A holistic nurse practitioner has lifted the lid on the surprising ways your bowel movements can affect your weight.
Jonathan Mendoza, who is known as ‘Nurse Doza,’ has more than 193,000 followers on TikTok, where he shares educational videos about health and wellness.
The content creator from Austin, Texas, went viral this week after explaining how healthy poops equate to weight loss, while unhealthy poops lead to weight gain.
‘I bet you didn’t think your poops could affect your weight in a good way or a bad way — but they can,’ he began.
Jonathan Mendoza, a holistic nurse practitioner based in Austin, Texas, went viral on TikTok after explaining how unhealthy poops can lead to weight gain
Mendoza, who is known as ‘Nurse Doza,’ has more than 193,000 followers on the platform , where he shares educational videos about health and wellness
‘If your digestive tract is off in any way, your body is off, including your overall health,’ he continued. ‘And let’s be honest, with weight gain, you really don’t have that in a healthy individual.’
Nurse Doza said to look at weight gain as inflammation in the body that is ‘causing havoc and dysfunction.’
‘Imagine if you have arthritis of your knee. Your knee is going to swell. That’s the problem right there,’ he explained. ‘Well, imagine if you had arthritis of your belly.’
The nurse practitioner gave an example of someone who knows that their overall lifestyle — including their eating habits — is what is causing the weight gain.
‘Okay, well, where are you putting this lifestyle?’ he asked. ‘You’re putting your lifestyle right here in your fat cells, and you’re putting it right here in your liver, and you’re causing them to become inflamed, which is causing you to become inflamed.’
When it comes to your bowel movements, he noted that if your digestive tract is working properly, you’re eating food, digesting it, metabolizing it, and then pooping it out.
‘That’s exactly how health is supposed to work, right?’ he said. ‘So if something gets backed up and it gets stored in my fat cells, my liver, it’s most likely because I couldn’t poop it out.’
Nurse Doza added that he often asks patients how many times they poop a day to assess their health.
‘If something gets backed up and it gets stored in my fat cells, my liver, it’s most likely because I couldn’t poop it out,’ he explained
The nurse practitioner stressed that healthy poops should be an ‘overall focus of longevity’ because ‘health poops are a sign of good health’
‘Don’t look at it just as weight gain,’ he advised. ‘Look at it as health. Because healthy poops are a sign of good health… An overall focus of longevity and health should be healthy poops, and it’s a reason why we should talk about this.’
The nurse practitioner’s video has been viewed more than 390,000 times in just a few days.
‘This! I worked over the summer full time and waited until I got home to go to the bathroom. Gained over five pounds cause of holding,’ one person responded.
‘I know exactly what you are talking [about],’ someone else commented. ‘[It] happens to be when I eat bread or wheat products.’
Another added that they ‘100% agree,’ saying, ‘I have to do it every day.’
Nurse Doza recently shared his ‘ultimate guide to healthier poops’ on his podcast, The School of Doza.
He explained that most people don’t even realize that they have digestive issues because they think it’s normal to go to the bathroom once every two or three days.
‘That’s not normal,’ he said. ‘Healthy poops mean that you go consistently when you want to, and you can count on your fingers how many times you have gone in the last couple of days. For most people that’s not the case. That’s not the norm.’
‘You should be able to poop daily,’ he added. ‘You should be able to poop after meals. You should be able to poop first thing in the morning because your body’s relaxed.’
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