Are you a fan of dieting? Do you follow a fiber-rich diet? With all the hype regarding fiber, you probably know the many benefits of fiber to your health. But, did you know how fiber really works especially with regards to losing weight? Well, its really easy to say that fiber is a healthy choice but knowing the recommended daily fiber intake is another matter.
You need to learn about the fiber and the material. The understanding of the features of the Fat burner is essential for the people. A great help is provided to the individuals in the reduction of the weight according to it. It will provide you complete help in the reduction of the fat.
More than 48% of today’s world population are still not well educated about the importance of fiber in the body. In a recent health and medical research, women ages 22 to 50, are not getting the right recommended daily fiber than men. This results to a higher cases of heart disease, stroke, cancer and obesity. This article will give you different important information about the weight loss power of fiber.
Facts about Fiber
Fiber is a carbohydrate compound specifically found in plant-based foods. The thing is, fiber itself doesn’t provide any nutrition nor calories to our bodies and it cannot be digested. But despite these shortcomings, fiber is still beneficial and very important to our health. There are two main components of fiber -soluble and the insoluble fiber.
Soluble fiber are prebiotic (may be viscous) which is pre-fermented in the colon into gases and physiologically active byproducts. Insoluble fiber on the other hand is divided into two parts – fermented and bulking or metabolically inert fibers. Bulking fibers absorbs water as it passes thru the digestive system, easing defecation. Fermentable insoluble fibers are fermented in colon into gases but mildly promote regularity. These fibers are also physiologically active byproducts.
Other kinds of soluble fibers do absorb water to become gelatinous, a viscous compounds and is then fermented by bacterias in the digestive tract. Other types of insoluble fibers have bulking action and is not fermented. Lignin is one major type of insoluble fiber that can change the properties and metabolism of soluble fibers.
Dietary fibers helps keep our bowel movements regular and also improves our body’s defense system from harmful diseases. It acts by changing how the nutrients and other chemicals in the body are absorbed, promoting changes within the compounds inside the gastrointestinal tract. Carcinogens (harmful toxin compounds) for example inside our intestines binds into these fibers and moves through the colon more smoothly, reducing your risk for colon cancer and other intestinal diseases.
Fiber also greatly helps in lowering your cholesterol levels by transporting it out of your body in a much faster pace. This will result to a healthy heart, reduced risk of stroke and other serious diseases. So the more you eat fiber-based foods, the more you become healthier and fit. But how fiber helps in weight loss?
Can Fiber help you Lose Weight
More and more experts agree that the best health benefit of fiber is its slimming capabilities. While other benefits are well researched, fiber as a major factor for weight loss is still not yet fully understood. But lets see some in-depth look on how fiber can help aid weight loss.
Fiber primarily is the most dependable and natural appetite suppressant you could ever find in the world. Fortunately for us, it can be taken in most food products such as vegetables, brown and red rice, legumes, fruits and whole grain products. It can help you feel fuller in a much longer period of time because it stays in the stomach longer. This reduce the rate of your digestion which helps prevent unwanted snacking of junked foods.
Meat such as pork and dairy products have no fiber to offer. Refined grains also don’t have fiber as the refining process takes out its natural fiber content, which makes this products more tastier and delicious. Only organic and natural products have fiber and processed foods offers less of it. The more fiber, the more your chance of weight loss as they say.
Lack of Fiber means Health Disaster
Not getting the right daily fiber intake is not just harmful to your health, but it could highly lead to weight gain! Just think about those people who love processed foods, they surely have those extra bulges right? That is because of their unhealthy eating habits. If you ignore fiber into your diet, you will surely gain weight.
In America alone, over 39% of adults and 21% of children are considered obese – the worst in the world as of last year. The factors are too many such as less exercise but family history, but lack of fiber intake is one of the main culprit. Indulging from fast foods and other considered junk foods such as chips, cookies, crackers, commercial beverages, frozen desserts and many others can all spike your weight gain instantly and that is the case for most industrialized countries such as in the US.
