Barbell Shrugged - Physiology Friday: [Constipation] A Five Step System for Perfect Poops w/ Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Travis Mash and Dan Garner Barbell Shrugged

Episode Date: August 30, 2024

In today’s episode of Barbell Shrugged: Why adding water can help eliminate constipation Why “more fiber” may not be the answer to better bowels. Which magnesium supplement is optimal for reducing constipation. Why you need to buy a squatty potty for your best pooping position. How exercise improves motility. Why coffee and caffeine are important to morning movement The best natural stool bulkers Stool Softeners that you can get through your nutrition What are the best stool lubricants What are Osmotic Laxatives and how to add them to your nutrition Saline Laxatives for improved bowel function To learn more, please go to https://rapidhealthreport.com Connect with our guests: Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram Dan Garner on Instagram  

Shrugged family this week on barbell shrugged physiology Friday's back today we're talking about poop today we are talking about constipation which is I have serious serious thoughts on constipation mostly I've never really experienced it myself we work with lots of people we help lots of people that have it here's the thing I have a little dude that's three years old and he struggles with it and you know what? It is like the most stressful thing in my entire life. Like it pains me as a parent watching constipation in real time and like the stress that comes with seeing your little dude struggling and then the pain that comes with it after he

doesn't go for a couple of days. And what's super fun about this podcast is not only does my lovely wife sit on all the mommy blog sites, figuring out how not to use kind of the over the counter medications, things that might not like, you're relaxed, just saying don't, don't let, have the FDA call me, but it's not really like the healthiest thing for you. So we kind of went back one to the mommy blogs then to the all the moms and then also went back and listened to this podcast and there's secrets in here there's things you should do if you suffer from constipation I feel for you because I get to watch it and you should really take this specific podcast to

heart because there is some real nuggets in here that helped us as a family obviously we are not talking about toddlers in this podcast, but as a framework for understanding some very basic things that you can do, and I really do understand how painful it can be, not personally, but in watching my little dude. It is the most wretched thing as a parent, obviously outside of real medical issues that could happen. But man, is it painful watching your little dude cry when he's trying to go to the bathroom? I know if you are a parent

out there or you are dealing with it, you understand exactly what I'm talking about. So please listen to this, implement the things that Dan's talking about. And as always, friends, make sure you get over to rapidhealthreport.com forward slash results. There's a case study there waiting for you on how our client, Timothy Jones, the owner of Precision Nutrition, was able to get in, reduce his cholesterol in half. He cut his cholesterol in half as well as just getting in ridiculously good shape.

And I think he's got like 12 abs in the picture. I mean, the dude is absolutely shredded. Did everything we asked and absolutely crushed it. So get over, you can check out that case study at rapidhealthreport.com forward slash results. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrug. My name is Andrew Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash, Dan Garner. Bros, we're back. We had like a weird month. Dan Garner benched 400 pounds 405 travis mash said i mean i mean it's funny how that five pounds matter by the way you just said 400 versus 405 like you think 400 would be the number you'd be like i did 400 that's awesome no you gotta have that

you gotta have those five pounds to make a four plates yeah if you told somebody bench 400 pounds they'd be like what not 405 what were you doing what were you thinking why didn't you gotta have it you gotta have the gotta have the five pounds of ego weight you need that would even try it yeah or canadian sorry mash what do you think dan should be benching if he had you as his coach for six months? I mean, definitely 455 to 500. That was a rough time to take a drink right there, Dan. I think I need another drink after hearing that. But he would be miserable.

He wouldn't want to do that Costa Rican thing. I'll meet you halfway on that one. We have a real thing to talk about. A.J. Roberts is going to bench 1,000 pounds. He's back to training. Is he really? Yeah, we ran into Jenny this weekend at Dan's seminar, and she showed me pictures.

He's back to 320. Is he really? Ooh, that's a heavy, heavy man. On today's show, we're talking about constipation and fiber, which is super interesting. Ask AJ. Yeah, ask AJ, because he's eating all the food right now. And no fiber.

Fiber probably. He's probably back to Bob Evans breakfast in the morning like West Side Barbell days. He better be. Constipation, I feel like I can count the number of times I've been constipated in my whole life on one hand. And each of those times, it is the most miserable thing. It is legitimately like there's a bowling ball just sitting on your pelvis. And I don't know how, when people tell me that they have constipation, I feel so bad for them. Why wouldn't, if you're eating unhealthy, why wouldn't your body be doing everything in its power to get that mess out?

And instead of hold on to it, and just let it sit there. Yeah, you would think that the body would want that out of there. But yeah, there's a there's some select nutrients that your gastrointestinal system wants, just like any other organ in order for it to do its job. And if it's not getting those nutrients, then there's going to be a backup and constipation. Like I don't know about you guys, but I've been coaching for 10 years. That's like gotta be top five symptoms that I get. I get that all the time. Usually like the common ones, right? Like low energy and bad sleep. Those are pretty or high stress. Those are pretty standard, but constipation is right there, man, so many people are afflicted with this. And I

probably hear it so often because of like what Anders said, it's miserable. So they want to reach out, they want to frickin figure it out. And that constipation thing, I'm excited to talk about it here today. Because this is one of those those episodes I really think can help a lot of people who are, you know, possibly too embarrassed or afraid to go ask other people for help. And this this can be a real solution for them. Yeah. And what are the like over the counter remedies that everybody goes to? They go and get their fiber supplement. Yeah. Which which may help you.

