If you’ve ever found yourself standing in front of the mirror wondering why am I so bloated. Or frantically searching ‘how to get rid of bloating’, well hey – me too! This was me for years.

I wasn’t just bloated after eating, I was bloated all the time. I would wake up bloated, go to bed bloated, and even on the days where I hadn’t eaten much, my stomach still felt swollen, tight, and uncomfortable. It made me feel so frustrated with my body, because I couldn’t understand what was going on or what I was doing wrong. It felt like my body was working against me.

But after years of struggling, I’ve come out the other side. I’ve managed to achieve something I genuinely didn’t think was possible at the time, which was waking up with a flat stomach and not feeling constantly bloated. And I want you to know that if you’re feeling like this right now, it is possible for you too.

I’m Doing Everything Right… So Why Am I Still Bloated?

What made it even more frustrating was that I felt like I was doing everything right. I was going to the gym five times a week, and I was eating well. I’d started learning more about nutrition and was making an effort to include more whole foods and fibre, I was staying hydrated, and yet this constant bloating just would not shift.

This is the point where your mind starts to spiral a bit. You start questioning everything and analysing every little thing you’ve eaten or done. You might find yourself thinking, is it something I ate, is it my hormones, is it just stubborn fat that won’t shift, or is there something more serious going on that no one has picked up on?

I remember standing in front of the mirror and crying at times, not just because of how my stomach looked, but because of how uncomfortable I felt and how frustrating it was to be doing all the right things and still not seeing any progress.

I Got Diagnosed with IBS… But That Didn’t Give Me Answers

I went to the doctors so many times, and every time I was told the same thing. It’s *just* IBS, just follow a low FODMAP diet and that should help your symptoms. I was reassured that it wasn’t anything serious, that it’s just something you learn to live with.

But that didn’t help, because even if IBS isn’t a serious condition like inflammatory bowel disease, it was completely affecting my day-to-day life. I felt uncomfortable in my body every single day, my clothes would fit one day and not the next, and there were honestly times where I felt like I had to hide my body because of how swollen I was.

What Causes Bloating?

One of the most confusing things about bloating is that there isn’t just one cause, which is why googling what causes bloating, or trying different debloat teas, or buying random supplements for bloating often doesn’t give you long term relief.

Looking back, there were a few key things that likely contributed to my gut issues. One of the biggest was the amount of antibiotics I had taken growing up. At one point in my teens, I was taking antibiotics every other month for tonsillitis, UTIs and ear infections. After that period, I started to notice more issues, I was getting recurrent thrush, my bowel movements became more unpredictable, and that’s when the bloating became constant.

A lot of people think antibiotics simply wipe out bacteria in the gut, but it is not quite that simple. What can happen sometimes is that certain bacteria become more dominant or resistant, while beneficial bacteria are reduced, which creates an imbalance in the gut microbiome. Some of these bacteria can produce gas as a byproduct, which can lead to symptoms like bloating, constipation or loose stools.

My diet at the time didn’t help either. When I was in sixth form, I was enjoying the freedom of eating what I wanted, which meant takeaways, crisps, chocolate and convenience foods, with very little fibre. So my gut didn’t really have the support it needed to recover from all the antibiotics I was taking.

I changed my diet and was still bloated

So when I later started improving my diet, increasing my fibre, having green juices, eating more whole foods, going to the gym consistently and staying hydrated, I thought that would fix it.

It’s all the generic recommendations that people promise to be the answer to gut issues. But sometimes I felt like eating healthy made my gut symptoms worse…

And this is where so many people get stuck, because you feel like you’re doing everything right, but your body just isn’t responding. This is also where the self blame starts to creep in. You start thinking maybe you need to be stricter, eat cleaner, train harder, cut more foods out, or try another supplement.

Tests to help find what’s causing bloating

For me, everything finally changed when I stopped guessing and actually looked at what was going on in my gut.

If you’ve been through the GP route, your experience will probably sound familiar. You go to the GP and explain your symptoms, they run some initial tests to rule out more serious conditions like coeliac disease or inflammatory bowel disease, which usually involves stool tests and blood tests. If anything comes back abnormal, you may be referred for further investigations like an endoscopy or colonoscopy.

But if everything comes back normal, which is what happens for a lot of people, you’re told it’s IBS.

And that’s where so many people are left. Feeling awful on a daily basis, but being told everything is fine. It’s just IBS – nothing serious, get on with your life!

I was in that exact position. I remember thinking, how can everything be normal when I feel this rubbish every single day?

The reality is that standard testing is designed to rule out serious disease, which is important, but it does not give you the full picture of what is happening in your gut.

You need a different kind of stool test

It wasn’t until I had the space to properly talk through everything with a nutritionist, someone who actually listened to my full history and took me seriously, that things finally started to change.

We ran an in-depth stool test, and for the first time, I had answers.

This type of testing looks at your gut microbiome, including your levels of beneficial bacteria, whether there are overgrowths, infections, inflammation, or issues with digestion. It goes far beyond what standard testing can show.

My results showed that I had an overgrowth of bacteria that were producing gas and driving the constant bloating I had been experiencing. I also had a fungal overgrowth in my gut, which can cause a lot of IBS-type symptoms, and is something I often see in people who have had repeated courses of antibiotics.

Suddenly, everything made sense. It wasn’t that my body was just sensitive or that I was reacting to random foods. It was that there was an imbalance in my gut that hadn’t been identified yet. And this might be exactly where you’re stuck too.

Why a Low FODMAP Diet Didn’t Fix My Bloating

This is why a low FODMAP diet didn’t fix the problem for me long term.

It may reduce symptoms temporarily, because you are limiting the foods that feed those bacteria, but it doesn’t actually address the root cause. The overgrowth is still there, so when you reintroduce foods like garlic or onions, the symptoms come back and it can feel like those foods are the problem.

This is how people end up avoiding more and more foods without actually fixing what is going on underneath.

The protocol I followed to stop being bloated

Instead of continuing to restrict foods, I focused on addressing the root cause.

I followed a targeted protocol using specific supplements and dietary support to reduce the bacterial and fungal overgrowth and support my gut properly.

Over the next few months, the bloating started to improve, and eventually it went away.

I went from feeling sick, constantly full and bloated every single day, to waking up with a flat stomach. I remember that first morning so clearly, I almost cried with relief because I genuinely didn’t think it was possible to feel like that.

Now, the only bloating I experience is a normal level of bloating, like in the lead up to my period or at the end of the day after eating, not the constant, painful bloating that used to control my life.

How to reduce bloating

If you feel like you’re doing everything right but not getting anywhere, I really want you to hear this.

You’re not doing anything wrong.

You might just have an imbalance somewhere that you’re completely unaware of, that no one has actually looked for yet. Because bloating can be caused by so many different things, from your gut bacteria, digestion and hormones, to infections, food intolerances, stress, and even underlying conditions like endometriosis.

But the key thing is that there is a reason for it, and these are all things that can be supported once you understand what is going on.

If you are feeling completely fed up, sick of feeling bloated all the time, tired of trying different supplements, diets and quick fixes that don’t work, I want you to know you are not alone.

I know what it feels like to be told there’s nothing wrong with you when you know there is, to not have answers, and to feel trapped inside your own body.

And if you’re feeling like this too, there is space for you to actually be listened to, and there are ways to properly investigate what is going on so you can start feeling like yourself again.