To poop or not to poop…that is the question!
The standard American diet, also known as the S.A.D. diet, is so devoid of fiber and good nutrition that many American’s don’t have a bowel movement everyday and for some they may skip a day or even days! Yikes!
Let me give you some basic anatomy about your body. From the point food enters your body to when it exits your body is about a 30 foot journey. During this journey your food goes thru your esophagus,which is the first stage of digestion where your saliva enzymes start breaking down your food. It then goes on to your stomach where it is further digested and then released to your small intestine. Here hormones are released to stimulate your liver and gallbladder to release bile and these hormones also stimulate your pancreas to produce pancreatic juices to further digest our food. At the end of the small intestine there is a small valve which opens to allow the food to pass to the large intestine which is also known as our colon. The colon is about 5 feet long. If memory serves me well I think there may be a Magic School Bus episode on the body. Maybe I’ll have to check this out again for my kiddos.
Another interesting piece of info is that 80% of your immune system in your g.i. tract. With this being the case it is no wonder why more disease starts in this one area of our bodies more than any other. Did you know that colon cancer kills 400% more people than aids or breast cancer? Wowsers! This is why we have to put on our big boy/girl pants and not be shy talking about POOP! Shall we practice saying this together so we can grow comfortable with this word? Poop, bowel movement, bm, down loading a mega byte, taking the brown’s to the superbowl, laying a cable…oh, I think a few of those lovely terms came from my brother who loves to get a reaction from my boys! 
Since I have a little 3 year old who calls it poop I’ll just stick with that.
Medical statistics tell us the EVERY human will develop some kind of colon disease, polyp, tumor or colon cancer in their lifetime. Does that scare you? It certainly causes me to take notice of this. If you don’t go poop 2 – 3 times a day then you are just another typical American suffering from chronic constipation. There should be 3 trains “in” and 3 trains “out” a day.
A couple of weeks ago on a popular Dr show on t.v. they were discussing this subject and the so called “expert” said that once every other day was “normal”. Really??? O.K. I know I didn’t go to school for half my lifetime but if this is normal then where is everything going that we are putting into our bodies? We eat 3 meals a day, right? Shouldn’t we also be evacuating 3 times a day?
Obviously the idea of colon cancer is frightening enough to make us want to do something but there is a whole list of other not so fun symptoms from being constipated (and yes, that is what you are if you are not going 2 – 3 times a day!):
- Frequent headaches
- Skin problems (ie. eczema, acne, hives, psoriasis, etc...)
- Bloating, Gas, Excessive Belching
- Bad Breath
- Weak or brittle hair and nails
- Breathing difficulties (ie. asthma) or sinusitis
- Fatigue and lethargy
- Sugar cravings
- Candida overgrowth
- Yeast infections
- Food or Environmental Allergies
- Anxiety or depression
- Memory loss or learning disabilities
- Mood swings
- Frequent colds or infections
- PMS or bad menstrual cramps
- Arthritis
- Prostate problems
- Back pain
- Parasites (can we say eeww!)
The colon is a hotspot for triggering illnesses and there are many illnesses and prescriptions that interfere with the colon doing the job its designed to do. So what are we to do…poop of course! How do we actually do this though when we are having issues in this area to begin with. This really depends on how serious a person is about being healthy! Don’t forget that 80% of your immune system is in your digestive system!
Some simple things to do are drink more water, lots of water! Most Americans pass up water for tea, soda, coffee’s, and many other drinks. A good rule of thumb is to divide your body weight by 2 and that is how many ounces of water we should drink daily.
Fiber…duh, I know, this is obvious. Again, how many Americans pass up fruits and vegetables for chips and cookies. We need fiber to help keep that train a movin. Smoothies are simple way to sneak this in. Shyloh say’s my smoothies scare her. Besides the fruit I put in I’ll add leafy greens (it looks scary but you can’t taste it) and I also ad flax seed. You can sneak flax seed in almost anything! Trust me, I’ve done it! I can’t say more than that since my children may at some point read this…I’d be busted.
There are also some great supplements you can take such as psyllium seed (not husk but the seed) This lovely little seed acts as a scrub brush and gets into your colon and helps scrub all that old yucky stuff off your colon walls. When that is left to build up over time you can end up with a not so fun little problem called diverticulitis. Just saying the word hurts.
Exercise is another relatively easy way to get things moving. Even just adding walking or some simple stretching to our day helps get things going and its also great to keep our lymphatic systems moving as well. We just have to do it, not keep talking about it!
If a change in water and eating habits, exercise and extra flax or psyllium seeds don’t get things going then you may need to pull out the big guns: a colon cleanse. I know that the thought of this is enough to make a grown man cry but let’s weigh our options….colon disease or health. Hmmm…seems simple enough to me. I’ve done a colon cleanse a few times. It’s AMAZING!! Really it is! You feel lighter, healthier, have more energy, and it’s pretty neat to look at that scale when your done. Constipated Americans can easily carry around an extra 10 – 15 pounds in old fecal matter. GROSS!!
There are some amazing products out there. Watch out for the flashy ones that promise you the world for only 3 small payments of…(fill in the blank) I’ve used Dr. Shultz products in the past and they are wonderful and actually give all the results they promise and then some. Western Botanicals also has some great colon cleaning products that I think work wonderful too. For those who are brave or just a bit crunchy you can even put your own product together for good results. I like to buy my own herbs and capsule them myself to save money. Mountain Rose Herbs and More Than Alive are great resources for this. Hopefully you are encouraged to get your train moving if they are having some delays or are at a stand still at the moment.
Do we need more practice getting comfortable with this word? Once more, all together now…poop, poop, poop! Good job! Now go do it!
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