Yeah, there's there's a reason for that. Like, fiber can help quite often. Like you kind of open the podcast by saying people eat crap. And that's one reason why they're not, they're not having great bowel movements, but a lot of times that those processed foods, those packaged goods, that fast food, that quick and easy stuff, it lacks fiber and fiber does a lot of good stuff for us. And when it comes to the world of constipation, like we could talk about some more advanced stuff about how different types of laxatives work, the way in which you can utilize natural laxatives in order to find relief. We can talk about all that today. I've got six different things that I like to use with my clients, but sometimes it's easy. Okay. There's basically five things that I like to use with with my clients. But sometimes it's easy.

Okay. There's basically five things that can help you 90% of the time. The first one simply being hydrated. A lot of people do not consume enough water. And water is going to stimulate gastric motility is going to soften the stool, it can also add bulk to the stool. And one of the reasons why people are constipated is because you eat something. And as it goes through the gastro intestinal tract, fluid is being robbed from it every little bit of the way. And by the time it reaches your your rectum, if it's completely dry and hard, that thing is going to be tough to pass. So lots of times, simply drinking more water is like the big move here. Very few people consume and I think a standard recommendation of half an ounce of water per pound of body weight a day is a very fair

recommendation for the purpose of stimulating bowel movement. So that'd be like the first thing people could do without any advanced analysis. The second thing is just have more fiber. If you just have more fruits and vegetables, that's going to have a host of benefits. You know, it'll add bulk to the stool, it can soften the stool. But fiber also gets converted to short chain fatty acids in the colon. And that's actually the preferred fuel source for the colonocytes. So those are the cells within the colon that help you produce more motility and pass things through. So fiber helps in, in more ways than one, I think a magnesium supplement. Let's stick with fiber just for a

second. I feel like fiber is kind of a, it's a bigger topic where if you look at, you look at constipation relief, you go Google it, I at constipation relief you go google it i'm constipated you go google fiber and it says to take fiber and these these types and these foods have it and whatnot but also if you have diarrhea same thing it's like you'll google it and it'll say take fiber these foods these types and so once in one area it says like this will make your your stool a little looser and easier to pass in another area it'll say if you're just you know you're just pooping shit in straight water here's how to add bulk to your stool but it's like it's like this catch-all term of fiber but there's like

soluble fiber and insoluble fiber and resistant starch and then within within each one of those categories there's there's you know pectin and mucilage and psyllium husk fiber it's like there's all these different things and then and then fruits it's not just fruits and vegetables because fruits and vegetables have all those different types of fibers. That's where fiber comes from. It's an indigestible carbohydrate. It comes from plants, essentially. So fruits and vegetables have all of the different types. And it seems like if you try to oversimplify it by a quick Google search, one says it adds bulk to your poop and one says that it makes your poop looser. So it's like one category with like opposite functions almost.

And it can be very confusing. Totally. I agree with you. And that's why, like I say, these are my basic ones, like water, fiber, magnesium exercise, and the way you squat on the, on the, on the toilet. Those are all like the five super basics that we can get into when it comes to more advanced topics like that. Your knees up, squatty potty. Oh, the squatty potty thing okay yeah yeah there's something called the anal rectal angle where you can actually be really closed if you sit poorly on the toilet but like the squatty potty puts your knees up and also if you lean forward with a straight back it can really open up that whole passageway for easier passage um that's something that if people sit on the toilet incorrectly it can be very hard to pass simply due to that.

But you'll also, there's the same ideology when a female is pregnant and a baby is growing, it can actually close that anal rectal angle and make it really hard to pass. So it becomes even more important to have that correct angle when you are pregnant. Shark family, I want to take a quick break. If you are enjoying today's conversation, I want to invite you to come over to rapidhealthreport.com. When you get to rapidhealthreport.com, you will see an area for you to opt in, in which you can see Dan Garner read through my lab work. Now, you know that we've been working at Rapid Health Optimization on programs for optimizing health.

Now, what does that actually mean? It means in three parts, we're going to be doing a ton of deep dive into your labs. That means the inside out approach. So we're not gonna be guessing your macros. We're not gonna be guessing the total calories that you need. We're actually gonna be doing all the work to uncover everything that you have going on inside you. Nutrition, supplementation, sleep.

