OMG she’s totally gone off her rocker now. I hear you. I do. But somebody has to talk about it.

So, my family accuses me of having some fascination with toilets. My husband would classify me as anal retentive, stuck (pardon the pun) in Freuds sickosexual anal stage.

Well, I can admit that the first picture I took when I stepped foot in Europe was of a public Loo in London.
I guess it was pretty unimpressive, though I found the bowl weirdly roundy.

When I got to Austria, I thought it was kinda cool to see the signs over the bathroom now read “WC”.  At least I didn’t have to worry about finding the German word for toilet (bahnhaus? badenhaus? voda klozet?) buried in my brain from 10 years ago.

Okay so I am a little interested in toilets. Yes, yes, I took pictures of one in Serbia, too. Hey, I didn’t know these kinds of toilets even existed.

And I suppose I am real careful about running out of toilet paper. Really, really careful.

So okay whatever, I have some weird toilet thing, and you have no idea why I’m on about the terlit in this fat loss blog.

Well, it occurred to me that some people may be teased, tortured or tormented (not me) for looking at their own poop when they get off the pot (not me). But poop examination isn’t just for babies and grandmas. It’s important and can tell you stuff about what’s going on, on the inside.

So I knew there had to be some measure, somewhere, so that poop could be classified.  We’re a classifying kind of society, aren’t we? So, I searched. Sure enough wiki had some great information of poop types and meanings. They even have a graphic, “The Bristol Stool Chart”, though I have spared you from including it here. This chart classifies poop into categories, many of which are pretty Britishly colorful.

As wiki has it, according to this poop scale, there are 7 types (italics are mine):

1. Separate hard lumps, like nuts (hard to pass). Drinking enough water?
2. Sausage-shaped but lumpy. Hard to digest dinner? Eating a lot of seeds or nuts?
3. Like a sausage but with cracks on its surface. Okay I dont really look well enough to find cracks
4. Like a sausage or snake, smooth and soft. Bowl wrappers. Stuff you can be proud of.
5. Soft blobs with clear cut edges (passed easily).
6. Fluffy pieces with ragged edges, a mushy stool.
7. Watery stool, entirely liquid.

In summary, it says that type 1 and 2 indicate constipation, 3 and 4 are normal, and 5-7 are indicative of diarrhea. I guess I didn’t need a chart to figure that out.

There’s more info about poop color. Yellow can indicate infection. Black can mean you have blood in your stool, and may indicate you have an ulcer. If you have foods rich in iron, though, it could cause your stool to be black. I know Pepto Bismol (or is that Milk of Magnesia?) also makes it black, though I can’t recall why.

Blue poop (now that’s something for jar at a weird art show) can result from treatment for different poisonings. Interestingly enough kool aid and grape soda can also turn it blue…

My mom always said green poop from a baby meant it wasn’t getting enough food. I’m not sure if the same applies to adults, but if it’s green and you haven’t eaten a bag of spinach, I’d wonder why.

Silver or aluminum colored poop can be bad news, indicating biliary blockage combined with intestinal bleeding, or carcinoma.
It could also mean you forgot to unwrap your sandwich at lunch…naw, just shittin ya.

Nothing to document poopy smells, though, at least not that I have found. I’m sure my mom was a master of the poop, after having 8 kids. I can still hear her telling me emphatically one time, when I was a kid, “Oh…MARY! That smells like VIRUS!” Cracks me the hell up whenever I remember that.

Anyway, don’t be afraid to turn around and notice stuff your body does. If it looks weird or smells weird, it might BE weird.