A High-Fiber Diet + 8 Easy Fat-Busting Tips You Can Do Now

Here are eight fat-busting tips, along with an expose about the benefits of a high-fiber diet, that are easy to do and you can begin doing right away. Do them all and you’ll be downsizing your wardrobe in a month.

Here are your 8 easy fat-busting tips

She’s 47 years old, slim – toned even — and yet Megyn Kelly doesn’t exercise. Not a bit, she says.

How does this former Fox News anchor and current NBC host maintain such an envious body composition? After all, after 40 most of us who sit around all day without exercise are doomed to the middle age spread.

Not Megyn Kelly. Eat fiber to lose body fat

What’s her secret?

In her 2016 autobiography, Settle for More, Kelly describes how she stays svelte and healthy — without exercise!

“I started after the birth of my first child, Yates. It took off the baby weight right away,” Kelly writes.

What easy fat-busting tip did she use?

She started eating a high-fiber diet!

Sounds a bit gimmicky, doesn’t it… that something as pedestrian as a high-fiber diet could whittle away the fat?

Well, grasshopper, we have more than Megyan Kelly’s assertion, because the science supports the contention that a high-fiber diet is one of the best fat-busting tips you can do.

Ms. Kelly was encouraged to try the high-fiber diet by dietitian Tanya Zuckerbrot’s book, the F-factor diet. In the book, Ms Zuckerbrot highlights two key benefits of the diet:

  • One, fiber makes you feel full, so you end up eating less.
  • Two, you’re more inclined to stick with the regimen because you’re adding, not eliminating, foods from your diet.

Zuckerbrot emphasizes that all your meals should include high-fiber carbohydrates, as well as lean protein. (And I might add, a high quality fat like avocados, nuts or some other omega-3 fatty acid is great too.)

Her protocol includes three phrases, two weeks each, wherein you gradually increase fiber ingestion until you reach a total of nine servings of high-fiber carbohydrates daily.

 

The Research is In – A High-fiber Diet Helps You Lose Fat

There’s compelling research behind the benefits of a high-fiber diet:

  • A 2009 study, published in the journal Nutritional Review found high-fiber, low-fat diets might be more effective for weight loss than low-fat diets alone.
  • One published in 2015 in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, discovered that participants who increased their fiber intake to 30 grams or more per day lost as much weight as participants who followed a stricter set of dietary guidelines.
  • Ergo-log reports a study that concluded, “Psyllium supplementation before meals is well tolerated and can significantly affect satiety by decreasing hunger, increasing fullness, and reducing the desire to eat between meals.”

Moreover, one of the most prevalent attributes of all the long-lives, disease-free inhabitants of the so-called “Blue Zones” is that all of their diets were high in fiber. (Read my article, Want 10 Extra Years? It’s Easier Than You Think In The Blue Zones!)

 

The Fiber Story and Best Fibrous Foods To Eat

Fiber comes in two varieties, soluble and insoluble, neither of which is actually absorbed into the bloodstream. Most plant-based foods contain a mixture of both.

Soluble fiber turns to gel in the stomach and slows digestion, which helps lower cholesterol and blood glucose.

Insoluble fiber doesn’t digest at all, but rather remains unchanged to and through the colon, making the stuff that results in poo heavier and softer so it can easily transit through the intestines.

Neglecting fiber in your diet can lead to constipation, poor blood sugar and appetite control. Fiber regulates the speed of digestion and contributes to satiety (feeling full).

But don’t overdo it.

If you consume too much fiber, it can move food through your intestines too rapidly for some minerals and vitamins to get absorbed, as well as lead to gas, bloating, and cramping – particularly when the amount of fiber intake is increased too quickly.

The Institute of Medicine recommends that men under 50 eat about 38 grams of fiber each day and women consume 25 grams. Adults over 50 require less fiber (30 grams for dudes and 21 grams for ladies) due to decreased food consumption. That said, I’m unconvinced that many of us really reduce your caloric consumption at 50 years of age, so my aim is 38+ grams of fiber per day.

Health journalist Nick English named “16 high fiber foods” in an Examine.com article that you might want to add to your diet. (Click here for recipes.) They are:

  1. Split Peas (Fiber:3 grams per cup, cooked)
  2. Lentils (6 grams per cup, cooked)
  3. Black Beans (Fiber: 15 grams per cup, cooked)
  4. Lima Beans (Fiber:2 grams per cup, cooked)
  5. Artichokes (10.3 grams per medium vegetable, cooked)
  6. Peas (8.8 grams per cup, cooked)
  7. Broccoli (Fiber:1 grams per cup, boiled)
  8. Brussels Sprouts (Fiber: 1 grams per cup, boiled)
  9. Raspberries (Fiber: 8 grams per cup, raw)
  10. Blackberries (Fiber:6 grams per cup, raw)
  11. Avocados (Fiber: 7 grams per half, raw)
  12. Pears (Fiber:5 grams per medium fruit, raw)
  13. Bran Flakes (7 grams per cup, raw)
  14. Whole-wheat Pasta (Fiber:3 grams per cup, cooked)
  15. Pearled Barley (Fiber: 6 grams per cup, cooked)
  16. Oatmeal (Fiber: 4 grams per cup, cooked)

 

Your Easy 8 Fat-Busting Tips

OK, now that you’re up to speed about the value of adding more fiber to your diet, let’s add another eight fat-busting tips that you can easily do that can make a difference to your body composition.

