Unlock the Secrets of Your Health Through Poop!

 

Introduction and Personal Story

Hello and welcome to the GI nutrition show. I'm Amy McCrea, registered dietician and CEO of grounded root nutrition. Today's topic is the big secret poop. So a little backstory on me, my GI issues. I had them really kind of my early teenage years, but college, they really became an issue. Doctors knew, I have belly pain and constipation there.

Wasn't a whole lot of discussion. So their recommendations. Eat fiber drink water. I did those things. They were not magic for me. And so they might not be magic for you either. That's okay. I knew there was a problem, but I had no idea where else I needed to go. So I'm going to date myself a little bit technology and this whole internet and computer thing, they were kind of new. Back in my college years, I had a word processor.

I didn't have a computer. Only a handful of my friends did. Where did we go for our information and computers? We went to the school library. Now, I don't know about you, but searching about constipation and poop. Not exactly what I was hoping to do in the middle of the school library. When any of my friends could walk up behind me and see exactly what I was doing, I did not want to talk about poop.

The Stigma Around Poop

But when did poop become barred from these conversations? I mean, take my dog.

This is ACE back here. He has all kinds of issues. We talk about his stuff all the time. So talking about dog poop, totally normal.

Or when you have a baby, you're going to talk about their poop a lot. What's the texture. What's the color. How many diapers did you change? It's normal. It's a regular part of conversation. But at what point. Did it become unacceptable to talk about our own poop with others?

So today, my goal is to normalize poop.

So The first doctor that really asked me about my poop was my naturopath. And I am so thankful for her. I no longer needed to hide behind myself and pretend that everything was great. I spilled the beans. And my goal for you is to be able to spill those beans as well. Talk about them, not only with your doctors, but also family, friends, other people. Poop is normal.

It's an everyday fact of life. We all do it. It's important. So let's own it and let's share it, share it with friends and family and normalized poop. But more importantly, make sure you're sharing it with your doctors.

Understanding Your Poop

So, what exactly does your poop tell you? Well, there's a whole bunch of things. Anything from hydration to how well you're digesting fats, how well your gallbladder and pancreas are doing. the balance of your hormones, parasites. Reactivity to foods like gluten.

So food sensitivities are going to pop up. Food transit time. So if we think about when you eat corn, right, it doesn't digest all the way. So you can see.

So you and your poop. You can tell how many days or hours did it take for me to digest this corn?

Your poop leads us to nutrient deficiencies as well as potential medication reactions and processing times.

Lots and lots of information can be gleamed from poop. So it's so important for you to share this information. So, what is some of the information specifically for poop that we're looking for? So first the consistency. So are you having constipation? Are you having diarrhea? Are you a mix? Well, there's this really cool chart out there.

It's called the Bristol stool chart. And it breaks poop down into seven different levels. Level four. Is that perfect snake? It is the ideal poop. You go on either side of it, a three and a five. It's mostly normal. But once in twos or constipation, so think like rabbit turds. Six and seven is more like diarrhea. So, those are definitely not normal.

Then we want to consider the frequency.

So how many times a day, or how many times a week, if you're not going daily, are you actually going to the bathroom and do you feel emptied? It tells us how well your bowels are moving.

The next is color. So brown is the most common color for our poop. However, what you eat does affect your poop.

So if you had something. Let's say a smoothie with lots and lots of greens on it, and you might have a darker hue. And maybe even a little bit of green issue to your stool, if you had beets might be reddish. But if it's really pale stool, that's important. We need to know that if it's super yellows, that's also important.

We need to know that. Not yellow because of food dyes. Yellow cause that's an everyday production for you.

We'll also look at the odor of your stool. So how does it smell? Does it smell like rotten eggs and sulfur, or are there other smells to it? And then is it floating or is it sinking? I know that's a weird question. But that is information that is so important that helps us understand as practitioners what's going on inside your body.

So share this information, log it. Then what about blood? Is there blood in your stool? So if it's fresh blood it's locally. If it's fresh blood. It's likely coming closer from your rectum. If it's black in color, it's usually higher up in the GI tract. So be aware of those colors and report the color of blood that you're seeing to your practitioner, whether it's the block or the red.

And then food and stool. I talked about this a little bit ago with corn. So corn helps us know what your transit time is, but are you generally seeing food in your stool? Is it not digesting? Well, again, super important information. And then I also like to know how it wipes. So is it clean? Is it messy?

Is it sticky? Kind of like tar all these are so, so important. So some additional questions that your practitioner might ask you include some of the following.

