“I’ve cut out everything, and I still look six months pregnant by evening.”
If that sounds like you, you have probably already tried the obvious things. Less rice. No fizzy drinks. Smaller portions. And by six in the evening, your stomach is tight, round, and uncomfortable anyway — as if none of it made a difference.
It usually isn’t in your head, and it usually isn’t just “how your stomach is.” It’s worth working out which of a few different things is actually going on, because the fix is different for each one.
“It must be something I ate”
This is the first thing everyone assumes, and sometimes it’s right. Certain foods — beans, cabbage, onion, dairy for some people — produce more gas as they’re broken down (fermented) in the gut, and that’s a straightforward, mechanical kind of bloating. It tends to come a few hours after eating, and it tends to ease off by the next morning.
But if you’ve already cut the obvious culprits and you’re still swelling up daily, food alone probably isn’t the whole story.
“Maybe it’s my hormones”
For a lot of women, bloating gets noticeably worse around certain points in the month, or doesn’t really go away at all. If it comes with irregular periods, changes in weight, or new hair growth on the face or body, it’s worth having it looked at alongside those symptoms rather than on its own. Bloating is one of the most commonly reported symptoms in women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), often tied to irregular ovulation — and it’s a symptom that patients raise far more often than clinicians tend to ask about.
“Maybe it’s my digestion itself, not the food”
This is the one people miss most often. Sometimes the issue isn’t which foods you eat, but how slowly or unevenly your gut moves them through — sluggish digestion, rather than a reaction to any one ingredient. In Ayurveda, this is described as a weak digestive fire (agni): the body isn’t breaking food down efficiently, whatever the food is, so gas and bloating build up regardless of diet. Clinical medicine describes something similar in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS): certain fermentable carbohydrates produce excess gas and draw fluid into the gut, and the resulting distension can disrupt the gut’s normal movement — bloating that has more to do with how the gut is functioning than with any single food.
This is often the pattern behind “I’ve tried everything and nothing changes,” because the food was never really the variable that mattered.
A note for Colombo life specifically
Heat and humidity make people drink less water than they think they do, which slows digestion further and worsens bloating — the opposite of what most people assume in hot weather. Rice-and-curry meals, eaten quickly around a working day, don’t leave much time for the gut to settle before the next one arrives. Home remedies like coriander (kothamalli) water are common here for a reason — they’re mild digestive aids that Ayurveda has used for exactly this kind of sluggish digestion, long before it had a clinical name.
What actually helps
There’s no single fix, because there’s no single cause — and anyone who promises one is skipping a step. What helps depends on which of the above fits you: an elimination approach for food-driven bloating, a hormonal review if your cycle is involved, or a digestion-first approach — meal timing, water, and gut-supportive habits — if it’s agni rather than any one food. Persistent daily bloating that isn’t easing with basic changes is worth a proper look rather than another round of guessing at your own diet.
If any of this sounds familiar, it’s worth talking it through with one of our doctors rather than trying to solve it alone — speak to our team about a digestive and hormonal wellness consultation.
References
- Chaudhari, N., et al. Understanding polycystic ovary syndrome from the patient perspective: a concept elicitation patient interview study. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes (2017). Available at: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5562990
- Menees, S., et al. The Microbiome and Irritable Bowel Syndrome — A Review on the Pathophysiology, Current Research and Future Therapy. Frontiers in Microbiology (2019). Available at: frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2019.01136/full