Add one of the following fat-busting tips each week until they’re all a consistent part of your diet:

(1) Add flaxseed meal to whatever foods you can without making them unpalatable to your taste buds, such as oats, smoothies, yogurt, and baked goods. You may even bread chicken or fish with it. A two-tablespoon serving contains 3.8 grams of fiber, as well as a special bonus of omega-3 fatty acids.

I suggest you buy the flaxseed and grind them as needed in a coffee grinder or high-powered blender like the Bullet, because too often flaxseed meal has sat around on the shelf for too long, and becomes rancid.

Flax seeds -- Fat-Busting Tips

(Click image for more info.)

(2) Chia seeds will give you 5.5 grams of fiber per tablespoon. Try soaking them overnight in a bottle of pure water, which will turn the tiny, dense seeds into a goopy gel that works well to thicken smoothies, make healthy puddings, or replace eggs in cakes and cookie recipes.

Chia seeds -- Fat-Busting Tip

(Click pic for more info.)

(3) Purée any of the cooked veggies and legumes and add them to sauces and stews, or swap out rice for chopped-up cauliflower.

(4) Drink eight ounces of water 15 to 30 minutes before eating a meal. This is easy to do – just start drinking the water as you prepare your meal. The water will help satiate you and thereby reduce your appetite.

Extra credit – mix in a teaspoon of Psyllium Husk Powder. Not only will you ensure that you’re getting fiber, but you’ll benefit by its contribution to feeling full.

Drink water -- an Easy Fat-Busting Tips

(Click pic to enlarge)

(5) Drink green tea throughout the day. Green tea is loaded with antioxidants called catechins, the most important being EGCG (Epigallocatechin gallate), a substance that can boost metabolism. It works by inhibiting an enzyme that breaks down the hormone norepinephrine (1). Once the enzyme is inhibited, the amount of norepinephrine increases (2).

This hormone is used by the nervous system as a signal to the fat cells, telling them to break down fat; therefore, more norepinephrine leads to a stronger signal being sent to the fat cell and more fat gets broken down.

The end result is that the fat cell breaks down more fat, which is released into the bloodstream and becomes available for use as energy by cells that need it, like muscle cells.

drinnk green tea -- Fat-Busting Tips

(Click pic for more info.)

(6) Use protein smoothies to ensure you get the satiating effects of protein at every meal.

It’s not always easy to find a whole food source of protein for every meal, so have some good quality hemp, rice and pea and raw sprout protein powder available when you need it. That way you can always and simply mix some protein powder with your favorite healthy beverage (or water) and sip it during your meal.

hemp protein

rice and pea protein -- Fat-Busting Tips

(7) Practice Intermittent Fasting to not only reduce calories in any given day, but also spark autophagy (read this) and disrupt homeostasis (go here and read #5).

Start with selecting a couple of days each week when you stop eating at 8:00 PM and don’t eat again till the next day at 8:00 AM, a 12 hour fast. Then move up the morning “eat again” hour by one hour once you get used to the 12-hour period.

In my IF practice, I stop eating at 8:00 PM and don’t eat again until 1:00 PM the next day (except for one cup of coffee and lots of green tea; sometimes protein powder and water).

Read my articles:

(8) Do squats before eating. This is the one exercise tip I want to add to the mix.

All you have to do is squat as many times as you can or until you break a sweat before you eat. Doing this will help ensure that the carbs you eat aren’t immediately shuttled via insulin to fat storage.

Extra credit: Do burpees, which will ramp up your metabolism more than squats alone given that you’re using your entire body to do the exercise, not just your lower body for the squats (legs and glutes).

(Click pic for animation)

(Click pic for animation)

 

Your 8 Fat-Busting Tips Takeaway

Yes, it’s a hectic life. Like Megyn Kelly, you may feel too time-constrained to prepare healthy meals or work out on a regular basis.

I won’t repeat all eight tips, but what you can do, at minimum is to:

  • Add fiber to your meals in one or more of the ways described above.
  • Drink water before meals.
  • Drink green tea throughout the day.
  • Mix up some protein powder if another protein source isn’t available.
  • Stop eating at 8:00 PM and see how late the next morning you can push before eating again.

Do these things and get prepared to be very satisfied with the new shapely you.

Last Updated on September 29, 2022 by Joe Garma

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Joe Garma
 

I help people live with more vitality and strength. I'm a big believer in sustainability, and am a bit nutty about optimizing my diet, supplements, hormones and exercise. To get exclusive Updates, tips and be on your way to a stronger, more youthful body, join my weekly Newsletter. You can also find me on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

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