5 Things to Do About Bloating After Eating
Bloating after eating is not an uncommon finding in a general population so if it's happening to you, you're not alone It's also a common finding in many bowel disorders that are not dealt with by the allopathic tradition these days The best you can hope for is a scope to look at the gut mucosa and after that it's all downhill since the gastroenterologist doesn't know the origin and therefore how to treat it
What does it feels to have the bloats? Some describe it as being PG
The Origin of the Bloats
The root cause of bloating is poor digestive fire End of story You don't have to go any further
And it comes about due to not knowing what foods to use for your energy makeup, using incompatible food combinations, using inappropriate spices, consuming fatty fried foods, hydrophilic foods eg store bought yogurt, among others
So all the above produce a diminished digestive fire(I've called it agni in the past blogs) and over time this will produce damage to the gut absorptive service This produces a poor irregular appetite and due to the irregular eating schedule, poor bowel evacuation tending toward constipation
5 Things To Do About It?
1 Go to foodsheal.com and get started with the questionnaire to find out what energy makeup you are and begin eating according to the nutrtional format Look at the incompatible food list and make the appropriate adjustments
2 Begin improving your digestion by using fresh ginger with lime salt and honey
3 Drink CCF tea on a regular basis
4 Use agni tea which is fresh ginger and a pincy of cayenne pepper
5 Begin a regular exercise program...every morning....walking, yoga, whatever en
All of these above modifications to lifestyle will begin the reversal of depleting your digestive power If you're interested in the recipes for the above, email me at drbilldean@gmail.com
Importance of Agni
It's said that you're only as old as your agni which says that poor agni is a major cause in the aging process And if you've abused your agni then it's possible to reverse the aging process But we need guidance and that's why the energy science is so important
As I began the present medical advice about digestive health is "in the dark" since the model of healing is incomplete in terms of its knowledge about the origin of disease This information can change your life
To health as a Skill DB
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Denial Isn’t a River in Egypt
"How long have you had heartburn," I asked.
"Not very often," my patient responded.
"Well, how often, can you give me an estimate?"
"Oh, maybe every other day," he replied.
This particular dialogue is not uncommon. We can call it trivializing, denial, minimizing, or all the above. But the bottom line is that the symptom that is being discussed is not important. Heartburn, headache, anxiety, fear, abdominal pain, blood in the urine, constipation, chronic cough, chronic sinus congestion, overweight; potential problems that we can decide to put on the back burner or better yet hope that it or they won't come back.
The issue is this. The energy field mindbody never lies and never holds back when it's in pain. It will always speak the truth. So to have heartburn and not recognize it for what it is misses the opportunity to be healthier.
So infrequent means significant. Let's try not to ignore the opportunity for better health and pay attention and have resolve that we'll do something about whatever the mindbody is showing us.
Health is a skill that we work at all the time Love DrBill
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The Amazing Kapha Energy Pattern
This is the third of three blogs spending some time discussing the physiologic energy patterns that are observable in the universe and comprise our energy mindbodies In the medical energy science of Ayurveda, there are three identifiable energy patterns in Nature There is the energy of movement, that of transformation and the energy of stability. All three are necessary for Nature to function and for us as well
Energy of Stability Kapha is the energy pattern that is necessary for us to maintain form and not have our mindbodies fly off into space The qualities of this energy pattern are heavy, cold, slow/dull, static, sticky/cloudy, oily, liquid, slimy/smooth, gross, hard, dense and soft. These are the vibrational frequencies of the energy field that are most like that of the matter field and most available to our senses Therefore Kapha people are very sensate driven They love the tastes and smells of food and are pulled to the sensate experience Because of this they are lured to professions such as cooking such as Emeril who is a classic Kapha in his element
Kapha dominant people are very loving, make great parents, and are strong with good endurance and stamina They manifest in the matter field as a strong physical frame, big bones and muscles and large body frame Celebrities such as Oprah is a classic example of the beautiful regal attributes of this energy pattern From the smooth, milky complexion to the luscious eyes, she elegantly shows the grace of this energy pattern
Of the three energy patterns, Kapha has the slowest metabolism of the physiologies Due to this characteristic Kapha does the worst in a culture which caters to the fast life When a culture supports a lot of movement the foods chosen to balance this fast lifestyle are literally "fast foods" These type of foods are Vata balancing which contain as we blogged earlier, heavy foods
Now these "fast foods" are the same as Kapha in terms of the vibrational frequencies So heavy foods will produce more heaviness in a physiology that already has a lot of the heavy vibrational frequency So we can see very quickly that "fast foods" bringing heaviness to a fast moving society will be very imbalancing to a heavy Kapha physiology
Due to Kapha's heavy vibrational frequency the best balancing foods that contain the light vibrational frequency So heavy liquid foods such as dairy, fatty and salty meats and nuts not good choices. Light foods such as beans, light vegetables such as cabbage, broccoli and meats such as white chicken and turkey
Our problems with obesity lie in the fact that we do not understand these simple energetic concepts around this energy pattern