And then we're going to go through and analyze your lifestyle. Dr. Andy Galpin is going to build out a lifestyle protocol based on the severity of your concerns, and then we're going to also build out all the programs that go into that based on the most severe things first. This truly is a world-class program, and we invite you to see step one of this process by going over to rapidhealthreport.com. You can see Dan reading my labs, the nutrition and supplementation that he has recommended that has radically shifted the way that I sleep, the energy that I have during the day, my total testosterone level, and just my ability to trust and have confidence in my health going forward. I really, really hope that you're

able to go over to rapidhealthreport.com, watch the video of my labs and see what is possible. And if it is something that you are interested in, please schedule a call with me on that page. Once again, it's rapidhealthreport.com and let's get back to the show. But to kind of travel back to Doug's comment there, with stool bulking, and there's something known, there's six different really ways in which you can create a type of laxative effect. One of them is the bulk. Another one is an osmotic laxative. Okay. So a stool bulking, that's primarily soluble fiber. So that will add bulk to the stool, but an osmotic laxative that comes from insoluble fibers. And what that does is it helps hydrate

the colon. So when you're hydrating the colon, that can really help soften stools. But when you add bulk to the stool, that's coming from soluble fiber. So it kind of like the catch all of eat fruits and vegetables exists because many of them contain soluble and insoluble. And in most cases, people simply aren't meeting their daily recommended intake of fiber anyways. So lots of times that can work for people where I like to kind of create interventions is if like, okay, if you've tried fiber and that still isn't working, then we can move into these different laxative categories that we can discuss. You know, for an easy catch-all advice for both hydration and for fiber, we often say that you want an ounce of water per half pound of body weight.

So if you're 200 pounds, you need 100 ounces of water. That's your common recommendation as well. Half an ounce per pound. Half an ounce per pound. And then, so yeah, body weight divided by two, make it really easy. And then for fiber, I see things that say like 15 grams per 1000 calories, that type of thing. Is that an easy catch all number in your mind? Or what's the what's the range there? 15 is actually getting pretty aggressive, believe it or not, I would I would widen it to 10 to 15. 15 is kind of that top end range.

10 to 15 for the purposes of bowel stimulation is plenty. But for many people, they're actually going to have to titrate their way up there. Because if you're going from like two or one or three, then it's probably good to only go up three to four grams at a time. Because fiber, if you go from zero to 15 um you know just eat a quest bar you'll find out what that feels like you're gonna have bloating you're gonna have gas it's not gonna really feel good so no one wants to sit on a plane you feel like crap what's that why no one wants to be near you on a plane i know that that's your airport food you have three

quest bars and then well you're like running to your next flight and all you can do is just go grab a protein bar and then you look at you like oh that oreo looking guy over there it's gotta be good for you yeah but you can like you're like oh it says healthy on the bar it all just reached my stomach because everything in there just feels rotten right now it's terrible but then why why like you know 15 grams will help but then it won't if you rush like it'll do the opposite like it's weird that the same thing that can help relieve you can actually be a cause of problems yeah well i mean that's the beautiful uniqueness of human physiology right um when you when you

are going way up, if you go from zero to 100, kind of in anywhere, if it's training volume, intensity, frequency, if it's protein, carbs, fat, it doesn't matter where you spin it. You can't expect to not have a response. Something that I've taught in my course in the past is that if you force the body, it will react. If you coax the body, it will respond. Everything, everything has got to be slowly put together for your body to actually be coaxed into direction that it can go for maximal adaptation without a type of reactive response. And with respect to fiber, a lot of that is a bacterial adaptation. So fiber largely goes undigested,

except from the bacteria. So when I said previously, how fiber gets converted to short chain fatty acids in the colon, that's because that's where all that bacteria is that's eating it. So the bacteria is actually consuming that fiber and the bacteria is pooping out short chain fatty acids that then our colonocytes can use as a fuel source. So if you go from zero to 15 grams per thousand calories, you don't really have the bacterial support to do that yet. So then there's a whole lot of over fermentation happening inside your gut

that's gonna create side effects that are undesirable until you build up that tolerance to do so. Got it. Got it. So we had water, fiber, and then you were moving into magnesium is that correct sure yeah so just from andrews did you have a fiber question though before we move on cool so um when it comes to magnesium magnesium is a pretty good one as well and these are just

the super basic ones magnesium is actually an osmotic laxative so it does help hydrate the colon but specifically magnesium citrate. So I really like magnesium citrate. It's actually been compared to even some over the counter pharmaceutical laxatives in the research and done extremely well against them. Now there's something called magnesium oxide. That's also a laxative, but you absorb next to none of magnesium oxide, whereas magnesium citrate also acts as a laxative. But you actually absorb the magnesium as well. So it's just simply a better option.

You get two birds with one stone rather than one. And magnesium citrate, if you don't have a magnesium supplement and you're constipated right now, this is just like low hanging fruit. So get hydrated, get some fiber in you. Try a magnesium citrate supplement and have it in the PM because it'll help with your sleep quality as well. And then the final two in the super simple world are exercise and then toilet positioning. So get a squatty body, get your knees up, have your back straight and leaning forward and then exercise just because that stimulates all things turnover in the body

and gastric motility is going to be a part of that process as well. So I'm telling you guys, like we can talk and we will talk about bulk, bulk laxatives, stool softeners, stool lubricators, osmotic laxatives, saline laxatives, stimulant laxatives. I'm sure everybody knows, but coffee. These are all different things that we can talk about and we will talk about, but I mean, 90% of the listeners, you guys, if you're not actually hydrated, if you're not hitting at least 10 grams of fiber per day, if you don't have magnesium citrate, if you're not resistance training or doing some form of exercise and you're sitting on the toilet, looking at Instagram, rather than being squatted up and in a proper position um that's going to help 90 of people listening right now

