How Much Time Should It Take? - Are you Moving Fast Enough?

I did a little experiment. I ate some foods that would indicate how long things take to move through my body. This is called my transit time. The time it takes food to travel from my taste buds to the toilet. I was curious; would my dinner show up after breakfast? Would it take longer? I was fascinated to find out I had an almost 48-hour transit time! The slowest on the range of what is considered normal and for my goals, not at all optimal.

Let’s start at the beginning. Why would I want to figure out my personal transit time? Well, we can see what we put in our mouth and we can see (if we look) how it comes out the other end. Those two clues give us indications of how our body and microbiome of our gut are processing everything in between. Some might think that poop is poop. I beg to differ. The quality of your stool tells you a lot about your microbiome, those tiny gut bugs that help you break down the harder to digest parts of your foods. There is a chart called the Bristol Stool Chart also sometimes referred to as the Meyers Scale. This chart shows you what optimal stool should look like leaving your body. There is also optimal color and smell, but we won’t talk about that today.

I want to make sure I am processing my food properly so that I am assured that I am getting as much of the nutrition I put into my body, into my body. Too fast, not good. Too slow, not good. If my transit time is too fast, which is less than 12 hours, it can be harder to absorb nutrition. If the transit time is greater than 48 hours then the food you eat is sitting in your gut for longer than desired and more harmful bacteria have time to thrive and produce by-products that can result in poor gut health, gas, bloating and even discomfort and pain.

Did you know that constipation does not just mean not having a bowel movement for days at a time? It can also be incomplete emptying. Meaning you go but your bowel movement is less than glorious. Maybe you must push a little harder than is comfortable, maybe you don’t feel completely empty, maybe it just seems to take a really long time for the movement to happen. Most people suffer in silence or have been told not to worry, “that’s just your normal”. It’s not normal. What goes in, must come out, and it shouldn’t take days or weeks to do it.

Testing your transit time is simple; first, you need to start with something that is a strong color on the way in AND will keep that color on the way out. I like to use beets (red) or if you have some, you can try using some activated charcoal (black). These will change the color of your stool so that you can roughly estimate how long it takes food to travel through you. Another food that you can use is sweet corn. We can’t break the corn down in our guts so most people know it comes out poorly digested. But with sweet corn, it is a high fiber food so it can speed up your transit time so make sure you time it from when you eat it to the last indication of it leaving your body.

Ideally, your transit time should fall between 12-48 hours. Optimally I would like to see somewhere around 24 hours for myself. That’s when I know I feel my best. This is something you can experiment with as well. To improve your transit time you want to be eating a fiber-rich diet (lots of vegetables and fruit – increase slowly!). It’s also important to increase your water and get physical activity. The perfect diet will have 25-35g of fiber each day and 10-12 glasses of pure water. The fiber will feed the healthy microbiome which will help to speed up your metabolic rate and move your bowels more often!

Relying on laxatives and stool softeners is no way to live! Are you ready to get even healthier? Would you like to know more about what it feels like to have your bowels move more often? Let’s chat about how health coaching can help you make your own healthy changes so that you can speed up your transit time. Schedule an initial complimentary consultation with me today—or pass this offer on to someone you care about! Visit www.noshoesnutrition.com and sign up for a FREE consultation.  I work with individuals from all over the world individually or in groups so don’t let anything hold you back!