Do You Eliminate After Each Meal?
Have you noticed then when you feed a baby, toddler, dog or cat, they defecate within minutes of eating?
Adults are supposed too as well. Our bodies are designed such that when food comes in it creates pressure and triggers peristaltic movement, making room for more food. Keeping the system flowing is crucial to good health, as being backed up means carrying around toxic waste that burdens the body.
We are What We Eat and Don’t Eliminate
If you feel bloated, swollen or backed up, you may be full of crap, literally. This is a sign that there is room for improvement. While chapters 3 and 4 of the book, Better Breast Health – for Life!™ (BBHFL) and all the lymph-related subchapters in chapter 5 may contain insights that can help, let’s recap some of the key requirements for improving elimination through the bowels.
First, let’s start with the end in mind, no pun intended:
Aim for as many bowel movements in a day as you have meals (not the meal you just ate, but meals from the day before) so that you have less than a 24-hour transit time from mouth to toilet.
Keys for Evacuating Waste
Here is a common-sense list of requirements to support optimal elimination through the bowels. It is not all encompassing: please consult with your functional health provider, i.e. nutritionist or naturopath, and consider stool, gut functioning and other tests that can help determine how to meet your unique needs.
With trial and error, time and persistence, you may approach optimal bowel elimination by determining the bulk, fiber, healthy fats, minerals, movement, produce and water right for you:
Bulk
Have you ever noticed that a liquid diet results in liquid stools? To bulk up your stools, eat high-fiber foods such as whole grains, oatmeal, beans, fruits, and fresh vegetables. Bulking agents include soluble and insoluble fibers like psyllium husks and seeds, grain brans, hemi- and methyl-cellulose.
Fiber
Fiber helps food pass through the gut and generally improves digestion. Gut bacteria especially thrive on prebiotic fiber, which allows bacteria to reproduce and enhances their ability to make various products crucial to gut functions and human health.
Fiber and resistant starch feed the good bacteria in the intestines and increase the production of short chain fatty acids (butyrate), the preferred fuel of the cells that line the colon, acting as anti-inflammatory agents and decreasing intestinal permeability.
Soluble fiber tends to slow digestion, while insoluble fiber speeds up digestion. Fiber binds with wastes, toxins, and estrogens in the intestines helping to reduce glycemic index and chemical/estrogen metabolite reabsorption.
Women whose diets are consistently high in fiber are expected to have less risk for breast cancer, as high fiber helps reduce estrogen levels.
Aim for 30+ grams of fiber per day (both soluble and insoluble fiber).
Learn more in chapter 4 of BBHFL and its subchapter, “How Do You Support Beneficial Gut Bacteria?”
Healthy fats
Healthy fats (including some saturated fats) should be a part of everyone’s daily diet. Healthy fats are essential to assimilate proteins and other nutrients, produce hormones, and support many bodily functions, including brain function.
Do you know:
The brain is comprised of 60% fat, where 50% is lipids (fatty acids) and 20% is cholesterol?
Learn more in chapter 3 of BBHFL and its subchapter, “No-Fat Diets May Cause Cancer.”
Liver metabolism, enzymes, gut microbiome and more
The lymphatic system collects waste from the tissue and routes it to the heart, spleen, liver and kidneys for filtering and processing out of the body by pooping and peeing.
Are your stomach, gall bladder, pancreas, and liver producing adequate enzymes and healthily breaking down and metabolizing food, chemicals and hormones or leaving you with undigested food particles, waste and unhealthy metabolites?
Do your intestines contain sufficient good bacteria and binders, i.e. fiber and glucarates to bind metabolites and escort them out of the bowels?
Please consider consulting your functional health provider for the stool and gut function tests to help you answer these questions and more.
Minerals
You probably know that adding magnesium can loosen the bowels. But the gut needs virtually every mineral and nutrients in order to function optimally. From gut bacteria to organ function, minerals play a crucial role.
Vitamins cannot function in the body without minerals (and healthy fats), and the body needs 80+ minerals/trace minerals at all times.
Learn more in chapter 3 of BBHFL and its subchapters, “Mineralize or Die!” and “Supplement to Thrive!”
Movement
Move the body, move the bowels! While the body must move to stimulate the circulation of lymph fluid exercise helps to move and clear the system.
Learn more in chapter 5 of BBHFL and its subchapter, “Stimulate Lymphatic Circulation with Exercise” and its 3-part series on lymphatics.
Produce
The USDA recommends nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day – about half of your food servings. The phytonutrients in fresh produce are vital to good health.
Anti-cancer diets include an abundance of organic fruits and vegetables and may reduce the risk of breast cancer by 46%.
Learn more in chapter 1 of BBHFL and its subchapter, “Five Ways to Reduce Harmful Chemicals in Your Food and Water” and throughout chapters 3 and 4.
Water
Pure water is essential for life and is free of toxic metals and chemical contaminants detrimental to your health. Your body is 50% to 70% water. Even your bones are 31% water. Every cell, tissue, and organ in your body needs water for optimal health.
Cracked or chapped lips may be a sign of less-than-optimal hydration. Consider consuming at least one-half of your body weight in ounces of pure water daily:
If you weigh 150 pounds, drink 75 ounces of water daily. Drink additional water when exercising or stressed.
Celebrate Success – Client Testimonial
Watch this 1-minute video to learn the role that dehydration and constipation plays in waste accumulation and chronic inflammation and how much water to drink each day to support health and prevention.
See the reduced inflammation in the below image, in which the client increased bowel frequency from 1 per day to 3+ per day:
Learn More
Learn more in chapter 1 of BBHFL and its subchapters, “Five Ways to Reduce Harmful Chemicals in Your Food and Water” and “Why the Quality and Quantity of Your Water is Vital to Your Health”