Small Frequent Meals Could Help Your Acid Reflux
If you suffer from acid reflux, you might be wondering about how you eat and what you eat. You probably didn’t know that those three large meals each day might actually be causing your acid reflux did you? Studies have found that many people suffer from the worst acid reflux when they consistently overeat, so that right there is one of the reasons not to eat too much. Having the right acid reflux diet is important if you suffer from this condition, but maybe you don’t understand how that can be.
Many people know what acid reflux is, but since they aren’t sure what’s causing it, they can’t understand the things that might be very effective in treating it. Don’t believe the large meal theory? Here are a few reasons why:
- Acid reflux is caused because the muscle between the esophagus and stomach is unable to create a tight seal. This can happen for a number of reasons, but one of the many reasons is due to the muscle being weak. Sometimes, it just needs time to heal and other times, it has trouble closing completely due to the fact that you just ate a very large meal.
- Large meals tend to fill the stomach more, so this means that your esophageal sphincter cannot properly close because there might be too much food in the way.
- In addition to this, it’s important to remember that our stomachs are small, so they don’t generally require a whole lot of acid to digest a small meal, however, with a large meal, your body feels the need to make more acid in order to digest all that food, which means that your stomach will become even more full.
For this reason, it’s important to begin eating much less in one sitting and stretch your meals out over the course of a day instead of eating two or three large meals in the day. When you split up your meals into several smaller meals throughout the day, your stomach digests them much more easily and you’ll find that you actually can fight your acid reflux. This helps ease your indigestion and helps your digestive system.
In addition to using small meals as a way to ease symptoms of your acid reflux, you might be excited to find that this is also a very effective way to help you to lose weight. Plus, if you’re working on a new healthy acid reflux diet, eating several small meals a day might be a good way to help you to make the transition much more easily because you’ll find that you don’t get so hungry all the time.
However, eating smaller meals throughout the day doesn’t mean that you’re just snacking. You are actually looking for “meals”, which will encompass many of your major food groups. For instance, you might have a small breakfast of cereal, but a couple of hours later, you might want to have a some fruit and yogurt with some whole grain toast, for lunch, you may choose to have a salad with grilled chicken and whole grain rice or beans. You would then choose a small afternoon meal and dinner that also covers your food groups. This can help you to stay more “satisfied” and also help you to fight acid reflux symptoms.

