The Power of Fiber for Metabolism, Ongoing Detoxification and Reducing Inflammation [Episode #850]

This week’s topic is: The Power of Fiber for Metabolism, Ongoing Detoxification and Reducing Inflammation

As many of you know, fiber is very common and comes from plant foods. And for some of you that I’m going to be speaking to, this is a little bit preaching to the choir. However, the more we understand about the effects of fiber, it becomes a motivation to make sure it’s always included.

For me, that’s at every meal. Making sure there’s fiber moving through our body, which creates that dynamic movement and allows our bodies to function better. It allows us to be more clean and energized and all the things that we really want to create in our lives.

Remember you can submit your questions at https://mysolluna.com/askkimberly/

[Question Answered]

Barbara – London

Kimberly, love the podcast! I want to ask you about fiber.  I always hear that we need to incorporate more into our diets, but never have really understood what it does for our body and health?

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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Kimberly: 00:01 Namaste loves and welcome back to our show on this very special week with winter solstice and this focus on energy and the inner light and on our wellness, which for me creates a really positive and powerful time to be talking about some of these more granular topics, which can really help us in our everyday lives. And so our topic today is about The Power of Fiber for Metabolism, Ongoing Detoxification and Reducing Inflammation. Fiber is very common. It’s widespread. It only does come from plant foods. And I have to admit that today’s topic is very much top of mind for me because of late, my husband has been following the carnivore diet. I know it’s quite hilarious in some ways because we are completely opposite on the dietary spectrum. I am fully plant-based. This period, which he tells me is temporary as one in which he’s consuming very little fiber.

01:18 He did add some fruit in, but it’s not a lot by my standards, but there is some fiber going in. But for a time there was no fiber and it was really concerning me. And I would tell him about all these different effects and benefits, which we’ll talk about today in our show. And I know for some of us, some of you that I’m going to be speaking to, this is a little bit preaching to the choir, but the more we understand about the effects of fiber, it becomes a motivation to make sure it’s always included. For me, that’s every meal, right day to day, but we want to make sure that there’s fiber moving through our body, which creates that dynamic movement. So once this show is done, I’m also going to, you guys are listening to it, so it is done now from your standpoint, I’m going to be sending hubby the file and hope that he listens to it and also benefits from the understanding that fiber really is our friend.

02:18 Fiber allows our bodies to function better and allows us to be more clean and energized and all the things that we really want to create in our lives.

Submit Your Question

Before we go deeper into this very important show. Little reminder that you can leave me other questions that you’re wondering about on our website, which is my sauna.com, that’s M-Y-S-O-L-L-U-N a.com, as well as links to other articles, podcasts I think you would enjoy. There’s hundreds of fiber filled plant-based recipes on our site, treats, desserts, entrees, soups, salads, salad dressings, you name it, raw food, cooked food, Ayurvedic and meditations and more. So please take advantage of the many benefits, the many resources we have for you that you can benefit from. Alright, let’s get right into our show today. This falls into our body cornerstone. We want to nourish the body. We want to have information at our fingertips about what effectively helps us to really take care of our bodies in the best way.

Question around the topic of: The Power of Fiber for Metabolism, Ongoing Detoxification and Reducing Inflammation: Kimberly, love the podcast! I want to ask you about fiber.  I always hear that we need to incorporate more into our diets, but never have really understood what it does for our body and health?

03:23 And our question today comes from Barbara who lives in London. Barbara sending you so much love overseas. I love London. I love the uk helping to get back there at some point. I haven’t been to Europe in ages. I absolutely love it and I send you so much love across the pond. You write, Kimberly, love the podcast. I want to ask you about fiber. I always hear that we need to incorporate more into our diets, but never have really understood what it does for our body and health. So fiber, my love, Barbara, and for all of you listening is one of the main things that separates eating a plant-based diet or plants in general, plant forward semi plant and eating a non plant diet, literally being carnivore. Fiber is not found in foul or meat or fish or dairy. We have to consume the bounty of nature’s beautiful plant-based array in order to derive the benefits of fiber.