Not only that, since being fat is a physical disease, it can lead to a more serious health complications. This includes organ problems, breathing problems, mobility issues, emotional dilemmas, stroke, diabetes, cancers, cardiovascular diseases and many more. Satisfying your appetite by too much eating and snacking is bad to your over all health.
So if you know that you are not getting any fiber on your diet, start a healthy change and motivate yourself to practice a healthy diet regime.
Fiber-rich Diet means health and fitness
As I have said earlier, fiber helps you to feel full for a longer period of time which lessens your probabilities of snacking in between meals and prevents you from overeating at the next meal. Otherwise, lack of fiber diet makes you to feel hungrier more often after meals, which triggers overeating and leads to weight gain.
Since fiber is indigestible, it passes through the digestive system unchanged, thus helping to clean your intestines of harmful toxin compounds such as cancer-causing carcinogens. It acts like a magnet which attracts all other molecules like sugar, carbs and fats along with their calories, then goes straight out of the body and prevents it from accumulating in the hips and other body parts.
As your daily fiber intake increases, your health risks of serious diseases will be reduced and your health will improve significantly. This includes diabetes, heart disease, cancers, cholesterol level and many others. How about weight gain? One of the primary roles of fiber is weight loss as it regulates your weight by cutting calorie absorption and helps boosts your metabolism. This is the reason why most dietitians suggests whole grain foods, vegetables and fruits, because it all have fiber content. Fiber can help you lose weight and get in shape fast.
Why people still struggles in losing weight
Many people asks why they are still having difficulties in managing their weight despite their dieting efforts. Well, the answer could be the diet itself. Many people thought that restricting too many food groups in their diet will help them lose weight. While this is possibly true, it will not actually last long and will even promote health risks in the long run. I have saying this trick over and over again in this site that fad diets are not good for long term use, instead it only promotes short-term weight loss.
You have to think out of the box. Fiber provides the best benefits for your health such as disease protection and slimming abilities. But do you only want that? What about nutrients and muscle building processes? As I have said in my introduction, fiber does not offer any nutrition nor calories whatsoever, which means that taking only fiber-rich foods is not a “balanced” diet so it is not over all healthy for you.
This is also the reason why so many fad diets failed because people focus only on fiber. Remember that fiber is just a good addition to your eating program, not as the only solution for weight gain or health issues. Balanced diet is still the key to a successful weight management. When you say balanced, you add some protein, fats, carbohydrates and other food groups into your diet.
How to take Advantage of a Healthy Fiber Diet
To get all the benefits of a fiber diet, you highly need to consider the volume of your daily fiber intake. Health experts suggests that you need to start with a 25 grams per day of fiber regardless of sex and age. You have to increase that number up to 37 grams per day especially if you are overweight or already aging. Researches have discovered the amazing power of fiber once you reached this volume – a whooping 245 calories excretion. This means that if you can consistently manage to add 37 grams per day of fiber into your normal diet, you can definitely lose weight.
Another way to enjoy the taste of whole grain-fiber products is to use a variety of foods. You need to be creative when it comes to your meals such as combining different food groups with fiber-rich foods. Also, legumes, whole wheat pastas, oats and other fiber-rich foods are great for snacking so don’t let up of the good foods. You won’t just enjoy your meals thoroughly but you will also get all of fiber’s health benefits.
If you are health conscious, you can also monitor your fiber and calorie intake by looking at the food labels of your favorite commercial products. There are an increasing selection of “healthy” products in the market today due to the fact of the growing health demands of the public. As an alternative, you can enjoy sugary cereals, healthy beverages, breads and even chips that are all loaded with fiber. Of course not all are serious about it as most of them are just for the profit. So it is important to look at the label to make sure that you are getting your required daily fiber needs.
Take more fiber and lose weight
Both nutritionists and dietitians agree that fiber is a gift of nature for human health. Yes, fiber can help you lose weight, fast! Take advantage of the many benefits of fiber and add some sizzles by combining other types of foods for maximum health. Add some more fiber into your diet from these information and have an enjoyable healthy life!