Stool Workshop

Hi, there. It's Kirsty from Culture Wellness here, and welcome to this video, one of the many videos in this Gut Health Workshop Series. I'm so glad you can join me again. It's really cool, I'm really enjoying doing these videos. It's just like doing a live workshop, I'm grabbing all those little awesome little tools and barometers about health that we talk about in our workshop, and then it's cool because I can get them right out to you through this Facebook page.

I'm so grateful that you're here. Today we're going to talk about poo. You can't get away with doing a gut workshop without talking about poo. It's absolutely impossible.

Our stools are the window into how our health is. It's a window, it's like a barometer of our health, and so we've got to have a look. We've got to stop being so precious about it, and we've got to stop being so secretive about it, and we've got to have a look, discuss it with our friends, discuss it with your practitioner, and start to investigate how is my stool and how do I feel on a daily basis. Is it consistent, or does it swing between constipation and diarrhea? Do I feel like I'm not getting rid of all of my stool when I have the bowel movement? These questions are really important, and they tell us so much about the functions of the rest of our bodies.

The first time I really came to understand the importance of our stools was actually when I was 19. I was in India, right up north in the Himalaya, in a place called Himachal Pradesh, in Dharamshala. Now Dharamshala is where the Tibetan government in exile lives, and I was very fortunate to go and visit there as my friend was working for the government in exile. I got to hang out and I got to see and do so much with the Tibetan government.

Unfortunately, I got sick when I was there, and so I had to go and see a Tibetan doctor. It was really interesting when I went to see the Tibetan doctor he didn't ask me at all about any of my symptoms. He didn't ask me about my diarrhea, he didn't ask about the pain, he didn't ask about the random rash that had started or my intense brain fog, the pain in my back, all those things I'd just lived with. He didn't ask me anything about that. He asked me about my stool.

My stool was consistently terrible, and I'd never really thought anything of it, and I'd just put up with it. Actually when I was in India, it wasn't much worse than when I was living in Australia. But he asked me about it, and it was the first time that I'd really stopped and thought hang on a minute, this sort of constant diarrhea and then constipation, feeling of bloated and gas all the time, this actually is not normal. This person's asking me about it, and he's relating it to how I'm feeling. It was such a cool thing for me.

I was only 19, and I wish I had learned more. I wish there was the internet like there is now where I could have researched all about it and found out all about it, but unfortunately it took me many, many years after that to jump hold of learning about how important my stool was. But that was my sort of first introduction to it. From there, I've obviously learned a lot about stool in this journey. Myself, as some of you might know, I've had an FMT, which is called a Fecal Microbial Transplant. My gut was so poor, and it had such terrible good bacteria in there I actually had to grab the bacteria from someone else and pop it inside my body to try, and I did, to get a more thriving gut microbiome community.

We know that those microbes come out in our stool, and that's a great way of finding out do we have a healthy gut or is our gut really failing us. There's so much to learn, and so much for me to teach you about all this, especially around stool. Let's jump into it.

Really a great way of measuring how is your stool is via the Bristol Stool Chart. It's been around forever, and it's a great barometer of finding out how you're going. At the end of this video, we'll pop a quiz in on the Facebook page, and it's going to ask you some questions. One of the questions will be rate your stool compared to the Bristol Stool Chart.

The Bristol Stool Chart has different types of stool, so it literally shows you the different types. One is horrible watery diarrhea, and that's at one end, and at the other end it's terrible, terrible pebbles, classic sort of constipation, where you can't eliminate your stool. In between there's varieties of that, and then obviously there's the ideal perfect stool in the middle.

What does a perfect stool look like? It's medium to dark brown in color, a medium brown color, and it's got a little bit of shape to it. It's like an S or a Z shape. It's super easy to pass, so you don't get any pain when you pass it. The other important thing is when you do pass it you feel like it's all completely evacuated. This concept is called incomplete evacuation, and what that means is when you go to the toilet and you have a bowel movement not all of it comes out, but you sit down to try and go again and it's blocked, it's not all coming out. That incomplete evacuation is very important for you to document if you're having that, and I'll get into that with some of the types of stools later. The incomplete evacuation shows us that there's more to it, more going on with the digestion, and it's very important to measure that.

