By Mike, The SugarFreeMan
Founder of SugarDetox.com and the 30-Day Sugar Freedom Challenge
If you’re going to the bathroom 20 times a day to urinate but can’t have a bowel movement for four or five days, sugar is probably the reason. I know because I ask every single person I work with about this – and the pattern is almost universal.
This article was review by Dr. Camela McGrath, MD, FACOG. Find more about her here
The Two Things Nobody Connects to Sugar
When someone comes to me struggling with sugar, I ask them two questions early on that always catch them off guard.
“How often are you going to the bathroom to urinate?” And: “How often are you having a bowel movement?”
The first answer is usually “all the time.” The second is usually “not very often.” Sometimes once every three or four days. Sometimes five.
Most people don’t connect either of those things to what they’re eating. They’ve been living with it so long it feels normal. It’s not.
Frequent urination and chronic constipation showing up together is a pattern – and sugar is almost always sitting at the center of it.
One of the known symptoms of diabetes is frequent urination. The body is trying to process and excrete excess glucose through the kidneys, and that takes a lot of fluid. What I see in the people I work with is the same thing, just earlier in the process – before anyone has slapped a diagnosis on it. The body is under the same kind of stress. It’s working overtime to clear something out.
Actionable step: For one week, write down how many times you urinate in a day and how many bowel movements you have. Be honest with yourself. If your urination count is in the double digits and your bowel movements are fewer than one per day, that’s data worth paying attention to.
What’s Actually Happening Inside
Here’s the mechanism as I understand it, and I’ll be straightforward – this is based on my own observations and the work of researchers like Dr. Robert Lustig, who has written extensively about sugar as a metabolic toxin.
When the body is working to flush excess sugar, it pulls a significant amount of water to do the job. The kidneys need fluid to filter and excrete. The result is that you’re drinking more, urinating more, and the rest of your system is running dry.
The bowel needs water to function properly. Stool that forms without enough moisture becomes hard and difficult to move. You end up constipated not because your digestive system is broken, but because the available water in your body is being redirected.
This is why the standard advice – “drink more water” – doesn’t fully fix it. You can drink a lot of water and still be running a deficit if your body is constantly diverting it to manage a sugar load.
The body is prioritizing the removal of what it considers the more urgent problem. The constipation is a downstream effect of that prioritization.
Research published through the NIH has linked fructose malabsorption specifically to gastrointestinal symptoms including bloating, altered bowel habits, and IBS-like presentations. The gut simply isn’t built to handle the amounts of fructose that show up in a standard modern diet – especially from added sugars and high-fructose corn syrup. (Source: NIH – Fructose Malabsorption and Gastrointestinal Symptoms)
Actionable step: If you have a diagnosis of IBS or have been told you have a “sensitive gut,” try removing added sugar completely for 30 days before assuming you need medication or a special diet. Track what changes.
IBS: The Diagnosis That Often Misses the Cause
IBS is a catch-all. It covers constipation, diarrhea, alternating between both, bloating, cramping. When someone gets that diagnosis, what they usually get along with it is a list of foods to avoid and maybe a prescription.
What they rarely get is someone asking them how much sugar they consume.
I’ve worked with people who had IBS for years – who had tried elimination diets, probiotics, fiber supplements, prescription medications – and who got better when they removed sugar. Not every single case. But often enough that it shouldn’t be ignored.
The gut lining is sensitive to what passes through it. Fructose in particular, when it reaches the large intestine unabsorbed, feeds bacteria and produces gas and disrupts normal motility. That’s not a theory – that’s documented in gastroenterology research. (Source: Harvard Health – What is IBS?)
The problem is that the standard medical approach is to manage symptoms. Remove the thing causing the symptoms and you don’t need to manage them.
Actionable step: If you’re managing IBS with medication or supplements, don’t stop them abruptly – but add “remove all added sugar” to your protocol and see what shifts in 3-4 weeks. Give it time. The first week or two of detox can temporarily make things worse before they stabilize.
The Detox Phase Is Real – Don’t Let It Fool You
When people first remove sugar, digestion doesn’t immediately normalize. There’s an adjustment period that can run anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks depending on how heavily someone was consuming sugar and fructose.
Some people experience more bloating. Some experience looser stools early on. Some experience cramping. This is the body recalibrating, not the removal of sugar making things worse.
