[Beach Patrol]

Fiber, water and healthy fat (within limits) = regular poop. Regular for you is not regular for everyone else, though.

I so totally completely absolutely agree with this!!!


Altho, I will say, from (ahem!) personal experience, too much fiber can really... uh.... backfire. Yeah, that's the word.

[astrophe]

So I was wondering? Are you regular? What's your experience with this?

Always been regular. While growing up, every other day was my pattern.

Do you have the same or similar problems when you eat all the healthy foods.

As an adult, eating less kid type food and more veggies -- daily. In fact, so regular I can time it. About 1 hour after waking up. (Sometimes twice a day if I had a lot of produce like big salads at lunch though.)

Does your stool turn to cement and return to normal once you reintroduce fats and sweets into the diet?

Er... no. I usually have 3 or 4's on the Bristol Scale unless I'm sick.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Stool_Scale


HTH!
A.

[Moondance]

Lady I know who is super thin...once every 3 days.
Myself (obese)...twice/day, regularly.

I echo the water and fiber suggested above.

Now the prune juice with flax seed... Just my opinon though!

[Gold32]

I ed at the idea that one needs fats and sweets to be regular. Sweets do, indeed, losen me up quite a bit, too much sometimes. But that's not a healthy thing. In fact, I'm almost positive sugar was giving me IBS pain. I've been in a lot less pain since nearly completely quit sugar.

Since I took up jogging, I have been experiencing more "cement" like poop. I upped my water intake a bit, and it really helped. But I've always been a once a day, every morning person. I think I've heard that you can train a habit with your bowels by trying to go every day at the same time. Your body catches on.

I agree with the nurse though. Everyone is different, and as long as you are going at least every 3 days, you're fine. One thing to keep in mind: the longer it sits there, the harder it gets, as your body leeches more water from it.

Ah, the human body....

[eryn s]

This might be a really silly question but can upping the amount of fibre you eat help you absorb less calories? The way I'm reasoning it in my head is that people take laxatives to help them lose weight (and I'm presuming that that's because it gets the food out of their bodies so quickly that it can't be fully absorbed), so could eating lots of all bran and prunes have a similar effect or will their laxative effects not be strong enough to aid in weight loss. Or am I completely wrong about how it is that laxatives cause weight loss in the first place?

I should add that I'm well aware that laxatives are not at all a sensible or healthy way to lose weight and I wouldn't dream of using them, I'm just curious.

[MissKelly]

Unless I don't drink enough water or Im sick...Im regular 90% of the time... thin or fat. Just been the type that hasnt really had any constipation probs...thank heavens cause I have enough of other probs! lol

[Stella4]

There is something called the 'Bratts' diet (I think that's how it's spelled) and it is meant to help relieve loose stools. So my nutritionist said to follow the opposite (because i have irregularity issues too). So the Bratt's diet suggested eating Bananas, Rice, Applesauce and Toast because these are foods relatively low in fibre and tend to harden the stool. So I guess my advice would be to avoid these foods as much as possible and like everyone else has mentioned, drink plenty of water.

[Arctic Mama]

I can't say I've ever had a regularity problem anywhere from higher calories to 1400 (the lowest range I've tried)/ I go once or twice a day, usually, and occasionally every two days, max. It's just never been a problem.

I eat a reasonably high fiber diet.