Constipation, Fermented Foods, Fiber: All You Need To Know/Practice For Better Health & Gut Power
Your bowel motions can tell you so much about your body–what it needs, what it shouldn’t have, or what you should do to take your health to a higher level. And you can have all of this great information right at your fingertips. All you have to do is pay attention to it.
I don’t think I’ll surprise anyone by telling you that at least 70% of women have some form of bowel abnormality, or if we want to be more precise, let’s say constipation. And yes, I’m mostly talking about women. For reasons I don’t understand, most men are spared their problem… Tell me about justice.
– For someone, it is something easy – a missed day here and there.
– For others, the missed day is almost every other day.
– And for the third, the series of days reach 2-3-4 days and up.
And no matter what category you fall into, know that this is a case that should not be ignored because something as innocent as “constipation” can be at the root of dozens of problems, such as:
- reabsorption of toxins and hormones because they stay in the tract for too long
- permeable intestines
- intestinal imbalances
- even some more serious ones appeared due to the above – such as autoimmune disease, hormonal imbalance, colon cancer, etc.
NOTE: There could be one or more causes if you suffer constipation, including stress, medication use, genetics, or health problems. In this article, we try to explore and address the most significant cause–your diet. Your food is your medicine–small adjustments can give excellent results. However, if you have any concerns, the best would be to discuss them with your doctor.
Now let’s talk about poop. Sure, it’s not your favorite topic, but you need to know more about bowel movements — what’s normal or weird, what’s healthy, and what’s not. That’s because your poop (stool) is an essential key to your overall health and digestion, as being constipated can be a sign of infections, digestive problems, and even more severe complications. And I bet you, there’s a lot you never knew or thought to ask about this delicate subject.
What is The Entire Process Of“How Poop Really Happens”
I know that sounds a little weird, but the entire process from “food to poop” is pretty impressive, so let me explain. As it turns out, it had to do with what the “poop speed” is.
At the initial point, the food you eat enters your stomach, where digestive enzymes and bile begin to grind and turn the food into “mush cake,” which scientists call “chyme.”
That “chyme” enters your small intestine, where typically most of the nutrients are absorbed into your bloodstream.
What’s left after that is a substance, which is compounded of bacteria and indigestible fiber. And this lump of fiber plus bacteria then make their way into your large intestine, and lastly into your toilet.
And here is the most critical part
It’s The SPEED Of This Process That Determines Whether Your Poops Are Enjoyable Or Frustrating
You see, there are nerves located throughout your intestines walls, which produce muscular contractions called peristalsis.
Peristalsis is impulses of constriction and relaxation of the muscles occurring in the intestine or another canal throughout your body. It is creating wave-like movements that push the contents of the channel forward.
This process literally moves your poop throughout your gut like a train, soaking up water, so it becomes soft and moist for easier pooping.
If you’ve before felt your stomach growl, that’s actually NOT a sign of hunger; it’s your peristalsis at work.
Your poop consists of a LOT of water at the start of the process. And as it moves through your intestines, your body slowly absorbs this water, which changes its consistency. And according to how LONG this process takes, your poop can take many forms and textures.
If it is happening too fast, your body doesn’t have time to remove enough water from your intestines, and it comes out as diarrhea.
When it is happening too slowly, your body soaks up too much water out of your intestines, resulting in hard, dry poop with painful constipation.
But if the process is in ideal balance, you enjoy “perfect poops” without any interruptions, like a snake or the sausage-like shape.
What Are The Poops That Dreams Are Made Of
- They take just 30-60 seconds.
- As a rule, it happens once or twice a day for most people.
- It comes out smooth and with a feeling of “full release.”
- It is required minimal wiping, without much effort, grunting, or spending 15 minutes in the toilet praying and hoping something finally comes out.
Well, I stop annoying lectures on the digestive system, intestinal structure, peristalsis, transit time, and the like to go directly to the real part – WHY do you have constipation?
Why Do You Have Constipation?
And here it is easy – only because one of these 3 basic health requirements is missing. We are talking about hydration, lubrication, and fiber. And to ensure regular going to the toilet every day, you should try to have all three present on your menu every day.
Bad Hydration
The most important of the three factors is adequate hydration of the colon. The truth is that constipation is often caused by dehydration or lack of water in the body. Honestly, in 90% of cases, the problem is precisely the lack of water. And the key to hydrating the colon is, of course, to drink enough water.
