I Spent Two Years Balancing My Feet on a Stack of Towels. Turns Out the Fix Was $25.
Sponsored by Squatty Potty
I Spent Two Years Balancing My Feet on a Stack of Towels. Turns Out the Fix Was $25.
This is a sponsored article. Brit + Co may earn a commission if you buy through our links. Not medical advice — individual results vary.
For about two years, my “system” was a bath towel folded into thirds, balanced under my feet, that slid out from under me roughly every third morning. Before the towel it was an upside-down storage bin. My mother-in-law swears by a repurposed milk crate. If any of this sounds unhinged, I have news: scroll the reviews on almost any toilet stool and you’ll find thousands of us confessing to the exact same thing — trash cans, gallon jugs, stacked books — all quietly trying to get our knees up.
Here’s the thing we were all fumbling toward without knowing it: your body isn’t built to do its business at a right angle. Sitting bolt upright at 90 degrees keeps a muscle called the puborectalis looped around the colon like a kink in a garden hose. Getting your knees up above your hips — a gentle ~35-degree lean — relaxes that muscle and straightens the hose. That’s the entire idea. It’s why the towel-under-the-feet instinct is right, and why doing it with actual towels is a mess.
1. It unkinks exactly what sitting all day kinks up
The Squatty Potty is a contoured stool that curves around the base of your toilet and lifts your feet into that ~35-degree squat — the position the towel pile was badly imitating. No batteries, no technique, no learning a new skill. You put your feet up and sit like you normally would. Most people notice the difference the very first time; the brand says for some it takes about a week to feel natural. It’s the original — the one from Shark Tank, now used by more than 8 million households.
2. If you started a GLP-1 this year, this one’s quietly for you
Nobody puts it on the pamphlet, but a huge share of people who start GLP-1 medications run straight into one well-known side effect: things slow way down. It’s one of the most common complaints on those meds, and it’s exactly the situation where getting your posture right does the most work. One reviewer summed it up in four words — “especially great when on GLP.” If that’s you, a $25 stool is a low-stakes thing to try before anything more drastic.
3. You’re probably already doing this — just with worse tools
If you’ve ever stacked towels, flipped a bin, or nudged a bathroom trash can into place, you’ve already run the experiment and gotten your answer. The stool just does it without sliding, looking ridiculous, or collapsing mid-use. Think of it as the retired-the-towels upgrade: same instinct, actually engineered for the job, with a grippy surface so your feet aren’t negotiating with a moving target. Honestly, it costs about what you’ve thrown at “temporary” fixes already.
4. It fits your bathroom and disappears when you’re done
The curved shape tucks flush around the base of the toilet, so it’s not a clunky box in the middle of the floor — it slides underneath and out of the sightline between uses. The 7″ height is the right starting point for a standard toilet (14–15.5″); if you’ve got a comfort-height toilet or you’re taller, the 9″ is the better match. Footprint is about 12.9″ deep by 20.9″ wide, so it fits most setups without a rethink.
5. No assembly, no manual, no learning curve
It arrives as one solid piece of easy-to-clean molded plastic rated to 350 lbs. There’s nothing to build and nothing to read — you slide it under the toilet, rest your feet on it, and that’s the entire onboarding. Wipe it down like anything else in the bathroom. The whole “getting started” phase is over in about four seconds.
6. 8 million households and a very tall stack of receipts
This is the part that made me stop improvising. The Original holds a 4.6-star average across more than 63,736 Amazon ratings, it’s a Shark Tank alum, and the brand notes it’s recommended by doctors. That’s not a scrappy newcomer — it’s the product everyone’s homemade version was trying to be. You can read the full rating breakdown yourself at the link.
See the 63,736 ratings on Amazon
7. It’s $25 — and here’s who it’s honestly NOT for
Real talk, because the reviews are candid: a few people find the foot pads spaced a little wide and end up resting their feet toward the middle. If you’re quite short, the 7″ can sit taller than you’d like against your knees — a couple of very petite reviewers wanted a 5″. And a handful reported cracking under heavier repeated use, so if you’re near the upper weight range, treat the 350 lb rating as a ceiling, not a target. For most people at a standard toilet, though, it’s a $24.99 fix for a problem you’ve been solving with laundry.
The verdict
I wasted two years and an embarrassing number of towels avoiding a $25 purchase. The Squatty Potty is just the properly-built version of a thing your body was already asking for — feet up, knees above hips, colon un-kinked. If you’ve ever rigged something under your feet in there, you already know the answer. Skip the milk crate.
Why trust Brit + Co: our editorial team highlights products we think are genuinely worth your time, based on features, verified reviews, and real-world use. Brands don’t decide what we recommend.
Category: Sponsored
This article is a paid partnership with Squatty Potty and contains affiliate links; Brit + Co may earn a commission on purchases. Product details, pricing, and ratings reflect the Amazon listing at time of publication and may change. This content is for general information only, is not medical advice, and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any condition. Individual results vary — consult a healthcare professional about your specific needs.