Everybody poops, but nobody actually talks about it. But while putting a lid on all potty talk may go along conversations civilized, it may mean nosotros're missing out on valuable clues to our health.

Your poop can tell you if yous're eating enough fiber and drinking enough h2o, or if your digestive arrangement is processing food likewise slowly or too quickly. Also, lasting changes in your bowel habits or the appearance of your poop can be a sign of a medical condition that requires treatment.

Read on to learn what your poop tin tell y'all, how you can easily describe it and why it's good to talk almost it. Merely agree off on sharing the details of your latest bowel movement until subsequently dinner. In that location should exist some limits, after all.

Poop health 101: What'south normal?

After you go to the bathroom, turn around and take a look. Based on what you see, do you wonder: Is my poop normal? Exercise I take healthy poop?

Turns out in that location'south a lot of variety in what's normal. Just as everyone poops, everyone'southward poop is different. And your poops may non exist exactly the aforementioned every mean solar day. Yet, there are some full general characteristics of "normal poop".

Poop size

A normal stool size is at least a couple inches in length, and ideally betwixt four and viii inches. Tiny poops aren't good. Y'all shouldn't be pooping out pellets – non unless you lot're a bunny, deer or other wild animal.

Poop shape

People use a lot of dissimilar expressions when they talk about having a bowel movement. Just in terms of accuracy, the ones comparison poop to logs are probably the closest.

The healthiest shape for poop is a long cylinder. When poop takes on other shapes, it may betoken something could be going on with your digestive system.

Poop compactness or consistency

Ideally, your stool should be somewhere between business firm and soft. Thankfully you lot tin can figure this out merely by looking at it – there'southward no need to do a touch on test. If your poop is a well-formed log and information technology wasn't also hard to squeeze out, it'south probably the right consistency.

Poop color

What's a normal stool color? Normal poop is brownish and comes in every colour from tan to espresso. The chocolate-brown color is largely due to bile and bilirubin.

Bile is a yellowish-light-green fluid fabricated past the liver and stored in the gallbladder. Bilirubin is an orangish-yellow substance that the trunk makes through the normal process of breaking down red claret cells. Through the digestive process, these fluids mix with your foods and usually make your poop brown.

Other poop color meanings

The color of your poop by and large reflects what you consume – whether that's food, beverages or medicines. While brown is the most typical colour, at that place are other colors we may see in the toilet. Hither's what the color of your poop might mean most your health:

Blackness poop: There are a few reasons why your poop may exist black, including taking iron supplements or a bismuth medication like Pepto Bismol. But blackness stool tin also mean that y'all have bleeding in your upper gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Any internal bleeding is an issue, and then if you can't figure out why your poop is black, make a primary intendance appointment right away.

Greenish poop: If your poop is a little greenish, it'southward totally fine. Green poop may point that your food isn't spending enough fourth dimension in your digestive system or that you're eating a ton of leafy greens like spinach. And if your poop suddenly looks similar neon greenish playdough, the likely crusade is bogus colors from drink mixes, baker frosting or frozen novelties.

Red poop: There are dietary reasons why your poop may plough blood-red – beets, cranberries, red gelatin or tomato juice. But red poop can be a cause for concern considering it may mean you take bleeding in your colon – this can be a sign of colon cancer or digestive disorders. Encarmine stool may look coated in red, or you lot may observe spots of ruby in it. If yous can't explicate the red color by your food choices, get in touch with a master care doctor.

Yellow poop: If your poop is xanthous, greasy and stinky, it probably means that you've been eating too much fat. Simply sometimes information technology can be a sign of malabsorption, which means that your torso isn't able to pull nutrients from food during digestion. Malabsorption usually happens due to sickness, food intolerance or diseases that touch the abdominal lining.

Pale or white poop: Chalky is not a good look on poop. It may mean your trunk isn't producing bile. It could be that you lot have an infection or that your bile duct is blocked. Pale poop could likewise be a side consequence of medicines, including some used for diarrhea.

