Gallery: 5 Foods That Make It REALLY HARD To Poop

What happens in your bathroom is your business. We’ll be the first to say that. But because we want you to live a long and healthy life, we do wanna (kinda) know how things are going in there. 

You know, if you’re constipated. If you haven’t have a bowel movement (at least) once a day, if you’re bloated, if your stools are small and/or hard, if you’re straining to go (which can lead to hemorrhoids—yuck!) or you do go but it feels like there’s some crap, literally, that’s still up in there—these are all signs that you probably are constipated.

There are all sorts of causes of this. Two big ones are not drinking enough water and eating the wrong types of foods. If it’s been really hard to poop lately, before taking a laxative, see if you’re consuming too much of the foods in this article.

Sometimes just adding more fiber (leafy greens, beans, berries, pears, whole wheat pasta, oatmeal and flaxseed) may be just what you need to get your bathroom visits back on track.