Most doctors don't ask you about your regularity. They may think it is not important to have a bowel movement every day. In fact, some doctors think its ok when you have 2-3 bowel movements a week.
If you have one, two or more bowel movements a day, you may still be constipated. If you are leaving fecal matter along your colon walls because you don't eat enough fiber this is considered constipation. Remember constipation is really the elimination of all fecal matter that passes through your colon from the food that you ate in the previous meals.
If you sit on the toilet and have to stay there over 5-10 minutes pushing, straining, or paining to have a bowel movement, then you are constipated. Straining to have a bowel movement, overtime, leads to hemorrhoids, varicose veins, or fissures.
If you eat three meals a day, then you should have three bowel movements each day. The first bowel movement should take place in the morning when you wake up or soon after you have had breakfast. Typical you should experience the urge for a bowel movement 20-30 minutes after you eat. The other bowel movements should be during the day and just before bedtime.
In her book, "Healthy Digestion the Natural way", 2000, D. Lindsey Berkson defines constipation as, A healthy person should have at least one bowel movement a day. Medical textbooks state that individual variation goes from several times a day to several times a week. However, having worked with people for many years on improving their health, I would define constipation as not having one to several daily bowel movements, or having too long an intestinal-transit time.
If you eat three meals a day and only have one or two bowel movements, then the second and third meal are backing up in your colon and staying there too long.
When your fecal matter stays too long in your colon, water and toxins are pulled out of the fecal matter and absorbed through your colon wall. This makes the fecal matter stiff and hard. Your colon will now have a hard time moving this hard fecal matter through its sections and out the rectum. The result is puffing and straining in the bathroom.
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