How does it work that we eat few times a day, but usually we poop only once?

Is the colon somehow programmed to buffer the waste until the time is up and then dumps it all further?

Got this thought when observing my dog who eats twice a day (morning and evening) and more or less poops twice a day (morning and evening).

  • MTK@lemmy.world
    14·
    5 days ago

    Science time!

    Fast for 24 hours then use an anal douche. This should completely clear your digestive track.

    Now eat for the next 24 hours while measuring everything you eat. Every time you poop make sure to measure it, either my measuring the poop directly (poop in a bowl?) Or by measuring the difference in weight after you poop (be sure to first pee as to not measure liquids)

    Now fast for another 24 hours while continuing to measure your poop. By the end of it you should have to total weight you eat and the total weight you pooped. For most foods you can probably reduce the weight by half to account for liquids (most will be pee, some will be in your poop, this will depend on the liquidness of your poop)

    Now you will probably notice a few things:

    1. you poop a lot less mass than you consume, this is because you turn a lot of it into energy.

    2. there is a lot of water in food

    3. you probably poop more than you think (one dump can be quite big in comparison to a meal when removing liquids)

    Enjoy!

  • De_Narm@lemmy.world
    64·
    7 days ago

    Everything from 3 times a day to once every 3 days is normal. It depends on how much you eat, how much of it your body can absorb, your fiber intake and some genetic variance too.

    Your intestines aren’t a conveyor belt, things don’t constantly move. There are multiple muscles acting as a valve between different sections. Based on the factors above your body decides when to push stuff to the next section including the exit.

  • Dasus@lemmy.world
    35·
    6 days ago

    I don’t usually eat more than once or maybe twice a day but often still take more than one shit.

    Everyone’s bowels are bitty different.

    • Routhinator@startrek.websiteEnglish
      7·
      6 days ago

      Unless you are celiac, its likely FODMAPs your body hates. There is a correllation between the amount of gluten and FODMAPs in food that makes watching gluten get part of the picture, but you’re missing the whole picture and thus likely not completely regular yet. FODMAPs are in most things. Onions are concentrated FODMAPs and so is tomato sauce.

      My doc gave me this initially https://www.ibsdiets.org/fodmap-diet/fodmap-diet-chart/ but there are others you should cross reference for more food item coverage.

      I have to admit. Onions, garlic and mushrooms were haaaaard to remove. Ive turned to Miso and a lot of japanese and thai food with the onions removed from any recipes to get this right.

      But now I’m down from 5 poops to 1 poop a day.

      • Paige@lemmy.ca
        2·
        5 days ago

        I’m about to try this diet to get to the bottom of it, but I think onions/garlic seem to be a problem. It’s not that bad a condition, but I’d like to at least be able to know when I’m signing up for indigestion.

      • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
        3·
        6 days ago

        Additionally “FODMAP” is a huge umbrella.

        Most people don’t have issues with every type in that umbrella. A full FODMAP diet is usually too restrictive for people to get the most out of their diet, and isn’t recommended for most. Ideally you go full FODMAP for a month, then start reintroducing foods until you know which kinds bother you.

        Sometimes it can be as simple as eliminating sugar alcohols for the lucky.

        • Routhinator@startrek.websiteEnglish
          1·
          5 days ago

          Yep. I found I could handle the little bit of blackened onion required for making Pho broth, but a traditional french mire poix 50/25/25 mix of onion/celery/carrot is far too much and we needed to get creative with green onion and leek in place of white onion and celery. Generally we use asian broths and soups more now. I cannot have my favoured sauteed mushrooms anymore but some mushroom based umami bomb in a soup or on a piece of meat is ok in small doses, and I can handle some tomato sauce once or twice a month, but not with onion in it, and no more pizza.

      • Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca
        2·
        6 days ago

        I admire your abilities. I still have to learn how to cook without garlic or onion. I keep saying ‘this is the last one’ but now I’m feeling like one of those smokers who can’t quit.

        • Routhinator@startrek.websiteEnglish
          2·
          5 days ago

          As @Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works brought up in his comment, the FODMAP umbrella is huge and everyone is a bit different. Its a process of removing them all and then adding things back slowly and carefully, trying them multiple times to see and test your tolerances. Also, white onion and the white parts of green onions and leeks are bad, but the green parts are ok and much lower in fodmap, so you can get onion flavour other ways. Green pepper is another one that can be combined to give this flavour with a lower fodmap footprint.

          • Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca
            3·
            5 days ago

            At one point I laid out the plan to isolate my trigger foods, but I’ve never been in a stable enough place that I can be picky eating. Working roasting shifts, moving around etc, makes it a pain to take care of my diet. I’m closer now to stability, but I’m going to university 30-40 hours a week and working 35-45 hours on top of that. Eating is more of a calorie thing than a thing i plan to do.

  • gigachad@sh.itjust.works
    24·
    7 days ago

    Maybe you poop only once. Everything between three times a day and every three days is in the normal range. If you find yourself within this range, congratulations, you are a boring pooper.

  • Berttheduck@lemmy.ml
    10·
    7 days ago

    Humans have a really good digestive tract for getting nutrients out of food. So you take a lot of the mass of the food you eat and use it in your body as energy or building material. As such your poop has significantly smaller mass because it’s made up of all the stuff you’re body can’t use after it’s pulled out so the good bits.

    As for dogs my understanding is they have a shorter digestive tract to allow them to eat the nasty stuff does seem to like without getting sick so they are probably less efficient at removing nutrients and poop more proportionally to what they eat.

  • Valmond@lemmy.world
    8·
    7 days ago

    Because we are taught by society to not poop at work.

    Naturally we poop way more often, and naturally we ate more often too.