Do you experience burning in your stomach or have other weird digestive issues?  I did recently.

The Fire Rises

One day a few months ago, I noticed this weird burning sensation in my stomach.  In particular, I felt the feeling when my stomach was empty.  I figured it was probably nothing…perhaps just some kind of reaction to some weird food I had eaten, and perhaps the feeling would go away after a few days.

The sensation continued.

A little later, I noticed that this burning sensation would wake me up at night.  Every night.  Specifically, I would wake up sometime between 3:00 AM – 4:00 AM.  This was not cool, not only because I do not like to miss sleep, but also, because the burning was continuing.  I knew this meant that something was not right.

As the days went by, and the stomach burning persisted, I started to realize that I needed to do something about the stomach discomfort.  I began to do my own research and terms like gastritis, peptic ulcers and GERD came up.  I also read things about how untreated stomach burning years down the road can lead to worse things like cancer.  Now, I admittedly do not like to go to the doctor, but I knew I was going to probably need to see the doctor very soon if circumstances failed to normalize.

What is My Body Saying?

A thought came to my mind about a previous blog post I wrote about how important it is that we listen to what our bodies are telling us.  It was time to do some investigation.

What had I been eating that was different than before?  This was the first time in my life that I had ever felt this burning in my stomach, so that must have meant that I did something different.  After thinking for a bit, I realized that my overall diet at that point had been somewhat junked up.  I had been eating well, but then allowed myself to relax a bit too much.  I had upped the amount of meat and cheese a whole lot.  Now, I am not saying that either is bad necessarily, but I know that for me, this was not good based on how I had been eating.  I had also become somewhat lax with sweets, admittedly.  There was a candy box at work that, whereas before I could ignore it with no temptation, now I was visiting it almost daily.

I decided to try and clean up my diet first to see if this brought good results before taking a visit to the doctor’s office.

No More Burning

What did I do to change my diet?

• I slightly decreased the amount of meat I was eating
• I sharply decreased my cheese consumption
• I began to limit my dessert to just the weekend
• I gradually stopped visiting the candy box at work
• I tried somewhat to deal with stressors in my life
• I later started the Whole 30 program with my wife

Now, more than halfway through the Whole 30 program, and after all of my other dietary clean-up and my dealing with stress, I can truly say that the burning in my stomach is gone.

Amen.

Moral of the Story

First of all, do not take my story as something to diagnose yourself with.  Read my disclaimer on my About Me page.  You should consult a medical professional with any health concerns you have.

With that said, if you have burning in your stomach as I did, that means something.  Your stomach is not burning ‘just because.’  The pain is actually meant to alert you that something is not right.

Also, take a truthful evaluation of your lifestyle and eating habits.  Is your diet full of junk?  Have you recently begun to consume a lot of bad food?  Are you absolutely stressed out on a regular basis?  If you experience any stomach discomfort and you can answer ‘yes’ to any of these questions, all I am saying is that you should strongly consider making some changes.

Thankfully, this worked in my case.

If this was helpful to you, please pass it on