Did you know there’s a “holy grail” of poo? Yup. I’m not making that up.

In the world of natural health, there’s a gold standard bowel movement, which frankly we rarely see. 

Your poo is perfect if: 

• It has the consistency of soft-serve ice cream: smooth and easy. Not lumpy-bumpy, not hard, but also not watery. “Gently formed.”
• You don’t see any undigested food in it.
• You don’t need to push. It comes out easily with no significant effort or straining.
• You don’t need to jump through a bunch of hoops to have it happen. In other words, if you need to drink your morning coffee, take a fiber supplement, and superdose magnesium in order to go, you don’t have a perfect poo. If you’ve got to do extra stuff – whatever that “stuff” might be – to keep yourself regular beyond simply eating a whole foods diet and staying hydrated, then you’ve not achieved the holy grail of stool yet. And by all means – keep using your strategies to keep yourself going! Regular poop is far better than no poop. But you’re not yet at holy grail status.
• It’s relatively odorless. A slight odor is natural, but your housemates shouldn’t gag when they walk into the bathroom after you.
• You only need one quick wipe. You don’t go through half a roll of toilet paper or need a shower afterward.
• It is chocolate brown in color. Not taupe; not black; not purple (even if you’ve eaten beets).
• It feels “complete.”
• It happens daily. Bonus points for three times daily, shortly after each meal.

How does your poo stack up? If it’s not yet up to snuff, that’s okay. Here are 5 things you can do to get yourself on track: 

1. 1. 1. Eat 7-9 cups of veggies per day (and I’m not counting potatoes). One of the best ways to increase your fiber content naturally is to eat lots and lots of veggies. More veggies than feels reasonable. Dr Terry Wahls of the Wahls Protocol fame recommends 3 cups of veggies per meal. That’s a LOT of veggies! And this means you have to start at breakfast. Lots of greens, lots of color, lots of (cooked) cruciferous veggies, and some starchy veggies like carrots, beets, or winter squash.
      2. Get hydrated. Most of us aren’t hydrating properly. In some cases we’re under-hydrating, and simply not drinking enough water. In other cases, we’re over-hydrating or hydrating with water that is devoid of those vital electrolytes that are essential to the water actually getting into our cells. Make sure you’re drinking enough water (the basic formula is 1oz of water for every pound of body weight) and then make sure that some of the water has some added electrolytes. Some of my favorite brands are Designs for Health and LMNT.
         
      3. Take a good-quality probiotic. As much as we want to do all of this with food, supplementing with probiotics is necessary. Even if you eat lots of fermented foods, I recommend a daily probiotic. Why? Well, I do a lot of stool testing in my practice and I have thus far never seen a microbiome balanced exclusively via food. We’re exposed to low-lying levels of antibiotics from so many sources including our water and food, and to combat this, we need to supplement. I recommend these spore-forming probiotics at a starting dose of 1 with the largest meal of the day and increasing after 1-2 weeks to 2 per day.
      4. Eliminate inflammatory foods from your diet. Certain foods are both highly inflammatory and increase the body’s tendency to irregular bowel movements. While some of this is bio-individual based on your body specifically, the most common culprits are gluten, dairy, soy, and processed foods overall. If you can rid your diet of these usual suspects, you’re well on your way to a healthier digestive tract, better poops, and all sorts of other side-benefits such as weight loss, improved sleep, a healthier more balanced immune system, better energy, and much much more. If you’re not sure where or how to start, our Real Food Reboot program will hold your hand through this process. 
      5. Adopt the proper poo posture. As “modern” and “civilized” humans, we have some odd quirks, and one of them is that we expect our bodies to eliminate waste in the most inappropriate posture. For millions of years, we humans squatted to poo. Now we sit with legs well below our belly buttons, creating a literal kink in our colon right where we want it to be nice and open to allow the waste out. The best solution I’ve found to this (other than actually squatting ON the toilet rather than sitting on it) is the trusty Squatty Potty. Rule of thumb: knees above belly button = perfect poo posture.

Now you’re all set to have the perfect poo! If you’re still struggling or would like more personal help to get things flowing, consider working with us privately and we’ll get your poo optimized!

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