To make it easier to understand – imagine your gut as a 7-meter super folded water slide. Now try to slide on it without water. It doesn’t work, does it? The same thing happens in your gut when there is not enough water – things just don’t move. For good hydration – drink at least 1.5-2 liters of water a day and get about a liter with your food by eating plenty of vegetables and fruits.
Sometimes, however, there is an excess of water, but things still do not go according to plan. Then, we move on to the next point – the fibers, or rather their lack, because their role is to push forward everything that should be thrown away.
Lack of Fibre In Your Diet
Fiber has several variations, including crude fiber, total fiber, and dietary fiber. Dietary fiber, which we are currently interested in, is divided into water-soluble and insoluble, and usually, the term total fiber refers to the combination of them.
Fiber is an element present only in the plant kingdom – they are the fibers that maintain the structure of plants (imagine a stalk of parsley – fiber is in the stem. And you throw it away, right? I knew…).
Thus, the lack of fiber in the menu is usually associated with constipation, digestive problems, polyps, and colon cancer. Conversely, their sufficient presence on the menu prevents these problems.
And now the bad news – the optimal amount of fiber an adult needs is 20-40 grams per day! But, don’t be impressed that somehow these 30 grams a day sound very small. The less they sound, the more difficult they are to obtain because plant fiber is NOT the predominant element.
For example, in:
100 g of tomatoes have only 1.2 g of fiber
100 g apple – 1.5 g fiber,
100 g spinach – 2.5 g fiber,
1 slice of wholemeal bread – 3.5 g of fiber,
1 cup oatmeal – 4 g of fiber.
Hmm, a little, right? It turns out that to get 30 g of fiber a day, you need to eat 2 kg of tomatoes, 7 cups of oatmeal, or 1 kg of spinach…
Therefore, outside a healthy and balanced diet, sometimes you need to help your health a bit with a mix of fiber, adding them to at least 1 meal or in more severe cases – 2-3 times a day.
And now let’s see who the champions are:
100 g of psyllium – 100 g of fiber
100 g of chia seeds – 34 g of fiber
100 g of flaxseed – 27 g of fiber
1 cup peas – 16 g of fiber
1 cup black lentils – 15.6 g of fiber
1 cup beans – 10 g of fiber
100 g of nuts – 10 g of fiber
1 artichoke – 10 g of fiber
1 cup raspberries, etc. take – 8 g of fiber
And to help you add fiber to your day, I share my favorite recipe that is delicious, sweet, and super-rich in fiber. To be precise, 1 serving of dessert has as much as 15 g of fiber!
High Fibre Chia Dessert
- Pour 1 tbsp. Chia seeds with coconut water, stir, and leave for 15 minutes.
- Grind nuts and seeds in your choice. Wash 2 cups of berries, add vanilla seeds and 3 tbsp of honey. Then mix them with the ground nuts and seeds.
- Pour the mix into the cups with chia, add coconut cream and more crushed nuts and berries on top.
And yet – that’s not all! Except for the quantity, it is also crucial that the fiber is from both types – water-soluble and non-water-soluble.
Insoluble and soluble fiber are two types of carbohydrates that the body cannot digest. Contrary to most carbohydrates that our digestion breaks down into sugar molecules(used for energy), fibers are not broken down into anything. They just move through our digestive or GI tract.
Lack of Lubrication
Although, when the above 2 are present, but there is still a problem, it is worth paying attention to the last factor for well-functioning peristalsis – lubrication, which takes care of the “lubrication” of the intestine and is also crucial.
Eat Healthy Fat in Moderation
In simple words, do not be afraid of fats and emphasize the menu’s quality ones, such as olive oil, avocado, coconut oil, nuts and seeds, omega 3, etc.
And last but not least, after taking care of hydration, fiber and lubrication, here are a few more things to do to get rid of constipation forever. You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you? :))))
Prevention
Incorporate Fermented Foods To Heal Your Gut
Our ancient ancestors’ used probiotic enriched fermented foodstuffs regularly. This was necessary as a resource of food preservation before the coming of refrigeration. Various ancient medicine physicians start utilizing them to address particular ailments. Probiotic enriched foods are among the essential attributes of a healthy diet and lifestyle.
