Story 1 “Was there a stool today?”

“Nothing what human is alien to me,” wrote the poet from Czarnolas, Jan Kochanowski. And this song from the past will shine for us as that torch carried under thatched roofs.
I am not sure if the author had in mind what you are about to read about. I would be happy to discuss it with him. Maybe one day. In the meantime, we’ll take a look at what is human inside us. And what we very much externalise on a daily basis in our great need for expression. And good luck. And good health!
The biggest nasties that cause the vomiting reflex are produced by our body and, as “technological waste”, excreted to the relief and well-being of the factory that is man.

And let me start with a favourite of mine. A favourite with many faces. A sensitive and capricious creature that we unfortunately do not get to see every morning. I am talking about Stolc, of course.

And the question that I will repeat at the beginning of every story, regardless of its subject:
“Was there a stool today?”
Stop now for a moment and recall it. If there has been today, what kind of stool?
Look at these images and decide which image of the stool is yours.

Scale developed by Heaton and Lewis at Boston University. Today used to assess stool in terms of residence time in the colon.
Hundreds of articles have been written about proper excretion and stimulating the bowel to defecate. You will find them if you type in the search term “what poop, types of stool, or other similar search terms).

And I’ll share with you my tried and tested ways to meet the ‘smelly’ one every day.
How to poop and not get haemorrhoids at the same time. I have covered the topic of haemorrhoids here
Firstly – a stool under your feet. What for. See the picture.
Secondly – get all the books and newspapers out of the toilet. Sit on the loo. Do what needs to be done. Clean up. And get out. It all takes us between 2 and 5 minutes.
Third – clean. With paper? Not the best way. The bleach used to make the paper irritates the delicate anal mucosa. Water and a towel are best. The lucky ones have installed a bidet.


Image from a Gazeta Wyborcza article by Wojciech Moskal

Daily practice and efforts to make the stool every day and the way it needs to be.
As recently as 15 years ago, every ‘sitting’ visit to the toilet was akin to childbirth. Blood, sweat and tears and the slight relief of having managed to get something out after three days. Driven to the extreme by the ordeal and the various discomforts resulting from chugging, I decided to act systemically.
Here is the regimen that, over a period of 6 months, led to a situation that may not yet be ideal, but is very satisfactory.
Movement – I signed up for yoga. Particularly helpful asanas were those for relaxing the abdominal area and lower back. All the twisting positions worked very well. But it was the yoga that worked best on my head. Relaxing my whole body and letting go of the cords of control of everything around me also freed my Stool.
Food – Hippocrates already said: “Let food be your medicine”. I took this to heart. I’ll write what helped:

Green plants. I felt a bit like a rabbit until I discovered green smoothies. Today everyone trumpets them, back then they weren’t so popular. I added leaves to everything.
I gave up white bread. It hurt mentally. I was so fond of a slice of wheat bread with a crispy crust spread with fresh butter. I might add that it didn’t usually end with a slice. I cut down on bread in general. And if I did eat it, it was made from coarse milled flour. Unfortunately, with intestinal problems, heavy sourdough rye bread only exacerbates the problem. I didn’t like this kind of bread.
I also gave up coffee milk, cottage cheese, yoghurt and the widely advertised product for A, which was supposed to be good for my health. Maybe for others it was, for me it was not. I noticed this after the third round of partials.
I started eating more soups and less solid food. I thought that in order to increase the fluidity of the Stool, I would liquefy the food a bit. And it worked for me.
I added a daily dose of vegetables. I ate the ones I liked best.
I also opted for pickles. That’s when I learned to pickle beets. I could only drink and eat them when it was warm. In winter, I shuddered at the thought of it. Today I know why.
Groats came to the table and potatoes fell into disfavour. This is where the imagination of potato purée clobbering my intestines came into play.
I drank coffee and still do to this day. Does it work for me or not? I have not noticed any difference in terms of excretion. And because I like coffee very much, I drink it. Despite its bad reputation on the health market (usually).
Water – I started drinking a lot of it and I was going through an ordeal because I didn’t crave it at all. I didn’t realise at the time that my blocked kidneys were taking a real battering from the litres I was forcing down. Fortunately, I trusted my instincts and gave up the water torture. I started drinking unsalted vegetable broths. And parsley became my favourite. It worked so much better and, in the process, I cleaned out my kidneys.
And most importantly and most difficult. I gave up chocolate. Aaaaa, that hurt the most, because I could eat a bar at once. At the time, I also really liked sweets. And I decided to cut back drastically. I cursed all over the world as my brain demanded and tormented me with the memory of the flavours and the endorphins released.
Health – I started investigating and, like Dr Watson, tracking down the causes of my ailments. At the time, I had no idea what Candida, dysbacteriosis, leaky gut and other attractions were. I already knew that previous antibiotic treatments had changed the picture of the inner life of my gut.
I took probiotics for six months and supported my gut with kefir, sauerkraut and other pickles. I should add that I wasn’t fond of these flavours, so I didn’t abuse them. Today, good bacteria are my best friends and I take great care of them. Without them, good Stool is lacking.
After a few months, lights of hope started to appear. And a good thing too, because I was getting very tired. Anyone who has changed their diet knows.
Did I go back to my old eating habits after that six months? Unfortunately, yes. And I felt like a frog that had been thrown into boiling water. I jumped out even faster.
I realised that this was not a one-off diet and for a few months. There was a change in diet for life.
Today, for me, Stool is a measure of the state of my health. A healthy Stool is a healthy life, to put it somewhat simply. There are many methods of getting to this state and it is worth choosing with your head what comes out the bottom later.

I recommend to you the book ‘The Internal History. The intestines – our body’s most fascinating organ’ by Giulia Enders (Feeria Publishing House).
An entertaining yet reliable presentation of our ‘factory’ from the inside. I for one delighted in the simplicity of the message.
Share your ways to have the morning stool I wish for all of us 😀 .
Dorothy Nature of Life

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