04:24 There is so much research around fiber at this point. I’ll point out a couple aspects of the research which we’ll link to in the show notes and then we’ll talk about why it’s so important, why it’s part of the longevity plan, why it’s part of digestive health, why it detoxifies us. So we’ll get to that part in just a moment, but I want to point out that we all can remember these personal stories for now or things that come to mind for me right now. It’s very much with my hubby and I worry about his bowel movements, which I don’t think I’m getting too personal here, but I don’t think are the healthiest or the best. I worry about. I remember growing up, my grandmother used to have meta musel and she struggled. She actually passed away from colon cancer and they ate a lot of very standard American diet from New Jersey and white bread and salami deli meats were sort of like the lunches and the meals that I would see them eating very low fiber diet naturally.

05:29 And so sometimes we think that we need to add something on top or that’s the go-to, and I think that’s one of the fallacies of the over consumption of supplements versus eating a really wholesome complete diet. And then the supplements we add on top are those that really can support us, like the ones we offer at Sauna and there’s only a few like our detoxy or digestive enzymes or SBO probiotics, but not feeling like we need to take a fiber supplement or things that we can get derived naturally from our diet. So there’s so many different positive effects. Research around fiber, I’ll just touch on a few here. The Journal of American, the Journal of the American College of Nutrition found that increasing dietary fiber was associated with weight loss and improved body composition. How many years have I been going on about the glowing green smoothie?

06:28 And having a fibrous diet is a natural way to create portion control. There’s different ways in which we can feel full in our bodies, which obviously affects how much we eat, how much fuel we take in, and therefore how much our body weight is affected. And one of the ways is fiber. So there’s bulk. There’s a feeling of natural fullness in your system. Another way is if we eat something really dense, like a piece of meat and it sticks in the stomach and it’s like a lead ball, literally it’s like having a bowling ball. It’s got tons and tons of protein, it’s got tons of saturated fat, it doesn’t have fiber and it feels very filling. So when we are eating a fibrous diet, there’s going to be a little bit of time. This is why we want to chew carefully. This is why we want to take our time.

07:23 We want to sit for a moment before having seconds or thirds because that feeling of fiber is not as immediate or as heavy as other forms of feeling full as I mentioned. But it will give you that fullness and the more we get used to eating this way, the more we cross over, the more we get used to that fullness and the more it supplies us with sustained energy. So for instance, having your glowing green smoothie and the morning which is having 10 or more grams of fiber is going to give you that sustained energy and help you to feel so much lighter than if you ate a whole pile of eggs in the morning or something heavier. Now by mid-morning, if you’re like me, you need some protein, you need some fat, you need something denser. So I’ll have a hummus and olive wrap, something I just had a few minutes ago actually with microgreens and I like the STE almond based flour wraps now.

08:22 Or you may have a power protein smoothie. I’ve been having that mid-morning as well. Depending on my schedule. Sometimes I get up really early and I’m starving by 10 or 11, but I always start with something lighter and plant-based. The fruit and the GGS really works. So check it out for yourself. Think about this in terms of longer term weight management without having to go to extremes, without having to count calories, without having to cut out carbs, which I don’t think is healthy. I think we need all the macronutrients. Another aspect, heart health fiber is this connection to heart health. The National Institutes of Health found that a high fiber diet is associated with a lower risk of heart disease. This is because fiber helps to lower cholesterol levels naturally. It helps to reduce blood pressure and it helps to improve overall cardiovascular health. I recently got my blood pressure taken standard and the nurse was like, wow, you have really low, pretty low blood pressure.

09:25 And I said, oh, I’m plant-based. I have a lot of fiber, I eat really healthy, I meditate. I try to stay pretty chill. And she’s like, wow, that’s amazing, right? And it is amazing. I can’t tell you how many clients have gotten off blood pressure medication just by virtue of including the glowing green smoothie and having a more plant forward diet. It sounds really basic and really easy and it is in some ways because then we don’t have to deal with all the complications of these complicated formulas and also the complications of pharmaceuticals. So it’s really powerful to know that eating in this natural way has such a profound effect. We hear of the devastating effects of cardiovascular illness. Most all of us have known someone who’s had a heart attack or any sort of stroke or cardiovascular event, friends of friends, relatives. Just to know that the nurse’s health study and health professional follow-UPS study found that a high intake of dietary fiber, and in this case they were measuring whole grains, was inversely associated with the risk of coronary heart disease.

