# How regular are your bowels?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-regular-are-your-bowels/454929
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [July 1, 2008, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-regular-are-your-bowels/454929 "2008-07-01T17:48:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2008, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-regular-are-your-bowels/454929/1 "2008-07-01T17:48:16Z")
In the grand tradition of threads that should not be started by **Auto** , I ask you, how regular are your bowels? Are they like clockwork? Could you run a train by them? Or maybe they are erratic and unpleasant? Inquiring minds want to know.
As for myself, lately they run on a predictable 24 hour cycle. Nothing quite like that morning trip to the bathroom to make one feel refreshed.
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### Author:  [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2008, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-regular-are-your-bowels/454929/2 "2008-07-01T18:54:52Z")
They are in fact fairly ordinary, as bowels go. But thanks for asking.
[Quote=Autolycus]
Could you run a train by them?
[/Quote]
For that I think you need steam, or a diesel engine or something, so no.
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### Author:  [@Belrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belrix)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2008, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-regular-are-your-bowels/454929/3 "2008-07-01T19:10:43Z")
If you feed me peanut butter, you might be able to generate enough methane to power a train. I love it but it does not love me.
To answer your question, they’re not clockwork precise but I’d say every 22-26 hours is pretty normal.
\*
Boy! why do I answer these things…
maybe because I ask questions like this every now and then.\*
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### Author:  [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2008, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-regular-are-your-bowels/454929/4 "2008-07-01T19:12:04Z")
Not at all. I have IBS that fluctuates between days and days of constipation to days of every hour. (though it’s been more on the constipation side for a while now)
If I don’t regularly take extra fiber I’m in serious trouble.
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### Author:  [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2008, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-regular-are-your-bowels/454929/5 "2008-07-01T19:13:35Z")
I am a Lady, so all I will say is that prescription pain medicine can be somewhat…binding.
That is all.
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### Author:  [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2008, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-regular-are-your-bowels/454929/6 "2008-07-01T19:25:51Z")
Every morning I get a cup of coffee and take a walk. An hour later, you can set your watch by me.
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### Author:  [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2008, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-regular-are-your-bowels/454929/7 "2008-07-01T19:31:27Z")
I’m regular. Every morning around 6:00.
I need to leave for work no later than 6:45 and sometimes the bowels do not decide to activate until 6:30 or so and then it becomes a close call of either a quicky before I leave or wait until I get to work.
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2008, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-regular-are-your-bowels/454929/8 "2008-07-01T19:44:52Z")
I used to be three times a day clockwork; morning when I woke up, 3:30 just as I was getting home from school, and around 11:00 (always interrupting my [very late, I know] dinner).
Four years ago I somehow went off the rails into some miserable chronic constipation, which persists to this day. I still don’t know what exactly is going on; I guess maybe IBS-C, or maybe that with other things. At any rate, now, there’s no predictability as to when and how much and how easily, except that, in general, things are almost always subpar. I suppose this is what “erratic and unpleasant” means. What I wouldn’t fucking give for a return to comfortable normalcy…
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### Author:  [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2008, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-regular-are-your-bowels/454929/9 "2008-07-01T19:48:08Z")
When I was indulging in all-you-can-eat (and for me, that’s a lot) I would go regularly but not at any particular time. Now that I am eating more healthfully, I barely poop at all. I think my body needs and uses everything I can give it.
So, don’t count on me.
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### Author:  [@brewha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brewha)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2008, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-regular-are-your-bowels/454929/10 "2008-07-01T19:53:56Z")
Pretty much every morning at 8:00 +/- 20 min.
Why do you ask? And why would I want to know why you’d want to know? Why am I even participating in this?!?
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### Author:  [@Telperien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperien)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2008, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-regular-are-your-bowels/454929/11 "2008-07-01T20:03:06Z")
[QUOTE=brewha]
Pretty much every morning at 8:00 +/- 20 min.
Why do you ask? And why would I want to know why you’d want to know? Why am I even participating in this?!?
[/QUOTE]
I’m assuming that **Auto** plans to play an enormous toilet-related prank on us.
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2008, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-regular-are-your-bowels/454929/12 "2008-07-01T20:05:03Z")
I think he’s just got some trains to run.
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### Author:  [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2008, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-regular-are-your-bowels/454929/13 "2008-07-01T20:05:11Z")
7AM +/- 12 hours…it really varies. Sometimes, they can be way too unpredictable, like on a crowded commuter train or the 16th hole of a golf course. I take Metamucil every night to help make them a bit more regular.
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2008, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-regular-are-your-bowels/454929/14 "2008-07-01T20:06:46Z")
[QUOTE=Jackknifed Juggernaut]
7AM +/- 12 hours…it really varies. Sometimes, they can be way too unpredictable, like on a crowded commuter train or the 16th hole of a golf course. I take Metamucil every night to help make them a bit more regular.
[/QUOTE]
Are you saying you go twice a day, around 7 AM and 7 PM? Or are you saying you go once a day with almost no telling exactly when?
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### Author:  [@drm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drm)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2008, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-regular-are-your-bowels/454929/15 "2008-07-01T20:10:09Z")
Like Clockwork. Every morning before I take my shower at 8:25am.
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2008, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-regular-are-your-bowels/454929/16 "2008-07-01T20:12:24Z")
Once every 24 hours @ 10am.
Occasionally, supplemental deposits at 6:15pm and/or 1am.
On weekends, whenever I finish my Dunkin Donuts coffee.
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2008, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-regular-are-your-bowels/454929/17 "2008-07-01T20:14:40Z")
Man, everyone here (without problems) seems to be on a once-a-day schedule. I know it varies from person to person, but surely greater (and lower) frequencies are being underrepresented? [Hell, I don’t suppose it’d be correct to say it varies from person to person unless other frequencies were being underrepresented]
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### Author:  [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2008, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-regular-are-your-bowels/454929/18 "2008-07-01T20:19:38Z")
[QUOTE=Telperien]
I’m assuming that **Auto** plans to play an enormous toilet-related prank on us.
[/QUOTE]
Indeed. Phase 1 is complete!
Seriously though, I just asked for shits and giggles.
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### Author:  [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2008, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-regular-are-your-bowels/454929/19 "2008-07-01T20:22:12Z")
First thing in the morning (which sucks without being able to smoke in the bathroom anymore) and as soon as I get home from work. On the weekends, whenever I feel a knock at the back door. If I’ve been drinking the night before, every 30 minutes.
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### Author:  [@Orual](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orual)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2008, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-regular-are-your-bowels/454929/20 "2008-07-01T20:24:57Z")
Yikes. I’ve been taking fiber supplements for a while now, and I _still_ don’t go every day.
I vacillate between every other day and every 2 days.
[sub]There’s probably something wrong with me … [/hypochondriac][/sub]
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