Poop Color Chart Shows What's Normal Stool Color and When to See a Doctor

Timing of bowel movements

The nigh normal time to poop is in the morning time later your torso worked overnight processing your food. But there's nothing wrong with having bowel movements at other times of the 24-hour interval.

How long it takes you lot to poop

It should take but a couple minutes for you to have a bowel movement – certainly not more than 10-fifteen minutes. If there's hurting or straining to get your poop out, you're probably constipated.

How oftentimes should you lot poop

You don't need to poop every day to be regular. It'due south normal and salubrious to have a bowel move anywhere between three times a week to three times a 24-hour interval. If you're producing soft, well-formed logs that aren't hard to button out, your bowels are probably in expert shape.

Poop smell

Poop never smells like a bouquet of roses. Then if your poop stinks, you're in good visitor. Merely if the smell of your poop makes your optics water, that's non normal. Most likely it'due south due to an infection or a stomach bug, and your stinky poop will get away afterwards you become better.

Just in some cases, foul-smelling feces happens when your body is unable to process gluten or other nutrients. If yous notice that your poop smells really bad later on you eat certain things, bring it upwardly to your doctor – specially if you're experiencing unexplained weight loss, as well.

Should poop sink or float?

Well-nigh poop sinks. But if your poop floats, it's typically non something to worry about. Floaters are often acquired by excess gas from eating things similar beans or saccharide-free candies. Only if you lot accept floating stools that are also stinky, it can be a sign your body isn't processing food correctly because yous have an infection, food intolerance, a digestive disorder or other medical status.

The Bristol stool nautical chart: Types of poop and what they mean

If y'all're having pooping problems, you're probably not thrilled at the idea of describing your bowel movements in detail when you lot visit the dr.. The good news is that you lot may not have to.

There'due south a handy poop wellness chart that doctors often employ to depict the type of bowel movements people accept. The Bristol stool chart categorizes the shape and texture of bowel movements into seven types.

Chances are you'll experience all these poop types at one fourth dimension or some other. But if yous proceed to take unhealthy poop types similar constipation or diarrhea, you should talk to your doctor.

bristol poop chart

Type 1

Shape and consistency: Type 1 looks like smallish, roundish pellets that are surprisingly hard to squeeze out – especially for their size. They typically wait like marbles, nuts or berries.

What information technology means: If your poop is coming out in small balls, information technology means you lot're constipated, and your stool might have been hanging around in your digestive organization for a couple actress days. Usually information technology takes most three days for nutrient to complete the journey through your digestive arrangement.

Constipation is usually caused past diet or lack of exercise. Other causes are a blockage in the digestive arrangement and conditions that affect hormones such as pregnancy or diabetes. Information technology's normal to be constipated occasionally, only if you lot're always blocked up, information technology's not good for your health.

Type 2

Shape and consistency: Congrats! It'due south a log – just not the healthiest kind. Type ii poop looks like a lumpy log. You tin tell it'southward blazon 2 if information technology'due south a log that took a bit of endeavor to get out.

What information technology ways: If your number 2 is type 2, y'all probably have balmy constipation. As with type ane, common causes tin be diet, blockage and hormonal changes.

Blazon 3

Shape and consistency: Type 3 has a sausage shape with cracks on the surface. It can expect a little bumpy similar a cob of corn. This type of bowel motility should slide out apace with little effort. When yous affluent it down it shouldn't fall apart.

What it means: Hooray! Your poop is normal, and your digestive system is working the way it should.

Blazon 4

Shape and consistency: If you're seeing a log that has a smooth surface like a sausage or a snake, and so y'all have blazon 4 stool. This type is besides easy to push button out and should flush down in i slice.

What it ways: Way to go! This shape is besides normal. Whatever you're doing, go on information technology upwards.

Type 5

Shape and consistency: Blazon five stools are soft blobs with defined edges. They are smallish like blazon ane but like shooting fish in a barrel to push button out.

