Let's talk about POOP, Baby!

This is a circle of trust, right?  A circle where we can all be real and be our authentic, true selves?

Okay then.

I read on someone's blog recently this quote: Food is just food, and then it's poop.

Apparently, Allan coined that phrase... but it's totally and completely true.  When I read it, I laughed and then thought about how it's silly that something that we initially care so much about turns into something that we don't want anything to do with or even admit to.

Short aside: In David Sedaris's book, "Dress Your Family in Coudoroy and Denim" he talks about how his sister used to grunt while on the phone with him...and he always just assumed that she was opening up a jar of pickles or something...until she told him otherwise.  He was scarred for life.  Gross?  Yes.  Funny?  Also yes.  While I don't grunt on or off the phone, we thought this was funny and have decided that Joe is the only one who poops in our house; I open up jars of pickles. :)

My younger sister has never been over a size 10 in her life.  Sure, she has an awesome metabolism, but she also has a chronic case of IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). So in her case, the above saying should be changed to be "Food is food but then Ohmygoodnessit'spooprightnow!"  She, in general, has poor eating habits, but her disease keeps her trim, thin, and lonely in bathrooms.

I, on the other hand feel like my body says "Food is food and then it's in your system for eleventy days and then it THINKS about being poop, but it probably never WILL be poop." 

So, what to do about it?

FIBER.

When I followed Weight Watchers, I learned that fiber was great.  The more fiber you eat in something, the fewer points it had, which meant that you got to eat more.  I liked that.  I didn't care about much beyond that.

But then I realized something awesome.  When I eat more fiber, things move.  And when things move, I feel amazing.  You know how good you feel after a sneeze or an orgasm?  I'm just saying...there are lots of kinds of release that feels awesome.  Fiber may not make you open jars more often but it makes opening the jar much easier.  Kind of like when you tap the edge of the top on the counter before opening it.

Here are a few of my favorite ways to get fiber in my system:

1) Fruits and veggies.  (duh)

2) Wheat Thins "Fiber Selects" - these have 5g of fiber in each serving and taste better (more salty, less sweet) than the Reduced Fat Wheat Thins.  For 13 crackers, you get 120 calories, 4.5g of fat, and 5g of fiber.  Plus, they're tasty.

3) Chocolate cupcakes. I haven't done this in a long time, but you can also take a package of chocolate cake mix (devil's food seems to work the best) and mix it with a can of pumpkin (not the seasoned kind...just regular canned pumpkin).  I know...you're going to think that you should add other ingredients...but don't.  Just combine the dry mix with the canned pumpkin.  They'll be thicker than what you're used to, but don't worry.  Divvy them up in the muffin tins and cook them per the directions on the box.  When done, you can store them in the fridge and they taste marvelous cold.  When I did this, there was only one point per muffin (again, due to the fiber).  You can't taste the pumpkin at all and the cake is really moist.  All of the boyfriends I've had have loved these.

4) Fiber One Muffin Mix.  I actually take this a step further and mix one box of muffin mix with that can of pumpkin trick from above.  These come out slightly orange (as to be expected), but still don't taste like pumpkin.  I think the grams of fiber is about 18 billion, but you might want to check the side of the box. 

5) All Bran Fiber Drink Mix.  I'll be honest.  I haven't seen these in stores in a long time. But when you mix it with a bottle of water, it tastes awesome - a pink lemonde treat.  10 grams of fiber in each packet with only 20 calories and 0g of sugar.  I'm looking for a suitable replacement, so if you have any ideas, I'm all ears.

6) Oatmeal.  There's something about a filling meal of oatmeal...it helps me feel satisfied on a lot of levels.  Joe eats the high fiber kind by Quaker Oats (little instant packages) and likes it just as much as the other instant flavors.

Now it's your turn...help a sister (or brother) out. 

What do you do on a regular (get it?  REGULAR?  I kill me) basis to keep things moving and feeling great? 

[Updated: I originally asked who wrote the poop phrase and Allan took credit...which sounded about right.  So I updated this post to give credit where credit is due.]