Make Good Sh*t

??? ?? ??? Friday.

Yesterday, I quietly, unceremoniously celebrated a new kind of personal record:

100 straight days of ??.

This may seem weird, insignificant, disgusting, or all of the above, to you. But to me, it counts up there with promotions, fellowships, product launches, medal stand races, school records and the like.

Back in 2006, I went ~60 days without pooping, including 35 days hospitalized, many of them spent in NYU Tisch Hospital's ICU. Who knew your bowels can kink, just like a hose?! Ever since, I've struggled with long bouts of constipation, chronic pain, and sporadic but debilitating endometriosis flare-ups.

There have been times I've shared this info with friends, teammates, peers and colleagues, and even though I mostly did that reluctantly, more often than not I received wholehearted support. One time, Laura Martin had to bear witness to one of these flare-ups ("explosion" is a more accurate word) and Musa Tariq + Bruno Garcia took me on a midnight tour of LA's ERs.

So today, after a marathon training plan's worth of change effort, I am promoting myself from "full of ??" to, well... not.

There's been a literal village of teammates, mentors, practitioners, family and friends who set me up for this promotion, and I will attempt to thank them in a more personal forum. But this morning as I sat on the proverbial throne, something told me to share what I've learned in going from being a 1x/week pooper to a daily poop prioritizer, so here goes.

When my body speaks, stop and take note.

This time last year, I believed that finally having the right surgery with the right specialist would be a cure-all. I was wrong. Having a proper endometriosis excision was akin to wiping the slate clean, but in some sense this merely got me to the starting line of potentially living a life without chronic pain. The real work started after the surgery, in learning to write new things (neural patterns, lifestyle choices, daily habits) on the cleaned-up slate. It feels all-too-basic to say this out loud, but the first step on this journey was to simply start listening to my body. Under the direction of the most patient endometriosis-specialized nutritionist (who also happens to also be named Stacy with no 'e'), for three weekdays + two weekend days I noted down everything I ate and drank, with detailed context: what time, in what order, in what location and even how my body was positioned, my mood and physiological status before/during/after eating, the timing/color/shape/texture/volume of my poop, the timing/quantity/quality of my sleep and exercise, and any other bodily sensations as correlated with what I was putting into my body. It was a very challenging adjustment to take these notes, but I only needed five days worth to set my analysis on the right path. Why did this feel so daunting, when I have ~1,000 x 1,000+ word notes in Evernote, about work and intellectual stuff? (I distinctly remember a time when, working as a strategist, I once fished a napkin out of a trash can because an executive had written something on it during a meeting, and I wanted to capture his notes!) So yea, diligently taking stock of what I ate, how I moved, and how I felt as a result for five days was inconvenient, but definitely not impossible. And there was an immediate payoff, just after five days of notes: processed sugar makes me feel sluggish every time, whereas honey, maple, fruits and other natural sugars give me the same high without the regret; if I feel pressured into drinking alcohol, tequila is best; fried food and quinoa are my inflammatory worst enemies; my skin is sensitive to costume jewelry which means it's also a good idea to try to avoid eating this allergy... aka avoid high nickel foods.

What they say about digital marketing is also true of eating: "content is king, but context is queen and she wears the pants."

Before attempting to start a poop streak, I would wake up and make coffee first thing. After 1-2 cups on a completely empty stomach, I'd workout, typically with no stretching or warm-up, and then eat my first meal of the day usually around noon. One of the first "rules" my nutritionist urged me to try was "coffee only with food." So I've now replaced my coffee-first-thing habit with a 5-minute stretch routine (this was inspired by a friend's dad, who told me his daily stretch routine was the secret to feeling good well into his 70's) -- I find that spinal twists first thing are especially feel-good for me. My new ideal meal timing is 8:30am - 12:30pm - 4:00pm - 7:30pm, with snacks in between. I still drink the same amount of coffee, but I only drink it following a meal or with a snack. Since digestion begins in the mouth, I also attempt to chew every bite of each meal 20 times before swallowing. I laughed when my nutritionist told me that everything needs to be liquified before it goes down, but this small reminder has been a game-changer for me (also sometimes leaves me with a sore jaw, when I am really doing it right.) As a side bonus, honoring the rule of chewing each bite 20 times has tricked me into eating more mindfully, more slowly, and not on Zoom. Additionally, I try not to eat within two hours of laying down, which is a stark contrast to my prior ritual of two Oreos just before bed.

