There are two paths to brilliance: 1. Be brilliant (not everyone is capable, least of all me), or 2. Stop being an idiot (I'm a champion at this, mostly because I don't need to Feel Smart).Whenever a doctor mentions fiber and water, and you nod assuredly because you sometimes eat Bran Flakes or a banana, and every few days you deliberately gulp down an unnecessary glass of liquid in the name of hydration, don't nod assuredly.
Fiber and water sound so pedestrian and banal. So simple. Yah, yah, fiber. Sure. I'll go home and eat a carrot, doc. And water? I've got some coffee in my car.
Don't be that guy. Like I was. Are your bowel movements less frequent and/or less regular than before? If so, it's not because you're getting old! Do you have any stomach or digestion issues causing doctors to mention fiber and water? Your doctor takes your assured nod at face value, because he has a waiting room of other patients to see, but fiber ingestion is not something to shrug at. Water even less so. This is serious stuff, and you need to treat it seriously.
A recurring Slog theme is the difference between making a nodding effort and making real effort (which, in turn, is an example of the bedeviling disjoint between the Actual and the Seeming, another eternal Slog theme). Real effort takes real effort! It seems daunting. Loopy, even. Beethoven composed in diapers, which strikes most modern people as an egregious disregard for work/life balance.My bowels always worked like daily clockwork. My only dependable quality! Then I hit 40, and went on an every-other-day cycle. I figured I was just getting older. At age 60, it slowed to every-two-days. Ibid. But now, at 61, after a year of serious problems, I'm taking fiber and water seriously, and you could set your watch to my daily "movements". And my stomach's way better. Time will tell, but I may have released myself from this particular hell.
When modern people talk about "balance", they're usually just stoking smug complacency. Actually doing actual stuff to effect actual change requires pushing beyond one's everyday comfort zone. I once wrote a posting titled "Losing Weight Costs $1000/pound", which almost no one understood because it's so strange to consider the upper reaches of commitment (which, in turn, explains why people find it so hard to lose weight).
Understand this: My kidneys are full of tiny stones resulting from multiple dehydrations due to waves of GI torment. Don't even ask. And it looks like it might have all stemmed from deficit of fiber and water, even though I'd paid mild ("balanced"!) attention to both issues.
Smoothie: Start each day with a smoothie with 1.5 TBS ground flax seed (best ground in mortar + pestle; it only takes 30 secs) and greens and pulpy fruit and milk (or alternative milks + protein powder). Incredible discovery: pear and cherry are a great combo. Try to buy organic if you're going to use the peel, as you should (because fiber).Note that all this fiber requires even more fluid (probably not smart to compact dry sawdust into a dry digestive system). Eight glasses/day seems to be the guideline.
Walnuts: 4 walnuts (walnuts are surprisingly delicious if you crack them fresh and pay them more attention than we normally do!).
Oatmeal: Daily oatmeal or other whole grain side dish or porridge
Prunes, baby: I top the oatmeal (or else some yogurt) with stewed organic prunes (I'm no organic cultist, but anytime I'm eating a lot of a food normally consumed sparingly, I'm aggregating pesticides along with the nutrition). Remove pits, bring to a boil in a saucepan with water to cover and a cinnamon stick. Reduce heat to a bare simmer for 15 minutes, or until prunes are soft and plump. Seal well to store a few day's worth at a time in the fridge.
Chickpea Magic Trick: By sheer coincidence, I've simultaneously discovered that if you open, drain, and rinse a can of chickpeas and toss them into an air fryer for 15 minutes, you get a delightfully crunchy snack (optional pre-spray with some olive oil and/or scattering of salt and/or paprika and/or cumin), upping fiber even more while satisfying copious crunchy cravings.
Water: Instead of "increasing fluids" by chugging an extra glass whenever I happen to remember (i.e. twice per week), I'm getting more religious about this, too. The smoothie helps, as do the probiotics discussed immediately below, which I take with water. From there, it's a matter of adding a couple glasses per day to my normal quantity, and avoiding dry periods.
Probiotics: I am not a believer. I think this is a fad long past its expiration date, but it's probably not harming me and perhaps helping, given all the antibiotics I've subjected my gut to in the past year. The probiotics I'm taking come dry in a sealed packet, so I dissolve them in a ton of water, upping my water consumption. European doctors, who are super into probiotics, pay attention to what's out there, and mine recommends this for longer-term non-emergency use. It's unavailable in USA, but use it as a guide to finding something similar. The mix of strains is apparently important. Idunno.
Anyway, it works. I'm back to daily bowel movements. And my diarrhea cycle has not repeated (knock porcelain).
Note: if you're in the midst of gastric distress, avoid fiber, which is taxing for a sick digestive system to process. Everything on this page is for people urged to increase fiber. If you have cyclical issues, do this between flare-ups.
If you have gastro issues, and your doctor mentions fiber and water, don't nod it off! She is not suggesting the first countermeasure, it's also the second and third and eighty-seventh. Don't plunge down the healthcare rabbit hole until you've made a disciplined effort with fiber and water. Especially if you haven't been doing your thing on the daily.
Slog Technical Advisor Pierre urges us to bear in mind that you can overdo it with fiber. Normal guidelines are 38g daily fiber for men and 25 grams for women. The upper threshold, where nutrient absorption is affected, seems to be circa 50g/day. That's a fairly narrow sweet spot, so if you're going to go whole hog like I have, you'll need track your food (because foods like carrots and avocados have substantial fiber, and even white bread has some, and it adds up).
Other self-healing tips
2 comments:
I've suffered from a lot of this as well. I keep meaning to get back into messing around with fiber, so I might give your recommendations a shot sometime.
The baseline literally life saving thing that has helped me the last few years is polyethylene glycol (Miralax). I know the bottle has warnings to not use it too long, but if you research the substance, it is one of the safest OTC meds you can use long term. I've had several doctors tell me this as well.
Fiber & water are definitely the better way to go about things, but if you need some help, don't be fearful of it like I was at first. You can take a little or as much of it as you need.
Yeah, there's lots of other stuff out there floating around for consideration.
But there's a reason your doctor mentions fiber and fluids first. As I said, they are the alpha and omega.
If your arm is bleeding, apply pressure before resorting to home remedies, OTC potions, specialist tests and treatments, et al. And be sure you applied the pressure correctly!
Something about human nature drives us to apply nodding half-assed pressure for like ten secs, shrug in futility, and go read Intenet thoughts on "bleeding" for six hours then spend $175 on clotting herbs and gadgets.
sigh.
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