What Is Constipation?

Categories: Colon Cleansing
Sources: How And When To Be Your Own Doctor

Most people think they are not constipated because they have a bowel

movement almost every day, accomplished without straining. I have

even had clients tell me that they have a bowel movement once a

week, and they are quite certain that they are not constipated. The

most surprising thing to novice fasters is that repeated enemas or

colonics during fasting begins to release many pounds of undeniably

real, old, caked fec l matter and/or huge mucus strings. The

first-time faster can hardly believe these were present. These old

fecal deposits do not come out the first time one has enemas or

necessarily the fifth time. And all of them will not be removed by

the tenth enema. But over the course of extended fasting or a long

spell of light raw food eating with repeated daily enemas, amazing

changes do begin to occur. It seems that no one who has eaten a

civilized diet has escaped the formation of caked deposits lining

the colon's walls, interfering with its function. This material does

not respond to laxatives or casually administered enemas.



Anyone who has not actually seen (and smelled) what comes out of an

"average" apparently healthy person during colonics will really

believe it could happen or can accurately imagine it. Often there

are dark black lumpy strings, lumps, or gravel, evil smelling discs

shaped like sculpted hemispheres similar to the pockets lining the

wall of the colon itself. These discs are rock-hard and may come out

looking like long black braids. There may also be long tangled

strings of gray/brown mucous, sheets and flakes of mucous, and worse

yet, an occasional worm (tape worm) or many smaller ones. Once

confronted however, it is not hard to imagine how these fecal rocks

and other obnoxious debris interfere with the proper function of the

colon. They make the colon's wall rigid and interfere with

peristalsis thus leading to further problems with constipation, and

interfere with adsorption of nutrients.



Our modern diet is by its "de-"nature, very constipating. In the

trenches of the First World War, cheese was given the name 'chokem

ass' because the soldiers eating this as a part of their daily

ration developed severe constipation. Eaten by itself or with other

whole foods, moderate amounts of cheese may not produce health

problems in people who are capable of digesting dairy products. But

cheese when combined with white flour becomes especially

constipating. White bread or most white-flour crackers contain a lot

of gluten, a very sticky wheat protein that makes the bread bind

together and raise well. But white flour is lacking the bran, where

most of the fiber is located. And many other processed foods are

missing their fiber.



In an earlier chapter I briefly showed how digestion works by

following food from the mouth to the large intestine. To fully grasp

why becoming constipated is almost a certainty in our civilization a

few more details are required. Food leaving the small intestine is

called chyme, a semi-liquid mixture of fiber, undigested bits,

indigestible bits, and the remains of digestive enzymes. Chyme is

propelled through the large intestine by muscular contractions. The

large intestine operates on what I dub the "chew chew train"

principle, where the most recent meal you ate enters the large

intestine as the caboose (the last car of a train) and helps to push

out the train engine (the car at the front that toots), which in a

healthy colon should represent the meal eaten perhaps twelve hours

earlier. The muscles in the colon only contract when they are

stretched, so it is the volume of the fecal matter stretching the

large intestine that triggers the muscles to push the waste material

along toward the rectum and anus.



Eating food lacking fiber greatly reduces the volume of the chyme

and slows peristalsis. But moving through fast or slow, the colon

still keeps on doing another of its jobs, which is to transfer the

water in the chime back into the bloodstream, reducing dehydration.

So the longer chime remains in the colon, the dryer and harder and

stickier it gets. That's why once arrived at the "end of the tracks"

fecal matter should be evacuated in a timely manner before it gets

to dry and too hard to be moved easily. Some constipated people do

have a bowel movement every day but are evacuating the meal eaten

many days or even a week previously.



Most hygienists believe that when the colon becomes lined with

hardened fecal matter it is permanently and by the very definition

of the word itself, constipated. This type of constipation is not

perceived as an uncomfortable or overly full feeling or a desire to

have a bowel movement that won't pass. But it has insidious effects.

Usually constipation delays transit time, increasing the adsorption

of toxins generated from misdigestion of food; by coating and

locking up significant portions of colon it also reduces the

adsorption of certain minerals and electrolytes.



Sometimes, extremely constipated people have almost constant runny

bowels because the colon has become so thickly and impenetrably

lined with old fecal matter that it no longer removes much moisture.

This condition is often misinterpreted as diarrhea. The large

intestine's most important task is to transfer water-soluble

minerals from digested food to the blood. When a significant part of

the colon's surface becomes coated with impermeable dried rigid

fecal matter or mucus it can no longer assimilate effectively and

the body begins to experience partial mineral starvation in the

presence of plenty. It is my observation from dozens of cases that

when the colon has been effectively cleansed the person has a

tendency to gain weight while eating amounts of food that before

only maintained body weight, while people who could not gain weight

or who were wasting away despite eating heavily begin to gain. And

problems like soft fingernails, bone loss around teeth or porous

bones tend to improve.