The Magic of Fiber

Protein gets a lot of attention in the fat loss world, but what about fiber??
This short and sweet episode breaks down the importance of fiber for weight loss goals! The reality is, most people are not getting enough fiber. Hopefully after this episode you will better understand how to increase your intake and get some great benefits.

If you have questions, or topics that you want to hear about, head over to our Instagrams https://www.instagram.com/nucrewnutrition/ or https://www.instagram.com/brianna.dietitian/ and send us a DM!

If you are interested in working with us in Metabolism Makeover you can sign up here! https://metabolismmakeover.co/programs/metabolism-makeover/earlybird/?affiliate=mocktailminutes

Featured Mocktails:
Olipop - https://www.instagram.com/drinkolipop/



**Disclaimer: this podcast is for educational purposes only. Please talk with your healthcare provider before incorporating any changes into your daily routine**

Click play, sip back, and be empowered.

Transcript

0:22

Hi everyone. Welcome back to this week's episode of Mocktail Minutes. This is Brianna riding solo today. Miss Bailey is out soaking up all her new baby Ganon snuggles. So if you haven't congratulated her yet, make sure that you head over to her page and do that. But today I am drinking Ollie pop because I thought it was very fitting for today's topic. So I'm doing the strawberry vanilla flavor. It's one of my favorites. My absolute favorite is watermelon lime. I can never find it and when I do I make sure that I get a couple because They're delicious. So today we're talking about fiber for weight loss and really just fiber in general. So you've probably heard of it, but what is fiber? So fiber is basically the indigestible part of carbohydrates that our body cannot break down. So it's actually a prebiotic. It feeds the good bacteria in our gut. So fiber also does. A lot of other things. And after I kind of tell you a few of these things, it's going to kind of click as to maybe why it's beneficial if you are on a weight loss journey or really just a health journey, but it is very helpful for weight loss. So fiber helps to slow down the digestion of carbohydrates. So it really does help to keep our blood sugar stable. So Instead of it just, you know, hitting and us having a spike, it really helps to slow down that spike. So this is why we are constantly preaching pair your carbohydrates. with really any other nutrient, but fiber is very beneficial. So it helps to keep your blood sugar stable in that way. Insoluble fiber specifically has been known to help with insulin resistance. So if you are someone who has diabetes or maybe PCOS, or just know that you have insulin resistance, you've gotten your fasting insulin tested and it is elevated. It can be very helpful for you to increase your fiber. Fiber also helps to keep you feeling fuller longer. So this can help to reduce cravings. Again, great for weight loss. Fiber is also heart healthy because it helps to remove your LDL or your bad cholesterol from your arteries. So if you've been to your doctor and they tell you, Hey, you're, you know, your LDL is elevated a great lifestyle. change to kind of make is to increase your fiber to really start to be intentional with and then getting fiber at every meal because that is going to help lower that. It also helps to keep digestion and your bowel movements regular. So it really does help with constipation. If you are someone who is not having a bowel movement at least one time every single day, the first thing I'm going to have you look at is fiber because you're probably not getting enough. We really do need fiber to help. us have those bowel movements. And I know everyone's regimens are a little bit different. But really you should be pooping at least one time a day. And I always am so surprised. When I work with clients and they're like, Oh, TMI, TMI, I'm like, this is what dietitians do. I talk about everything that goes in. I talk about how it goes through. We've been talking about how it comes out. Okay. So poop every day, fiber helps with that. And the other thing that it does, it helps to maintain good gut bacteria, which we're learning so much about the gut microbiome, but we know that that helps with immunity. It helps with so many processes in the body. So help keep your gut happy. Eat fiber. And lastly, it really is a form of detox or it helps with a form of detox. I would say pooping is a form of detox because it's one of the ways that we excrete waste and toxins. And so again, keeping those regular bowel movements is going to kind of help with that pathway. So the current USDA recommendations for fiber is like 25 grams for women and 38 for men. And I believe it's higher because of the prevalence of colon cancer just being higher in males and fiber does help to protect from colon cancer. I guess that's another, that's another benefit. So I would assume that's why it's higher for men. But really 25 for women. 