Anyone who has ever been enjoying a morning run when the sudden urge to use the bathroom hits knows that exercise plays a role in our poop schedules.
But just how influential is it? Researchers studied the physical activity levels and bowel movements of 50 adults to find any potential associations between exercise levels and how long it took food to make its way through their digestive systems. Their results were recently published in The Journal of Nutrition.
They found that more time spent performing light activity was associated with increased whole gut transit time (the time it takes food to pass fully through your body, from ingestion to pooping) and colonic transit time (the time it takes food to pass through the colon). Food spends the most time in the colon during the digestive process, usually between 10 and 59 hours.
The amount of time it takes to fully digest food differs greatly from person to person. It’s generally considered normal for food to take 10 hours to 73 hours1 to pass through your body.
What you eat plays a huge role in the digestive process, too. Simple carbohydrates like white bread move through your system much quicker than fiber-dense complex carbohydrates such as those found in vegetables and oats. That’s why fiber-filled foods keep you full so much longer than sugary snacks. Fats and proteins also take longer to digest.
