January 1, 2010
A couple of days ago, I was listening to the Dr. Oz show, and he talked with the audience about ‘gas.’ He described how much gas or flatulence is ‘normal’ and showed the audience a balloon filled with the amount of gas that any one of us on average has in a given day. Dr. Oz described some of the foods linked to forming flatulence. He did a great job of filling some of the void in our understanding about this topic.
But there is more to it than that as anyone who watched could tell from the giggles and embarrassed expressions on audience members’ faces. While we many now understand both that having gas is part of the human experience and that some foods cause more gas than others, we may be struggling with the fact that our doctor told us to start eating a diet that is higher in fiber and doing so has — you guessed it — caused us to have more gas than is normal for us and some discomfort or gas pains as well.
So now the problem is that we are not sure how to tell our doctor about the discomfort. It is after all embarrassing. So do we just give up trying to eat a diet that is higher in fiber? I hope not. A higher fiber diet has a lot of health benefits. So try increasing the fiber in your diet with a little less gusto… perhaps add 1-2 servings of fiber a day rather than 7, and keep track of how that makes you feel. Still a problem? Realize that your doctor may have advice to help with the gas, and no way of knowing you are having discomfort if you don’t disclose the experience. Tell your doctor what you have been eating and what you have experienced and that the gas is not normal for you and is causing discomfort. Normal is, after all, best judged by each one of us when it comes to our own health.
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now. Keep it up!
And according to this article, I totally agree with your opinion, but only this time! 🙂
I’m looking forward to getting more information about this topic, don’t worry about negative opinions.
I read a article under the same title some time ago, but this articles quality is much, much better. How you do this?
Your advice to start with 1-2 servings is dead-on. When I first started adding fiber, I went all out. ~ and I paid for it. When I added some and remained at that level of servings for a week or so, then added more, I experienced little to no discomfort.