38 for men, or some people break it down to 15 grams of fiber per every thousand calories that you eat. So, you know, 25 doesn't sound like a lot, right? But it's. It's thought that, or it's not even thought we know this, we have, we have data that shows about only 10 percent of Americans are getting their daily recommended. intake of fiber that is crazy low. And honestly, we know that the average American gets around 10 to 15 grams a day. So, you know, if you're to think about like, Oh, 15, 14 grams per every thousand calories, most people are eating more than a thousand calories. If not, you absolutely should be. So it's, we're just not consuming a lot. And I think really why is we're not really taught a lot about fiber. We're not really taught what foods it's in. Yeah. And if you kind of look again, I'm always going to go back to my conspiracy theories, not even conspiracy theories, but just like, let's look at how everybody's diet patterns are. Most of the popular diets. are very low in fiber, you know? So if you're thinking like keto, anything, low carb, keto, carnivore, low in fiber, minimal, very low. And then if you're just thinking about being scared about carbs in general, maybe you've really pulled back on your carbs. You're going to have low fiber. If you're scared of fruit, low fiber. If you don't eat things like beans or bread, grains, low fiber, right? So. A lot of times we end up in this place where we're not getting an adequate nutrients because we're trying to be more health conscious, right? We're trying to, you know, maybe lose weight or, you know, eat healthier or follow some sort of trend on the internet that like claims to have all these benefits. And in doing so we kind of like work against ourselves, right? So you're not alone if this is you. Most people are not getting enough fiber. And I think it's not talked about enough, especially when you want to lose weight, because we focus a lot on protein. And again, I'm always going to be protein forward. I think that that's a very good first step to really help you with weight loss, help you get mindful of your food really kind of help silence some of that food noise because it is satiating, but in doing so we kind of forget. The other nutrients that are super, super important. And if you are eating a lot of protein and maybe you're eating a lot of protein, but still low calorie, it's going to be hard to get in fiber because you're going to be full. You're going to kind of miss out on that because you are full. And so. There's some clients that I work with individually that I kind of take a look at their macronutrient breakdown. And for some of them, I haven't pulled back a little bit on protein because I don't want them being so full that they're missing out on fiber because it has so many great benefits. So sidebar anyways, what I'm going to recommend is 25 to 30 minutes. As a good general goal for some people starting point again, I work with mostly women. So obviously I'm not going to say, Hey, a goal for a male is 30. If I know that for sure, the recommend the recommended amount was 38. Right. But I would say most people are not even getting anywhere near that. So a good starting goal would be 25 to 30 unsupplemented. Why? Because Of course, it would be easy just to go get like a fiber powder and be like, yeah, I'm taking my benefit fiber, Metamucil boom done. But I really want you focusing on whole food sources because you're going to get all the other nutrients that come with eating the fruits, the roots, the beans, the grains, vegetables. I want you eating those. Okay. So the thing with fiber, and I guess let me back up is there's two forms of fiber, really I guess three, if you wanted to get on the tangent of like fiber resistant starch, not going to do that today. I'm just going to do insoluble and soluble fiber. So you need both. And a lot of the foods that contain fiber do contain both. So as long as you're just trying to be fiber forward, you're probably going to be okay. But insoluble fiber, we don't break it down, so it adds bulk to our stools and it kind of keep things running smoothly through our digestive tract. These are things like grains, beans, roots, nuts, skins of vegetables, skins of apples. Avocado. For those of you who don't know, avocado is a great source of fiber. That's always one that I feel like people can get down with. And then you have soluble fiber and this basically dissolves in water and it turns into a gel in our digestive tract. And these are going to be in things like oatmeal, bananas, and that's psyllium husk psyllium husk. If you do need to supplement, I would say that's a great place to start. And it's usually tasteless, so you can add it to things. You can add it to smoothies. Do you know that it's again, it turns into a gel, right? So it's going to make things jelly. So I'd say add a little bit of extra fluid or liquid into your protein. Smoothie. Why am I having a hard time talking today into your smoothie? If you want to add it in, because if you just do your normal amount of liquid, it's going to be very thick. So something with fiber is you want to make sure you kind of increase it low and slow. So Too much fiber too quickly is going to give you some GI discomfort. So where I recommend people start is, you know, using a piece of paper and kind of just tracking how much fiber they're getting in every day. So maybe do this for a few days. I guess technically you could use like a food tracking app if you wanted to, but I don't know. You also don't have to. So I usually just have people get a piece of paper. Kind of write out what they're having at meals. And then I have them actually look for how much fiber is in those meals because, or in those foods, because I think it's very helpful to know what you're eating and how are you going to know that if you don't look it up? You know, I think sometimes we hold this