10:36 I talked about the blue zones so much on here. We all love Dan Buettner, the founder of the Blue Zones. I’m looking at a couple of his books right now. He’s got a lot of Blue Zones books at this point, but one of the through lines of the blue zones is eating whole grains and carbohydrates and a lower risk of cardiovascular disease and therefore a longer longevity is lengthened. There’s highest rate of centenarians. So you see this played out in different ways in different cultures. In Japan, it’s a lot of the purple sweet potato, it’s sourdough bread in Europe, pasta, whole grain pasta.

11:16 It varies by culture to culture rice, but grains have been demonized a lot in our society and there’s been this real push towards no carbs. I think everybody’s body’s different. I think some people are more sensitive to gluten than others, such as myself. I eat quinoa and rice and a ton of potatoes of different varieties and sweet potatoes, and our family does consume sourdough bread and this is a great source of fiber as our vegetables, as our legumes, as our fruit. So we want to see what works for us and what works for other doesn’t necessarily work for us and we don’t need to jump on these dieting fats. Again, when we look to the blue zones and we look to cultures which have been eating whole grains fiber from lots of different sources for many years they’ve been consuming oatmeal and so on and so forth.

12:12 There’s certain things that can work, but does it need to be so restrictive? Do we need to have this fear of fiber or carbs running through our lives? I say no. I say, let’s see what works for us. Let’s see what percentage works. It can be really helpful to take your sauna, feel good digestive enzymes first. I’ll never eat sourdough bread before taking three of them at least because that really helps me digest the bread better. I don’t eat bread on a daily basis. My kids probably do from periods. Sometimes they get big rice periods, but I definitely eat carbs every day. I eat whole carbs. I don’t eat a lot of white flour or products like that. I try to avoid a lot of packaged foods, but we do cook rice from scratch. I can’t say that I bake the sourdough bread, not in the space to do that right now, but we do buy as much as possible fresh sourdough bread from the farmer’s market.

13:12 It’s so delicious. I wish I had more time to bake. So see what works for you and remember that overall the fiber is what’s really important here. We know that fiber also helps with type two diabetes prevention and management of study. Published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine found that a high fiber diet may reduce the risk of developing type two diabetes and improves glycemic control in individuals with diabetes. So thus this insulin control the delicate mix of hormones. Some of this seems so complicated, we think how does the body manage all this stuff? How does it manage our endocrine system and our immune system? How does it manage all these hormones and functionalities in the body, our periods and everything just working together and there’s such a high level of intelligence. And for me, instead of getting bogged down in just the complications, what is my through line?

14:14 What I really like to teach, what I like to remind us all is that we’re part of nature. And I love when t Campbell who wrote the China study says, your body will do the math for you. Just eat in a natural way, eat less processed foods, eat whole foods, whole grains, whole vegetables, whole fruit instead of fruit juice, retain the fiber and then insulin works better. We tend to have less diabetes. Things simplify when we simplify our lifestyles. And this has been a really powerful way that I’ve lived for a while because our minds and our egos can take us down the rabbit hole pretty quickly of complications. And I don’t think that feels good. At least I can say for myself. I think we can get really heady and it can get really confusing, but we just want to keep things simple. We want to remind ourselves that food can be simple, it can be delicious.

15:14 Stick to the produce aisles, eat less packaged foods, even if they’re called healthier foods, they may be, but we can also just eat simpler as well. Fiber is also so important for digestion, which has been such a core part of our community and our conversation for over a decade. I’ve review published in the World Journal of Gastroenterology found that the role of dietary fiber prevents and alleviates constipation by promoting regular bowel movements. And the American Gastroenterological Association recommends fiber rich foods as part of a healthy diet to prevent and manage various digestive issues. No surprise there. We know that fiber creates that bulk, which is moving the food through. And again, I can say from personal experience with family members and clients observing people’s bowel movements, them telling me, it’s not like I’m staring at it, but this really open, candid conversations. Without that bulk, the stool is not formed well.

