Why Dietary Fiber Must be a Part of an Effective Health and Fat Loss Program

To eat your veggies or not eat your veggies…that is the question.

Children and parents alike sometimes find themselves struggling to eat a healthy amount of fiber rich vegetables.  You can’t get them at the fast-food joints, sandwich shops or any convenience store.

Yet vegetables and fruit, and the fiber they contain are paramount to health.  In this article we are not going to discuss the nutritional content of vegetables, that is well understood and goes without saying, but, we are going to discuss the value of dietary and supplemental fiber.

There have been more and more studies documenting the beneficial effects of high fiber diets.  Here are just a few, fiber…

• Increases your sense of feeling full (satiety), so that you control your hunger.
• Decreases Leptin resistance so that your hormones tell your brain that you are full appropriately.  So you don’t eat more than you should.
• Decreases your bad cholesterol and elevates your good cholesterol or HDL.
• Decreases markers for (CVD) cardio vascular disease.
• Buffers insulin responses and normalizes blood sugar levels.  Helps prevent spikes, resistance and all of the associated effects like low energy and mood swings.
• Increases the absorption and removal of toxins in the body.  As you lose weight – you release toxins stored in your fat cells, it is very important for health and well being that these toxins are removed quickly.  A toxic body will not burn fat efficiently!
• Increases your fat burning – butyric acid is released in association with the fiber…butyric acid accelerates fat metabolism.
• A boat load of studies shows us that when fiber intake increases, that the subjects lost the greatest amount of weight compared to isocaloric diets (same calories eaten) with less fiber.

So I think we can all agree that fiber is important for our purposes of getting healthier and losing unwanted pounds quickly.  It is incredible effective when eaten with lean protein.   So what are our sources?

Vegetables are the number one source, next comes enriching your food or protein shakes with supplemental fiber like psyllium or ispaghula husks, then comes fruit.  Fruit, because of it’s glycemic response should be eaten in a calculated way to maximize fat loss like right after your exercise. 

In these studies it was found that weight loss increased in direct proportion to the amount of dietary and supplemental fiber taken.  When considering how much you should eat.

Begin by eating all of the fresh vegetables that you can, then after a week or so start adding supplemental fiber into your shakes or meals. Add the fruit at the appropriate times…for example an avocado with breakfast or an apple right after a workout…and you should have the makings of a fast-track to health and fat loss!

Yours in health and weight loss,
Michael Mountain