against ourselves, like, Oh, I just don't know. But it's like, of course you don't know, like, let's educate ourselves. So, you know, if you're having two pieces of toast at breakfast and you're having, Some strawberries and you know, whatever else you're having, write it down and then look, look at the back of your food label on your bread. How much fiber is in a slice of my bread? You know, look up strawberries. Google is great. How much fiber in a half cup of strawberries or whatever it is that you're eating and just make a note of it on that piece of paper. And then you kind of can see what is like my estimate kind of starting point for how much fiber I'm already eating. And then I would recommend. Depending on where you're at. Kind of going Adding two to five grams a day for about a week or so. And then increasing. Cause what's going to happen is if you just jump too quickly, you're going to have that GI discomfort, maybe you're going to feel that constipation, or you're going to have really bad blow or maybe diarrhea, right? Your, your GI tract just isn't used to that much at a time. And this is where a lot of people will be like, Oh, That means I can't have it. My body just doesn't do well with fiber. I actually hear this so often. My body doesn't do well with fiber. I'm like, well, what you probably did was you went from eating very, very minimal, like five, seven, 10 grams of fiber a day. And you decided to have your daily amount at one meal, you know, like this is where, and I've seen so many funny Tik Toks about them, but for like these little Ollie pops right here. If you look at them, right? And I think this is psyllium husk, right? I should know that. Oh, cassava root fiber, trickery root, inulin. Okay. All kinds of fiber in here, right? But these are nine grams of fiber. So, so, so if you are like tossing these back and you're not used to fiber, you're going to feel really cruddy. And this is where I, again, I work with a lot of clients and, you know, they'll start to be mindful of like, Ooh, they're starchy carbs. And maybe they're doing some swaps, you know, maybe they're doing like a lower carb wrap. Right. So for lunch, they're having a low carb wrap, which is usually high in fiber, which is why it's low in carbs. Right. Cause remember, we don't digest that form, that part of the carbohydrate, if you will, that's a very simplified way to put that, but we don't digest it. So they're low carb. Because we're not digesting all of it. So they're high fiber. And so maybe your wrap has 12 grams of fiber in it. And then you mixed it with some other, you know, maybe some cucumbers or whatever it is. And then you had an Ollie pop. And so just your wrap and your Ollie pop alone was like over 20 grams of fiber. And it was so much more than you were used to. Yes, you're not going to feel great. So then you're like, Oh, it doesn't work for me. Fiber isn't a thing. Like I can't, my body just doesn't tolerate it. And we're very quickly to be like, it doesn't agree with my body, but it does. You just have to do it slower. So this is why I like to say, instead of just blindly being like, increase your fiber, which is good advice. But I'm going to, I'm here to walk you through it because I want you to be able to stick with this and apply and find something that works for you, see where you're at. And then we're going to increase it two to five grams a day, about a week. And then we'll up that a little bit. So that's going to kind of help get your body used to that amount of fiber, keep everything running smoothly, keep you feeling good. The other thing that's very important is to make sure that your water intake. With the increased fiber is good. You want to increase your water intake with your increase of fiber because again, we're keeping everything going. That's a mistake. I also see people make is they're still drinking like really low amount of water, increasing fiber. We need both. And then you can do something like. You know, to help your digestion, maybe a post meal walk, which is also great for blood sugar, but it kind of helps get things going. You know, there's a couple of clients that I have that maybe like really struggle with constipation. And as soon as I have them taking this post meal walks, they're noticing like, Oh, I'm very regular. Now I eat, I go for my walk and I have a bowel movement and that's like my thing. And they love it because suddenly they're not constipated or feeling bloated. So if this is you on your journey of increasing fiber, take a little five minute. 10 minute post meal walk. The other thing that I don't think is talked about enough, especially right now where we are in the GLP one craze, especially for weight loss is fiber does help to stimulate that GLP one that we have in the gut. So that is a normal thing that we already have in our bodies. And if you didn't, was it last week's episode, we talked all about GLP ones with Dr. Kristin Oja. You'll kind of learn more if you wanted to learn more about those, but we make GLP one in our body, but everybody makes a little bit different amounts. And for some people, especially those with insulin resistance, maybe they make a lot less. So increasing fiber really does help that natural secretion of that GLP one. And that's really the goal we want. We want our bodies working optimally. So again, when we're talking about fiber for weight loss. Increasing fiber can help that GLP 1 secretion, in turn