Factors Affecting Bowel Movements

They're also going to want to know about your fluid consumption. You're supposed to drink half your weight in water. So if you came to me and you said I'm drinking 64 ounces of fluid a day, I'm going to say that is so awesome. What are you drinking? And then you share that you're drinking four cups of coffee a day. That 64 ounces goes out the window because I have news for you. And I have sad news for you. Coffee is dehydrating.

So for every cup of coffee that you have, you need another cup of water. Let me repeat that. For every cup of coffee, you have, you need another cup of water. So you need to make sure you are replenishing all of the hydration in your body. So I'm going to ask you what you're actually drinking, not just the quantity of those fluids. I also want to know about recent life changes, stressors or anxiety producing things could be a move.

It could be just life in general. It could be a seasonal type of issue. Past traumas can be an acute situation or a chronic situation. These are super, super important. They affect how we poop and our bowel movements. And so I want this information, the more open you are with me, the more I can help you.

Same with every other practitioner you talk to. And then I want to know about your movement. What are you doing? How often are you moving? What's the intensity at which you're moving. Cause bowel movements are stimulated by movement. Again, super, super important. And then your diet who doesn't want to know about your diet.

I am a dietician. So of course I want to know about your diet. I want to know what your fruits, your veggies and your legumes or beans. What is that consumption? What is it on a daily basis? And maybe if daily is low, what are we going to look at from a weekly perspective? How many are you eating within a week?

This helps me understand what might be going on in your body. Are you getting variety? How much processed foods? What are your protein sources? All huge information. All of these things affect your poop. And we're talking about poop today. So I want you to give you the skinny on all the information that I'm going to need from you.

So as a practitioner, I am not necessarily looking for what you ate today or what you ate yesterday. I'm looking at trends in patterns. So I am trained to help identify those patterns and trends to be able to make suggestions, to help improve yourself. And so you don't, of course don't have to take those suggestions, but that's my goal.

And so I look at the trends over time. So you'll want to make sure that you're not just giving a snapshot in time. You're really looking at well, what do I do over the course of a week? It's not the one-off day because you ate something that your body didn't like, and you had diarrhea one day. That's not your normal, your normal is constipation.

That's what we want to hear about. So now that you've collected all this information and we're really able to extrapolate with this kind of trending over time.

Seeking Professional Help

You're kind might be like, where do I go with this information?

You might wonder who can help me. So a couple options on my website, there is a link for a free book called say goodbye to constipation that will help jumpstart your journey.

Although it is. Geared towards constipation. It also can be effective for my patients with diarrhea. So I encourage every Paty, everybody to. Take a look at that. And then you can also seek help from a professional. So there are GI health dieticians like myself.

There are gastroenterologists. They specialize in the GI tract. You could certainly see a psychologist. Maybe you have lots of past trauma. So a psychologist or psychiatrist would be helpful for you. And you can also talk to your primary care doctor.

So lots of ways that you can get help.

Healthy Bathroom Habits

The last nugget I want to leave you with is how important your bathroom habits are. So the hardest one. For everyone is to leave your electronics at the door. Why? Because Our phones are stimulating. And so it prevents our body from fully relaxing sometimes. So if you're someone that's Dugald struggles with constipation, Leave your phone outside. Next thing is elevate your feet. So there's this really cool thing called a Squatty potty.

We have them, we have them in every single one of our bathrooms. I love them. It is a little stool. That's like U shaped. And so it fits right around the toilet. It's so cool. And it elevates your feet. So you want to bring your feet up a little bit. So, if you don't want to buy a Squatty potty, you can use books.

You can use yoga blocks, you can use empty boxes. The sky's the limit, find something. Get your feet up. The height determines is it. The height that you want is determined by the size of your toilet and how big you are. So it's variable find what's most comfortable for you.

Now that your feet are elevated and they're up on that stool or the yoga blocks want you to take your forms?

You can rest those on your thighs and then have a nice flat straight back. This is the ideal position to poop. So if you get in this position, take a few deep breaths. Give yourself a maximum of five to 10 minutes to go to the bathroom. If you're not feeling completely empty or nothing has happened. Get up, leave and try again at another time, it's a process to retrain our bowels. So give your body some permission and some forgiveness.

They get stage freight too. They just needed some love.

Conclusion and Contact Information

I hope you enjoyed today's show. Please visit my website, groundedrootnutrition.com to learn how I can partner with you on your health journey. Or feel free to email me hello@groundedrootnutrition.com. Have a wonderful day and I look forward to seeing you again soon.