16:20 It can just come out and not feel incomplete. We know this intuitively. It can be more of a liquidy diarrhea, like consistency. We are healthy when we have really beautiful bowels formed bigger, regular, okay, we need fiber for that. And fiber can’t just be something that we add on top like a garnish or a couple pieces of broccoli that’s like these restaurants or steakhouse that may throw in a couple pieces to sort of add color to the plate. It should be a real foundation. I believe that most of our plates should be fiber filled. We should have lots of salad, big portions of veggies, whatever you’re cooking for dinner.

17:07 Our dinners are so simple. I was saying this to my husband the other night. He’ll go and cook his own food and we meet in the kitchen. But for me and the kids, I cooked quinoa, which I just simply dressed with a little bit of olive oil, lemon and sea salt. Then I cooked broccoli and then I cooked sweet potatoes. We had a bowl and it’s so simple, but think about how much fiber comes. Oh, and then I topped it with a bunch of broccoli microgreens, and some kids are pickier than others. My older son sometimes rebels, sometimes he’s good. Sometimes they’ll have to add a little bit more sauce to his or whatever. But there’s a simplicity that can be added to your diet. Sometimes it’s a reset because if we’re used to eating out a lot, we get into this, all the flavors and the variety that’s available.

17:57 But I would encourage you this New Year’s, instead of just focusing on calories and your weight and the end result, focus on simplifying. Consider simplifying your diet. Consider eating out less and cooking simple foods at home. And notice how easy it is to add fiber to your diet when you do that. And you’re just focusing on these beautiful vegetables and the taste is so delicious of vegetables, grilled vegetables, raw vegetables with hummus, vegetables with lemon and sea salt. So crisp and delicious, and let us reset back to that. Let us give ourselves the power of feeling that connection with nature, which I truly believe can be reestablished if our flavor profiles have gone way off. If we’ve gone way off, we can come back. I’m a big believer in that fibers are also really powerful in helping to increase longevity. A study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that dietary fiber intake is inversely associated with markers of inflammation in the body contributing to reduce risk of chronic inflammatory diseases.

19:08 We know that inflammation, we hear about inflammation so much. Inflammation means faster aging, more wrinkles, the precursor to all these diseases. When we’re inflamed, we’re not in health. When we’re inflamed, we’re not in a reparative, regenerative state of vitality. They just don’t exist. It leaks our energy, it depletes us. So think about the fiber, think about how powerful it is that we can actually reduce the inflammation in our body. Move things through. Fiber is intelligent. Fiber chelates to toxins. It moves us out, which we’ll talk about in a moment. Fiber back with a digestion piece. It can help to not just move matter through, but it also feeds the short-chain, fatty acids in the gut and it reduces inflammation throughout. It’s turning on different aspects of our body. We are part of nature. We’re meant to eat in a natural way, and when we do, the benefits are more than we can really understand.

20:14 There’s this really high intelligence and also research published in the Lancet. This is from the uk, indicates that a high fibro diet is associated with a lower risk of premature death from many causes, including cancer, various diseases, cardiovascular diseases. And it’s essential to note that food sources like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, legumes can influence the specific health benefits. It’s really important to eat a balanced diet and for this to be taken in an overall long-term context. So longevity, as we know, isn’t just about dietary fats. Sometimes I get concerned where people are really just focused on losing weight. They’re eating the carnivore diet or they’re eating some form of really high protein, really low carb, low sugar, very restrictive diet. And I think, but what about the nourishment? What about the variety? What about the antioxidants of the plants? What about all of this?

21:13 Right? We want to look to the longterm. This is a marathon. This isn’t a sprint. Health isn’t something that we create overnight. So we want to make sure that we’re looking at this in the longterm so that we can benefit and we can create that deep longevity for ourselves and for the benefit of our families, our relatives, our children, and so on. So it’s really important.

Metabolism

Let’s go into some of this. Again, it’s really important for our metabolism, feeling satiated, having that feeling of fullness, weight management. So in this regard, fiber is a really healthy component of our overall weight loss, weight maintenance and metabolism.

