Inflight bloating

It was another early morning again, Dublin airport twenty past seven. Flights have become a bit of a routine for me as I fly a lot. But there has been one thing that has been bothering me more and more lately. After a flight, even a short one, my body gets bloated… I call it inflight bloating. It’s something I’m sure always happened, but since I noticed it I have become very aware of it. It usually lasts up to three days and makes me feel like my body was one size too big for my skin…

This time I decided to run a small experiment. I did a bit of a research online and there are some tips, but a lot of it is more suggestive than actual factual advice. I had my own theories, but they are only based on what I have experimented with diet in the past.

Here’s what I did. The first thing is the obvious one, but the one many of us ignore. Not drinking an alcoholic beverage. Again my instinct tells me here a glass of red wine would not hurt you. Beer or high sugar content drinks, for example spirit with a mixer will leave your body battered even on a good day, let alone when you are stuffed into a pressurized tube for several hours. Now don’t take me wrong, I like my beer 😉 But on this occasion I decided to stay off any alcohol during and 48hours before my flight.

Also I decided not to have any refined sugars or the simple (fast) carbohydrates. I have my reasons to believe that we are going to view these refined sugars and Simple carbs in a future as one of the worst drugs of early twenty first century, but we shall talk more about that in another blog post on a later date.

You know I love my coffee and I really don’t think this is a problem, but have it at the airport coffees shop before the flight where they have proper machines. I have my doubts about instant coffee as well. Just don’t load it up with sugar and if you can, I recommend drinking it black on this occasion.

So what I did eat the 48 hours before the flight was eggs, loads of green leafy salad, tomatoes, even a steak just to make the point I am not depriving myself from everything 😉 And one of my daily favourite has been a fresh juice I make at home, the recipe comes from a great book by Niall Harbison called “Get Sh*t Done!” which I highly recommend. The juice consists of two carrots, two apples, stalk of celery, fist full of spinach, inch of ginger and a half a head and the stalk of broccoli. And before you ask, yes it is delicious! The sweetness from the apple and carrots with the help of ginger completely cover up the green attack. This has been a game changer for me. First autumn I got through without a cold, I feel energised and let’s just say my body is “regular”

The flight passed with the usual amount of incidents you expect at every Ryanair flight 😀 We all love to hate them in Europe, but still we all use it all the time, so they must be doing something right 😉 Now it is twelve hours after my flight and I must say even though there is still some small signs of the usual post flight discomfort, nothing compared to my usual few beers, dodgy take away sandwich, kind of trip.

If you suffer from the same symptoms of inflight bloating, I recommend you try the above tips. As a musician I fly a lot and there is nothing worse than arriving to do a festival in front of hundreds of people and you feel like you just put on an extra 5kg overnight, I can only imagine what the airline crew feels like. But if you follow my advice you might actually get to enjoy your holidays from the moment you land. And yes, the night after my flight I did have a beer and really enjoyed it 😉

J.P.

The author J.P. Kallio is a singer songwriter
To get three of his free songs go HERE and click Download