they really will right um yeah if you don't have a squatty potty by the way it's like you don't really need to go buy a squatty potty specifically i have one and i like it and it's great but i had a friend who just like nailed a couple of boards together just to set his feet on something like as long as your your feet slash knees are elevated and you got the angles right like you don't have to spend money on some special thing you could just put like a like my kids have a little my kids have like a little step stool in the downstairs bathroom because they're my four year old still needs to like you know get higher enough to like see the mirror and get to the sink and all that like i just pull it over and put my feet on it and then just put it back over there

yeah a whole box of Genova labs. You got so many just sitting around your house. You're like, I got to do something with these things. My daughter was like, can you bring me the stool? And I was like, you know what? Let me bring you this box of labs and see how that lines things up. But that's actually. Did you say stool sample kit?

That's what I heard. I feel like if you watch kids do things, obviously they're not going to the store and buying magnesium, but when it comes to the positioning on the toilet, you will see them do all of those positions just naturally because they feel much better in those positions and are able to actually like go in and pass whatever they need to pass.

But you will see them like bend over and like bring their knees up higher. Like the fact that my daughter asks for a stool to put her feet on, it's not like she like came out of the womb and was like, I need a squatty potty. Everything just feels better. And they learn these things because it just it helps them pass i feel like kids just i don't know a lot of kids struggle um to just go regularly anyways it's it's hard for them because they don't eat fruits and vegetables that much let's be honest i was gonna say i think kids struggle for a lot of the same ways that adults do yeah yeah because adults still eat like kids yeah totally um let's talk about coffee because i think

uh most of the population probably thinks that the purpose of coffee is to give you energy and then help you go to the bathroom in the morning those are like the two comments like i need coffee why energy i need to poop this morning. That's how you start the day. Yeah. How did coffee get this rap? Coffee is a very well-documented reason as to why it works. So it's known as a stimulant laxative.

And what it does is stimulate movement of the digestive system. So there's a hormone called gastrin. Gastrin will stimulate the release of gastric juices, which helps break down the food that we're consuming. But gastrin also increases gastrointestinal motility. So it's actually going to create contractions of the gastrointestinal tract. And when you consume this, coffee is kind of a cool one. Because when you consume caffeinated coffee gastrin and this is only three ounces by the way so i don't know about you guys but you know like a venti grande or whatever from starbucks is coming in way bigger than three ounces you're probably looking

at 16 or something like that but only three ounces of coffee um uh caffeinated coffee stimulate gastrin 2.3 times above baseline, but decaffeinated coffee stimulates gastrin 1.7 times above baseline and decaffeinated coffee actually is 60% more gastrin secretion than just plain water as well. So if you're somebody who doesn't want caffeine, but you want a bowel movement in the morning, and you're currently just waking up and having a glass of water upon waking, you can still have your water, whatever, but you can have a decaf right along with that, get much more gastrin secretion, and therefore gastric motility and get a very similar even though it doesn't contain a stimulant, it contains compounds within it. Caffeine is of course stronger, but it contains compounds within it that still stimulate gastrin.

So that's something I've used in the past with success. Decaf coffee can help you take a poop. It's like a green tea, a good thing, too. It's got caffeine in it, but is it? For sure. So green tea contains the caffeine. And from experience, I would tell you it still works. But from the research, I don't think I've seen anything.

I've primarily just seen coffee as a stimulant laxative. And it does the job. Dan, would you say that morning time is a good time for like lighter exercise? Because one thing that, you know, like I learned in my little bit of physiology is that like if you go too high, like you say, you exercise super hard and you go past like 75% on VO2 max, it can actually inhibit, slow down the emptying process is what I was told. But maybe, you know, I mean, you're the, you're the man. So I'm gonna let you, you have your knowledge on this. All things, gastrointestinal health will divert,

will reduce due to the blood diverting away from the gastrointestinal health will divert, will reduce due to the blood diverting away from the gastrointestinal system. So if we have a high intensity exercise, anything that's overly fatiguing, your body is basically saying, okay, we're going to get out of those parasympathetic state, which is rest and digest. We're going to switch on a sympathetic state, which is fight or flight, which means I am sending all blood into the skeletal muscles so that we can deal with whatever stressors in front of us right now. And then we'll poop later. So it's a good time to like, it's why it's so good.

Like get up, like drink a glass of water, maybe some, some, some caffeine free decaffeinated coffee. Yeah. And then like a light walk, you know, like, you know, to go out, go walk around the neighborhood. I feel like it's like guaranteed schedule is on par. For sure. Yeah, that's a that's a great thing because exercise by itself helps improve regularity,

let alone adding in something that doubles your gastrin. So that'd be a great start to the day for anybody. And just from experience as well, having an empty stomach is going to going to create a much quicker effect. Having that upon waking rather than having it with a really large breakfast. Agreed. Get it in there. Let it do its own thing.

Go through the elimination process and then carry on with your day. Right. Yeah. Coffee seems like a, in a way, like a healthy laxative. It's like actually a bean. It's not just a straight pill that you're taking. What is the real difference in some like over the counter stool softener or laxative? Maybe in comparison to coffee, but just in general, like why?

