5 Surprising Signs Your Constipation Isn’t About What You Eat…
Which of these sound familiar?
👉 You meticulously track your food to figure out why you’re bloated all the time, except now you’ve got a list of “safe” foods you can count on both hands and you’d kill for just one spoonful of peanut butter (or, insert other favourite food you “can’t eat” anymore).
👉 You’ve gone gluten-free, dairy-free, low FODMAP, and keto, but none of those diets work, and you just can’t figure out what to eat to make yourself feel good.
👉 You scrutinize every online menu to see where you can go for dinner before deciding it’s just easier to stay home and stick with the usual: chicken breast and rice.
If this sounds like you, you probably assume that because you feel bloated after you eat, it must be the food, right? Maybe you even blame yourself instead of the restrictive diet, and you start adding more rules instead of looking for other solutions?
It’s okay if you’ve been doing this. It’s not your fault. It’s not like they teach you about digestion in high school. If anything, you’ve probably been indoctrinated into the belief, “You are what you eat.” While this statement has some degree of truth, a more accurate statement would be, “You are what you eat, digest, and absorb.”
Let’s consider some biology…
Why do you eat? For nourishment and energy, right? You eat so that you have the energy to carry out every day functions, like work, play, and breathe. Think about the last time you skipped a meal or forgot to eat at your usual time – you probably noticed that you felt weak, tired, and maybe a little shaky. Likely, you noticed that as soon as you had a few bites of food, you had more energy. This is food providing nourishment.
Now the next question is, how do we make energy from food? This happens through the complex process of digestion where your body breaks down food into tiny particles so that your body can use them. You can imagine your digestion like an assembly line in a factory. In the factory, raw materials enter at one end and the finished products come out the other. If there's a malfunction or delay anywhere in the assembly line, it slows down the entire process, affecting the quality and quantity of the final product.
Your digestive system is similar. Food enters your mouth and travels to your stomach, intestines, and colon where it is processed and broken down into nutrients along the way. The final product is a brown little bundle to be delivered into your toilet. Just like the assembly line, issues can come up and slow down the entire process. In the assembly line that is your digestion, when things slow down, it results in gas, bloating, heartburn, indigestion, and constipation.
This is why bloating and constipation may be less about what you eat, and more about how well you are digesting. Here are 5 surprising signs your constipation is due to poor digestion.
1. Everything makes you bloated.
When your bloating is unpredictable and it seems like everything makes you bloated, this is often related to constipation for two common reasons.
1) A slow, sluggish gut can allow for small intestinal bacteria overgrowth (SIBO). This is a condition where too many bacteria are living in the wrong neighbourhood of your gut. The normally harmless bacteria that live in your colon gain a foothold in your small intestine, and this can lead to a host of undesirable digestive symptoms, such as multiple food intolerances (especially to carbohydrates), gas, bloating, and difficulty absorbing nutrients. (Learn more about SIBO here!)
2) Constipation means you have a slow transit time, and it takes food longer to travel through your digestive system. When this happens, food breaks down through a natural process of fermentation and creates gas as a by-product. Except when you have a colon full of backed-up stool, there’s nowhere for that gas to escape, and it gets trapped. Not only are you gassier, you’re also more bloated.
If it feels like everything makes you bloated, instead of cutting out foods, start by getting your bowels into a rhythm so you are pooping every day. (If you have SIBO, this will also help clear the bacteria from the small intestine.) Constipation is a common cause of multiple food sensitivities. Clear the constipation and watch the food reactions disappear like magic!
2. Your poop floats.
A healthy stool should sink. If it doesn’t, this is could be a sign that you are having trouble digesting fat or that you are eating a high-fat diet. Digesting fat requires the cooperation of several of your digestive organs. Your small intestine is where fat is broken down and absorbed with a little help from your liver, gall bladder, and pancreas. While it can be normal for your poop to float after an occasional fatty meal, if you notice this regularly, you’re probably having trouble digesting fat.
When you’re not absorbing fat, it’s like a part of the assembly line isn’t working like it’s supposed to. And, the fat stays on the assembly line conveyer belt and gunks up all the gears. This slows everything down, and leads to foul-smelling gas that can clear a room, bloating, and constipation. Problems with fat absorption might be related to issues with your liver, gall bladder, or pancreas, or other digestive problems. Work with a trusted health care professional for ongoing support.
3. Your poop is pale or clay-coloured.
A healthy poop should be brown. The colour of your poop is typically influenced by what you eat as well as the amount of bile in your stool. If you notice that it is regularly pale or clay-coloured, this could be a sign of poor fat absorption, low bile, or liver/gall bladder problems. This may also be a sign of celiac disease.
These conditions lead to poor digestion of nutrients and multiple digestive complaints, such as gas, bloating, and changes in bowel habits. Speak with your doctor or other trusted health care professional if you regularly notice pale stools to rule out any serious medical conditions.
4. You often eat while distracted.
How you eat affects how well you digest. Digestion begins in your brain before you start to eat. When you think about food, your brain signals your gut to get ready for the next meal. You start to salivate, and your stomach secretes stomach acid in anticipation of food.
If you aren’t paying attention to your food because you’re distracted by your phone, watching TV, working, eating in a hurry, or driving while you eat, those messages get lost in transit. Distracted eating also makes you less likely to chew thoroughly and more likely to overeat – and, both contribute to bloating and constipation. It can also trigger a stress response which can further impair digestion (for example, if you’re working through your lunch break to meet a tight deadline).
The fix? Put away distractions while you eat. This means your phone, your computer, and your TV. Focus on eating, and nothing else. Taste your food. Chew your food. Enjoy your meal.
5. There is undigested food in your stool.
Digestion is a top to bottom process. If something at the top isn’t functioning properly, it’s going to affect everything else downstream. If digestion begins in the mind (see # 4), the next stop is the mouth. What do you think will happen if you aren’t chewing your food properly? Your stomach doesn’t have teeth, so this slows digestion in the stomach and affects everything else downstream. Often, this results in indigestion, heartburn, bloating, and constipation.
If you find that you are chewing thoroughly (e.g. food is like the consistency of applesauce before swallowing) and you’re still noticing undigested food in your stool, this could be due to low stomach acid. See my previous post for tips on supporting low stomach acid.
If you’ve been struggling to figure out what to eat to make yourself feel good, paying attention to how you digest a meal is an important first step. This is just one of the steps I cover in my 1:1 coaching program that helps you get to the root cause of your constipation so you can break free from bloat, ditch the perpetual food baby, and enjoy regular, predictable poops every day.
If you’re tired of restrictive diets, random supplements, and harsh laxatives taking a toll on your body, your wallet, and your sanity, click here to book a complementary 30-minute Gut Health Strategy Session and discover how nutrition coaching can help you finally get rid of constipation with results that actually last.