What information technology means: Your diet may not accept plenty soluble fiber and your food was pushed through your digestive organisation too quickly.

Type half dozen

Shape and consistency: With type 6, you'll meet mushy blobs with ragged edges. These stools can look a little like porridge.

What it ways: You have mild diarrhea. This could be related to diet, affliction or a medical condition. If you have chronic diarrhea, even a mild version, it can be hard for you to get the nutrients you need from your food.

Type 7

Shape and consistency: Blazon vii is pure liquid with no solid pieces – like gravy.

What information technology means: You've got diarrhea. It can be caused by a diversity of things, such as an illness or food poisoning. But it can also be caused by medical conditions or food intolerances to things similar gluten or lactose.

Keep yourself (and your poop) healthy

Healthy poop – and a healthy you – depends on many factors, including diet, exercise, overall health, medications and stress. But lifestyle factors such as diet and exercise can go a long way toward producing perfect poo time after time.

Include colon-healthy foods in a diet that's heavy on the fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Eating a rainbow of foods can assist your trunk get the widest array of vitamins and minerals for the best colon health. Plus, eating whole foods makes it easier to get the cobweb y'all need to motion things along.

Drink plenty of water

Water helps interruption down food during digestion, allowing your body to pull out all the helpful nutrients. If you're dehydrated, your body doesn't accept enough fluids to make your poop the right consistency, causing constipation. To stay hydrated, make certain you potable regularly throughout the 24-hour interval, specially when yous're thirsty.

Eat on a schedule

Eating on a schedule may assistance go on digestion on track – and requite your torso time to procedure your food between meals. Try to swallow breakfast inside i hour of waking and lunch iv to 5 hours afterwards breakfast. For all-time digestion, don't swallow dinner within three hours of bedtime. And since it takes three to 4 hours for your digestive organization to fully digest food, calculation a mid-morning and an afternoon snack tin proceed digestion moving between mealtimes.

Go regular exercise

Getting your body moving is a great way to go along digestion moving, decreasing the fourth dimension that food spends in your colon and helping with constipation. And it doesn't take a lot of action to support poop health. Fifty-fifty walking around 10 to fifteen minutes a twenty-four hours may do the trick. Stretching and yoga tin can help, besides.

Current colorectal cancer screening guidelines recommend yous go screened commencement at age 45, or sooner if y'all have certain risk factors. There are unlike screening options available, including a colonoscopy and the FIT test, which is a poop examination yous tin can do at home. The starting age for colorectal cancer screening recently changed, and so bank check with your insurance company to see what'due south covered.

When to requite your physician the scoop about your poop

Sometimes a bad bath experience is just the event of a bad burrito. Sometimes constipation is caused past likewise much cheese. These things happen – even to the best of digestive systems.

But in that location are times when your symptoms may bespeak a bigger trouble, and yous should talk to a doctor. And so, watch out for changes in your bowel habits that last longer than a few days, including:

  • Recurrent constipation
  • Recurrent diarrhea
  • Severe intestinal hurting and indigestion
  • Poop that is e'er very stinky and oft floats
  • Unintentional weight loss
  • Red stools or black stools that cannot be explained by your diet. These poop colors may betoken that yous have bleeding in your digestive organization, something that can be a symptom of a more serious status. And then, don't put off making an appointment.

When y'all meet with the doctor, they're going to desire to know how your digestive system is – or is not – moving and grooving. Collecting this information can be as piece of cake equally keeping a tally of how often you're going and the types of poop you have – in that location are even a variety of mobile apps out there to help you go along track.

It'south also a practiced idea to pay attending if the food you consume makes a difference to your bowel habits. And of course, brand notation of pain, bleeding, weight loss and other symptoms.

Based on your bowel habits and symptoms, your doctor will work with you to come up with a treatment plan. They may also refer you to a gastroenterologist, which is a doctor who specializes in digestive heath.

While no 1 really wants to talk about digestive issues, paying attention to what plops into the toilet can lead to a healthier poo – and you lot.