Those who want to lose weight should love fiber. Fiber is the dietary fiber found in vegetables, fruit skins, and grain shells. It is not absorbed by the body, but brings it invaluable benefits, as well as helps to control appetite and helps to get rid of excess weight faster.
Types of fiber
Fiber can be functional and vegetable. Functional fiber you probably met on the shelves of stores and pharmacies in the form of supplements. Plant food is hidden from our eyes, but it has a special role in proper nutrition.
Vegetable fiber, or fiber, is very useful for the normal functioning of the intestine. They come in two types: soluble and insoluble. The first pass into a liquid, swell and become jelly-like. Such an environment has a beneficial effect on the development of beneficial bacteria (calorizer). Soluble fiber is able to overcome the feeling of hunger, a lot of it is found in fruits, barley, oats, seaweed and legumes.
Insoluble fiber is also good for the digestive system. They flush out cholesterol and bile acids. There is a lot of such fiber in cereals, as well as in vegetables and fruits.
If you eat a little vegetables and fruits, you can provoke problems with the digestive system. Fiber is also recommended not only in the treatment of food diseases, but also for their prevention. Fiber prevents cancer of the colon and small intestine, the occurrence of gallstones.
Fiber and weight loss
Nutritionists have proven that the use of fiber has a beneficial effect not only on health, but also on weight loss. The whole secret is that vegetable fibers help to reduce fat deposits. Fiber is recommended even for patients with diabetes, because it reduces the level of sugar in the blood. It can be consumed both with fresh vegetables, fruits, legumes, etc., and in the form of dietary supplements.
According to scientists from Examine, dietary fiber helps to cope with appetite and provides a long-lasting feeling of satiety. It’s all about the mechanoreceptors of the gastrointestinal tract, which suppress appetite. They are activated not by hormones, but by stretching the stomach tissues. That is, when you eat a large amount of food, you activate the receptors that help you feel full longer and not bite. Fiber-rich, non-starchy vegetables are the best way to increase the volume of your meal and not overdo the calories.
Nutritionists recommend eating a portion of non-starchy vegetables first to fill your stomach and increase your chances of not going overboard with high-calorie food. Dietary fiber slows down the rate of digestion, which not only contributes to satiety, but also reduces the glycemic index of foods. Therefore, overweight people are advised to eat at least 3 servings of vegetables a day.
How much fiber should I consume?
In order to lose weight and not harm your health, it is enough to start your day with buckwheat porridge, muesli, green apple or a glass of orange juice.
The daily norm of fiber for weight loss is 25-40 grams. For every thousand calories in your diet, you should have 10-15 grams. If you eat 1,500 calories, you need to get at least 15 grams of fiber, and most modern people do not eat even 10 grams.
To give you a little guidance, here are the data on how much fiber is contained in the most common foods. A slice of white bread contains 0.5 g of fiber, rye – 1 gram, bran-1.5 grams. A cup of white rice-1.5 grams, lettuce-2.4 grams, carrots-2.4 grams, 1 orange-2 grams.
It is not easy to gain a daily norm exclusively with vegetable products, especially with cereals, fruits and starchy vegetables, you can easily go beyond the daily caloric content (calorizator). In addition, the heat treatment and grinding of food destroys the dietary fiber. For example, in 100 g of potatoes within 2 g of fiber, but after cooking in a peeled form, nothing remains.
Therefore, nutritionists advise to subject products to minimal processing, to abandon juices in favor of fruits and to use fiber as a supplement, adding it to porridge, dietary pastries and dairy products. And to increase the effect of fiber, wash it down with plenty of water. It will absorb water and increase in volume, which activates the digestive tract receptors and ensures satiety.
Add fiber to your daily diet gradually. If you do not follow this recommendation, it can lead to stomach upset, increased gas formation and diarrhea.
Fiber is a valuable complex carbohydrate that not only helps to control appetite and lose weight comfortably, but also has a beneficial effect on the digestive tract, lowers cholesterol and supports blood sugar levels.