I only poo once a week. Please help me go more often

[Cheeseandlobster]

I should be going more often. A typical days diet involves - no breakfast, lunch is a spicy scrambled egg but really more like vegetables binded together with 1 egg ( courgette, mushroom, pepper, spinach and jalapenos) followed by grapes. Dinner is usually a mega salad with chicken, fish, quiche. Small bar of chocolate, another fruit portion and maybe a yogurt. I drink at least 1.5 litres of water daily. Do Hiit training for 20 mins daily.

Yet the only thing that gets me going is having a beer at the weekend and then I think I poo for the whole week, though only once so its uncomfortable and unpleasant.

I have tried a colonic. The lady told me I will be more susceptible to bowel cancer (jeez thanks lady)

I really don't want to become dependant on laxatives but I think I might have to .

Can anyone advise me please?

I would say your not drinking enough water but I sympathise I often have problems myself I’d also maybe try cutting out the eggs for a bit they can be very binding.

Branflakes.

But @Cheeseandlobster are you making time to actually go to the bathroom, its sometines easy to ignore the "signals" in you are busy, and thats not a good thing to do.

Coffee
More water
Magnesium supplement

I have been on keto/intermittent fasting for four years and have found it fabulous. (Lost 60kgs, and my overall health has improved dramatically too - no migraines/no inflammation in joints, etc.) If you are doing low carb, are you adding in extra fats and oils? You actually need quite a bit more than if you having a regular diet. It helps you process the fat-soluble nutrients and it helps push through the non-soluble stuff. I definitely consider adding extra healthy oils like olive oil, avocado if you like it, cook with ghee or butter. It's also necessary for brain function. (I'm not into that weird bulletproof coffee crap, though.). You can also add coconut cream to curries, cream to your coffee, etc. You don't need much, just a tablespoon to each meal. It will feel weird if you have been avoiding fats and oils all your life, but it really helps flush things along.

Agree about “making time”

One of the things that can sometimes cause problems for children is a quick morning routine then out the door to school which inhibits a bowel movement, whereas building in 20 minutes after breakfast can allow the gastrocolic reflex to kick in.

Also when I was struggling with constipation during the first lockdown I started taking apple cider vinegar capsules and I don’t know if it was a co incidence but started going toilet much more regularly they’re meant to help digestion.

There’s no recommended limit on eggs by the way. It’s a your mileage may vary thing in terms of how many you want to eat / can tolerate

Drink more beer. Simple.

Oh jeez, If i go one day without a dump i feel hard done to! Bran flakes clear me out, as done onion.

You need more fibre or roughage. Even a glass of pure orange every morning. Lots of water and moving areound a lot. That is the main solutions.

Lots of coffee

You really don’t need to be taking supplements or laxatives. Just eat some fibre every day. I have a small bowl of bran every morning, or add bran to another cereal like porridge or weetabix. Bran is much more effective than any kind of bread IME. And brown bread won’t do anything, it needs to be the super grainy type.

Oh, and too much fibre on a low carb diet can bung you up further, so please skip psyllium, etc for time being. Absolutely keep up the fluids. If you can bear it, whizz up some warm bone broth, apple cider vinegar and a spoonful of coconut oil & salt and pepper in a bullet blender to drink (gulp) down with your first meal. It goes white and frothy like a broth cappuccino. (I do this on my fasting days - every second day atm as I have put on a couple of kgs - it's not my favourite, I'll be honest, but it DEFINTELY keeps things moving.)

Long term constipation stretches the rectum, so you get less urge to poo. One of the kids had it really badly and apparently diet alone does nothing - they needed Movicol over a sustained period, to shrink the rectum down again and restore the urge to go. It also softens stools making it easier to poo.

Exercise and diet are important, but so is sorting structural problems that chronic constipation may create.

A GP should be a first port of call. I faffed around with diet for a year for my poor child, adding fibre in any way (lots of smoothies, to increase fruit and veg, and home-made bread with ground flax in - you name it) and really wish I hadn't. Avoidable suffering, cured in a week in the immediate sense with paediatric Movicol, and then over a year all the issues resolved. It needs sorting, and the solution really isn't that hard in most cases.

If you are low carbing then you dont need to fast as well. Combining 2 diets is not a good thing. Your body literally doesnt know if its coming or "going"! So it hangs on to what it can get just in case.

Stick with LOW carb not NO carb, and make sure that the carbs you have are wholegrain. I am low carb (lost 5.5 stone) and will still have a sandwich a couple of times a week but they are always whole grain. Maybe up the fat intake too, as that will help.

Drink loads of water with lemon juice in it or boil lemons & loads of sugar with water, when it is thick, let it cool, blend it & drink with soda water mixed 50/50. If you can feel things moving but can't get rid of anything, extra strong black coffee, doesn't matter if it is instant or ground, drink it as hot as you can manage. Increase your water intake, at least 8 glasses a day.

If they were open I'd say go to the library, but since they aren't you'll have to bring in the big guns, an espresso and a quick walk around the block whilst smoking a cigarette.

Just go easy on the fibre. I had a long journey with this problem, and I found too much fibre exacerbated the problem. I've found my balance with just a bowl of all-bran flakes with fruit in the morning and a wholemeal sandwich at lunch - that's all my wholegrains. Apples tend to bind me so they're out. I have one sachet of Movicol at night. I'm all sorted now!

Coffee

2 coffee in the morning and a couple of wheatabix. Failing that, smoke a cigarette (don't do that)!

Bananas make constipation worse for my family member with this problem.

Also not drinking enough

Oatmeal is helpful.

Do you have hyperbobility in your family? It can affect the muscles in your digestive system.
Your bowel is meant to be a corridor - you have accidentally turned it into a waiting room and its stretched and your muscles are weak.
You need daily stool softeners like movicol and if that is not working then also a bowel muscle stimulant. You need to do this for a while regardless of whether you feel it is working in a few weeks as you need to give your bowel time to shrink back into a corridor.
My children are hypermobile and we spent years in and out of hospitals and doctors but part of the problem was me as I was reluctant to give them too much bowel meds as I thought it was not healthy. But once we sorted their bowels into corridors all is good now.

Sorry if this has been mentioned...Colon cleanse Aloe Vera tablets...once a day.