For a few years now, I've been struggling with gastrointestinal discomfort. At some point, I found out that I'm intolerant to oranges and onions, but while avoiding these two works in general, I still feel unwell many times so I believe there's something else I should avoid eating. One of the problems I have is that I'm usually constipated. Not being able to stool in 4 or 5 days makes me feel swollen and heavy, with low energy. I've just started a low FODMAPs diet, which is a 2 steps process. For the first part of it, I should only eat low-FODMAP food. In a second term, I have to reintroduce food (one at a time) and check if they have any impact.
Find out if there's any relationship between food, physical activity and water intake with my own bowel movement.
It's a known fact that people should drink about 2 L of water per day. However, according to Monash University, this would not necessarily increase bowel movements. Only in the case of people with functional constipation who were consuming adequate fibre intake, increasing water intake increased bowel movement frequency.
A study published by the Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology states that "In middle-aged inactive subjects with symptoms of chronic constipation, it is advisable to promote regular physical activity since it improves both the defecation pattern and rectosigmoid or total colonic transit time." In other words, regular short time excercise should increase bowel movements.
The general recommnedation is that people should eat between 10% and 35% of their calories, as proteins. This translates into 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight, for an average sedentary adult (55 grams for me, since I weight 68.5 kilograms). Both high and low protein intake may affect gastrointestinal performance.
The general recommnedation is that people should eat between 45% and 65% of their calories, as carbs. According to this calculator I should be taking 226 and 425 grams of carbs (given that I would like to maintain weight). Fermentable carbs are known triggers of irritable bowel syndrome, and their intake should be constrained during low FODMAP diets.
The general recommendation is that people should eat between 20% to 35% of daily calories as total fat, but only 10 % or less shoould be saturated fats. This means I shoul eat between 54 and 94 grams of total fat, from which not more than 27 grams may be saturated. A novel study may have linked high saturated fat intake with constipation specially when there's diabetes and for non-latin coloured people.
It may take from 4 hs upto 48 hs to develop any symptoms
Normal stool frequency is between three per week and three per day
Keeping water intake over 1.5 L per day, while reducing high FODMAPs and developping a regular excercise routine, should improve my own bowel movements and overall gastrointestinal health.
I kept a journal for over 30 days, including everything I've been eating, how much water I've been drinking, if I've done at least 30 minutes of excercise, how I've been feeling and of course, if I've been able to go to the bathroom or not. Regarding this last point, I've classified my bowel movements as 0, 1 and 2. 0 meaning no movement at all, 1 meaning insufficient and 2 meaning sufficient. I've collected all these data in a block of notes I carry out in my purse and transcribed them into a Google SpreadSheet to work with it.
All the information gathered for this study is of my own property and I allow myself to use it for this analysis.