These tips were written to be applicable to everyone regardless of what they eat, however I hope everyone considers eating more or all plants and less or no animals.

1.) Don’t overeat and realize that if you have a significant amount of excess body fat you are overeating. Perhaps not today or even recently but definitely over the long run because no animal can produce body fat without an excess of energy. Therefore eat as your body requires and try to stay as close to hungry as comfortably possible provided that allows you to maintain your ideal body composition. If it doesn’t you’ll have to slightly increase or reduce your energy intake.

2.) Keep hydrated because digestion is one of the first bodily functions to be negatively affected by dehydration as your body struggles to hang on to all the water in your stools which will slow them down and make their eventual expulsion much more difficult. Therefore drink enough water and eat enough water rich foods to ensure that your urine is clear or almost clear because the darker your urine is the clearer sign it is that you’re dehydrated.

3.) Stay active because physical activity helps keep our bodies in good working order especially our digestion. All types of physical activity are good for digestion especially walking and knee raises. The amount of physical activity we require for optimal health is far too much to allocate to an exercise session so it must be incorporated into our day and become habitual, e.g., walking or biking instead of driving and taking the stairs instead of elevators and escalators.

4.) Some foods and food combinations digest poorly for some people and the best way to figure out which foods and food combinations to avoid is by living a healthy lifestyle, simplifying meals, and spacing them out so you can accurately observe their effects because even if you ate only one type of a food at a meal if you ate another meal an hour or two after the last one it may be difficult to determine whether it was the first meal that caused you an issue, the second, or the combination of the two.

5.) When going to the bathroom rather than sitting consider squatting. Sitting is an unnatural position to be in when having or trying to have a bowel movement so consider squatting or at least raising your knees with a small stool. However regardless of whether you’re sitting or squatting never try to force a bowel movement and instead when you are constipated consider alternating walking with squatting while continually swallowing small amounts of water until you’ve had enough or are ready to go to the bathroom.