This Saturday morning we return to Examine.com and another summary of a weird 8-week randomized controlled trial in 60 women (average age of 30) with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS,) where they compared the effects of a Pilates exercise program along with dietary guidelines, compared to changes in dietary guidelines alone. In other words, did the addition of Pilates add to or interfere with the results? Well, let’s see, and more importantly, let’s see what they failed to understand and/or screwed up.
Key study details
“All of the participants had overweight or obesity as well as constipation-predominant IBS with moderate or severe symptom severity (based on the IBS Severity Scoring System).”
Well, obesity and IBS are both the results of a very bad diet low in healthy and natural animal-based foods and instead high in unnatural and extremely toxic carbohydrates, seed/vegetable oils, and toxins, so no surprise here. As for IBS, some of the biggest offenders include fiber, plant-based antinutrients and defense chemicals, seed/vegetable oils, and man-made chemicals often found in processed foods. In other words, there will be plenty of them in a shitty diet that will also cause you to gain fat rapidly.
“All of the participants received dietary guidelines that advised them to eat moderately sized meals at consistent times, drink enough water, and avoid insoluble fiber and processed, fatty, or spicy foods as well as to limit the consumption of caffeinated, carbonated, and alcoholic drinks.”
These guidelines are decent enough, especially avoiding the tremendously damaging fiber and spicy foods (spices contain very large amounts of antinutrients and defense chemicals.)
Avoiding caffeine and alcohol should be common sense. And as for most fatty foods, yes, since these people only go for processed fatty junk foods, as in foods that have been heated and mostly contain the remarkably toxic seed/vegetable oils, as in plant-based unsaturated fats.
With that said, they should have been handed a transition diet into our natural species-specific, species-appropriated carnivore diet, which should have eliminated all the above, and all other offenders as well. We can only fully heal and thrive on our natural diet.
“The Pilates exercise program consisted of two 45-minute sessions per week. The number of sets was progressively increased over time.”
This is very weird. While it is established within biology and physiology that slow movements and very low-intensity exercise/physical work stimulate bowel movements and digestion, only doing it twice a week is very little if you are to investigate the effects. Also, all you need is 15 to 30 minutes, so it would have made much more sense to perform Pilates, Yoga, or simply low-paced walking for 20 to 30 minutes 4 or 5 times a week. That would certainly help with symptoms such as constipation. Still, two sessions a week should give some positive results, especially if combined with a more sensible diet.
And as a note, moderate- to high-intensity exercise does the opposite, as it requires a lot of blood flow to the muscles to meet metabolic demands, and it also puts the body in a state of emergency, as in a fight-or-flight response. That will instead shut down both digestion and bowel movements during the duration of the physical exertion and during the short recovery period afterwards.
So, that is why the study authors chose to use Pilates in this trial.
“The frequency of complete bowel movements (without the use of laxatives or enemas) increased compared to the control group, and the severities of fatigue, anxiety, and depression symptoms decreased.”
Yes, they did not get as clogged up with the new diet as with their old eating habits, and the sessions with Pilates stimulated bowel movements further, however, the low-intensity exercise will only improve symptoms when it’s executed. So, again, it would have made more sense with a bit shorter sessions and a higher frequency, as in exercising at least 4 or 5 days a week for 20 minutes or so.
With that being said, a higher frequency of bowel movements is not necessarily a good thing. Frequent bowel movements, as in more than once a day, is an indicator that your diet is extremely bad and your body is doing all it can to push the “food” out as it is toxic, low in nutrients, and damaging to the intestines.
When following our species-specific, species-appropriate and natural human diet, bowel movements will usually happen every other day or so due to the immensely high breakdown and utilization of the food, leaving very little waste. Only those who are very active and eat a lot, or include some dairy, will have daily bowel movements.
And people who do not require as much food and only consume meat, animal fats and some organ meats might only need to poop every third day, as pretty much everything they consume is absorbed and used by the body.
Having to visit the bathroom frequently and also having quite large stools is a very strong indicator of a very bad, toxic and lacking diet, where very little nutrition is absorbed.
Examine.com’s take
“These findings suggest that Pilates may further reduce IBS symptom severity when combined with dietary strategies, although it is unknown whether these findings apply to other IBS subtypes as well.”
That depends on the diet. Any slow-paced and low-intensity exercise will stimulate digestion, which can be a “good thing” if you have digestive problems. However, that is not addressing the root problem, that is not tackling the thing that is causing your digestive problems.
Instead you need to remove all the offending foodstuffs, which are anything plant-based and processed. In other words, you need to transition to our natural human carnivore diet which will remove the toxic load and finally supply your body with fully bioavailable nutrients, allowing it to heal. That is the only way, and it’s truly simple and logical.
If you need help with any kind of health problems or transitioning from your current way of eating to our natural species-appropriate, species-specific way of eating, I’m available for both coaching and consultation.
Coaching and Consultation
And if you found the article and my insights helpful and enjoy my daily free information, please consider donating to help pay the webhosting bills and keep the site running. And if you’re interested in discussing and sharing information with likeminded people, consider joining our uncensored community at Ungovernable.se. Thank you!