I feel like that's, that's, if you were to just ask me on the surface without any knowledge, like, should I buy this pill that's going to make me go poop? And I go, I don't know that just something about that doesn't seem right. What's the main difference or the mechanisms in that? And is it healthy? Yeah, so many of them are very, very stimulatory. So like, for example, if a fighter is going through a weight cut, I'll actually use something called senna um senna will stimulate you to go to the bathroom in a pretty hard way which can be advantageous for a weight cut temporary weight cut but um if you're using it chronically um it can have a major impact primarily on electrolyte status because when you are

emptying your bowels like that, you are losing something aldosterone does specifically is it really helps retain sodium from the kidneys. And we actually take this out of our stool and put it back into circulation. So we can still use that sodium. That's recirculated many times over. But if you have an immediate emptying, we lose electrolytes fast, not just through just electrolytes, but hydration as well. Because there's a lot of water that can hang out. When you get really, when you like get the flu, how you feel. Exactly.

You can, people have died of dehydration. I was going to say, isn't the bodybuilding world like really, really nasty at this? Which leads, like the bodybuilding world, when they have to go get down to like obscene, low, low single digit body fat to go stand on stage. Are they is that a regular thing that they're just cranking through their body? You mean to like a Senna, like a type of. Yeah. Yeah. It's not too regular. It's always on a case by case basis. Yeah. You'll come across guys who are actually very naturally dry um like uh there's many bodybuilders who already kind of have that dry gritty look almost naturally yeah not naturally but genetic predisposition to it

um but then uh there's other athletes that won't probably would lean on that but that would be honestly i think bad coaching and a bad strategy. Because if you're using laxatives, then your electrolytes are off. If your electrolytes are off, you're not going to look full and pumped. You're going to lose a ton of cosmetic effect. I like using laxatives only if I have to during a fighter's weight cut week. And even then, it'll be very minimal. But I would never use it in contest prep or photo

shoot prep. And that's also a lot of fullness. The extreme of the extreme people. Um, is there a place for it? If, I mean, if I walked around feeling like I felt that night after I had two IPAs and eight Chinese food the next morning, that was a, a rough morning. Um, I would, if I did that like three days a week, I would have laxatives in the house all the time just to not feel like that. What are the, what's like the, that that's not healthy. Like what, how can kind of like a,

um, is, is there a healthy way to use them? What, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So first of all, I'm not even against laxatives because sometimes immediate relief is what you need. Yeah. Especially if you're traveling, it's been like seven days. You're like, oh, my God. I think that actually that can win the cost-benefit analysis. Because if a stool hangs out in the colon for too long, then it can undergo certain recirculation that's unfavorable. So bacteria, toxic compounds, these things that actually should have already been expelled at

this time, are there for so long that they're being recirculated as well. And you ask anybody like, who is constipated, like they don't feel good. It's not just the thing, the baseball in your gut, like you do feel more fatigued you you you the whole day the the symptoms of constipation are system-wide and the reason why they're system-wide is because they impact your microbiome and that's what's system-wide so i want to get into the microbiome too but that feeling is so real and it's it's insanely frustrating because then you go sit down and you know that there's something there that needs to come out. Yeah.

And you just push and push. And then what happens is like this tiny little rock hard pebble comes out of you and you go, that's only like one one hundredth of what feels like needs to come out of me. And now, you know, there's something wrong because there's just this like very unhealthy poop floating in the toilet so yeah so what it looks like gross yeah it's gross but that's real life that's like what they what it looks like yeah i need to be a gi doctor these people these people need a lot of help and i'll typically take them in one of six ways so if they've already done the five things i mentioned previously, the water, magnesium, fiber, exercise, and positioning, and they've done all that and they've done it consistently and they're still not doing well, there's basically six different routes of laxatives that you can take. There's bulkers, softeners, lubricants, osmotics, saline, and stimulant.

And there's natural options for all of them like we already talked about stimulant um coffee is an excellent example of a stimulant laxative as far as a stool balkaner you can use chia seeds that is a fantastic source of soluble fiber of one ounce of chia seeds has 11 grams of fiber so like it's it's extremely compact with its with its soluble fiber in its ability to create bulk in the stool. There are stool softeners. There's something known as castor oil. It comes from castor beans. It contains ricinoleic acid.

And ricinoleic acid binds to a receptor to add water to the stool. So this actually acts as a stool softener over time. So we've got our stool bulk. We've got our stool softener. As far as the stool lubricant goes, extra virgin olive oil. And this you can look up the studies combining extra virgin olive oil or extra virgin olive oil, plus a laxative treatment, extra virgin olive oil accelerates the process every single time. And it actually it's its own category now. It's a stool lubricant.

What it'll do is it'll lubricate the stool so you can pass it easier. So that's its whole own option too. I got to ask, I got to ask the question, you know, with castor oil, does it work for pregnant women like to, you know, there's the old one. Am I the only one who knows this? No, no, no. I know where you're going with this. And it does work. This is why you can't have it if you're pregnant.

