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I’ll try to be brief (though that’s hard for me). I have a really messed up eating history (starvation, bulimia, dieting, restriction) and therefore, my digestion has never been fantastic. In the last 3 years, I ate in accordance with Paleo/Primal and was happy to have dropped some lbs, but literally… I think I had diarrhea every day and rumbling guts all the time. Earlier this year, I became a bit more lenient with my eating habits and my digestion seemed SO much better. (Have you ever taken a sh!t that when you were done it felt like… life changing? You felt incredible and ready to go! I was having those 2 times per day) 95% of what I consumed was still organic, local, grass-fed, etc, etc (though now again again I would allow myself that wonderful, disgusting pub-food and a couple of great brews and it wasn’t killing me like I thought it would… if anything, I felt awesome). Sprouted grains seemed to seriously be aiding in my digestion. I was happy. My digestion was happy. I, however, ended up with Bell’s Palsy and a viral infection (for which I took steroids & antivirals), totally blamed myself for it (both the condition AND taking the medications); I felt like since I’d been more allowing with regards to food, this is how I was being punished. So, slowly, I started restricting things again. Gravitated more towards ‘Paleo’ again. Digestion is fucked up again. SO. May I ask… what are some great things to do to develop great digestion! I definitely feel like for me, when I became more allowing with food groups and had a wider variety of things that I was eating, that actually HELPED me. (I’m trying to listen to my body and stop going back to what is familiar and blaming myself for every little thing that is not ‘perfect’ that happens). If Matt has any books/articles that I should check out, let me know that too! What makes you take really good poops and have a really happy tummy?! Thanks so much, guys!
I will have blood testing again in a month so I will be able to tell if changing my liquid intake has improved my nutrient absorption. I CAN tell you that pulling WAY back on liquid has coincided with my bowel movements becoming normal again. They were the way you described.
I read Eat for Heat and Diet Recovery 2. I got the gist of his recommendations, but I think I need to reread now that I am trying to follow his advice.
Eat for Heat really helped me out as well! When I had read that text, that was around the time that I was feeling better and I had started implementing those principals (less water was one of them). I’m just going to ‘stay the course’ and try not to resort to going back to familiar eating habits that I know aren’t beneficial to me. Thanks for your input, Tammy!
For me it was eating more, like you say, more volume and more variety. This took care of the contipation almost immediately. But after I while I started going the other way, loose stool even diarrhea. Sunday I started on some liver herbs and everything is normal now! I have no gall bladder.
I would add some probiotics. About a year and a half ago, I had a really nasty bout of diverticulitis. The antibiotics completely destroyed my gut flora. Prior to that, I was lactose intolerant and had a really hard time digesting any fats other than olive oil.
Once I started to recover, I took an oral probiotic–I think it was Align. I also added Danactive and Greek yogurt to my diet. I only took the Align until I finished the bottle. I continued the Danactive and yogurt daily for close to a year. Now, I just make sure to eat either Greek yogurt or Kefir cheese daily.
After just a few weeks of probiotics, my digestion improved dramatically. I am no longer lactose intolerant and drink whole milk daily. I can eat most things with no trouble at all. If you were on antibiotics, your beneficial gut bacteria may have been depleted which effects digestion. Once you repopulate the colony, your digestion should improve.
I eat Greek Gods full fat plain yogurt. It doesn’t have all those gums and thickeners added. I usually add about a teaspoon of honey to it. I don’t care for overly sweetened yogurt. Just make sure you get a good quality yogurt that has 2 or 3 different live cultures.
RegL, thanks for your input! I brew my own kombucha, so I drink that. Also, I have access to really great local, plain yogurt from grass-fed cows… I just haven’t had it in a while for whatever reason. I’ll get some tomorrow! Thank you again for your insight! Much appreciated!
I was so intimidated initially, but it is criminally simple! I even grew my own mother from a bottle of GT’s. Super inexpensive to brew your own and so flippin’ tasty!
I found that mine improved (I had chronic reflux + digestive issues) with a much wider variety of food and more food in general. My body was reacting to so many things previously and the list of things that I could eat without a reaction was dwindling. It took a couple of months, plus a lot of eating out, but now I’m back eating all of the things that I hadn’t been able to have for the year prior and my reflux is pretty much gone. There is really something to eating the food!!
I’ve tried probiotics but didn’t find they really did anything obvious to me, but I love yoghurt in general and now I make my own kefir to drink. Yum!
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