Food is medicine.

Growing up, my parents were both severe workaholics. My exposure to their intense professional lives surely has its merits, however one of the beliefs I held due to the culture of our family was that domestic work (especially cooking) equated to a lack of ambition, tenacity, and intellectual power, all things that were valued above most everything else in our household. What we ate, how we felt, and what our bodies may have needed took an extreme backseat to our overextended schedules, a dangerous perspective that would haunt me in adulthood. I've since been introduced to and influenced by many, many colleagues and professional heroes who boss it up at work AND in the kitchen (ahem, Dana Vaccarelli, Joe Cafarelli, Joanna Rees, Allison Light, PT Black, Sarah Patterson, Bob Messerschmidt to name a few) who have generously offered to share their joy of cooking with me. Admittedly, I still don't find much "joy" in the act of cooking. But I've learned what the optimally-balanced plate looks like for me, in terms of macros, and it's just simply easier to control for this at home vs. out at a restaurant. I strive for 2.5 servings of fruit and at least 2.5 servings of vegetables a day. I've learned what to eat to keep my bowels moving, such as one raw, skin-on carrot per day, and I've made a few low-maintenance recipes my go-to's (red lentil daal, tuna + avocado salad, chocolate-PB protein muffins, broccoli feta egg cups, berry baked oats, and hella smoothies/a?aí bowls for days). I realize I am not saying anything new, but I get such immense satisfaction out of knowing what meals to "prescribe" myself in order to feel a certain way, and then bringing them to life with my own two hands.

Sups: There is no one-size-fits-all.

I started taking Athletic Greens a handful of years ago after I noticed Corey mixing up his green drink every morning. A number of podcasts I listen to were promoting this (verbatim, from The Tim Ferriss Show: "I get asked all the time, 'If you could only use one supplement, what would it be?' My answer is usually AG1 by Athletic Greens, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.") and I thought my nutritionist would at least applaud me for having stuck with this habit so consistently. Instead, she was skeptical, and asked if I'd be willing to try a more personalized supplement regimen. This included switching me to a different probiotic, because although I was consistent with taking the one I was on for several years, my gut needed to meet new and different strains of bacteria. For the rest, I had bloodwork done, and Stacy put me on a thoughtfully customized regimen of supplements according to my blood results, via Fullscript. I won't put the full protocol here because again the key is personalization, but probably the biggest contributing factor (I think) to my 100-day poop streak is taking 600mg of Pure Encapsulations' Magnesium (Citrate) at night - 300mg with dinner, and 300mg before bed.

Pay attention to poop posture.

As I was out with a few friends last night, I was describing how the beginning stages of a newly-added internal martial arts practice and many, many sessions of pelvic floor PT have been helping me learn to speak (rather than disregard) the natural language of my body. At the start of this journey, I broke down and purchased a "squatty potty," a relatively inexpensive investment as compared to the rest of this poop-optimization lifestyle. And I made a silent agreement with myself, to only untuck it from under the toilet when I truly had to go -- in other words, not to loiter unsuccessfully on the throne for 30-40 minutes as I had been. This has also proven to be a game-changer for the movement of my movements. And yet, a few weeks ago I neglected to use the squatty potty, and out of (bad) habit, I leaned forward, forearms rested on thighs, phone in hand. Some time later, I noticed my legs beginning to go dead, so I reached down to slide out the squatty potty, adjusted my position, and quieted the pins and needles. In my severed-body former life, I would not have taken notice of my dead legs until my attempt to stand, sometimes resulting in me literally falling over on the bathroom floor. So for me, the value proposition of the squatty potty goes well beyond the correction of my "toilet posture" -- it's also been a helpful tool in the ultramarathon that has been my journey towards embodiment.