Fiber - The Unsung Hero
For what feels like years, protein has been the forefront of the macro conversation. We have heard over and over about how, especially as women, we need to be eating what feels like a million grams of protein. We see IG posts about lunches packed with protein, we read articles about how protein will keep our muscles from the natural atrophy process of aging, and we see the gram content of protein highlighted on almost all products on the shelves of our favorite grocery stores.
I am sure that we are all in the same boat when we have heard the demonization of carbohydrates in all of the messages bombarding us as well. From those on a Keto diet to the more historical Atkins diet, carbs have been the enemy for as long as I can remember. I ate buckets of bacon and meat in high school, hoping to shed some pounds when I shouldn’t have been worried about my diet at all. (How often would all of us wish we could go back to our younger bodies that we once thought were “fat”?!)
What we don’t hear about enough, though, is fiber. I heard about fiber from one of my top-10 IG content creators, SarahHill920 about 6 months ago. I first heard from her about how adding fiber to her diet helped her weight loss and has been a key part of her weight management. I dove deep into her fiber highlight, eyes now wide open about the importance of this unsung hero.
Fiber, per Google, promotes a feeling of fullness, lowers cholesterol levels, helps to control blood sugar, feeds the good bacteria within our gut microbiome, and helps the body absorb other essential nutrients from food. All of these things, along with the promise that it can aid in weight management interested me.
Side note on carbs vs. fiber: if you’re looking at labels, total carb content - fiber content = net carb content. I’ve never known this and only pushed foods away based on the total carb content thinking that it would add to my waistline.
Now, let me get this out into my website ether: I don’t have weight to lose. That isn’t currently the journey that I am on, but I have in the past. And it made me wonder if I had prioritized fiber instead of Lean Cuisine meals (or other weight loss fads) back then, would my process have been less painful than it was. However, I am continuing to search for ways to help me be healthier from the inside out, aging in the smoothest way possible.
With everything I had learned, I took to the internet, searching for quantities of fiber that I should be consuming based on my height and weight, my goals, and some of my current health indicator levels. I saw some articles and calculators that indicated I should be consuming up to 80 grams per day. I also found resources that told me I needed less than 20 grams. (Isn’t this the problem with the internet - you can never quite figure out what is “truth”?!) So, as I usually do, I decided to land somewhere in the middle and my current goal is 30 grams per day.
If you’re just started to focus on fiber in your diet, take caution: PLEASE START SLOW. If you forge ahead and get 30g the first day, you will be uncomfortable. All of that fiber will make you feel VERY full and you will have some stomach discomfort. Usually these initial negative side effects can make you revert back to your old habits before you ever reap the rewards of your new focus. So, I started with focusing on 10 grams, and slowly raising that until I ended up at 30.
I knew that I needed some foods that I could include in my daily routine easily that give me good bumps of fiber content without having to focus on it constantly. I also knew that I needed to start my day with as much as I could so that I wouldn’t have to be shoving apples down my throat at 9pm (when you first start eating fiber, you will find that you are having to force yourself to eat in order to hit your quantity for the day, and that’s not usually what I want to do right before bed). Lastly, if you cook at home a lot like I do, it’s almost impossible to find the exact quantities of any macro to the T, so having some fiber tricks in the book help.
Here are my favorites:
Apples: 4.4g
Grape-Nuts cereal: 7g per 1/2 cup serving (and even better if you eat it with some greek yogurt for added protein!)
Carb-Balance Mission Tortillas: 17g per 1 tortilla (add some scrambled eggs with cheese for a breakfast burrito!)
I truly believe that fiber is part of the whole picture of physical health, and one that is often forgotten.
I would love to hear your thoughts about fiber - is this something that you have focused on? What are your favorite fiber tricks and foods that you eat on a regular basis?
