22/10/2024
Not quite pooing like a champion? 💩
Here are my go to suggestions to bring some regularity, ease, sense of completion and satisfaction back to your bathroom visits.
🚽 Make time to poo. Avoiding the urge sends the message to your bowels that you’re not interested in what it’s got to say. Do this often enough, it will eventually stop telling you!
Allowing time to poo, allows you to relax. When you relax, your bowels relax. In most cases, there you have it!
💦 It might feel like old news but often the easiest solution is to Drink. More. Water.
Adults aim for 2-3L per day. This includes herbal tea which makes it easier to achieve during winter.
🏃♀️ Move. When you move, your bowels move. Stagnant bowels are often the result of a stagnant body - read: not enough exercise.
💩 Fibre. We need around 30g of fibre per day in a variety of colours and forms. Fibre helps provide bulk to the stools which stimulate the stretch receptors and urge to poo.
Our gut microbiome, which also influences our bowel movements, need to eat! Their food is fibre.
Think of them as your workers, your team of staff. They carry out some of the most important jobs in your body - producing neurotransmitters, vitamins, immune defence, regulating inflammation, supporting mood and digestive function. Well-fed workers will always perform better than those feeling starved. Just sayin’.
🥝 Fruit. It’s designed in to move quickly through the digestive system and be pooped out in a timely manner. This way, from an evolutionary perspective, we could then transfer seeds to new locations to regerminate. While we’re no longer simply dumping new fruit trees around the hood, fruit still acts to support bowel transit time. Simply increasing your fruit intake (3-5 serves /day), can effectively unblock the drains.
Fruits with great laxative properties include kiwi, mango and dragonfruit.
These simple, diet and lifestyle basics should always be the first place to start.
When we need to call in favours::
💩 Prebiotics like PHGG or Lactulose
🌿 Calming herbs during times if stress
💩 Ground Flaxseeds
🦠 Specific probiotic strains
If indicated:
🚩Screen for SIBO, Coeliac Disease, IBS