To Health as a Skill Dr Bill
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The Pitta Energy Pattern
Pitta is the energy of transformation and its qualities are hot, sharp/penetrating, light, mobile, liquid, and oily
Of the three energy patterns discussed, Pitta is the only pattern with the hot quality Heat transforms Sharp/penetrating helps with discrimination and seeing through problems
The lightness of Pitta is different than light of Vata(feather) because light here means illumination, shedding light on a subject; intensity here is a good word for Pitta Vata's light vibrational frequency is associated with playfulness and levity
The intensity of Pitta is not too intensive There is a great deal of warmth by hot vibrational frequency but not burning; it's not like a pit bull that won't let go There is an ease of the intensity Otherwise the intensity becomes rigidity
A fire is mobile as the flames dance and Pitta in balance is flexible in the mindbody; able to entertain different alternatives But the mobility of Pitta is different than that of Vata as well
The mobility or movement of energy causes us to notice things in our environment So the stock market moves up and it attracts our attention It is this aspect of Pitta's vibrational frequency of mobility that promotes survival and evolutionary behavior when in balance
So hook up with Pitta if you want to see through problems, guidance, nourish the best choices, have great wisdom, incredible intensity, highly focused, determined, and thorough
Pitta is a great change artist for himself and others(if they so choose) It is able to give good intellectual guidance well thought out. keen, and brilliant(light)
Do you know anyone in your life or celebrities who expresses the characteristics of the balanced Pitta? How do they make you feel when you're around them? Can you think of any celebrities or leaders that carry this balanced energy?
To health as a Skill Love DrBill
Send a comment?
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The Vata Energy Pattern of Movement
Today l'd like to spend some time discussing the physiologic energy pattern of Vata that are observable in Nature and energetically make up our energy mindbodies It's a different way of thinking of our bodies We are so accustomed to thinking about them in molecular terms it's a bit of a stretch to see the body in energy terms But that's the model I talk about at this blog
In the medical energy science of Ayurveda, there are three identifiable energy patterns in Nature, Vata, Pitta, and Kapha There is the energy of movement, that of transformation and the energy of stability All three are necessary for Nature to function and for us as well as a bodymind
Vata The Energy of Movement
Any activity in the physiology that has to do with movement is under the guise of the energy pattern Vata The movement of blood, nerve impulses, food through the GI tract, movement of the mindbody through space are all gross or subtle movements But as I have discussed in a previous blog, mind is a participatory field of energy inclusive of the body's energy field So movement of thought is also part of the energy movement of Vata Energy patterns have specific qualities and Vata has seven qualities which are cold, light, mobile,dry, rough,subtle,and clear And this is how we can understand the workings of the energy patterns in our body The qualities are our window of observation of what the energy pattern is doing at any point in time
For example, if we observe none of these qualities at work then we can say that this energy pattern is in balance That's a good thing! But what happens if we notice the cold quality because we're outside and it's cold, then we could say that there's a possibility that the cold quality outside our body is being stimulated Another way of saying this is that the energy pattern of Vata is being provoked
But more than likely if we stay warm and pay attention to getting warm food when we get inside that no imbalance is created, that is, we stay in balance But what were to happen if we got inside and had ice tea, and a cold salad then went outside again without a coat or wrap Then over time with this kind of behavior, this cold quality would build and the result would be constipation, believe the unbelievable or not!
Examples of the Vata energy pattern
What famous people do we know who exhibit the tendency to predominant Vata energy pattern? President Obama, Mick Jagger and Johnny Depp come to mind. They are thin, move a lot and are creative in their profession
There is a tendency for people with a great deal of Vata energy pattern controlling their physiology to have dry, rough skin and large intestine linings which predispose them to constipation They may have trouble being warm due to the cold quality. Vata tends to predispose to lots of activity due to the mobile quality With the mobile quality they may have a lot of mental activity which can lead to distraction and lack of clarity Those of us with cardiac rhythm disturbances happen to have too much Vata energy pattern People with osteoporosis have too much Vata energy pattern in the bone tissue layer Popping joints do so because they have dryness in their joints
Nutrition and Vata
So how can we relate this to nutrition? If Vata people have the dry quality then adding more dry nutritionally would produce imbalance. So cooked foods would be preferable over dry and cold foods. Raw vegetables would bring about imbalance for Vata because they are rough Vata finds it difficult to gain weight due to the light and mobile qualities. As a matter of fact, Vata does best with heavy foods such as dairy, meat and root vegetables to balance the qualities of light and mobile To counter the dry quality using oily foods would be best
By understanding the imbalancing nature of foods through their tastes and effects on our physiologies we can begin to nourish ourselves from an energetic standpoint
To Health as a Skill Dr Bill
In the next two weeks I'll discuss the other energy patterns of Pitta and Kapha and how they relate to nutrition For more info go to foodsheal.com
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Is Everything Available to My Taster?
