Increasing Fiber to Lose Weight – Here's what you need to do!

Published December 10, 2009 | By Lisa Nelson, RD

I’ve been working with a retired gentleman the past few months and he’s been making fantastic progress to lose weight; however, this past week we focused on his fiber intake and learned his intake was much too low. He averaged around 15-20 grams of fiber daily. You should consume 25-35 grams of fiber everyday.

Eating a high fiber diet plan promotes weight loss by stabilizing blood sugars and increasing satiety (i.e. your sense of fullness). Fiber can actually act as a natural appetite suppressant. In addition to promoting weight loss, a diet high in fiber supports a lower LDL cholesterol/cholesterol levels, blood sugar control, promotes digestive health, and has the potential to decrease risk of colorectal cancer (studies are showing mixed results so far).

So, for your weight loss success and overall heart health, let’s take a moment and evaluate the fiber content of your food choices.

To determine your typical daily fiber intake grab a piece of paper and write down what you typically have for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and any snacks in between. If you’ve been keeping a food journal, simply grab your journal and look at yesterday.

Let’s use the following day as an example:

Breakfast:
2 cups of Cheerios with skim milk
6 oz. OJ

Morning Snack:
6 oz. Yogurt

Lunch:
Grilled cheese sandwich on white bread
1 cup tomato soup

Afternoon Snack:
¼ cup Walnuts and Dried Fruit

Evening Meal:
3 oz. Baked Turkey Breast
½ cup baked potato
½ cup broccoli and cauliflower

Now, you’ll have to be in your kitchen, so you can look at the food label of different foods to add up your fiber intake. For example, Cheerios provides 3 grams of fiber per cup, so fiber intake at breakfast was 6 grams (2 cups x 3 grams) since OJ and skim milk provide 0 grams of fiber. Do this for all your foods and add up the total.

In this example, total fiber intake is around 16 grams, which is low. If your fiber intake is also below 25-35 grams, look for ways to boost your fiber intake. Using the above example, you could swap out the OJ for a piece of whole fruit to add ~4 grams of fiber, sprinkle 1 Tbsp of ground flaxseed on the yogurt to add 2 grams of fiber, select whole grain bread that provides 5 grams of more fiber per slice, swap the baked potato for a baked sweet potato, and increase your broccoli and cauliflower serving to 1 cup with your evening meal. These changes would increase total fiber intake to around 34 grams.

Now, something important worth mentioning! If you currently consume a low fiber diet, making a sudden drastic increase can result in unpleasant side effects (i.e. gas and diarrhea). Increase your fiber intake gradually to avoid side effects.

All the best,
Lisa Nelson RD
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