. that’s, it’s to be expected.
Dr. Christina Carew, ND: I think it’s, one of the reasons why, so many European cultures, which maybe don’t have as [00:04:00] much climate that they have to deal with, they always walk after dinner, right? To get, the muscle moving, to get the tube moving, to, get things- Yeah
passing through the system. And so I would say, that’s one of the things that maybe we don’t do as much in North America that could really help with some of that sensation. It’s just, getting all that muscle moving.
Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: Yeah, exactly. okay, baby’s down. We
have a few honorary members on this podcast today.
Like we were talking about before, we have one of Whitney’s babies, my baby.
Yeah. our gut is a whole other second brain, so there’s so many nerve endings around it that’s p- communicating with our brain to make sure everything’s safe and going well, and hunger, fullness cues. so we need to really be in that rest and digest mode so the whole thing can get the [00:05:00] signals it needs, as opposed to, “No, I need to think about something else.
I need to run away from a bear,” ’cause our brain can’t decipher between a bad email versus this, f- heightened fear, depending on how you perceive it. So if your body thinks it’s needing to run or work on something else, that blood flow in that system isn’t gonna be as optimal. So might lead to some bloating if you’re rushed eating or you’re really stressed all the time, so not necessarily problematic, although it may be if it’s just not working every day.
but not, just not optimal.
Dr. Christina Carew, ND: have you ever looked, Whitney, into the, timing, like how long things should be in which part of the tube?
Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: Yeah, so the transit, time, Evelyn? What do you think? there’s a big range, right? Like anywhere from, tw- is it, 24 hours to 72 hours I’ve seen.[00:06:00]
Dr. Christina Carew, ND: even, if we think about, like, how soon after you eat could you start getting bloated, it might be, like, from an hour, right? So kinda half an hour into the stomach, about on average 27 minutes in the stomach unless you’re taking Ozempic or one of the tirzepatides. and then, maybe an hour after might be when people start to first have that bloating.
So a bloating that happens before then is probably a different situation. that might be one of our differentiators for people.
Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: Yeah.
A bit of food.
such as bloating with water or bloating with one bite- Yeah … or bloating with any food. Those would all be in the abnormal category based on the timing of, under which it happens.
Yeah.
Yep.
Yeah, good point.
Dr. Christina Carew, ND: And what kinds of things are in the tube, Whit?
Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: In this tube? we’ve [00:07:00] got a nice big compartment called our stomach. And it’s gonna churn everything up. It’s where our proteins are broken down, and it’s… it sends signals, “Okay, there’s a volume change, so that needs to happen.”
So sometimes people get, really bloated up top, if something isn’t effectively happening there. And then that’s signaling more digestive enzymes to hit this bolus of food once it hits the small intestine. So that’s where m- more of our fats and our carbohydrates get broken down, and, a little proteins a little bit more, and then that’s where everything’s getting absorbed as well.
And then once it hits the largest part of the tube, the colon, our microbiome. Our friendly ecosystem of microbes. Oh, boy.
That’s all right. This is real life. We have lots of listeners who have children on this podcast.
Yeah. This one’s sick today, [00:08:00] We’re just having
some fuzzies.
Yeah, so it’s normal for… we want some bloating. We want some gas production because this is really important for the body. So that microbiome is fermenting fibers that we can’t digest.
It’s creating gas in the process of them digesting it, called short-chain fatty acids, and we need those for lots of good things. Like an anti-inflammatory effect, good mood-
yeah. What other things are short-chain fatty acids good for? So to recap, we’ve got normal levels of bloating and subnormal le- levels of gas.
That can happen. Yeah. Okay.
Yes. Yeah, and we don’t necessarily always feel this. We shouldn’t feel everything that’s going on in our gut, like the movement, the [00:09:00] stretching- the gas that’s happening, and sometimes we do, and that’s totally normal. but it should be predictable. It shouldn’t be lasting all day.
It shouldn’t happen as soon as you look at your meal or you start to eat. yeah.
Dr. Christina Carew, ND: And can normal bloating have a distension in the stomach, or is it just a sensation?
Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: I would think it could be a little bit of both, but essentially there’s… it’s a good, if you’re eating a large meal and you made it really fast, there could be some distension, but sometimes it’s just it could be one or both things.
That could mean something else is going on. So bloating can just be a sensation where you’re not getting that expansion or swelling of your abdomen, not having to unzip your jeans, versus you are getting that expansion, and that’s called distension. so we’ll talk about some mechanisms of how that can be going on.[00:10:00]
yeah. Anything else to add with, normal bloating?
Dr. Dominique Vanier, ND: I wanna, emphasize the short-chain fatty acid part. the, fermentation of certain foods by, we’ll call it more beneficial bacteria that happens in the large intestine. the short-chain fatty acid is… we’ll call… w- I would say it’s a marker of health as well, right?
Because it has so many different positive benefits to the host. like decreasing risk of certain diseases, decreasing inflammation, supporting mucosal lining, et cetera, et cetera. So we need, we do need gas, like we said, but it’s like there’s also a, a turning point of when gas is not normal.
and so when I’m having conversations with patients, there’s certain things that I’m asking are like, “Does it feel frequent? Is it associated with distension, which is an increase in girth? Is there pain? Is it, always odorous?” some [00:11:00] of these interesting points, which can help differentiate a abnormal versus normal amount of gas.
Dr. Christina Carew, ND: Yeah. And gas can be higher up, too, right? It can be burping.
Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: Yeah.
And these are normal mechanisms the body has to get rid of gas that we swallow. So there’s like things going on that’s normal the way gas gets into that tube. So we could be like having carbonated beverages, so that’s some gas going into the system.
We could be eating really quickly, talking while we’re eating- drinking large gulps of water. Some people don’t even notice that they’re doing it. but our body has mechanisms to rid of this introduced gas, so burping is one of them, passing gas is another. and then we’ve got the microbiome fermentation.
So again, like Dominique just talked about, that’s normal in the colon. There should be some gas being produced there, and again, we have ways of getting rid of it. So other species can consume that gas for their, [00:12:00] nutrition. We reabsorb it back into our bloodstream, or it can be passed as gas. and then th- that gas also needs to be pushed through, so our gut- I see
normal motion, normal motility. and then like I just talked about, the absorption. So there are ways our gut should be functioning to get rid of this, so a little bit of burping, non-odorous passing of gas-
Dr. Christina Carew, ND: is
Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: good. Something is going on in your gut that we want.
Hormones & Normal Bloating
Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: Other normal processes, so our hormones.
So during our menstrual cycle, about two weeks prior to getting your period is you’re ovulating, and then your progesterone starts to spike, and our progesterone really slows everything down. So all the way from slowing our stomach emptying and slowing down the whole gut motion. So a little bit of bloating before your period is normal.
Maybe you might get a little bit of constipation, but we can really work with this, just more [00:13:00] walking, heat. so if it’s not impacting your day or not causing a lot of pain, then it depends on your situation. But we’re not too concerned. yeah. Anything to add about other normal processes or how the body manages the gas?
Dr. Dominique Vanier, ND: As the, as the… So as the, endometrial lining thickens towards a, person’s period, the size of the uterus may also change too, right? So like when we talk about bloating, especially that lower abdominal bloat, which I, again, you know, bloating and distension are two different things. Like when we see the stomach start to protrude at the lo- the lower part of the abdomen protrude, it may be because like the size of the uterus has increased a little bit too.
And then we’ll see cycle day two, cycle day three, that go down a little bit too because we’ve lost, at least most menstruators [00:14:00] have lost the majority of their blood for that period by that time.
Dr. Christina Carew, ND: So lots of reasons for normal bloating.
Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: Yep. Yeah.
When Bloating Is Not Normal
Dr. Christina Carew, ND: But not everyone’s bloating is normal.
Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: Not everyone’s bloating is normal.
Dr. Christina Carew, ND: So what are the top things that we want people to know about when their bloating might not be normal?
Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: So I think we talked about this, a lot of pain that’s happening, as soon as you start eating or if you’re finding everything’s causing bloating.
You had food triggers you thought in the past and it was pretty traceable, but now it’s not, or even with water. If, if it’s associated with changes in stool patterns, so all of a sudden you’re getting a lot of diarrhea, looser stools, or you’re not having a bowel movement regularly every couple of days.