A patient came in the other day to tell me a story about his experience with his friend, the tomato. After having had a delicious spaghetti with red sauce dinner, he related that all his symptoms he was seeing me for came back within two hours. This is not an uncommon patient scenario in the past years and underscores the energetic imbalances imposed by specific foods if they bring about imbalance in the physiology.
If there was a buffet somewhere in cyberspace where you and I could go where all the foods known to man were represented in all the combinations that humans have concocted to generate taste thrills, all of it would not be available to you and I if we were eating according to our energy mindbody constitutions.
This seems tragic doesn't it? Here we have all these delectable taste thrills and yet they are unavailable to our taster. What a shame. It seems so unfair, doesn't it?
You see, it's not about denial of these foods to our taster as much as it is to notice from an energetic viewpoint what they do to us. That is, how do they make us feel. We obviously don't want to feel bad-you and I- so the energy approach to nutrition, telling us which foods and food combinations are to be avoided is to give us insight that certain foods make us feel bad.
In the end if we went to the great buffet in the sky, when we are eating according to our energy patterns, we would choose those foods which harmonize with our energy physiologies and stay away from those that don't.
So bon appetit!! DrBill
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5 Ways to Cultivate Healthy Strong Digestion
It's of no surprise to anyone who has chronic disease that bowel symptoms are common As a matter of fact if I were a betting person I would say that most people on the planet have poor digestive strength
Bowel symptoms are often overlooked because our tendency is to focus on the organ that causes us the most problem
Step Back
As you have read in some blog posts all disease begins in the GI tract according to the Ayurvedic or energy science model
When you focus too much, you may lose sight of the fact that the bowel symptoms are there but other problems claim the attention At least 50% of people who have forms of chronic diseases have associated acid indigestion(heartburn) and/or reflux of acid into the lower esophagus and they resort to all kinds of different OTC(over the counter) remedies
It's estimated that at least 50% of people with some chronic diseases have IBS and I would say in working with patients that if you counted all their symptoms that it's more like 100% The reason I can go that far is that most people walking on this planet have unhealthy digestion
How the Bowel Gets Sick and Symptoms
The reasons for this unhealthy digestion are 2 fold First the food choices made bring about imbalance of qualities in the GI tract and hence symptoms
But the second reason is probably more important Poor digestion of food leads to unprocessed undigested food that clog the lymphatics of the gut and cover the surface of the internal lining of the gut interfering with proper digestion, absorption, and assimilation of foods ingested
Due to this "poor digestion" symptoms occur Gas, bloating, feeling of heaviness lethargy or fatigue after eating, fever, irritability, alternating diarrhea/constipation, loud noises coming from the stomach, poor appetite, congestion in the sinuses, mucoid vomiting or mucous in the stools, having an underactive thyroid, and overall depression....who wouldn't be with these kinds of symptoms?
Getting Your Digestive Strength Back
Getting your health.....particularly bowel health back....is a challenge but it's at the heart of dealing with IC Puzzling isn't it? Here you have this bladder problem but you're being told that you need to really focus on the bowel Well, it's actually both BUT you must put some attention on the your bowel function
Ginger with slices Since poor digestion is at the heart of the matter here are five things that you can do Remember don't use dry ginger....only fresh
1 Use ginger appetizer to help clear the undigested debris hanging around in your gut Thirty minutes before eating your biggest meal of the day at noon take a slice of ginger with rock salt, lime juice, and a little honey (To peel the ginger use a spoon for taking the skin off..and slice an inch long piece of fresh ginger and place into a small container It’s helpful if the container is small enough to carry in your pocket or purse so that you can take it out to eat with you or to work Small jars can be purchased at health food stores or you can reuse glass supplement jars To save time make enough for 2-3 days
2 Use agni tea Quart of water with 2 handfuls minced ginger root pinch of cayenne (for Pitta disorders, a speck or omit entirely), 2 Tablespoons Sucanat or Maple syrup, and 1-2 teaspoons Rock salt Bring all of the above ingredients to a boil Boil for 20 minutes Take the pot off the burner and cool for a few minutes Add the juice of ½ lime Do not boil the lime juice Pour into a thermos and enjoy throughout the day!