At the beginning of the far 20th century, Nobel Prize-winning scientist Ilya Ilyich Mechinikov attributed the extraordinary health of a group of Bulgarian people to their daily usage of probiotic enriched foods. He called the unique bacterial species that created up much of their fermented products, so-called Lactobacillus Bulgaricus. He begins to realize that probiotic bacteria could have a much more significant impact on human health than the other pathogenic strains of bacteria (1, 2).
Fermented Foods Help You:
Improve the Health of Your Digestive System
Strengthen Your Immune System
Detoxify Your Body from Dangerous Chemicals
Maximize Nutrient Absorption
Reduce Inflammation Throughout Your Body
Best Fermented Foods to Consume:
This list is not specific order cause these are all beneficial to the microbiome when adequately prepared and consumed in their optimum state. If any of these foods smell rotten or have apparent mold, cut the areas that stink or mold.
Start by consuming 1-2 tablespoons every day, and you can step by step increase by add on 1 tablespoon more each week. Late you may be able to consume 1 cup of fermented foods at a time, but don’t begin in this way, or you may experience severe diarrhea!
Incorporate Soluble and Insoluble Fiber Into Your Diet
Dietary fiber can do a lot to support gut health, which researchers are more and more learning. Your gut health plays a crucial role in many health issues throughout your body. The right amount of overall dietary fiber can bring you increadable health benefits:
- regulate bowel movements
- control body weight
- control and prevent hypertension
- help balance cholesterol levels in the blood
- prevent hemorrhoids
- regulate blood sugar levels
- handle your body’s satiation signals, which signalling you when you’re full
- lower risk of diabetes, colon cancer, breast cancer
- necessitate more chewing, which slows down your meals digestion and aids digestion
What is Insoluble Fiber, How It Helps, and What Foods are a Good Source of It?
The insoluble fibers do not dissolve in water, and as like this, they move through your GI tract without being broken down or absorbed.
Undissolved fiber adds bulk to stool and lowers the time it takes the food to travel from your mouth to the other end, which is good news for anyone who struggles with constipation.
Undissolved fiber adds bulk to stool and lowers the time it takes the food to travel from your mouth to the other end, which is good news for anyone who struggles with constipation.
Good insoluble fiber sources include quinoa, raw almonds, kale, vegetables with the skin, and pears with the skin still intact.
What is Soluble Fiber, How It Helps, and Which Foods Contain it?
As their name suggests, these fibers dissolve in water, turning into a viscous gel that lines the digestive tract. A good example is such a used chia seed. When soaked in water, they imitate the appearance of a gel.
Among the main three great benefits of soluble fiber are slowing down digestion, they keep you fuller longer, and balance blood sugar.
What is more, the dietitian notes that soluble fiber’s viscosity allows it to bind to harmful cholesterol (LDL) and flush it out of the body through waste. The National Lipid Association recommends eating a minimum of 5 to 10 grams of soluble fiber each day to lower total and LDL cholesterol levels.
Some water soluble fiber, such as psyllium, which absorbs 40 times its volume in water, can cause problems. If we intake psyllium when it is not soaked, it dehydrates intestines as sucks water from them, acting as a stopper instead of pushing the stool. So be careful with chia and psyllium and use them only soaked in advance for a few minutes!
Sources of soluble fiber are chia seeds, oats, flaxseeds, lentils, berries, and beans.
Food to Exclude–Avoid Processed, Fatty Foods and Alcohol
The typical western diet might be one of your gut’s biggest enemies. Yes, I am talking about fast food, ready-made meals, and various popular snacks. Foods that are high in sugar, artificial additives, saturated fats, and salt are usually tougher to digest as they are more likely to sluggish your metabolism. In essence, they are robbed of nutrients–especially fiber, which is necessary to regulate the digestive processes. Further, the high amounts of salt that many fast meals contain act as dehydrating the digestive tract, which is a sure-fire way to become constipated.
Our bodies react differently to the same nutrients, meaning that there is no universal answer to the question of what causes slow digestion. However, medical expert and scientists alike will, as a rule, tell you that to speed up sluggish digestion means avoiding too much of the following:
- Processed foods: Pretty much everything comes in a box, such as snacks like potato chips and popcorn, microwave meals, margarine, ketchup, high sugar cereal, flavored nuts, etc.
- Fried and fatty foods: Foods that are low in fiber and high in fat and salt, causing slow digestion and increasing the likelihood of constipation.