Actually, one of the most common things that bloating is caused by is constipation, and so we wanna rule that out. And some- not everyone’s [00:15:00] tracking, not everyone’s taking a peek. and also you could still be having, bowel movements, but they’re not fully complete, so the gas is getting trapped somewhere.
There’s, some mo- the motility of your, that tube and the muscle isn’t functioning optimally, so there’s some trapped gas.
Dr. Dominique Vanier, ND: And I would say too age, right? if this is happening all of a sudden to a person in their 20s versus somebody in their 50s or 60s who’s had normal digestive patterns their whole life and all of a sudden they’re getting bloated, those are two different clinical scenarios that will be looked at differently, where the latter is a l- is a little bit more risky, right?
we wanna look at, po- discuss, last colonoscopy or a fit test or certainly, evaluate whether there’s bright red blood or dark tarry stools happening. ’cause this, we wanna make sure that we’re, looking at whether this is early colon cancer. which is not to say that colon cancer’s not happening in young people, which may [00:16:00] be a separate episode, ’cause that, that has increased significantly also over the last decade.
Dr. Christina Carew, ND: I would also say, recent history, so if you’ve taken antibiotics, if you got a virus, if you had a food poisoning, those are all reasons that bloating might be happening that are correctable ’cause they’re, they are, more abnormal. But sometimes people think it’s just part of their recovery process, or they were told that it was normal.
Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and that’s why we always recommend to people to track it. get on your period apps and include your digestion. If things are… If you’re unsure about your gut health, or you saw so- something on social media, or you’re talking to a family member, just start to track it and start…
You might see a pattern, and you’re like, “Oh, okay, that happens every time I eat this,” or, “I can’t find a pattern. concerned.” And then of course, [00:17:00] yeah, pain, red blood, the tarry stools. That could mean that blood is happening higher up along that tube, so by the time it gets down and out, it’s just darkened.
yeah.
Dr. Christina Carew, ND: If you added things like iron into your diet, that can also- Also … cause some black stools, so-
Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: Yeah …
Dr. Christina Carew, ND: keep in mind there’s other reasons why it could be darker.
Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: Pepto-Bismol can also do that. yeah. So some things that people can start to think about now, so some bloating after meals is totally normal.
What You Can Do
Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: it’s okay to pass gas, and you can start to track, especially if it’s happening after large or rushed meals, or you are like, ” Hey, yeah, I’m eating my lunch during work. I’m really rushing all of my meals.” If you start to [00:18:00] eat slowly- sitting down. obviously I’m holding a baby right now.
That’s not always possible. But just be more mindful of it. there’s research to show that up to 40 chews is the most effective, but just do what you can. Start to notice if you’re really rushing the meal versus, chewing effectively to start that digestive process in the mouth. and then the things like avoiding carbonated beverages, or if you’re chewing lots of gum, sucking on lots of hard candies, you’re introducing gas into the system just from your mouth.
And then other things we talked about, like gentle movement after meals. Maybe if it’s pouring rain or if it’s freezing cold, then you wanna just do some light stretching, yoga for digestion on YouTube. There’s a lot of good things that pop up, if you can’t get out for a light walk after a meal. And then, deep breathing.
There’s tons of research on it, but
Dr. Christina Carew, ND: yeah. And if you’ve tried [00:19:00] everything and nothing is working, then definitely seek out someone to talk about your bloating.
Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: Yeah.
Yep. Yep. always getting a few extra blood tests done and possibly an abdominal ultrasound, right?
Abdominal pelvic ultrasound could be indicated, but always important to discuss this with a, healthcare provider, ’cause it could be normal and it could not be. Yeah.
Exactly. And if all your tests come back normal and you’re still feeling it, there’s, another thing we’ll talk about in a different podcast-
called visceral hypersensitivity, or happens a lot in irritable bowel syndrome, but that can be frustrating.
So
another podcast.
Super helpful. Thank you, Whit, for putting this episode together. Thanks,
guys. That was fun. Thanks, babies, for hanging in
there. Oh, so
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