Fiber Health Benefits - Lose Weight Naturally with it

Plenty of fiber in your diet is essential to losing weight and keeping it off. In addition to weight loss fiber has numerous health benefits.

One of the most important benefits is maintaining the health of your digestive tract. Fiber will give help you feel satiated and thus reduce your appetite. It also prevents your blood glucose levels from rising rapidly.

Rapid glucose spikes prompt your pancreas to release large amounts of insulin and these leads to belly fat storage.

Fiber has many benefits. Fiber is good for clearing your digestive tract of toxins and also to keep your bowels moving. Fiber helps prevent colon cancer by keeping an optimal pH in your intestines.

Fiber prolongs stomach emptying time so that sugar is released and absorbed slowly preventing sugar spikes and release of the fat storing hormone insulin.

Fiber lowers total and LDL cholesterol and therefore reduces the risk of heart disease, and fills up your stomach reducing your appetite. Fiber also binds with fatty acids in your intestines to help you lose weight.

As you can see, a lot of fiber in your diet is a great way to lose unwanted weight and improve your overall health!

Some great sources of fiber include:

- Green vegetables and lettuce
- All types of dark green leafy vegetables
- Whole grains
- Corn bran
- Seeds and nuts
- Apples and citrus fruits
- Broccoli
- Many types of beans like black beans, kidney beans, chick peas, and many others
- Lentils
- Figs

There are 2 types of fiber: insoluble and soluble. Here are the differences:

Functions of Insoluble Fiber

• move bulk through the intestines
• control and balance the pH (acidity) in the intestines
Benefits of Insoluble Fiber
• promote regular bowel movement and prevent constipation
• moves toxic waste through the colon in less time
• helps prevent colon cancer by keeping an optimal pH in intestines to prevent microbes from producing cancerous substances
• keeps unwanted pounds off
Food Sources of Insoluble Fiber
Vegetables such as green beans and dark green leafy vegetables
Fruit skins and root vegetable skins
Whole-grain products
Wheat oat
Corn bran
Seeds & Nuts

Functions of Soluble Fiber

- forms a gelatinous substance whem mixed with water
- binds with fatty acids
- prolongs stomach emptying time so that sugar is released and absorbed more slowly which means that your body won't get blood sugar spikes!
- binds with toxic substances in the bowel and draws it out of your system.
Benefits of Soluble Fiber
- lowers your total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol (the Bad cholesterol) therefore reducing the risk of heart disease
- regulates blood sugar
- expands in stomach giving you the feeling of fullness
-clears heavy metals, heavy chemicals, parasites, and other toxic substances out of your body
-keeps unwanted pounds off

Food Sources of Soluble Fiber

Oat/Oat bran/Oat Meal
Dried beans and peas
Nuts
Barley
Flax seed
Fruits such as citrus and apples
Vegetables such as carrots
Psyllium husk powder: (Think metamucil... but there are more natural versions that you can find everywhere)

My personal favorite fiber food:

HEMP Protein. You can purchase this online or at health food stores. 1 serving of Hemp protein contains 14 grams of fiber and 10 grams of protein.