- Red meat: Meat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner will deprive your enzyme stocks quickly
- Gluten-containing foods: Gluten is a protein found in foods like barley, rye, wheat, spelt, and triticale. Some people may be more likely to experience constipation as a result of consuming gluten foods.
- Caffeine when overdosed: One coffee a day, drank in the first part of the day is perfect, but anything more than this dose has been shown to harm the intestinal flora.
- Alcohol: One glass of wine at dinner is enough; more of that will affect your metabolism in the long run. If you drink alcohol in large amounts, increase the fluids lost through your urine, causing dehydration.
- Dairy products such as milk, cheese, ice cream: Dairy products can lead to constipation in some individuals who are sensitive to the proteins found in cow’s milk.
Healthy Eating
- Make eating a ritual. Enjoy every bite and chew your food until liquid to support your body’s work to digest/assimilate this food.
- Eat-in a relaxed state, and try to avoid watching TV or stare at your cellphone throughout your mealtime.
- Try having fermented foods such as sauerkraut, kefir, and kimchi in at least two of your meals. It will help with food digestion, absorption, and body detoxification.
- Try at dinner to have a 75% veggies plate to guarantee yourself enough fiber and microelements to have consistent poops!
- Add chia and flax seeds into your smoothies, soups, and water for an easy source of excellent quality fiber that will get your bowels moving.
Be Active
The movement stimulates peristaltic. So, peristalsis also needs natural movement – intense walking, running, dancing, jumping rope, jumping on a springboard, and so on, so do one of these activities every day for at least 20-30 minutes. One study demonstrated that 30 minutes of brisk walking per day reduced symptoms of constipation considerably.
Correct Body Position
Also, take the right body position for defecation – squatting, not sitting. This is the only solution for hemorrhoids if you have any. To do this, put a small chair or basin under your feet to mimic a squatting position. In a sitting position of the body, the colon is folded, and defecation becomes even more complicated, and when you squat – it straightens.
Breathe Deeply
Abdominal breathing massages the internal organs and also helps peristalsis.
Be Aware of Laxatives
Oh, and lastly – if you accidentally fought your constipation the wrong way, with laxatives, then you probably already have lazy bowels, and none of the above can help. In that case, try magnesium citrate, which relaxes the intestines’ muscles and helps things move…
Natural Supplements To Revitalize & Renovate Your Gut Power
In addition to making diet and lifestyle changes, some supplements can help perfect bowel regularity, reduce negative digestive symptoms, and promote health.
Although many supplements are claimed to boost digestive health, not all have been proven effective in the scientific literature.
Your body needs more enzymes, probiotics, antioxidants, and adequate fiber for gut flora balance, high energy, and disease prevention at all!
Typically, good quality green powders are loaded with vitamins, minerals, and enzymes that alkalize, cleanse, and fuel the body. That, in turn, leads to enhanced energy, mental clarity, and disease prevention.
There is a powder that is a real nutrient bomb.
It’s chock-full of organic probiotics, prebiotic, fiber, and herbs, plus naturally fermented vegetables and grasses, for full gut health support.
It is a real “game changer” for your digestion, nutrient assimilation, bowel regularity.
You could consume the healthiest powder globally, but if you don’t assimilate good its ingredients, nothing else matters. Enzymes, fermentation, and herbal blend are significant factors in a formulation, ensuring that.
I love Fermented Green Supremefood of Dr. Colbert because it contains a full pallet of organic ingredients that BOOST my energy and vitality
I get all the essential compounds my body and gut need in just one GREEN SPOON a day
✓ 10 Organic Fermented Vegetables
✓ 4 Organic Fermented Grass
✓ Digestive Enzymes For Optimum Absorption
✓ Probiotics & Prebiotic For Gut Health
✓ Chlorella & Spirulina For Deep Cellular Defence & Support
✓ Fibre Blend For More Gut Power and Feel of Fullness(hunger control)
✓ Herbal Blend To Amplify & Support Naturally All Above Features
Suggested Use:
– Consume every morning mixed in water or smoothie
– Consume for an afternoon energy uplift
You Can Find Fermented Green Supremefood here>>>
That was from me, and now it’s your turn – increase the water, make sure you have adequate lubrication of the colon, eat fiber regularly, jump and share the article with friends to help them. Success!