How to Eat Smaller Meals to Prevent Acid Reflux

Changing your eating habits, especially learning to eat less, can be challenging. But many people eliminate the discomfort of acid reflux by making changes in their diet, and particularly reducing the size of meals and snacks.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• A notebook or paper to keep track of your symptoms and what you eat
• Healthy foods like fruits and vegetables

1. Eat regular meals and snacks throughout the day. Skipping meals can trigger overeating later, so eating a normal healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner and several healthy snacks through the day can help prevent overeating. Overeating may lead to acid reflux.
2. Resist night-time snacking. Eating right before bed can trigger acid reflux and interfere with sleep. If you have a normal health dinner, keep it to a light snack in the evening. You may need to tough it out for a night or two and simply relax and breathe through your urges to eat.
3. Focus on fruits and veggies. Most people can eat larger quantities of fresh and lightly prepared fruits and vegetables without getting symptoms when compared to processed or junk foods, or richer foods. Foods higher in sugar and fat, like cream sauces, desserts, fatty meats and chips tend to be tolerated in much smaller quantities, if at all. Aim to increase the number of servings of fruits and vegetables you eat, up to 5 to 9 servings each day. Reduce richer foods as you bolster your fruits and veggies.
4. Track your success. You can keep a journal of your symptoms and the foods you eat to see if and when they interrelate. By keeping a record, you may see trends or learn from your mistakes.
5. Successful changers learn from mistakes. Nobody is perfect. Making mistakes is a natural part of the process of change. But learn from your mistakes; what happened, and what can you do to improve the possibility of success from here on in? Change isn't easy, but it can be done and you are worth it.

Tips & Warnings

• Experts say it takes 30 days of repetition to adopt a new habit, so stay with it.
• Your local library will have cookbooks and other resources to introduce you to the world of healthy eating. Start with foods that appeal to you. Don't fill your fridge with foods you dislike; that's a recipe for failure.
• A dietitian can help you make an individual plan for this change.
• Always check with your doctor before making any lifestyle change.