What? You can't... What? What if you tried it? He did not know where you were going with that answer at all. At the very end, what if they take it to like produce like uh contractions it stimulates contractions i know that's what i'm saying yeah so like well like at the very end to

say you're like a week past due like you know okay my wife took it and we had a baby oh well then hell yeah in that context for sure i sure. I mean, in leading up. So like four months, five months, six months, seven months. What we're basically talking about here for the listeners, castor oil, that ricinoleic acid that binds to receptors and it increases. Yes. It softens stools, but it also increases contractions. And so that can help you poo, but that can also help you have a baby.

Yeah. It's like magic. Yeah, exactly. And it legit works. increases contractions yeah so that can help you poo but that can also help you have a baby yeah it's like magic yeah exactly and it legit works it's it's and that's why it's contraindicated like early in pregnancy it's like we actually don't want you contracting like that early on i can't wait to tell drew that we're not you know it's not a wise tell no science baby yeah yeah yeah yeah thumbs up it's good as far as um osmotic laxatives go and hydrating the colon that's insoluble fiber that's prunes you guys have probably heard of prunes at helping with constipation before you can get that Costco bag the five pounder and just mow through that with the kids get after it and then yeah then do some work later on yeah yeah so that that osmotic laxative that's prunes that's a insoluble fiber

that's hydrating the colon but then another way that you can do is add water to the small intestine and that's called a saline laxative and uh in a weird way, actually sugar substitutes do this. So when you see xylitol, lactitol, sorbitol, these things, they're in sugar free chewing gum, they're in diet sodas, they're also we already talked about it. They're also in a lot of protein bars. Is it because so a protein bar wants to say like only four grams net carbs or like whatever. It's because there's a lot of other stuff in it that's that's hidden. But for the purpose of bowel elimination, these help add water to the small intestine, which increases contractions as well. And then you have stimulant. So like when I when I'm running through people just to kind of bring that whole thought in for a landing here, there's bulk laxatives. There's

stool balkaners, we'll say, stool softeners, stool lubricants, osmotic laxatives, saline laxatives, and stimulant laxatives. I gave you a natural option for each one. And I think the hang up that people have is I've increased fiber. What else should I do? Well, dude, that's one you did. Maybe one of the six. So the problem solving is a lot larger than just have more fiber. And that's why people have more fiber and then they don't go to the bathroom. So they keep adding more fiber and then they start getting digestive complaints and feeling like shit. Look, you're trying to you're trying to use a screwdriver to do the job of a hammer. Your job might be colonic hydration and has nothing to do with your

current stool bulk. Okay. So picking one of these six, that's what's going to solve it every single time. And that's how I help my clients every single time. Yeah. How is someone supposed to know if they need the softener, the bulkner,

the more water, like how is, is there a way that they can go, instead of just firing all six at the same time, which is what everyone's going to do, and then they won't have a clue? Is there a way that you can go, oh, I need more water?

Yeah, I think you'll be able to do some process of elimination. So if you're already having coffee every day and it's not working, you're like, well, I don't need more stimulant laxative because actually only three ounces is what stimulated a ton of gastrin. So that's probably not going to be my answer. But you know what? I've got really, really, really loose stools. And Balkaner is probably going to help me in that category. So you could probably move in that direction.

Or if you're moving something super, super, super soft, I mean super hard rather, well, then I'm going to probably go through the more stool softener route. So I think, I think your mind is going to naturally lead you in certain directions that are obvious based on the Bristol stool chart. I think a lot of people have seen the Bristol stool chart where you can look at it and be like, it's hard and rocky or it's lumpy, or it looks pretty good, or it's starting to get too soft or it's water. There's that whole thing. I'd recommend people looking at it. It's a, it's lumpy, or it looks pretty good, or it's starting to get too soft, or it's water. There's that whole thing I'd recommend people looking at. It's an excellent thing to look at to see where you're at in the world of elimination. But I think through looking at the Bristol School Chart, knowing your own body, and then also just what Travis said, just trial and error.

Like, yeah, you know, just try one for three days. See what happens. Nothing happens. Try the next for three days. Nothing happens. Try the next. Oh, you went to the bathroom. We ready rock boom yeah very simple i i'm i've got to be i'm so curious like you talked about once in a while with your with your athletes that you will use laxatives

you know for weight cut when is that when is that a good option? When is it not? So, I mean, if they're coming in pretty heavy, if it's a short notice fight, that's kind of a good option. Because sometimes you just don't have time to do everything perfectly. So you're just going to use that. So that is one option. Another option is if they do struggle with constipation. Kind of to Anders' point, there's a lot of people who when they start to get lean, they actually start to get constipated at the same time. And that can happen to fighters as well. Typically, if fighters have dieted too hard, so if they allowed themselves to get too fat

outside of camp, and then they wanted to get lose all of the fat and get super lean, lose all the weight in their six week fight camp, lots of times they'll diet way too hard. And then that can create constipation too. So I would say primarily short notice fight, or if you dieted too hard, got it. And that, and that would be it. And again, it's, it's reserved. So like you're, you're using things like sodium depletion, you're using things like water loading, you're using things like, um, glycogen depletion, You're doing all of these other modalities, including the sauna, anything, right? You don't make weight with laxatives, but you might get one to two pounds out of it. That's it.

