Non Scale Victory: The Food Diary Reveals How Long it Takes Food to Pass Through My Body

I recorded information about my diet and feces in my notebook, and this is what I learned.

At around 10pm on August 9th, I ate a weird snack: peanut butter on Serrano chiles.

At 3pm on August 11th, I had a shit that was a bit runny, but was capped off by a surge of burning anal pain.

The chile acted like a “marker” in my intestines. It was a spicy, painful bookmark.

It went in on the 9th, and emerged on the 11th, around 1.5 days later.

I know all this because I have been keeping a food diary!

I also know that on 8/8 and 8/9 I ate a bit more fat than usual, at least I’m assuming this because I ate fried foods and breaded foods – which are not compliant with the LCHF diet. I also accidentally had a 26g of sugar drink at CBTL, which shot my BG up very high.

Early the morning of the 11th, I had a hard stool that was 2 on the Bristol Scale. It was lumpy and hard to pass.

So, that greasy, meaty food, and maybe elevated sugars, may have caused that problem.

Later, I had the opposite problem. I had some upset stomach, possibly from drinking too much tea and magnesium citrate (a laxative), and also from taking a magnesium oxide pill either on the 10th or 9th. I also had eaten around 3 tablespoons total of ground flaxseed on the 10th and 11th.

I increased a lot of sources of fiber and/or laxatives, slightly over the norm. The dam had to break, eventually.

It just didn’t occur to me that the water would be full of capsacin, and would torture the mucus membranes around my rectum.