Let’s start with appreciating ourselves, how much you are doing for your health already. Give ourself a huge hug.
Now let’s start tracking, choosing and maybe gradually increasing the amount of fiber we eat.
Fiber is one of these magical components of our food that can help you to release excess weight while staying nice, full and satisfied.
It’s also absolutely crucial for our health and well-being, because it feeds our best inner friends – our microbiome. A strange as it may sound – they are our best emotional support. They’re sending the signals of happiness, calmness and satisfaction almost directly to our brain through the vagus nerve, immune signaling, and hormonal changes.
According to research people with a diverse, healthy microbiome tend to report better mood and less anxiety.
Your microbes thrive on variety — the more types of plants you eat, the more diverse and resilient your microbiome becomes.
Aim for 30+ plant types per week (fruits, veggies, greens, legumes, nuts, seeds, herbs). Different fibers feed different “good” bacteria, which produce short-chain fatty acids, like butyrate that improve vagus nerve signaling and reduce gut inflammation.
Prebiotics are special fibers that directly feed beneficial microbes.
Best sources: onions, garlic, leeks, asparagus, apples, beans, lentils, sweet potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes. When our microbiome ferments prebiotics, it produces butyrate that calms gut inflammation and sends the signals of happiness, calmness, satisfaction and well-being to our brain.
Keep in mind if you are not vegan – too much animal fat/protein can reduce butyrate production.
If you cook your sweet potatoes and other starchy foods make sure to cool them after cooking, this increases the amount of resistant starches significantly. You can warm them up again after that.
To improve your microbiome, you can try to have a bit of sauerkraut or kimchi every day and see how you feel with it.
How much fiber and how does it look in real life
Now, how do we decide how much fiber we eat and how to eat a similar amount of fiber every day?
Let’s start from breakfast.
Some online influencers say we don’t need breakfast. Research shows that people feed breakfast are healthier and slimmer. It’s up to you what you decide…
Some of the reasons you don’t feel hungry for breakfast: heavy dinner late at night, adrenaline from coffee drinking, stress, habit, limiting belief, etc.
A proper fiber-rich breakfast can set you free and make you powerful in the face of cravings if you let it. It’s up to you though, as always.
If you want the taste of magic and freedom from cravings that I experience, and why did you start experimenting with increasing the fiber, rich fruits, and greens in your breakfast. Green smoothies or smoothie bowls or fruit-green salads or simply munching on lettuce with fruit are perfect.
If you’re already eating green smoothies, see if you can increase the amount of greens to eat. Not only that it gives you more fiber, minerals, and vitamins, but also more satisfying protein to conquer your cravings and in-between-the-meals hunger like a pro.
If you want to do it cooked way – oatmeal or other cooked starches are great.
If you are eating cooked food, see if you can have more whole grains or even root veggies (like sweet potato banana porridge) and less processed carbs for breakfast. A bit of sweet fruits on top of your porridge can help with sweetness without processed sugar.
Lunch can be pretty similar to breakfast or to dinner.
Whichever lunch you choose, gently increase the fibrous foods and I warmly recommend to stay as consistent as possible to succeed on our program.
You don’t have to eat exactly same meals, just similar nutritionally with similar fiber, water and macronutrients. Like different types of juicy fruit with different types of greens. Or different types of grains or root veggies.
Dinner
Same with dinner – decide how much fiber (veggies) and see if you can start decreasing processed foods and replacing them with foods with fiber.
Juice
Juice is an excellent way to hydrate. It can be also an easy way to get in more nutrients if your digestive system is compromised at the moment.
So it can be good to include juices in your lifestyle if your produce availability is poor and digestion is compromised. Although I would recommend to blend things or eat whole as much as possible.
I definitely don’t recommend juice fasting long term, only short 2-3 days, up to one week, to heal an acute illness.
The bottom line and take-away for today:
I warmly recommend to choose a constant amount of veggies and greens (can vary within same type, like different cabbages). So you don’t have your weight fluctuating too much, depending on how much salad you ate on one day or another.
Because this kind of fluctuation can give you unnecessary worries and make you think you have to restrict more than necessary.
Also, make sure these salads are easy enough to digest and eliminate (have enough fat, and creamy blended dressing), because constipation can give you the weight fluctuations too.
If it’s too much to chew, you can use food processor to quickly chop everything into rice-like consistency.
If you are not satisfied with your meals, see if you can gradually increase amount of fiber (veggies, greens) you eat in a day and don’t worry if your weight goes up with it, when your body gets used to it, it will poop it all out.
And you’ll feel more satisfied and burn fat faster.