I’d like to temporarily decrease my poop output.
What can I eat which will be mostly absorbed and result in little waste product?
I’m having surgery and will have compromised mobility. It will be difficult for me to sit on a toilet to poop. [I should be able to pee standing just fine]
I’d like to reduce my stool output for a few days to reduce the number of times I have to figure out how to sit on and get up from the toilet.
[Also, I’d like to know for my next cross country car trip.]
It is only for a bit, a few days probably, so the foods don’t have to make up complete nutrition.
On the other hand, I’d like it to be reasonably healthy. Even though it’s only be for a few days, eating a bunch of empty calories is yuck. Plus, too, and also, my body will be recovering from traumas. So, it doesn’t seem a wise time to be without adequate nutrition.
I’m not sure that you’re going to get an overly satisfactory answer. Newborn babies are on a 100% liquid diet but even breast milk and formula have enough solids in them to make them poop.
I don’t know about tea, but yeah, coffee always makes me poop. Alcohol too. The rest though sounds pretty good. Avoid fruits and veggies, eat lots of heavy, starchy stuff.
If this is a significant surgery, you may be put on some type of opioid painkiller that would slow everything down anyway. Talk to your doctor.
I should add that having some sort of motion down there may be required before you are discharged, depending on the surgery. An ileus is a serious shutdown of your GI tract that can occur due to some operations.
I call it the toddler diet. LOL! People with Crohn’s disease need a low-residue diet, so it’s a great search term to add. Here’s a good list.
Some of the things on that list are sub-optimal, but are included because it assumes a long-term nutrition requirement. You could get away with avoiding fruit and veg altogether. Just take a multi-vitamin with minerals so that malnutrition doesn’t slow your healing.
"Twere I in your position, I’d make a big batch of mac-n-cheese and use it as an excuse to live on that for a week.
WTF back at you.
The OP isn’t looking at anything approximating a healthy diet.
It’s quote “a few days probably” so complete fasting is an option though not necessary. Assuming the OP is well nourished, for the period in question there’s no absolute need for calories or protein nor vitamins, minerals, essential fats etc. The parameters of the OP are, no shit, no non-digestible matter.
If the OPs experience with tea, coffee or alcohol is they induce defecation then don’t partake. Going on a bender pre-op probably wouldn’t be advisable on several levels.
YMMV but I’d think it not uncommon that intake of these beverages in modest amounts would induces peeing, which the OP is fine with.
No, not “heavy, starchy stuff”
Starches will include pectins, hemicellulose, NDF and ADF fractions which humans can’t digest.
Simple sugars. As Plan D VFAs eg vinegar if the OP was desperate for calories, which in the period in question they are unlikely to be.
A while back now a relative who was a timber cutter was out in the Barmah forest cutting railway sleepers. A fire destroyed almost all his provisions. It was going to be a week til he and his production was due to be picked up .
All he had was ample fresh water and a 7lb tin of strawberry jam.
So he stayed in the forest and cut his full quota of sleepers.
He was fine, but never ate strawberry jam again.
The OP isn’t concerned about total volume output; he/she wants to reduce how often they have to sit/stand. If OP is having smaller movements, but is still required to sit on the toilet once or twice per day, the problem hasn’t really been solved.
I’m skeptical about the efficacy of the proposed solutions. While they may reduce volume output, would they also be expected to reduce frequency of movements?
The combination of anesthetic drugs and painkillers after surgery are pretty effective at stopping things up for a day or two. So much so that I was offered various options to get things moving again after my last surgery. I declined the suppository and just waited for it to happen on its own.
I expect to poop.
I also expect to be poop inhibited by pain killers.
I’d just like to be as comfortable as possible while my hip heals.
I’ve been told that my mobility will improve rapidly over the first week. I’ll begin the week pretty bad off — only getting out of bed of unavoidable necessity.
Though iirc, I’ll have to be able to get out of bed and get down on and up off the toilet before I’ll be discharged. It’s expected that I’ll be discharged the very next day.
So, the first day will be in the hospital. I expect to be too drugged to worry about food.
How would decreased volume not decrease frequency? It’s not like you have to go every time there’s any feces in your colon. It builds up gradually, and when it builds up enough, you have to go.
I am physically — and emotionally[;)] — dependent on coffee.
That’s the first thing I intend on having once I wake up. No intake after midnight the night before and all that. I expect to be well ready by the afternoon when I wake up.
