Les Pew Pew

On April 24, 2012 by Juliet

All of my friends outside of work associate me with crap. I am not kidding. In all fairness, this is my fault. You see, my favorite ice breaker when I meet people (think: bars and first dates) is that I work in a poop lab. It’s how I weed out the duds. If you can’t talk about doodoo and laugh, I don’t want to be your friend.

In retrospect, I can think of at least 3 dates I’ve been on since working at my job that I talked about poop. Maybe that’s why some of them didn’t go past date #1? 

And for the love of all that is holy, I NEED this mug:

Okay, in all seriousness, not being able to drop a deuce is no laughing matter. Despite my profession, I’m no expert in healthy turds (I wish I was), but I feel it my moral obligation to share with you guys what I do know. Read/follow/believe at your own discretion.

For example, everyone poops. Women and cute baby bunny rabbits included.

If you can’t handle that, well, you’ve got a long and uncomfortable life of awkward bowel excretions.

Irregularity is a sign that something is not copacetic in the system.
While not having to crap in the middle of the work day may leave your coworkers grateful, it is not good to not go regularly. Think about it like this: you eat food. It goes into your body, is broken down (via chewing, stomach acid, saliva, etc.), water and nutrients are absorbed, and all the things you cannot use need to leave the system.

The end of the digestive tract is how your body flushes out potential toxins, excess bacteria, and, for corn eaters, you know the story.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that if things are going in and nothing is coming out, something is off.

What causes irregularity?
Oh the list here is endless. Believe it or not, stress is one huge causative factor in our world today. I’m not going to get into the ins and outs of stress, that is a can of worms I’m not prepared to discuss. The basic gist, however, is that your body thinks it’s being attacked by a predator. Why the hell would it stop to digest your cheeseburger properly?

Case and point.

Other common causes could be a poor diet, not enough water, traveling, a sedentary lifestyle, not enough digestive enzymes in the stomach, and crappy host gut flora (pun intended).

How to pewp more efficiently
Drink of a cup of coffee. No, I’m kidding. That doesn’t work for me, actually. In case you were wondering.  If you are legitimately having problems going normally, I suggest you assess the situation one factor at a time.

What is your stress level like?
Are you eating enough carbs? (Yes, carbs help turding. Stop telling me you’ll get fat if you eat some carbs.)
Are you eating enough fat?
Is something wrong regarding your digestive enzymes so you aren’t breaking down your food efficiently?
Are you drinking enough water and sleeping well?
Perhaps you need to look into probiotics?

I really do wish I knew more about healthy pooping because it can tell you so much about how a body is operating. This is something I need to sit down and investigate further one day so I can write more than just a basic overview.

Before I cut out, if you have any questions regarding the mechanics of how to doodoo, check out this awesome piece by Lift Big Eat Big, “The Optimal Position for #2“.

 

Category :
Nutrition/Diet, Poop
  • Meg

    you are AMAAAAZING hahahahaha ok seriously though. It’s all about the fat for me ;)

    • http://heyjoob.com Juliet

      See, it’s starchy carbs for me! LOL

  • http://www.followingfit.com/ Kristen @ Following Fit

    Question I have always wondered and never asked anyone before you:

    If you eat a minimum of 3-4 times per day, how many le pew pews per day should you also have? Everything I have ever read is vague as hell about it; some sources say once a day, some say 3-4 times a week, some say something in between. Logically, it never made sense to me that going once a day was healthy if you ate several meals that day that were all in your system *somewhere.* They can’t all hit the end of the line at once; so what’s up with that?

    If that doesn’t prove my ongoing odd interest in all things gut-related, I don’t know what would.

    And the Lift Big Eat Big post is awesome.

    • http://heyjoob.com Juliet

      I am totally pulling this answer out of my butt (LOL!!!!) but my best guess would be that, perhaps, your bowel needs to reach some kind of ‘critical load’ before excreting it’s contents. I do know, however, that it takes a lot longer than a few hours to poo what you ate.

      Fun experiment: If you want to know how long it takes food to travel through your system, swallow a tablespoon or so of yellow sesame seeds. Write down when they went in and note when they come out! (Thanks Balanced Bites podcast)

      Maybe you could do some interesting combo experiment and eat them in multiple meals and record multiple poos.

  • http://www.onefitfoodie.com/ Naomi(onefitfoodie)

    some may think this is a wierd post but seriously…i was severly constipated and it was one of the most painful times in my life!! its so important to be regular :) oh i remember that book oh so wel! haha and omg you are the sweetest in the world for your comment on my blog…now get to boston already!!

    • http://heyjoob.com Juliet

      EVERYBODY POOPS! We have that book on a table in the lobby of my office.

      So, funny story: I’ll only be 4.5 hours away from Boston. Weekend trips are TOTALLY going to be feasible.