Fiber For Fat Loss

Can a high fiber diet contribute to fat loss? I get this question all the time with our BodyBlast Personal Training Clients. The Answer- Absolutely, a recent study concludes. In a “Continuing Study of Food Intake By Individuals”, researchers compared intake of calories, dietary fiber and other food consumption factors with body mass index on over 4,500 women aged 20 to 59. The women who consumed more dietary fiber were significantly less likely to be overweight than women who consumed little dietary fiber. Interestingly, eating a high fiber diet proved to be a far better approach than simply eating a low fat diet when it came down to both losing weight and avoiding gaining weight. For this reason, all BodyBlast nutrition programs are focused on fiber intake whether you are a personal training client or a group training client.

One of the reasons for this say nutrition experts, is that fiber moves fat through our digestive system faster and therefore less of it is absorbed. Still another related factor is that fiber fills our stomachs up much faster than many other foods and stays in our stomachs longer. Can you say... add lettuce to every meal! This succeeds in softening stools and slowing down stomach emptying, allowing for much better digestion and keeping us from becoming hungry at a much slower rate. So of course the obvious theory here is that the less hungry you are the less you consume, the less you gain, the more weight you lose, etc. Yet another related benefit of high fiber intake is that it helps to control blood sugar and insulin levels. A stable insulin level combats mood swings, food cravings, sudden fatigue and once again, since fiber stabilizes insulin, the body will burn fat for energy.

Now there are actually two kinds of fiber, known as soluble and insoluble. Soluble fiber dissolves in your intestinal tract and forms into a kind of gel that slows down digestion and contributes to that fullness associated with weight loss. Since soluble fiber binds with water to help create that soft mass or gel that in turn gives us that full feeling, experts recommend drinking plenty of water before and during meals.

“Insoluble fiber is the champion of the gastrointestinal tract,” states David Beck, MD, Chairman of colon and rectal surgery at the Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans. “It’s a good natural laxative because it holds onto water and moves waste quickly through the intestines.”

Soluble fiber comes from fruit, oats, barley and beans. Insoluble fibers can be found in vegetables, wheat and certain cereals. Both soluble and insoluble fiber are necessary for any healthy diet, but of course even more so and at higher levels for those seeking to lose fat.

Another recently published report claims that since high fiber foods have more texture this results in more chewing time, giving your body time to register that it is no longer hungry. So the texture of fiber slows down our intake and gives the brain a signal that the stomach is full. For textured, good tasting meals that fill us up faster, one diet expert suggests cooking whole wheat pasta “al dente” - meaning soft yet with some firmness - allowing the pasta to have a texture that offers some resistance to the teeth. Another suggestion is to cook vegetables just to the crisp stage, again contributing to slow chewing. Avoid the traditional white breads as much as possible, in lieu of the more healthy textured breads like pumpernickel, rye, muti-grain or whole wheat.

Not surprisingly, by sticking to a healthy high fiber diet for weight loss there is no longer any need to bother taking any of those additional non-food fiber supplements (in powder and pill form) so commonly found on drug store and supermarket shelves. Ask your BodyBlast personal trainer for more information about our high fiber, GI cleansing programs.

Stephen Williamson