How is Your Digestive Health?
Once a year, I speak to children about health, and one thing I talk about is “poop”, because how often we “poop” or eliminate can tell a lot about our health. Now the kids go “oooh”, and you are probably doing the same thing now, keep this in mind if you are not eliminating minimum of once a day – there is something wrong with your health. Really, we should eliminate once for each meal we eat – 24 hours later. So, if on Monday you eat 3 meals you should eliminate 3 times on Tuesday, not everyone does this, but at least once a day is the golden rule of pooping. Okay, lets talk about this in more detail.
It also matters the quality of your poop, if it is runny and watery that could be a problem, and if it is hard and takes forever to get out of your body – that is not good either. If you view the Bristol stool chart you will see the different types of poop. The optimal poop is #4, if any of the other ones you might have a problem with your digestion. You may be thinking – oh no – I only poop every 2-3 days, or I my poop is runny and nasty and I can’t control it. No matter what the problem there are ways to fix it, lets go into some of the ways your quality of poop can be improved.
- Eat Real Food – If your digestion is not good the quality of the food you are eating may not be good. If you are eating a diet that is made up of fast food, or lots of processed food that is what is causing your problems. This kind of food has no nutritive value – it is just “doof”. If you want to have good “poop”, and good health eat a diet high in veggies and fruits, 3-5 ounces of protein each meal, and healthy fats. It’s not that you can’t have some processed food, or some fast food – just limit it to the occasional meal.
- Consume Probiotics – Our gut or digestive tract is loaded with bacteria. A healthy gut flora is necessary for a good time in the bathroom – healthy poop. Good bacteria should be consumed on a regular basis. This can either be in the way of fermented foods – kimchi, sauerkraut, yogurt, etc., or you can take a good quality probiotic. At the end I will list a couple of good ones for you to check out. A good probiotic will not only heal the gut but it will boost your immune system.
- Eat more fat – Healthy fats have a direct impact on your ability to poop, and can be extremely helpful to eat if you are constipated. Healthy fats are coconut oil, olive oil, avocado’s, butter from grass fed cows, etc.
- Drink more water – Believe it or not if you are not drinking enough water. I always say that you should drink half your body weight in ounces of water – for example if you weigh 150 pounds you should drink 75 ounces of water. Keep in mind that any coffee or tea you drink goes against the ounces of water you drink.
- Take prebiotics – Prebiotics is generally a fiber powder that is fertilizer for probiotics. So by taking prebiotics you will have more probiotics in your gut.
Keep in mind that a healthy diet is necessary for healthy poop, and healthy poop is essential for good health. As always if you have any questions please ask away.