Right. When you put laxatives into somebody that already isn't eating a lot and is dehydrated, I would assume there's basically like nothing in their body. If you have to get to the point where it's like, we need to just get a pound out of you right now. What's coming out of you? If you've already really reduced nutrition to, you know, zero calories or whatever it is, water, you dehydrated them. And then it's like, we just need the two pounds. What actually is coming out of you? You'll still, you'll still get some stuff. So like, if you're on my plan, a little bit of

salmon will come out a little bit, a little bit of heavy cream. No, for real, because just because somebody, we're lowering somebody's weight, it doesn't always mean that we're lowering somebody's calories. So like, if you pull carbs out seven days out, there is a gradual glycogen depletion that will get you several pounds, but you can actually keep calories the same. You just remove carbs and add in fat and you'll get a lot of additional weight loss without a caloric loss. This is the one reason why people get excited in the initial stages of say the keto diet and why they think it works. Like, man, I'm already down 10 pounds, 10 pounds of water. Sure. Yeah. um not body fat so in that initial stage

of say that weight cut um i'm more or less flipping fats and carbs so that we don't have as hard of a caloric deficit and then you're still pooping out food yeah um is what to what degree we're kind of talking about i was gonna say pre and probiotics but really fibers just closely related related to prebiotics um you know even though all dietary fibers are prebiotic and all prebiotic not all prebiotics are dietary fiber so we already kind of touched on that a little bit but what about probiotics and digestive enzymes how do they play into this both in the short and long term sure so i'm i'm unsure of any way digestive enzymes? How do they play into this, both in the short and long term? Sure. So I'm unsure of any way digestive enzymes play into this. Possibly they could improve digestion north, which would improve elimination south. I think that that's what's going to happen

quite frequently. If something's being poorly digested, it's likely that it's going to have a longer transit time. And that longer transit time, as we discussed earlier, is going to result in more and more extraction of fluid as it continues on down the gastrointestinal tract. And that greater extraction of fluid could result in a harder and drier stool by the time it gets to the rectum. So, digestive enzymes could certainly play a role in that category. As far as probiotics go, they're stool softeners. So if you're someone who has currently has a hard stool, dry stool, get hydrated and probiotics will really help soften and breaking that up. But at the same time, a little bit of a caveat, I don't really like assigning probiotics unless I've done your stool test. So that this is a it's still such a new area

of research, you guys like I saw I saw a paper only a couple of weeks ago. And it's still such a new area of research you guys like i saw i saw a paper only a couple of weeks ago and it's demonstrated the craziest thing so trees were communicating with the ground through bacteria to decide the nutrient exchange that was going to occur between the ground and the tree this is absolutely insane stuff it sounds crazy i know but i think fungus is the uh communicator the translator yes yes it's it's i know i saw i read that in one of michael poland's books actually a long time ago i think it's called in defense of food because like a whole chapter on on the fascination of the world of fungus and mushrooms and stuff like that so like stuff like this exists right trees using bacteria and fungus to

communicate with the ground this is something that we can actually see it's stuff that can survive an oxygenated environment so when i see stuff like that i'm like how well do we really think we got the microbiome figured out like it is in a non-oxygenated environment in the most complicated organism in the world with psychology emotion physiology it's like i love getting excited about this stuff and i am excited because we're in a fascinating age where we're learning so much like that's cool shit all all by itself but um it's important to stay humble when you become a a student of scientific history you realize that we've been wrong more times than we've been right if you go back yeah we've been wrong so many times and this industry will kick your ass if you don't stay humble yeah it's always funny apologizing for it in the next like six months i'm gonna be like my bad you

know yeah it is funny to look back 100 years and be like god like they didn't really know anything about so many things 100 years from now they're gonna look at us like we're just totally silly and ridiculous a bunch of morons 100 man like that's uh that's just the way science is and the open-minded people continue going forward and closed-minded people are the ones that we laugh at. I was just telling my wife this very thing. Like think about hypertrophy. Like, like we're banging their chest because we realized that going to

failure creates hypertrophy. We've proven it. And the bodybuilders are like, we've known that for so long. We already had that figured out. It was like five years ago, nobody went to failure at all. Yeah. Say what? It was like five years we had that figured out nobody went to failure at all yeah say what there was like five years where like nobody went to failure and then all of a sudden it became cool again yeah and then across we kind of demonized the bodybuilders in the beginning that was like how they got traction like those are the bad stupid people the bodybuilders

like we're we're cool and we know how to do all kinds of other other fun stuff the bodybuilders don't do like you don't need to be a gargantuan human. They demonize bodybuilders. And then slowly over time, they're like, wow, bodybuilders know a lot of shit. All the nutrition from bodybuilding came in and all the hypertrophy stuff from bodybuilding came in. And then people are like, oh, wow, if you put on a lot of muscle mass and eat really clean, it's actually really good for you. After everyone's leg room was torn, they went, oh, you can just sit on that machine and get jacked no way i don't do all this swinging round stuff that's pros and cons to all of it if it's done well um yo actually i want to back up you mentioned a stool test a while back we do stool tests for all of our high-end clients like what is the unique value of having a stool test

