If there's anything more uncomfortable about being around old people than hearing them wax philosophical about their success in the bathroom, I'm not sure what it is.

I probably don't quite qualify as old at 42, so I'm a bit early with this conversation but perhaps I'll find the topic irresistible as I become self-conscious about those things scatological.

Try as I might there just isn't that much research available on the Net having to do with our body waste but having written this blog and having a few minor articles about it, I have been overwhelmed with observations about the activity and have some information to share and intend to share some cutting edge research.

What separates an awful experience in the bathroom from the merely necessary unpleasantness?  Consistency, speed, viscosity, adhesiveness.  At the risk of alienating the few readers I have, I mean to break down what causes us our unmentionable problems.

Some problems are well documented.  Constipation is caused almost exclusively by one thing: lack of fiber.  When you don't eat fiber, you are eating fiberless food. Worst of all are flour products.  Flour is finely ground particles.  You eat these foods: bread, spaghetti, pretzels, cookies, cake, pasta, you combine the flour with saliva; tiny amounts of water and mucosaccharides (sugar-like molecular chains that makes spit stringy) that make the dry flour slippery.  This gets the particles to stick together into one clump you swallow as a whole.  Compare this with eating vegetables which you crush but you swallow them as a crumbly, chunky mass.  In your intestine, water is absorbed, especially from the large intestine and the food that wasn't absorbed gets squeezed together along with millions of bacteria and small amounts of intestinal lining (see Dyingman 80: Toxic to Your Wallet). 

Ever made bread?  Baking it essentially evaporates the water from flour and there is no yeast making your intestine contents light and airy.  What you get is more like a civil war biscuit; hardtack.  A carbohydrate rock.  This is not a cooperative substance when it comes time to dispose of it.

Fibrous food, on the other hand, nests against the sides of your intestine.  Water has to go around it and can't pass between it nearly as easily as fiberless food that is little more than particles.  The material stays moist and soft.  Easier to move along to its final resting place.

That much is simple.  Two textures: hard and soft; but there are degrees of soft.  Some refuse takes almost no time to get rid of and cleanup is virtually unnecessary and yet other times you could go through an entire roll of paper and still be unsatisfied with prevailing conditions.  (Which lends praise to old World Europeans' common use of the bidet)   I'm puzzled why the completion of life's unfortunate necessity is very conclusive and other times, it seems as though there's much unfinished business that seems unable to continue.

Why?  What conditions cause each?  Can we dispense with the annoying sessions in the lavatory if we're particular about our diets?  None of this was made clear in my internet research so we'll have to grow some of our own here on Soulcast.

Lucky you.


*DM


Next:   Memoirs of an Addict


THE CHART:
Last Week's Fitness Activities:
Strokes on Bike (daily average) 20
Bench Presses  (daily average) 6
Curls  (daily average) 0
Lifts  (daily average) 0
Stairs (flights per day) 11
Walking (minutes per day)  0
Heavy bag (seconds per day)  20
Dancing (minutes per day)  1
Push Ups (per day)  2
Sit-ups (per day) 1

Effort Grade:  C

This Week's Fitness Activities:
Strokes on Bike (daily average) 26
Bench Presses  (daily average) 4
Curls  (daily average) 0
Lifts  (daily average) 0
Stairs (flights per day) 12
Walking (minutes per day) 0
Heavy bag (seconds per day)  20
Dancing (minutes per day)  1
Push Ups (per day)  8
Sit-ups (per day) 4

Effort Grade:  B+


Pulse: 71
Blood Pressure:  114/74  11/7/08
BMI 25 (barely overweight) 


Workout Partner's Progress:  Position Vacant

RECENT SYMPTOMS : Sore knuckles muscles when holding, grasping things.
ONGOING SYMPTOMS:  Clicking knees, Pain in right knee when kneeling and shifting knee to the right.  Hyperhidrosis.
DIAGNOSIS: Boxing injury with heavy bag?  Suspected neuroma or hairline fracture to foot. Unknown injury to right knee, possible impact from small stumble (c. 2006) onto landing of concrete stairs. Injured knee joints from sprinting (c. 2007)

ONGOING TREATMENT: Tri-Annual dental visits, Meta-tarsal pad in shoe

DRUG REGIMEN:  Aspartame.  (3 diet sodas daily)  Caffeine (three cups of coffee daily.  two colas.)
PROGNOSIS:  Gradual decay of knee function.
POTENTIAL TREATMENTS:   Fish Oil supplements.  Axillary vacuum curettage.

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