It should be easy to pass. It should be a good length, have a little bend to it, and it shouldn't be too odorous. Obviously stool does smell, but not that sort of sulfur smell or that real sort of bile smell. There's lots and lots of smells. I remember Noah's smelled like seawater. It was horrible. There's all these different kinds of smells, but you want it to be not too offensive.

What are some other stools that you can have, and what do they represent? One of the classic ones is if you have food in your stool. Food in your stool, so literally the chopped up carrot that went down has come out the same way, or if you've got any types of spaghetti in there, or undigested onion, for example, that all shows us that there is food still in there, and that might be a result of a lack of stomach acid, a lack of pancreatic digestive enzymes, or that you're not chewing and taking your time to chew your food, and just that you're rushing.

For some of our clients that come and work with us at Culture Wellness, we literally get them to count in between their bites. Put your fork down in between each bite. Take your time. We're so lucky that we have beautiful nourishing food that we have access to. We want to get all the nutrients out of that. We don't want to just scarf it down and have it come out the other end. Make sure that you're taking your time.

If it's not that, if it is because there's a lack of pancreatic enzymes, or if there's a lack of stomach acid, then that needs to be addressed. If your food is coming out the other end, you're not getting the nutrients out of it. It's almost a waste of food really because you're not getting all of those minerals, nutrients to support your organs. Those nutrients support your liver, they support your brain. It's so important to grab every bit of nutrient that you get from your food, snap it up and hold onto it.

Pancreatic enzymes are really important. They digest carbohydrates, they digest proteins, they digest fats. Have a look. If you're having trouble then you can use bitter foods, you can use ginger, you can use lemon, you can use apple cider vinegar. There's lots and lots of different ways that you can start to fire up your belly and start to digest those foods, or you can take supplements to start your pancreatic enzymes and stomach acid.

The stomach acid is more for digesting the protein, and it's very important to also protect our gut from any invaders that are coming in. If you ate some meat and it had a parasite in that meat, then the stomach acid is going to protect you and obviously burn that up. The stomach acid will really help with that digestion and with those stools. Don't just put up with food in your stool, please make sure that you're doing something about it.

We talked a lot just before about that incomplete evacuation. Another sign of that incomplete evacuation is if you're getting skinny stools. Your stools need to be round and well formed. If you're getting skinny stools, that's a sign of that incomplete evacuation. You might have some compacted fecal matter going on in there, and so only little bits are coming out. Then also unfortunately there might be more serious things, like you might have some polyps in there, or something that's obstructing the poo from coming out, obstructing that flow. That's definitely absolutely vital that you get that checked out.

With that skinny stool, there's a sign that something is obstructed. You might also want to get some chiropractic care around that. Often when our hips are out, when we've got malalignment, so when we haven't seen a chiropractor ever or just recently, our spine and our body can be out of alignment, and it's much, much harder to have a proper evacuation when that happens because everything is just a bit twisted. Go and get some chiropractic care. Gosh, it makes a world of difference. I really encourage you to go and get that.

If your poo is also in all shapes and sizes, and it's white and got mucus in it, then that's a sign of inflammation. It's a sign that the gut wall might be inflamed. If you've got Celiac Disease, and your gut wall is inflamed, you're going to have that white sort of stool. It's very important to get that checked out.

If your poo is a different color, like it's green for example, that's a very good sign, you're doing awesome, you're having lots of greens, which is wonderful, but it also might be that you're still not producing enough of those digestive aids, and it's not breaking down that pigment. For example if you eat beetroot, and then suddenly you have red stool, that's also a sign that your digestion is not just sort of that real robust fire that we have, that digestive fire to break it down. You know, you really want your stool to be brown, so make sure that you have got all of those digestive aids in place.

What if your stool is floating? That's a good sign that tells you that you're probably not absorbing your fat, and you have difficulty digesting your fats, and you've got malabsorption. When we're not digesting our fats effectively, that's something we need to look at with regards to our gall bladder. Our gall bladder produces bile, which helps to emulsify the fats and digest them. Our bile is responsible for the brown color in our stool, so it's really important. If your gall bladder is stressed out and it's blocked, and it's not working effectively, then you're not going to squirt out that bile, and so you're going to have that yellowy stool.

