Though you may feel lighter after a bowel movement, it doesn’t reduce body fat. To lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you consume by exercising and eating smaller, healthier meals.

Pooping is simple: When you do it, you’re getting rid of food that was in your body.

Is that why we feel lighter after doing our business?

Are we actually losing weight?

It turns out, yes.

The weight of your poop varies. It depends on several factors:

  • body size
  • eating habits
  • how much water you drink
  • bowel movement regularity

People with a higher body mass or people who have less-regular bowel movements, have heavier poops. If you eat or drink more, you’ll likely also poop more.

Though we only lose a little bit of weight when we poop, we may feel slimmer finally pooping after being constipated or after a large meal. This is because pooping reduces gas and bloating. This generally helps you feel more comfortable.

Poop is made mostly of water, but also contains:

  • dead and living bacteria
  • protein
  • undigested food (fiber)
  • waste material
  • salt
  • fat

The longer poop stays in the intestines, the drier and heavier it will become. While most people poop once a day, it’s considered normal to poop as frequently as three times a day or as little as once every three days.

Having very frequent, loose, watery stools is considered diarrhea. Diarrhea is usually caused by bacterial infections or stress and lasts several days. It can become dangerous when it lasts for weeks or more because it encourages water loss in the body.

People with diarrhea can lose a lot of weight if they’ve been sick for a while, but they’re losing mostly water weight.

We do lose a bit of weight when we poop, but it’s minimal. It also isn’t the kind of weight loss that really affects our health: body fat loss.

The fat that builds up around the waist is the most dangerous type of body fat. This fat is called visceral fat. It doesn’t lie beneath the skin like most fat on the body, called subcutaneous fat.

Instead, visceral fat is stored deep inside the abdominal cavity around the internal organs.

Visceral fat is associated with many serious health problems, from metabolic problems to increased risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. It’s also associated with breast cancer and gallbladder disease in women.

To lose body fat, you need to focus on burning more calories than you consume. You can do this through diet and exercise — not your bowel habits.

If you’re overweight or obese and want to shed pounds, start by adding exercise to your daily routine. Try to exercise moderately for 30 minutes a day, but start with smaller time chunks if this feels too much. Activities could include walking, swimming, biking, jogging, or lifting weights.

Getting enough exercise is also an important factor in keeping your bowel habits regular. You might see that you poop more often when you start an exercise routine.

While you might feel lighter after pooping, you’re not actually losing much weight. What’s more, when you lose weight while pooping, you’re not losing the weight that really matters.

To lose disease-causing body fat, you need to burn more calories than you consume. You can do this by exercising more and eating less.

Replacing the processed foods in your diet with high fiber foods can help you achieve your weight loss goals and reduce your risk of obesity-related disease.