I don’t want to gross you out, but now we need to talk about poops because they are a crucial part of digestion. Either diarrhoea or constipation can indicate that you have problems digesting your food, which could ultimately affect your ability to lose weight.
Many people don’t realize that they are suffering from constipation. When I say, ‘constipation’, I want you to think three things:
1. You’re moving your bowels less than once a day. Ideally, you should be going twice a day.
2. You’re having to really struggle. Ideally, everything should come out nice and smooth.
3. You’re producing poops that are tiny or don’t easily come all the way out. That is not good for your digestive tract or your overall health.
What is a poop you can be proud of? It is a well-formed poop that you don’t have to struggle with. It comes out fully – it doesn’t stop halfway through and leave you stuck. Nor does it dive-bomb to the bottom of the bowl. It sinks to the bottom of the bowl. It doesn’t mark things up.
If you have an oily residue or slick slides, you are not absorbing your fat well. If you have rabbit pellets or you’re straining, you don’t have enough fibre. If you have floating poops, it could be from excessive wind, produced by an overgrowth of bad bacteria lurking in your intestines.
Now at this point, you might be wondering why I’m putting you through this kind of gross science lesson. The answer is, because if you don’t eliminate properly, you’ll be bloated and fat and setting yourself up for a permanent problem with both indigestion and obesity.
Okay, I’ll get a little more gross and ask you to picture what would happen to a poop that just sat in the toilet for a few days. Ewww, right? Well, do you want that toxic mess sitting inside you? No, you don’t, and that’s why elimination is so important. If you aren’t having poops you can be proud of, you are holding a toxic mess inside your body every single day. That uneliminated poop is releasing toxins that are reabsorbed into your body, leading to bad breath, piles and acne, not to mention impaired digestion, inflammation and food intolerance. The net result is that you gain weight that you can’t lose, and you feel sluggish, tired and old before your time.
Those toxins are also putting a terrific strain on one of your primary detoxification organs: your liver. If you tax your liver with excess toxins, you could impair its ability to do its other critical functions, such as metabolize fat, which will ultimately make it more difficult for you to lose weight.
Maybe this isn’t the most pleasant topic, but it’s an important one – and what we focus on, we can improve. So at this point, I’d like to invite you to take my poop quiz.
Okay, so here’s the deal: none of these symptoms are normal, and you shouldn’t experience any of them regularly on a long-term basis. You might have symptoms that occur periodically because of stress, a transient parasite, bad food – some problem that your body handles and you recover from. But if you have any of these problems chronically, you need to address them. And you should be aware that the more questions you answered yes to, the more severe your issue is.
Now, here’s the good news: quite often, removing high-FI foods and adding in healing and low-FI foods correct most if not all of the problems. Here’s some more good news: the Improving Your Poops section can tell you how to fix any remaining problems.
Now that you see how important pooping is for getting rid of toxins, let’s talk about things that can help you poop better.
First, make time for it. Everyone has a rhythm. You will find your best time of day. For most people, it is when they get up in the morning or about an hour after they wake up and move. Make sure you have time for that. You may also need to have another bowel movement in the afternoon after lunch. Start to get used to what your body needs so you can set time aside. You need the right place to be able to do this, too.
Second, you need to have one to three bowel movements a day. They shouldn’t be urgent, and you shouldn’t have to run to the bathroom every time you eat. When you eat, it should stimulate some peristalsis in 30–60 minutes. (Peristalsis is the contraction and relaxation of your intestinal muscles to move food through your digestive tract.) But you should not be feeling the urgent need to run to the bathroom as soon as you finish your meal. If you pull all of the top 7 high-FI foods from your diet and your urgency hasn’t cleared up in a couple weeks, see your doctor.
Fibre definitely gives us poops we can be proud of! You need fibre to add the bulk to your stools. Here are the top 10 sources of fabulous fibre, so load up on these:
1 Raspberries (All berries are high-fibre, and these are the highest.)
2 Lentils
3 Nuts
4 Seeds, especially chia seeds and freshly ground linseeds
5 Kale
6 Quinoa
7 Avocado
8 Apples
9 Winter squash
10 Broccoli
You need to eat optimal amounts of fibre. The average person is getting only 5 to 14 grams of fibre per day, but I want you to get it up to 50 or more. You can’t do it overnight. Add 5 grams each day until you reach your goal – and make sure to drink more water as you do so.
In Chapter 8, you’ll find my instructions for drinking water. Water and fibre together make a nice sponge that will give you the bulk you need in your stools.
Vitamin C: Start with 1 gram and increase as needed up to 5 grams each night.
Magnesium: Start with 300 milligrams and increase as needed up to 1,000 milligrams each night.
If your poops become runny, back off the supplements a bit. Iron and calcium are constipating, so if you are taking either of these, you may need some supplements to offset those effects. I like to take vitamin C and magnesium at night to get things moving in the morning.
Get things moving with exercise.
Try drinking some hot coffee or tea in the morning.
Sip some peppermint tea throughout the day.
Throw two or three prunes into your shake.
When you move your bowels, consider elevating your feet with a footstool – our toilets are just about the worst possible set-up for elimination.
If none of this is working, try cascara sagrada, senna, Chinese