help with insulin and blood sugar. And help you lose weight amongst all the other things that I talked about. So I wanted to talk about foods that are high in fiber very quickly. So avocados, Again, that's one nobody thinks about. And I love throwing that one out there because most people will eat avocado unless you're someone who's like, I don't get it. It's you're either love them or you don't. So if you love them, great, great way to add in fiber. Nuts, seeds, chia seeds are one of my favorite because they're relatively tasteless. You can add them on onto like a yogurt bowl, cottage cheese into smoothies. into oats, literally anything you want. So those chia seeds along with other seeds, vegetables with stocks. So, you know, like your broccoli, your cauliflower, your Brussels sprouts, things like that. Really all vegetables are great. I will say not lettuce so much. And I think this is where people get, maybe they think they're eating a lot of fiber because they're like, Oh, I have a salad every day. Bye. Lettuce is not very high in fiber. Lettuce or spinach or arugula, anything like that is not high in fiber, but it is really high in micronutrients. So I don't think it's something you should like cut out. I would just say, okay, add some chickpeas or black beans or something to that salad that you're already eating. That way you can still get all those great micronutrients. You're still eating foods you enjoy and you're increasing that fiber. So vegetables. whole grains, lentils, beans, berries. So strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, any other area for apples with the skin root vegetables, especially if you keep the skin on. So, you know, maybe you're making some potatoes. Keep the skin on. It's okay to eat the skin. Kiwis, I didn't put that on my list, but Kiwis are great source of fiber and they're great for gut health. We actually have a episode on that as well with Rachel. She's kind of like one of our gut health experts that we have inside metabolism makeover. And she went into talking about like how beneficial it is to have a Kiwi for your gut health. So Kiwi what else? basically think everything that comes from the ground. Okay. It's going to have some sort of fiber in it. And again, kind of check in with yourself. How much am I eating a day? And then how should I increase Again, two to five grams per day for like a week or so. And then increase from there. There is no upper limit for fiber. We do have some studies that are like, you know, 70 might be kind of where it's at 70, but I'm going to, you're probably not going to eat 70 grams of fiber a day. So I would say. Because the other question I get is, then what's a good amount? Again, I'm going to say really, you know, having that goal for women be 30. I think that's great. I think if you can go up from there, perfect. But the biggest kind of caveat I want you guys to take away is when it comes to fiber, we really want to try to be consistent with it. So we don't want days where We are eating 15 grams of fiber. And then another day where we're eating 30 or 35 grams of fiber and like really going back and forth. That's what causes that GI upset that GI discomfort. So I would say find a happy spot and be consistent with it. And it would really say like. For most people. And again, there's different disease states or GI issues that might mean that you have to kind of manipulate fiber differently. And so I would say definitely work with a dietitian to see like what's a good amount for you. But for the general, just a, let me throw out a blanket statement. I think 25 is a great goal to be like for a minimum. And then again, adjust from there. But I would say anything you can be consistent with. So if you know, you know why I can get in 30 grams of fiber a day. There's days that I could get much higher, but no matter what I'm doing, I can kind of get in the 30 grams, even when I'm traveling, when I'm on vacation, when I'm whatever it is, I would say that's a great goal for you to keep things consistent. And then that could be a place where you can slowly build up your skills to increase. Later on where you're now I'm getting 35 grams of fiber, even while traveling that sort of thing, because where we're having like a lot of that GI discomfort when it comes to fiber is the drastic swings when we're going really low one day, really high one day. And so I would say pick a number that you can be consistent with to kind of keep your gut and everything happy. So again, fiber extremely important. I don't know if you know by now, but all of the nutrients are important and eating a balanced diet is extremely important. So think about ways that you can add in fiber, see how you can work it up. That's good for you. If you want a fancy little fiber tracker or a fiber guide, you can always DM me and I will give you a free one that I have, but really you could just use good old Google or a food tracker or a pen and paper. So hopefully this helps. I'll be back next week to chat with you guys.. If you have questions, send me a DM. I have a new Instagram handle and I feel like it's such a big change in my life, but really it's not. But my new Instagram handle is Brianna dot dietitian on Instagram. So you can always ask me questions there. You can leave comments on Spotify or Apple podcasts, or if you're ever on YouTube listening, drop a question in the comments and we will answer you. All right, guys. Have a good one.