Does Pooping Help You Lose Weight?
Medically reviewed and edited by 
Updated: April 03, 2025
4 mins
Driven by the influence of social media and popular culture, the idea that pooping can help you lose weight has become increasingly widespread — but is there any truth to this claim?
Whether it works or not, health professionals everywhere strongly discourage using bowel movements to lose weight.
Research has found a link between the use of diet pills and laxatives, and as a result, the development of future eating disorders.
In this article, we’ll discuss the link between pooping and weight loss, including how diet affects your poop, how much weight you can lose after a bowel movement, and why you may poop more when you’re on a diet.
Why Do You Feel Lighter After Pooping?
Once you’ve had a meal and the food is digested, waste products are temporarily stored in the rectum, located at the end of your large intestine.
This accumulation of waste stretches the rectal wall and activates sensory receptors.
These receptors trigger nerve responses that relax the involuntary anal sphincter and contract the rectal muscles, facilitating stool expulsion.
This process – essential to the digestive system – relieves abdominal bloating by eliminating stool and deactivating rectal sensory signals.
Although the primary function of a bowel movement isn't to lose weight, pooping can momentarily reduce your body weight.
The reason you often feel lighter after a bowel movement is because stool passes out of your body, along with gas that can make you feel quite bloated until it’s released.
How Much Weight Can You Lose from Pooping?
Because poop is a material substance, it naturally has some weight to it. Poop is typically composed of 25% solid waste and 75% water.
The poop excreted by the average adult each day weighs about 72 to 470 grams. While it may seem like you lose weight when you poop, this weight loss is minimal and insufficient in terms of meaningful weight reduction.
Our poop consists of leftover waste after the body has absorbed the necessary nutrients from the food we’ve eaten. Poop will continue to form as long as our bodies are alive and functioning.
Detox teas: Social media and pooping
Over the past few years, there has been a lot of hype around certain teas that claim to give your midsection a more streamlined appearance.
Although these products may decrease bloating and make your abdomen look smaller, they don’t promote safe or sustainable weight loss.
These products stimulate your gastrointestinal tract, causing excessive bowel movements beyond what your body requires. This approach to weight loss is unhealthy because it prevents your body from absorbing the necessary nutrients from your food.
As mentioned earlier, laxative use can escalate into drug abuse and increase your risk of developing eating or body dysmorphic disorders.
Laxative misuse is often associated with well-known eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia, and it forms part of the spectrum of these conditions.
Although bowel movements do not contribute to weight loss, abnormal patterns can signal serious health issues.
Persistent diarrhea, characterized by watery stool, results in excessive water loss, potentially leading to dehydration — a severe medical condition.
Diet and Bowel Movements: What’s the Connection?
Nutrition significantly influences your bowel movements and stool consistency.
With a functioning digestive system, the bowel absorbs necessary nutrients from your diet, resulting in a firm, well-formed stool that is easy to pass.
Variations in stool color and consistency can signal several health concerns. Different stool types are shown in the Bristol Stool Form Scale (BSFS):
Type | Consistency/Color of stool | What it Indicates |
|---|---|---|
1 | Separate, hard bits; very difficult to pass | Severe constipation |
2 | Sausage-like with lumps | Mild constipation |
3 | Sausage-like with cracks | Normal |
4 | Smooth, resembling a snake or sausage | Normal |
5 | Soft blobs with defined edges/borders | Too little fiber in the diet |
6 | Mushy with unclear edges/borders | Mild diarrhea |
7 | No solid bits at all; mostly liquid | Severe diarrhea |
How does my diet affect my poop?
The foods you eat impact your poop. Adopting a high-fiber diet that’s rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, healthy fats, proteins, and complex carbohydrates, contributes to regular and healthy bowel movements.
Conversely, a diet filled with fatty, greasy, and low-nutrient foods can lead to difficulties passing stool or occasional constipation, causing discomfort, bloating, and a general feeling of unease in the abdominal area.
Artificial sweeteners and diarrhea
In recent years, sugar substitutes have been included in a wide array of food products, from sodas and tea enhancements to sugar sculptures.
Although they may seem like a healthier choice than sugar because of their low-calorie content, excessive consumption can upset your digestive system.
