Your poop tells a story about your body. A single glance at your poop can tell you many things. For one, it is a window into your digestive tract and your diet. Are you eating the right foods for your body? Your poop reveals this. It is also an invaluable diagnostic tool for many digestive illnesses. Yet poop is more than a report card of your GI tract - it is a complete summary of your health and wellness. It delivers a wealth of information about your body including your blood, your metabolism, and even your mental well being.

People are fascinated by poop when it comes to babies. They examine, "How much did baby poop? What does it look like? What made it smell like that? How long has it been since her last poop?" It seems that poop is an engaging topic - as long as it belongs to somebody else. People don't like talking about their own poop. They want to get rid of it quickly, to hide it, to flush it down - much the same way a dog wants to cover up his droppings with grass clippings.

However, poop is one of the few substances that comes out of your body regularly, along with breath and urine. That makes poop a dependable, valuable diagnostic tool. In the 18-24 hours poop spends inside your body, the quantity and quality of your poop is affected by your body's mental and physical condition. By examining your poop, you'll know what is happening on the inside.

Was last night's steak and potatoes a good choice? If your poop is smelly, a weird color, or if it has a gnarly shape - you can get a sense of how your body reacted to the steak and potatoes. If every time you eat french fries you have diarrhea, you'll deduce that your body doesn't fare well when you feed it french fries. With some basic knowledge, you'll also discover why your body has trouble digesting them. Poop problems after french fries may also be a sign that your liver, gallbladder, and/or pancreas needs support since those organs are responsible for digesting fats.

Your poop also reveals your "umph," or metabolic strength. Digestion takes up to 60% of your daily metabolism. So if your metabolism is weak, you won't be able to digest your food well. This happens in many people who have conditions like hypothyroid or anemia. Weak digestion leads to gas and bloating and often times your poop will become stinky. If you frequently have gas and stinky poops it means that your digestion and metabolism may be weak.

Looking at your poop says something about blood hydration. If you are dehydrated, your body will absorb more water from your stools. Your poop will become dry, hard, and difficult to pass. If you are dehydrated, you won't be able to produce enzymes to digest your food. Your digestion will become sluggish and you'll end up with stagnant, rotten poop in your digestive tract. Your mood may be fowl with all those toxins sitting around in your body!

The color of your stool tells you about bowel transit time. Ideally, you want your poop to be a healthy, cinnamon brown color. If your poop is yellow or green, it is normally because you eliminated your stool so fast that bacteria haven't had enough time to break down your bile. Or, green poop can be a sign that you recently ate a lot of green, leafy vegetables like kale or a spring salad mix. Light gray or brown stools, on the other hand, may be a sign of bile deficiency, an indicator you may have trouble digesting fats.

Even looking at the quantity of your poop offers a clue. The average human poops about one pound of feces per day. South Asians pass about 3 times more stool than Americans because of their high fiber diet. One of the ways South Asians get more fiber is by eating more beans and lentils. Softer stools, or excreting an extremely long log can feel satisfying, but likely means your body is not getting as much nourishment out of your food as it should.

Did you ever observe your poop after a late night out with friends, when you are sick, or even stressed out? In each of these circumstances, you'll notice your poop looks different. It may be stinkier, slimier, and downright rotten, depending on the person. This can be a sign of strain on the body, either due to toxicity or an imbalanced lifestyle. As you become more observant, you'll start to see how your poop reflects your overall health, and responds not only to dietary but also lifestyle choices.

There are lots of different types of poop - each with its own special meaning. And ideally you get a special delivery of poop daily - otherwise rotting food is sitting in your gut at 98.6 degrees. This is harmful because your intestines are like sponges - regardless of what's in them. If rotten food has taken up residence, your body is soaking up that toxicity.

Observing your ordure allows you to see patterns and correlate symptoms with your lifestyle and diet. If you are digesting food well and making good life choices, your poop will be ideal - a floating, earthy smelling stool in the size, shape and consistency of a banana with a cinnamon brown color. If you are stressed out and/or stretched too thin, your poop will reflect that by showing up in less than ideal form.

Sometimes changes in your stool can be serious and life threatening. For example, thin stools, increased bowel movement frequency unrelated to diet change, and / or blood in the stool could be warning signs of Cancer.

Ayurveda recommends examining your poop on a daily basis so you know what to eat and how to live. That's going to be very valuable for your health and happiness. Every time you mess up and your digestive tract becomes a churning storm, you have an opportunity to adapt your diet and lifestyle. When your floating banana returns, you'll know you're on the right track.

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