Is My Poop Normal?
What Your Poop Is Actually Telling You (Yes, Really)
I'm going to talk about poop. Not because it's a fun topic, but because your gut is giving you a daily health update and most of us aren't reading it.
Here's how connected everything is: I used to get nervous stomach symptoms at my daughters' dance competitions. Not them. Me. They'd go onstage completely calm while I was the one in the bathroom. Your gut is wired to your stress levels, your hydration, your sleep, and everything you eat. It's always communicating. The question is whether you're paying attention.
There's actually an official chart for this
The Bristol Stool Scale was developed at the University of Bristol in 1997 and is actually used by doctors to help diagnose things like IBS. You can see the full chart here.
It breaks down into seven types:
Separate hard lumps (very constipated)
Lumpy and sausage-like (slightly constipated)
Sausage-shaped with cracks in the surface (normal)
Smooth, soft sausage (normal)
Soft blobs with clear edges (needs more fibre)
Mushy with ragged edges (inflammation)
Liquid with no solid pieces (inflammation)
Types 3 and 4 are where you want to be landing most of the time. If that's you consistently, your gut is generally doing its job.
Shape isn't the only thing worth noticing
How often are you going? Once to three times a day is a good range. Consistently less than once, or more than three, can be a sign that something needs attention.
What about effort? It should be relatively easy. If you're in there long enough to finish a chapter, something probably needs adjusting.
Colour matters too. Brown is normal, and it comes from bile breaking down the fats in your food. Green after a big salad day? Fine. Red after a glass of beet juice? Completely fine. But unexplained red or black, with nothing in the last day or two to account for it, is worth getting checked by your doctor.
When things are off
First, how often is it happening? A rough day here and there is just life.
If it's a consistent pattern, the simplest places to start are usually fibre and water. Most of us aren't getting enough of either, and the gut microbes are the first to let you know. Adding probiotic foods like yogurt, kefir, or fermented vegetables can also help, since those microbes do a lot of the heavy lifting for your digestion and they need to be fed.
And if stress is part of the picture, which it is for most of us (see: my dance competition situation), your gut and nervous system are more connected than most people realise. Deep breathing, a short walk, or even a warm bath can help calm both.
The two things that matter most are also the least complicated ones: eat a variety of real, minimally processed food with plenty of fruits and vegetables, and eat slowly enough to actually chew. The fibre in those fruits and veggies feeds your gut microbes and keeps things moving. The chewing part sounds obvious, but a lot of us are swallowing lunch between tasks and wondering why our digestion is complaining.
If something has been consistently off for a while, please don't just google it and worry quietly. See someone who can look at the full picture. Persistent changes are worth a real conversation, not just a late-night rabbit hole.
If you’re looking for a boost in healthy probiotics, give this super easy homemade coconut yogurt recipe a try.
This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before making changes to your diet or lifestyle.
I'm Tammy, a Holistic Nutrition Consultant and mom who believes exhausted shouldn't be your baseline. Since 2011 I've been helping women connect the dots between their gut and their energy, because when your gut is happy, everything else gets a little easier Start with the free 5-day energy series.