Indigestion and Bloating

by: Sayed Farah سايد فرح

What do lions do after eating prey? Do they go to drink water?

When I was attending the American University of Beirut (AUB) in the early 1990s we had an obligatory Arabic language course. It was more of a philosophical subject than pure language. The only one sentence I remember from that course at AUB was presented in the form of advice from the ancients in a book published in the 1800s.

شرب الماء مع الطعام يسبب التخمة

Ancient Arabic Quote

The ancients advised avoiding drinking water with food as it caused indigestion. For some reason, the ancient wisdom got dropped along the timeline as some generation thought they knew better or just it got forgotten and people lost touch with how they felt.

Maybe we got too busy for that. It never stops to amaze me when those 6-meals-per-day poor souls advise people to listen to their bodies! Well buddies, if they listened to their bodies they wouldn’t be eating 6 meals per day every day! We are designed to eat, rest & digest, fast and spend energy, then repeat.

There is nothing called a snack. Every time anything goes down your throat there’s a feeding response. For the sake of this argument every time you eat it’s called a feeding, let’s call it a meal. So for example on a typical resistance training day on Smart Choices, an advanced practitioner will be having 6-7 meals. The only exception would be the pre-workout arginine/creatine/glycerol. On the other hand, the post-workout shake is to be considered a meal.

Daily intermittent fasting, with the exception of Sundays, or Fridays, or whatever day suits your lifestyle, is an individual matter. I personally have noted that I perform better in my late afternoon workouts when I skip breakfast and I stay leaner even if for some reason I drop cardio for a few consecutive weeks here and there.

Water, and liquids in general, dilute stomach acid and the digestive enzymes. Yes, even sugar-free Pepsi and Coke. Those are not acidic enough to replace stomach acid, instead, the stomach acidity drops, and the digestive enzymes get diluted.

Chew each and every bite completely and do not drink liquids with meals. Wait at least an hour after a meal and don’t eat for at least 15 minutes after you drink any liquids.