Your stool is the primary exit pathway for waste in your body and not having healthy daily bowel movements is like not taking the trash out every day. Things start to spill over and get messy and smelly. Harmful bacteria flourish as your stool continues to ferment. Waste products continue to irritate and harm your gut lining. Worst of all, your body will eventually begin to reabsorb what it needs to eliminate. Yes, it’s like eating the waste products. Read on to get a list of key lifestyle
changes that can help your bowels move every day.
Take Magnesium! Many times chronic constipation is just
chronic magnesium deficiency and most of us, Americans, are deficient in Magnesium. Foods rich in magnesium include halibut, almonds, spinach, cashews, seaweed. Even if you eat those foods regularly, the magnesium content in plant foods have plummeted significantly since the 70’s due to overfarming of the same soil. I usually recommend 400-800 mg of
Magnesium Citrate in the evening after dinner.
Take a daily Probiotic supplement. Our guts are teaming with microbes – what I call good bacteria and bad bacteria. Inflammation and decreased motility can cause sluggish movement of our bowels. And BOOM you have constipation. Beneficial bacteria help to calm inflammation and move things along. Lactobacillus strains of bacteria can make constipation worse this is why I recommend probiotics that have a significant percentage of Bifidobacterium.
Stay hydrated. You can eat all the fiber in the world but without water things won’t move. Think of trying to use a dried-out sponge without water: not very effective. I usually recommend my patients drink a large glass right after rising in the morning. It’s the time of day when we are most dehydrated and most toxic. Hydrate well in between meals and sip on water throughout the day.
IN CONCLUSION
Magnesium, probiotics and water will help cure your
constipation. Other things like improving soluble and
insoluble fiber in your diet, body movement and exercise as well as eating healthy fats all help conquer constipation, too! Prioritizing sleep and stress management also helps with motility and movement of bowels. For any other questions, feel free to drop me an email, you can do so at minnts.me.