Getting through the first two weeks without interpreting the discomfort as failure is one of the most important things someone can do.
After that window, what I see consistently is that things settle. Bowel movements become regular. The constant urination decreases. Thirst normalizes. The person stops feeling like their body is running some kind of inefficient, leaky system – because it no longer is.
I spent years knowing where every accessible bathroom was in any building I entered. My friends at the time thought it was funny. “You pee a lot for someone who doesn’t drink,” one of them used to say. It was true, and I didn’t have an explanation for it then. I do now.
Actionable step: If you’re in the early days of removing sugar and your gut is behaving strangely, don’t panic and don’t reverse course. Keep a brief daily log of symptoms. Compare week one to week three. The trajectory matters more than any single day.
What “Regular” Actually Looks Like
This is worth saying plainly because a lot of people have been constipated for so long they’ve forgotten what normal function feels like.
A healthy bowel movement frequency is generally considered to be anywhere from three times a day to three times a week, with once daily being common. Stools should be soft, formed, and pass without significant effort.
If you’re on day four or five with nothing happening, that’s not your baseline – that’s a symptom.
Urination frequency that’s healthy for most adults is somewhere between six and eight times in a 24-hour period. If you’re going significantly more than that and you’re not just drinking unusual amounts of fluid, your kidneys are working overtime on something.
When sugar comes out of the picture, both of these tend to normalize on their own. No laxatives. No specialty supplements. No gut-reset protocols. The system just… starts working the way it was supposed to work, because the thing that was disrupting it is gone.
If You’re Ready to Actually Fix This
The people who go through my 30-Day Sugar Detox Challenge don’t just get their digestion back. They stop the constant mental math around food. They stop negotiating with themselves after every meal. They wake up in the morning without that groggy, heavy pull toward something sweet just to get started.
That’s what’s waiting on the other side of this – not deprivation, just a body that’s working normally again. The program is $19.97 and you can start whenever you’re ready: SugarDetox.com
About the Author
Mike Collins, known as “The SugarFreeMan,” has been sugar-free for over 35 years and is the founder of SugarDetox.com. He has helped over 60,000 people break free from sugar addiction through decades of personal experience and practical, no-nonsense guidance.
Medical Disclaimer
This article is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice. Always consult with a healthcare provider before making significant dietary changes, especially if you have underlying health conditions.
FAQ
Q: Can sugar cause constipation? A: Yes. When the body processes excess sugar, it pulls fluid toward the kidneys to help excrete it. This can leave the large intestine without enough moisture to form soft stools, resulting in constipation. Removing added sugar often resolves chronic constipation without any other intervention.
Q: Why do I urinate so frequently when I eat a lot of sugar? A: The kidneys work to filter and excrete excess glucose from the bloodstream, and that process requires significant fluid. Frequent urination – sometimes 20 or more times per day – is a sign the body is under metabolic stress from sugar load. It’s also a recognized early symptom pattern associated with insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.
Q: Is IBS related to sugar consumption? A: For many people, yes. Fructose – found in added sugars and high-fructose corn syrup – is poorly absorbed by the small intestine in large amounts. When it reaches the large intestine unabsorbed, it disrupts gut bacteria and motility, producing symptoms that mirror IBS. Many people with an IBS diagnosis see significant improvement after removing sugar.
Q: How long does it take for digestion to normalize after quitting sugar? A: The first one to two weeks can be uncomfortable as the body adjusts. After that, most people notice bowel movements becoming more regular and urination frequency decreasing. Meaningful normalization typically happens within three to four weeks for people who remove added sugar completely.
Q: What counts as normal bowel movement frequency? A: According to Mayo Clinic guidelines, anywhere from three times a day to three times a week is considered within a normal range, with once daily being most common. Stools should pass without significant effort and be soft and formed. Going four or five days without a bowel movement is not a baseline – it’s a symptom.
Q: Does drinking more water fix constipation caused by sugar? A: Not fully. While hydration matters, the underlying issue is that the body is diverting available water to process and excrete excess sugar through the kidneys. Drinking more water helps, but it doesn’t address the root cause. Removing the sugar load allows fluid to be distributed normally throughout the body, which is what actually resolves the constipation.