Our liver plays a big part in supporting the gall bladder, as well. If your liver is under the pump then your gall bladder is going to be under the pump too. The liver also helps to produce bile salts to help emulsify those fats. Once again, really very important to check your gall bladder, check to see how your liver is functioning. Seek the care of a practitioner, or have a look at it and do a gall bladder flush. Work on your liver, work on nourishing it to make sure that it can support the digestion. It's so important.

What if your stools are just full on watery diarrhea? That was something that happened for me. I was up to eight times a day I had diarrhea. If that's happening, that's a really good sign that there's probably a parasite there or you've got some food poisoning, or that your body is under immense amounts of stress. There's a reason why we sort of say when we're nervous I've got butterflies in our stomach. That's because our gut is so linked to our brain, and it's so important for us to acknowledge that link between our gut and brain. When we're nervous or when stressed, our gut is going to suffer from that, and we can get all sorts of stool problems and changes, and especially that watery stool.

If your stool is also a light color, that's also a sign that there might be infections in there. Once again, investigating. If you've had that and you've had it for quite some time, please don't waste any time. Get a test. We recommend the Bioscreen Lab Test, and if you need to get that test done just sing out and put it in the comments below, and one of our team will get in touch with you. We love using Bioscreen, and it just gives you a completely understanding of what are the wonderful beneficial pathogens that are living within your gut, and what are the negative ones, what are the ones that aren't doing you any justice.

What if your stool is dark in color, and it's quite stinky? That's also a sign that our digestive functions are not working effectively, and we're probably having the wrong foods. Our gut microbiome and the bugs inside there love plant fiber. They love fiber, they love resistant starch, they love protein. They don't love cornflakes, and they don't love processed foods, and doughnuts, and those sort of things. In fact, it just feeds those pathogens to survive and cause more problems. We really want to make sure that we're having the right food to fuel our gut to have those beautiful stools.

Some things like charcoal, that's going to change the color of your stool, and that's fine. Just expect that if you're going to take charcoal it's going to change the color of your stool, and document that. That's absolutely fine, as well.

There you have it. There's all sort of different types of stools, and it's really important for you to check what's going on with my stool, and what does it reflect. It's up to you to write these notes and it's up to you to draw these correlations. We have the most incredible practitioners in this country, and we have access to them. You want to go and see them and you want to seek help, whether it's with a Culture Wellness practitioner or any of the practitioners in Australia. I adore so many of these practitioners that we have. They're going to give you the tools and they're going to give you the tips, but they're not going to be able to make the changes, only you can. It's really important for you to investigate, check out your stools, write some notes.

Last night, I was stressed, and I didn't get enough sleep. Write those things down. What happened the next morning when you woke up? Did you have diarrhea? Or were you constipated, and you couldn't go at all? Did you have some stomach pain? What color was your stool? Really ask those questions and find some correlations. Investigate, be inquisitive about your body and find out what's going on. After a week or two of writing these notes and taking some understanding, you'll start to see some changes, you'll start to see some things.

For me, I saw that when I was eating sugar and those processed carbohydrates that was one of the main things that was causing that runny diarrhea, because I had so many gut infections. I was filling up on carbs and processed foods, like breads and those sort of things, but I was barely eating any vegetables because I was full after I ate all of that processed food. It's not the right foods to fuel our gut microbiome, to make sure that we have that beautiful stool, and it's certainly not the right foods to fuel all the different organs in our body that help with our digestion.

Digestion starts in the mouth, so as soon as we think about food we're releasing saliva which has digestive enzymes in there, and it starts from there. Then it goes down into our stomach, and we've got stomach acid in there to help break down that protein. It's very important to have enough stomach acid. Then our pancreas helps us to produce all those digestive enzymes to make sure that we're digesting those carbs and those proteins and those fats. Then of course in our bowel, those beautiful microbes help us to form that stool and help us to eliminate it. It's not working in isolation.

Every single part of our body has a big part to play in our stool, and obviously a big part to play in our health. Thank you for joining me today. I'm so stoked you came along to listen about poo, and to learn about our stool. I look forward to reading your comments in the Facebook group about when you compared on the Bristol Stool Chart what your stool was doing. Please make sure you do that.

If you have any questions, please pop them in below, and I'm so glad that you've come and heard this little video, and that you're going to investigate your stool and find out what's going on. I'll see you in the next video. Catch you later.