over all the other types of tests that that we do or that anyone could do? Why is that so unique and so relevant? Insight towards gut health. If I could get a maximum insight through your gut, of your gut through your blood, then I would, because it's a lot, a lot easier to do a blood test, a lot easier to do saliva, a lot easier to do urine. Absolutely nobody likes the stool test, but it's irreplaceable. So insight on pathogenic species, insight on microbial balance, insight on digestive end products. So like you said, it goes perfectly into what you said, because we can actually look at digestive enzymes and products of food breakdown in the stool. So if bad digestion is happening north, then we're going to be able to identify itself and adjust your diet and supplement supplementation

intervention accordingly. So digestion, assimilation, gastrointestinal inflammation can be identified through their your your microbiome balance, your pathogenic species, and then also your metabolic balance. So metabolic balance is basically the combined efforts between bacteria and the host and what roles those are. So like when I said short chain fatty acids are produced by the bacteria, but then we actually use them in the colonocytes. That's a, that's metabolic balance. So between metabolic balance, pathogens, bacteria, the digestive end products, oxidative stress markers, there's so much you can learn. And that's why like when that's why, by the way, when you look at hundreds of stool tests, that's why I don't prescribe probiotics anymore, without seeing a stool test. Because, you know,

when you become a student of scientific history, you find out more times we've been wrong. I don't want to be. I need to know exactly who you are before I give you 50,000 units of bacteria. Like there's people that just prescribing.

Yeah, take 50,000, 100,000 and every day. Don't switch it up. It's like you don't really know that, man. That's a really big thing to do to somebody's gastrointestinal tract blindly. And I just,

based on what I've seen in labs, I'd never do that anymore. Ever. Loading up a bunch of soldiers in there. You don't know that might turn bad on you. Exactly. Yeah. You don't,

you don't know, you don't know whose side they're on. And you also like you're throwing in blindly. It's that's just, that's crazy to me yeah what about like you know if you look at like this is going to be too sciencey maybe but when you got like the sglt's and the glute transporter proteins and like when people just go on these random diets so no carb or no sodium you can can totally wreck both of those.

Yeah, you could downregulate those. Absolutely. Yeah. And then when you reintroduce carbs, of course, they feel like crap because you don't have the enzymes, the bacteria and the transporter upregulation in order to deal with what you used to eat. You used to be able to eat that because that was a common pattern for you and your digestive system adapted to it.

But now when you completely changed everything and then did something else and and then you're like ah this wasn't very fun i'm gonna go back to the way i was eating oh now carbs bloat me they were the problem all along you just haven't adapted to it again right like people should be very careful before they listen to anybody randomly spurting something on instagram like like, like no cars. That's the way to go. I mean, is it? I mean, I don't know that it is. Yeah. Like if I did the carnivore diet for two months, of course, fructose is going to make me feel like shit when I come back. Because I am in no way, shape or form adapted to that digestive context at all anymore. And I'm going to need to build myself back up just like we talked about with the fiber.

We need to coax the body rather than force the body with these crazy nutritional protocols. Right. It's something to be said for balance. Yeah. I learned that lesson with gluten and the paleo diet like a decade and change ago. I went on my very first date with my now wife, and we went and did yoga, and I grabbed some teriyaki chicken from the local Trader Joe's thinking I was being super paleo, not reading about the amount of gluten in teriyaki. You know what it's like sitting in a hot yoga class with your future wife, and you haven't eaten gluten in like a year? And you're about to shit your pants.

Yeah, and now you're just sitting there in Downward Dog going, I got to get out of this place. I'm about to Downward Dog all over everybody. It's not pretty, but if you can hold that out and you can escape, you just walk out of there

just a sweaty mess. You're like, God, this chick better marry me by the end of this thing. Dan Gardner, where can the people find you? You can find me and many more poop stories over on Instagram, at DanGarnerNutrition, and my courses at CoachGarner.com.

Make sure you get into those courses. Travis Mash. Yeah, you can go to Mash Elite Performance on Instagram or MashElite.com. You know what's so funny? I can go as dirty as you want, but for some reason, like poop and spit, it makes me like – I'm like wanting to throw up. Weird. But I think about the weird things I do with my wife, and I'm like – Hold the phone.

Back it up. Back it up. We only got – You got to – Where do we get it over there? Let You got it. Let's hear it. We'll stop recording before we hear that story. All right.

Doug Larson. Follow me on Instagram. Douglasy Larson. I have zero poop stories with me and my wife. How dare you? That's so boring, right? I got to level up. Oh, wait. Travis is going to hook level up. Travis is gonna hook it up. I don't know the methods.

Travis is gonna get 50,000 more followers right now. That's right. A very weird community. Where did these people come from? I can't wait to see your DMs this week. You look a lot like Breckenruth, but different.

Yeah. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We are Barbell Shrugged. Barbell underscore shrugged. Get over to RapidHealthReport.com. If you want to see Dan Garner read my labs, that's the spot. And you can schedule a call there so we can talk about all your health concerns

and get everything up to an optimal state. Friends, we'll see you guys next week.