Night of the Living Deuce

A warning, before I continue:

If you are a squeamish person - do NOT read this post. If you are a sensitive person with tender sensibilities - DO NOT read this post. If you are a fairly inhibited individual who cannot find room in your heart for the observation of bodily functions as data points - DO NOT READ THIS POST.

Let me spell it out: I'm going to write about poop. If you don't want to read about poop, get thee off to cleaner pastures. Don't worry, there won't be any pictures, but there will definitely be an enthusiastic discussion of feces.

For those of you calloused, perhaps morbidly fascinated folks who stuck around, this is going to be interesting for you. A little background, before we begin:

I started to get real sick with something that nobody could seem to diagnose in late 2003. I was tired all the time, I got frequent migranes, I felt bloated constantly, and I always, always felt like I had to pee. This constant feeling of needing to pee eventually turned into constant bladder pain. It was also virtually impossible for me to go numeros dos. I took laxatives every day for over a year just to maintain some semblance of regularity. Not recommended. Try planning your day around when you think the Senna's going to kick in. NOT awesome.

What was going on inside my gut was anything but regular, and it took until late 2005 / early 2006 for someone to figure it out (thanks, Bastyr University). It turned out I am allergic to gluten. So, everytime I ate bread or anything with gluten in it, I was basically eating the protein equivalent of cement, as far as my intestines are concerned. This lead to...well...you can do the math. In short, the constant need to pee was mostly because my poor bladder was getting squeezed to death by all the inflamed, angry organs around it (and perhaps a Vitamin A deficiency, but that's just one theory).

As soon as I stopped eating gluten I got better. And that, my friends, was awesome. So, I am pretty happy - no, DELIGHTED - whenever I feel the natural urge to go number two. It totally makes my day to have intestines that work properly. Don't laugh! Don't you dare! Spend two years without 'em and you'll be pretty freaking happy too, thanks so much!

On to my point: YO. In the last couple of days I have been a very, very happy lady. Holy crap, have I been happy (pun intended). It is AMAZING to see not only the quantity but the quality that seem to result from a very high fiber, whole food diet. The thing is, with the Perfectly Produce meal plans - you don't really feel like you're eating a ton of fiber when you're eating it. It just tastes good. Plus the probiotics in stuff like Kefir are really good for intestinal health.

Let the record show that the poo-poo train is the only way cholesterol can leave your body, too. If you've never had problems with "irregularity", then at least you should be happy about this fact. All that baloney that General Mills tells you about Cheerio's lowering your cholesterol is so ridiculous that it makes me want to puke. A serving (1 cup) of Cheerio's has 3 grams of fiber in it. Only one of those is soluble. Compare this to 1 cup of cannellini beans at 11.3 grams of fiber. Not only that, but they have protein and will actually fill you up. I have to eat, like, a BOX of Cheerio's before I feel anything approaching full.

Just saying. Sorry, Cheerios. I'm sure there are worse choices out there but I highly doubt that ONE serving of Cheerio's a day is going to make a huge difference in your "heart health". Maybe if you're replacing a 6 egg omlette with bacon and cheese, but come on...let's get real, y'all. So anyway, if you add up one day of Perfectly Produce meal plans fiber contents, I bet you just thinking about it will make you run for the WC.