3 Use CCF tea see prior blog post
4 Chose one day a week to fast This gives the GI tract a well deserved day off.....you get days off from work - why not do that for your ailing gut? This fast can be with juice(don't mix fruit with veggies) or for overweight people, water but some kind of restriction from having to digest Why? Because just like a campfire it gets stronger when you don't put so many logs on the fire Remember though that predominantly Vata people should only do light eating once every four weeks or they will weaken themselves even more
5 Explore digestive aids such as Betaine HCl or pancreatic enzymes but recognize this as a bandaid and not a fix for the gut As you can see, relying on something externally forever to help with your digestion is not a long term solution
Best of luck in your journey DB
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Taste and Health: An Energy Science Perspective
It's not like anything. You need to trust me and just taste it.
Seth Godin
In high school chemistry we learned that acids are neutralized by alkaline chemicals. Perhaps we know that for us biologically the acid taste is the sour taste in Nature and that the alkaline is the bitter taste.
So if I have "heartburn" and a sour taste in my mouth it means I have excessive acidity in the stomach and to feel better I can neutralize my problem with baking soda, a common alkaline material off the shelf in the kitchen. Voila! Carbon dioxide gas is produced in my stomach as the byproduct in my acid base balancing I belch and feel better. Thanks very much, now on with the day
Whoa, what a minute! Why did I get this in the first place? Energetically I consumed too much of the qualities of hot, light, sharp in the form of pizza with pepperoni, tomato sauce, cheese, and coke the night before. Now with that energetic knowledge, maybe I should rethink my choice about pepperoni pizza and carbonated drinks?
My mindbody just told me that it didnt like the choice that I made last night. If I want to respect my mindbody and not hurt it maybe I should think about my next choice.
Well, hmmmm, anybody interested in some pepperoni pizza tonight with extra garlic? DrBill
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Digestive Fire: The Solution to Food Allergy
Food allergies(milk and wheat flour) are commonly blamed for the intolerance to the large molecules that are poorly digested(lactose in the case of milk, gluten in the case of flour) Since these molecules have been around forever, the implication is that the fatigue and/or postdigestive symptoms(gas, bloating primarily) is related to the "allergy" to these products that contain milk and wheat flour
Allergy or Your Own Poor Digestion
But perhaps the question should be. "Is this really an allergy?"
From my own personal experience being confronted with the possibility of declaring myself with food allergies to milk and wheat, I found that simply eating according to my energy makeup and improving my digestion did the trick
The energy science perspective challenges the notion that fatigue and post digestive symptoms are related to allergy It makes the case that poor digestion is the culprit in most of these so called "food allergies" Of course this flies in the face of the common public and physician misinterpretation of symptoms and it's easy to blame foods rather than our own choices and behavior
We Don't Know Any Better
If you're not aware that some foods should not be used because of your energy makeup, if you're not aware of troublesome food combinations, if you're not aware of how to boost your digestive fire, then all bets are off that you will be able to find the solution to your post digestive blahs In short we don't know any better because our nutritional model lets us down
So What To Do?
1 Go to foodsheal.com and take the questionnaire(under Getting Started) to find out what energy makeup you are Then find the format that fits and stick with it Over time this can make a big difference
2 At the same site you'll find a list of food incompatibilities that should be avoided
3 Avoid ice
4 Use a ginger appetizer to enhance your digestion 30 minutes before you eat Use fresh ginger(1 inch diameter disc 1 inch thick with 1 tsp lime juice, pinch of rock or sea salt, and tsp of honey)
5 Sip on agni tea through the day to help improve your digestion (1 qt of water with 2 handfuls of diced fresh ginger, 2T of sucanat, pinch of cayenne, 1-2t of sea salt)
6 Use spices (see churans under Nutritional Tools) liberally with your cooking Spices in general will help the digestion
Many digestive ills that we have are our own doing, believe it or not The current diet model that is molecularly based does not serve us well in this respect
All the best DB
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Strong Digestive Fire and the Holidays
So the holiday season is upon us opening up with Tday. Overeating may occur and poor food combinations abound. Disruptive eating schedules are often present due to groups of us getting together and trying to make our get togethers synchronize. And foods that don't harmonize with our mindbody constitutions get ingested because we don't want to make Aunt Mary feel bad about what she puts on the table.
How do we get through the holiday seasons without energetic imbalance? More importantly how do we get through life by reducing our risk to energetic injury?
The answer is digestive fire that is collective term for all the digestive enzyme systems from the mouth to the lower colon. If we have a strong rich digestive fire we will burn through our mistakes. Just like we learned when we were kids, having a strong campfire will burn up even wet logs. But if our fire is weak then those same wet logs will put the fire out.
The cultivation of a rich digestive fire begins by eating appropriately for your mindbody constitution and avoiding poor food combining. Eating your biggest meal at noon and not using ice are lifestyle choices that improve digestive fire. A collection of spices that enhance digestive fire will also increase the vibrational frequencies that is available at foodsheal.com
In this way we will more than enjoy the holidays. We'll get healthier as well To good health DrBill
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