Constipation…one of the most devastating metabolism problems of all!

Constipation is one of the worst metabolism disorders of all and kills weight loss. It totally poisons the body from head to toe especially glands like the thyroid, liver and adrenals glands. If you suffer from it you must solve it immediately. I repeat if you suffer from it you must solve it immediately. Keep focused until you get to the root cause and sort it out. The worst thing you can do is mask it over with medications or laxatives, leaving it to eat away at your body.

Proper bowel function is at least 2 to 3 movements per day! Less then this and you are officially constipated. Based on this standard you can work out your degree of constipation. Certainly a bowel movement every 3 or 4 days is already a real state of emergency. I cannot stress enough to you the destructive effect it is having on your energy, health and weight loss. You may not even feel or be fully aware of this but it is there and you will pay the price sooner or later.

Constipation is a serious breakdown of your digestive function. There are a huge range of potential causes and very often it will be more then one factor that is involved in your constipation. Causes can include – stress, poor thyroid function, imbalanced gut bacteria, low fibre, excess calcium, medications, food allergies and low stomach acid to name but a few. I have identified at least 22 possible causes.

There is a degree of trial and error in working out the root cause or causes but there is a systematic approach you should take to solving the problem. My first recommendation is that you keep a ‘constipation diary’ tracking your bowel movements and the triggers, what makes you worse or better. Constipation is rarely cured overnight but signs that you are progressing will be vital to your motivation and your strategy. Then start with chewing your food more, drinking enough water throughout the day (1L per 100 lbs bodyweight) and checking your meal size (men should never exceed 500 calories and ladies 400 calories at any one meal).

Next check your fibre level – fibre is in vegetables, pulses (beans, peas and lentils), fruit and whole-grains – so make sure you have a regular supply of these everyday. Simply switching to whole-grain cereals and breads can add enough fibre to make a big difference. Remember regular white bread or brown bread have a high G.I. meaning they are not much better than eating pure sugar!!

If you are still not improving then introduce layered eating. Layered eating is looking at the foods at your meal and eating the ones with the highest water content fully first and then the next highest and so on and not putting a piece of each on your fork and having a mouthful of mixed foods. Foods should be eaten in the following order (however most likely you will not have all types at any one meal) – raw vegetables first, then cooked vegetables, then potatoes, then grains, the pulses, then nuts and seeds and finally meat, fish and poultry. Fruit should never be mixed with other foods and should always be eaten on its own as a snack!

If you still have no signs of improvement after that, then please contact to discuss further progress because at that stage more individualised analysis is usually required. Remember constipation is a chronic disorder and needs to be corrected urgently!

© Copyright 2011. David McDonagh System 10. All rights reserved.