I’m a nurse — this is how your poop can impact weight loss

You are what you… poop out.

An Austin-based holistic nurse has gone viral after explaining how your bowel movements actually impact your weight.

“I bet you didn’t think your poops could affect your weight in a good way or a bad way — but they can,” Jonathan Mendoza, or “Nurse Doza,” explained in the TikTok, which has been viewed over 420,000 times.

“If your digestive tract is off in any way, your body is off, including your overall health,” the Texas-based health professional continued. “And let’s be honest, with weight gain, you really don’t have that in a healthy individual.”

On TikTok, he explained how “healthy poops” equate to weight loss, while “unhealthy poops” lead to weight gain.

According to Mendoza, weight gain is similar to when a joint gets inflamed after injury, likening “bad poop” to inflammation, which he says causes “havoc and dysfunction” in the body.

“Imagine if you have arthritis of your knee. Your knee is going to swell. That’s the problem right there,” he explained. “Well, imagine if you had arthritis of your belly.”


Screenshot of TikTok Nurse
Nurse Doza explained how your poop and indicate how your health is.
Tiktok/ Nurse Doza

Screenshot of TikTOk nurse.
He compared it to when a joint gets inflamed when injured.
Tiktok/ Nurse Doza

He used the example of someone who knows their lifestyle is to blame for their weight gain.

“Okay, well, where are you putting this lifestyle?” he asked. “You’re putting your lifestyle right here in your fat cells, and you’re putting it right here in your liver, and you’re causing them to become inflamed, which is causing you to become inflamed.”

He then notes that for a healthy person, the digestive tract is working properly once the food is eaten, digested, metabolized and then excreted.

“That’s exactly how health is supposed to work, right?” he said. “So if something gets backed up and it gets stored in my fat cells, my liver, it’s most likely because I couldn’t poop it out.”

He said he asks his patients how often they defecate a day as a way to assess their health.

“Don’t look at it just as weight gain,” he suggested. “Look at it as health. Because healthy poops are a sign of good health.”

The health professional then added that the focus on health should be healthy poops and what they mean.

“It’s a reason why we should talk about this,” he urged.

“You should be able to poop daily,” he added in his podcast The School of Doza. “You should be able to poop after meals. You should be able to poop first thing in the morning because your body’s relaxed.”