Many artificial sweeteners mimic sugar's sweetness without being absorbed by our digestive system.
This unabsorbed sweetener is then broken down by colon bacteria, generating gas and creating sugars that attract water into the gut, causing watery stool, diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and flatulence.
Therefore turning to artificial sweeteners when you’re trying to lose weight can result in more frequent trips to the toilet.
Normal vs. abnormal poop: External influences impacting poop characteristics
Individuals trying to lose body fat may find themselves changing their eating habits and exercising more — these factors can affect your bowel movements and the properties of your stool.
Aspects that influence your digestive system and stool include:
Dietary choices: The food you eat directly impacts stool color and consistency. For example, green vegetables like broccoli can turn your stool green, while iron supplements may darken it.
Fiber intake: High-fiber diets rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains produce firmer, bulkier stool by absorbing water, which contrasts with the watery consistency seen in diarrhea. Conversely, diets heavy in meat and fats can lead to harder stool and frequent constipation.
Physical activity: Research indicates that regular exercise improves bowel movements, reducing the time food spends in the digestive system. However, it doesn't significantly affect stool weight.
Transit time: The length of time food spends in the digestive tract affects stool appearance. Longer transit times typically result in darker, harder stool, a common indication of prolonged constipation.
Do You Poop More When You’re Trying to Lose Weight?
Depending on the strategies you’re using to lose weight, you may or may not have more regular bowel movements.
Adopting healthier eating practices and integrating consistent exercise can indeed make a difference. A balanced diet and regular physical activity enhance bowel motility, leading to more efficient nutrient absorption and increased stool frequency.
Research comparing dietary impact on bowel movement frequency found that vegetarians often experience more regular movements than meat-eaters, and individuals engaging in vigorous exercise also tend to poop more regularly.
By comparison, attempting weight loss through unhealthy methods such as laxative use results in abnormally frequent pooping. Altered stool consistency that’s typically more watery is also seen in these cases and may fall into the diarrhea category on the BSFS mentioned above.
How Does Your Poop Change When You’re Losing Weight?
When pursuing weight loss through safe and healthy methods, it's common to notice changes in your stool, reflecting adjustments in your body's metabolism and dietary intake.
The external influences that affect your stool may come into play once you’ve adopted a different diet or lifestyle that prioritizes more fiber and fewer calories.
Aspects of your poop that may change when you’re trying to burn calories and lose weight include:
Frequency: Adopting a healthier lifestyle with improved dietary habits and increased physical activity can enhance your metabolism. This acceleration may lead to more frequent and regular bowel movements, as your body processes food more efficiently.
Consistency and color: Healthy stool is typically medium to dark brown, has a smooth texture, and is passed easily.
However, if you’ve started eating more whole, fresh foods as part of your new diet — especially fruits and vegetables with strong pigments like we mentioned earlier — this could affect the color of your stool.
Can Pooping Help You Lose Body Fat?
Although passing stool may momentarily make you feel lighter, the minor decrease in weight is negligible in the context of overall weight loss and will likely be regained with your next meal.
It's crucial to distinguish between temporary weight fluctuations and genuine fat loss. When we talk about weight loss, it’s not just the number on the scale we’re referring to.
Weight loss actually refers to fat loss, and more specifically, reducing subcutaneous fat, which is located under the skin – or visceral fat – which is found around your organs. These types of fat are not excreted through bowel movements.
Achieving actual fat loss involves a comprehensive approach that is not directly related to the frequency or volume of stool passed.
Where Can You Learn More About Proven Weight Loss Strategies?
If you are struggling with weight loss or are curious about how your digestive health influences your overall well-being, LifeMD may be able to help answer all of your questions.
With the LifeMD Weight Management Program, you’ll have access (if you qualify) to innovative GLP-1 medications like Ozempic, Wegovy, and others. The program approaches weight loss comprehensively, pairing medications with ongoing clinical support and care, lab testing, and information that will help you drop pounds.
LifeMD makes it easy to stay on top of your health because talking to a doctor, filling your prescriptions, getting your labs done—and more—are all easy and cost-effective. Come discover a healthcare solution built around you and your life.
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