The Role Fiber Plays in Your Weight Loss
Hey Angels and Alphas,
One of the simplest weight loss strategy tweaks out there that actually brings real results to people is a fairly simple one: just adding more fiber to their diet.
That’s right – when you’re dealing with weight loss, fiber is perhaps the most powerful nutrient you have at your disposal. Research has suggested that eating more fiber can help you lose weight in a variety of ways, both direct and indirect.
How?
Well, for one, fiber helps you stay satiated because your body can’t digest it as fast as, say, a gram of fat. Fiber fills you up quickly and keeps you satiated by slowing down your digestion, allowing food to enter your bloodstream at a much slower rate.
But not only is fiber great for its effects on the appetite, but it also has other benefits for people trying to lose weight.
And they all start in the gut.
What role does fiber play in your gut health?
Fiber is key for maintaining a healthy GI tract, which, in its own right, has shown to have massive positive effects on your weight. With about 100 trillion bacteria living just in your large intestine, it’s safe to say the organisms living inside your gut play a major role in various aspects of your health… including your weight.
Just like your body, your gut bacteria need to consume healthy nutrients so they can function optimally. When you’re eating soluble fiber, it will slowly travel through your digestive tract and reach your gut bacteria, where it is ultimately fermented and used for energy.
During this process, your body produces a fatty acid known as butyrate. Butyrate is essentially a short-chain fatty acid that improves the release of certain gut hormones that could ultimately help regulate your body’s insulin production and hasten the uptake of glucose in both fatty and muscle tissue.
This helps you manage your blood sugar levels, prevents weight gain, and as a whole, short-chain fatty acids also allow you to regulate fat metabolism by speeding up fat burning and eradicating fat storages. They will also help your cholesterol and lower inflammation levels throughout your body.
So how does fiber relate to belly fat?
Eating a variety of certain fermentable fibers will help ensure that you have more diversity in your gut microbiome. Some studies even suggest that people with a larger variety of bacteria living in their gut will have less visceral belly fat. One study even suggests that increasing your fiber intake by just 8-10 grams a day will decrease your risk of gaining belly fat!
And there’s also something to be said about cravings…
Fiber is a very powerful tool for stopping food cravings in their tracks and preventing them altogether. When you’re consuming refined carbs and foods high in sugar, this can cause post-meal dips and spikes in blood sugar which tend to leave you feeling like you’re craving for some sugar. But fiber is here to help balance those blood sugar levels and prevent these cravings from appearing.
When it comes to fiber, you have two options:
Fiber comes in two different forms: soluble and insoluble. Both of them play an important role in the way your body manages weight loss.
Soluble fiber will slow your digestive process – it mixes with water inside your digestive tract to form a gel. It also acts as a prebiotic, proving your gut bacteria with vital nutrients in a process known as fermentation.
Insoluble fiber, sometimes referred to as roughage, helps your body pass food through the digestive system more efficiently. This helps you maintain optimal gut health and prevents constipation. Insoluble fiber is not fermented by your body’s gut bacteria.
You can actually find soluble fiber in countless fruits and veggies, whole grains, beans, avocado, and more. Some great sources of insoluble fiber include fruits eaten with their skin, nuts, seeds, brown rice, celery, wheat bran, and more.
That’s why it’s no coincidence that diets that include those foods help you lose weight and prevent further weight gain.
What does all of this mean for you?
It means that, if you’re looking for an easy way to kickstart your weight loss, you can start adding fiber to your daily diet! This will help keep you satisfied and full between your meals, as well as support a healthy gut microbiome, turning it into one of the most powerful weight-loss tools at your disposal.
Fiber is perhaps one of the healthiest nutrients you can put in your body, directly linked to a lower risk of Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, insulin resistance (all of which can massively affect your weight.)
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