Recently, I have been really particular about my health. Given the fact that I am taking relatively long to recover from my cold and flu infections. On top of that, I have been having mild lower left abdominal discomfort recently. I wouldn’t call it acute pain, but I can sense some impending “need to see doc” event coming.
Although I am not a doc yet. I have been doing alot of research on Colon health and its relation with weight loss.
Understanding Gastrointestinal (GI) tract Physiology.
For those of you who have no freaking idea what is colon, its your freaking large intestine (the last few part to be precise). I won’t get into the details. The point is, everyday, we ingest all kinds of food. Be it healthy, sinful, spicy, you name it. Those undigested and unabsorbed food, now termed feces, needs to go somewhere. Obviously out of your anus. This process is simple and crucial for healthy colon and weight loss. Our normal intestinal muscular movement (peristalsis) help to move the stuff you eat to your anus for defecation (POOP).
Well, the thing is, that movements requires the muscles to be toned. Meaning, to have some kind of activity. If you don’t use your muscles, they will lose their toned nature and become saggy. That’s as much detail as I want to get into. If you are someone who sit in the office 9-5pm. And in the weekends, have sedentary lifestyles, you really need to start doing some lower body workout to get those colon going.
What Happens When Your Intestinal Muscles Lack Muscle Tone?
The simple answer is that your food does not gets pooped out effectively, meaning alot of garbage that is meant for the sewage is retained in your intestine, clogging up your intestinal walls. When they stay in the intestine for a very long period of time, water from the poop is constantly being absorbed by the colon. As the poop gets more and more dry, its gets even harder to get the poop out. This is when a lot of things can happen.
- You realize that your tummy is big!
- You may develop hemorrhoids which manifest by bloody feces. (usually bright red)
- You have constipation: Because the poop is dry, coz they are in there being sucked out of water.
- You poop can be really really freaking smelly at times, because they are in there for too long and the bacteria is your gut is doing what it does which made the “somehow still managed to come out poop” smell really pungent and drive your family crazy.
- Worst but not always: COLON CANCER
Tips to Keep Your Colon Healthy and Lose Weight.
- Exercise. You must exercise. Exercise keeps your heart healthy is already a well established fact. Yes a fact that is so solid ” like when you cut your finger with knife, you will bleed”. Exercise also keeps your intestinal muscle toned and thus help to propel that sucker out of your anus.
- Drink water. Plenty is good. Remember I said, when those poop are in there, the water in them gets sucked out of them into your blood, and your poop gets dry and even harder to get out. So drink enough water keeps them moist. So even if your muscle is less toned, somehow or rather, continuous movement from new food you ingest, might push it out too.
- High Fiber Diet: This is easily achieved by eating lots of fruits and vegetables. The thing about fruit is really amazing. Fruit supplement you with the necessary vitamins and anti-oxidants. Also, they provide a relatively good amount of fiber to your poop which helps maintaining bulk in your poop so that they are easily pooped out. I couldn’t be more simple and laymen with my language for you to understand that right? However, some people think that eating fruits are troublesome because you have to cut them. That is true and I must say drinking fruit juice is the easiest way to absorb the vitamins you need from them. However, if you don’t have other sources of fiber, when you use the blender to blend all your fruit to liquid form, you lose the second advantage of fruits, that is fiber. So unless you have alternative sources of fiber, it is best to consume fruit as it is instead of in the form of fruit juice.
- Eat Curry: Curry has been shown by many researchers to prevent colon cancer. So maybe like once a week is good.
While No. 1-3 is absolutely necessary, No.4, the part on curry is not that big of a deal to me.
So there are my tips to help you folks maintain a healthy colon. OK wait, so whats up with the weight loss thing?
Well, when you exercise to keep your intestine healthy, you are also exercise an a whole, which will help you burn some of those pesky calories. Furthermore, not keeping the poop in your intestine also made sure that your will have a smaller tummy! Hows that?
So I guess thats it for now. Yes, after reading this, please go do 1-3 right now 
Good luck and happy staying healthy so you can enjoy the precious time with family.
