Paleo Diet: Raw Paleo Diet and Lifestyle Forum
Raw Paleo Diet Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: JaX on December 22, 2008, 04:03:54 am
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Any suggestions to how to combat constipation and lousy digestion?
I've had a bad digestion as long as I can remember and before raw paleo I used to buy into all that "fiber" story, that it's the only thing combating constipation. I used to carry psyllium fiber capsules with me.. I used to eat tons of oat meal to help the bowel moves.. I only bought whole wheat and whole grain rice... after doing that for a while it screwed up my digestion even more to the point of frequent stomach aches, constant bloated feeling, nausea, constipation, you name it. Going semi-raw-vegan helped but I rarely had more than 1 bowel movement per day even when I ate dozens of fruits and vegetables daily.
I've tried the whole oil and fat thing too.. Drinking olive oil by the glass, taking 4 tbsp coconut oil.. It doesn't produce any diarrhea or sudden urge to go to the bathroom as it does in most people. Big amounts of celery juice seems to help a little but it only works sometimes.
Now that I'm low carb I don't have bowel movements every day, sometimes its only every 3rd or 4th day. That doesn't bother me at all, though, what bothers me is the bowel movements are very difficult to pass..
how do you build a healthy digestion
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My digestion was crap for a while. (no pun intended) I would be constipated quite often, and like you it didn't bother me that the movements were semi-infrequent, it was their difficulty passing that bothered me.
What really helped was the lime juice/raw egg/oil mixture that is on Edwin's (goodsamaritan) website. I made a post on a variation of it that I use under the Recipes subforum.
Since I started on that, my digestion has been top notch. (although I did get what I believe was salmonella from the raw eggs a few days ago, but that's better now)
I won't be drinking that mix anymore for a while, so we'll see if the good digestion continues.
I've also found that eating a little raw, unfiltered honey after a meat meal helps with digestion as well.
You say you are low-carb... do you eat any fruit at all? I've found some fruit moves easily while others do not. I guess in this regard it's about experimentation.
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back in the day when i'd deposit goat style pellets in the toilet i got over the situation by drinking 4-8 cups of water in the am, at least 1 hr before eating or drinking
if the digestive system is not yet fully optimized for a raw animal fare, though, the next stage after constipation may well be green diarrhea, which means the food travels through the digestive tract too fast to be thoroughly digested
patience pays
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I learned that it is fruits and fat that make me move.
I did my colon cleanses.
And I also used Barefoot's LBB capsules to train my colon to be a winner... to be independent and efficient.
Download the brochure.
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thanks for all your suggestions.
boxcarguy07 I did try the lime/oil/eggs in the morning and on top of that I drank 16 oz of vegetable juice made mainly out of celery and cucumber. That really did the trick. I could hear my stomach/intestines rumble and I went to the bathroom like 1-2 hours later.
The only side effect was that I felt some stuck water in my intestines, like there still is something heavy rumbling around. Also it completely cut out my appetite.. Not hungry at all for the rest of the day, even slightly nauseaous.. I did force myself to eat a little meat though.
coconinoz I have tried drinking lots of water before eating and it doesn't seem to help. I almost always drink a cup or two of water in the morning before I eat anything..
I don't really want to go through jucing/fasting/detox/cleansing because I'm trying to gain weight right now, and I always lose weight really fast if I don't eat
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Seeker I'm in the same boat. I'm actually going to try a very strange technique soon. I want to get as close to juice fasting as possible but I don't want to loose weight. So I'm thinking I'm going to do a double a day lime/egg/oil liver flush with using 8 egg yolks pure flush, then drink veggie juice in between. If I pull off that ratio it's about 2000 calories a day plus cleansing. I'll let you know how it goes. :)
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Seeker I'm in the same boat. I'm actually going to try a very strange technique soon. I want to get as close to juice fasting as possible but I don't want to loose weight. So I'm thinking I'm going to do a double a day lime/egg/oil liver flush with using 8 egg yolks pure flush, then drink veggie juice in between. If I pull off that ratio it's about 2000 calories a day plus cleansing. I'll let you know how it goes. :)
I'm excited to heat your results!
and seeker, yeah, that mixture is like an "insta-movement" for me haha. That's strange about feeling you had though. What kind of oil did you use, how many eggs/limes?
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I took 5 egg yolks, 2 limes and added a lot of extra virgin olive oil to that (like a half glass).
I think it's the celery juice that produced the nasty side effects. It was way too much, didn't like the taste of it, but swallowed it anyway, cold as it was.
Maybe it helped in a way that I drank the juice though, since celery contains organic sodium, the celery juice is not taken up by the kidney's and excreted as urine, it rather travels along in the intestines, hydrating and helping excretion (but maybe also irritating a bit, since I lacked any appetite for food for a full day). Along with the fat from the eggs/oil, I think that's the combination which did the trick, since I've tried eggs with lemon alone and celery juice alone and it never worked as effectively as this time.
I'll keep doing the eggs/oil/lime combination in the mornings but not with the celery juice. I'll only add celery juice to the mix when I'm in strong need of a laxative effect.
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oh and good luck DeamonWolf, I'm curious to hear what you experience, so keep us updated please!
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i appreciate this discussion
i think i understand something now: the effect of water depends on the person's foodstyle
when i was producing dry pellets it was soon after i switched to raw 0 carbing for the 1st time in my life -- just land & sea meats, no eggs, no oils, no plant matter in general -- so all i needed was more water
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I think it's best to avoid the fiber and have it continue irritating your bowels and make it worse than it already is. Eat high-fat, low-fibre carbs and some meat. Give it some time.
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Pemmican & oysters or pemmican & raw liver for me, and the fat makes perfect turds pass easily.
I drink organic coffee and enough water too.