21:56 Day in and day out, look to your meals. Think about adding vegetables, salad, fruit. Where is the fiber in each meal? I’d like you to ask that for yourself and for relatives. Like I mentioned, my grandparents never seemed to have any fiber. It’s something I really need to consciously put into my dad’s diet and remind him when he’s not with me. Are you eating your salads? Now? He’s eating. He loves soup. So we’ve introduced a lot of vegetable soups and things like that. Sometimes it’s not natural for people and we need to add that in, and that’s okay. Remember that when we have more fiber, though it is a natural form of portion control, we don’t have to eat as calorically dense foods, whether that’s a huge amount of steak or a huge amount of lentils. It becomes balanced because the bulk of the vegetables and the salads starts to fill up the belly.

Ongoing Detoxification

22:52 So it’s really wonderful. And then ongoing detoxification means that the fiber is promoting better bowel movements. More complete toxicity is actually leaving the body, which is the definition of a cleanse. And ongoing cleansing means we are going to the bathroom each and every single day. And whilst that is happening, the fiber is binding to the toxins. It’s binding to other harmful substances if you can even bind to excess estrogen and other hormones and just heavy metals, things in the body and facilitate the removal from the body. This process supports the body’s natural detoxification mechanisms. So we want to be clean as possible. We need to have fiber.

Reducing Inflammation

And then fiber also, as I mentioned earlier, helps to reduce inflammation. This is because it’s balancing the gut microbiota. We need prebiotics to feed the probiotics as having that nourishment in. I will also mention in our sauna SBO probiotics, they contain prebiotics and postbiotics.

24:00 But I still want you to have fiber as a natural form of prebiotics as well, because our healthy diet is an essential part of living this holistic lifestyle. Anti-inflammatory properties in certain types of fiber as well, like the beta-glucan, which are found in oats and barley, which directly have anti-inflammatory effects. This is one of the reasons that oats are having such a heyday right now, and oatmeal and oat milk because there’s a lot of wonderful properties in different forms of fiber. So we want to get a variety of fiber. Remember there’s soluble and insoluble fiber. We want to make sure that we’re having a mix of vegetables, different grains or carbs, different types of fruit. Eating seasonally, having legumes. You can definitely soak and sprout them first. There’s different cooking methods.

24:50 We have some blogs which we’ll link to around legumes if you’re concerned. You’ve heard things in the media around oxalates and other concerns. We have a full show around that, which we’ll link to in the show notes so you can get a little bit more information about that. But variety is a really great thing and regularity both of your bowel movements, but getting that fiber in regularly. So I say every meal had the fruit add the glowing green smoothie in my power protein smoothies, there’s the banana, which adds that nice bulk. There is dates which have some fiber. I’m just thinking of every meal I’m adding in. Vegetables, vegetables, centric centric. The other day I put this on Instagram, there was a stir fry made very simple mushrooms. Bunch of spinach starts with that. Then I add in the quinoa, then I add in the raw component of the broccoli.

25:50 If you notice, I talk about them a lot. I think they’re a great thing to keep in your fridge. Great bang for your buck. Very concentrated. There’s like 50 times more antioxidants in the sprouts, the broccoli sprouts and microgreens than the mature broccoli. It’s a really great thing to add and to keep, to just throw on your sandwiches, your soups, whatever you’re eating. Alright, so I hope this inspires you to eat fiber regularly. There are so many benefits. I think it keeps us youthful and healthy and full of vitality. It’s not super hard to get fiber in just eat a plant centric diet, which I know is kind of not allowed on certain diets. JI help you listen to this about the carnivore diet. With all respect, I respect everyone has to do what they feel is right. But for the long-term, I truly believe that fiber is such an important component of health. Fiber is only found

Kimberly: 26:42 In plant foods my loves. So be sure to stay inspired. Check out our many hundreds, thousands, perhaps of plant-based recipes over on our site and we’ll link to these research articles and more in the show notes. Other links to some of the podcasts I mentioned. Other ways to keep yourself healthy and full of vitality like our meditations and articles. So many resources live over there. I’ll be back here Monday. We’ll be airing a special show for Christmas. If you celebrate. Wanted to wish you the mest of Christmases, the most beautiful of holiday seasons. No matter what you particularly individually celebrate, may the light rise up in you. May the light rise in the collective, the light that will always triumph over the darkness. I send you all my love, all my light to you, and your light and love. I’m always here to support. See you back here soon. Namaste.