This week, get to know your gut and how to improve your digestive health from mouth to out! Yes, folks, we are going to go there :) Have your pens ready because this is perhaps the most important discussion yet.
Be ready for some interactive learning next week!
High-Fiber Foods
High-fiber foods have been shown to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and to help to keep your digestive system healthy. Find out which foods are high-fiber foods.
Dietary Fiber
Dietary fiber is only found in plants, and functions like a skeleton to help maintain their shape and structure. Humans eat plants but we cannot digest the fiber so it passes through the small intestine into the colon. The fiber helps to keep the colon healthy. Some disorders like diverticulitis, constipation and irregularity may be connected with not getting enough fiber in the diet.
Types of Dietary Fiber
Insoluble fiber is the type of dietary fiber found in high-fiber foods like whole grains, nuts, wheat bran and vegetables. Insoluble fiber does not dissolve in water so it helps to move material through the colon faster by increasing the bulk of the stool. This can be very helpful to people who suffer from constipation or irregularity. Diets high in insoluble fiber may also decrease the risk of diabetes.
Soluble fiber is also found in many high-fiber foods like oats, citrus fruits, apples, barley, psyllium, flax seeds and beans. Soluble fiber absorbs water, which helps to soften stools making them easier to eliminate from the body. Some soluble fibers called beta glucan bind to bile acids which contain cholesterol. A high-fiber diet with this type of soluble fiber has been shown to reduce cholesterol closer to healthy levels.
High-Fiber Foods
According to the Institute of Medicine:
The recommended intake for total fiber for adults 50 years and younger is set at 38 grams for men and 25 grams for women, while for men and women over 50 it is 30 and 21 grams per day, respectively, due to decreased food consumption.
People who currently have low-fiber diets may want to increase their daily intake of high-fiber foods slowly because some fiber may increase gas and bloating. The body adjusts the increased amount of fiber over time and the gas and bloating will decrease. Class 3 Week 5
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Here are some examples of delicious and healthy high-fiber foods from the USDA National Nutrient Database:
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one-half cup cooked navy beans - 9.5 g
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one-half cup baked beans, canned – 9 g
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one-half cup cooked lentils – 7.8 g
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one-half cup cooked black beans – 7.5 g
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one-half cup dates – 7.1 g
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one cup raisin bran cereal – 7 g
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one-half cup cooked kidney beans – 6.5 g
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one-half cup cooked lima beans – 6.7 g
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one-half cup canned tomato paste – 5.9 g
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one-half cup cooked garbanzo beans – 6.2 g
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one-half cup bean with ham soup – 5.6 g
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one-half cup frozen red raspberries – 5.5 g
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one medium bran muffin – 5 g
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one-half Asian pear – 5 g
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one-half cup cooked artichoke – 4.5 g
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one-half cup frozen peas, cooked – 4.4 g
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one cup oatmeal – 4 g
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one-half cup frozen mixed vegetables, cooked – 4 g
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one-half cup raw blackberries – 3.8 g
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one-half cup canned pumpkin – 3.5 g
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one-half cup cooked whole-wheat spaghetti – 3.4 g
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24 almonds – 3.3 g
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one apple with skin – 3.3 g
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one-half cup cooked barley 3 g
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one cup broccoli – 2.4 g
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one red sweet pepper – 2.4 g
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one nectarine – 2.3 g
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28 peanuts – 2.3 g
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one slice whole grain bread – 2 g
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15 walnut halves – 2 g
Fiber Supplements
Fiber supplements are available and may be added to a low-fiber diet, but fiber supplements shouldn't replace high-fiber foods in your diet because high-fiber foods are usually high in vitamins and minerals as well. If you find it hard to get the recommended amounts of fiber, talk to your coach about our Herbalife fiber products.
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Tips for fitting in fiber
Need ideas for high-fiber meals and snacks? Try these suggestions:
Start your day with a high-fiber breakfast cereal — 5 or more grams of fiber per serving. Opt for cereals with "bran" or "fiber" in the name. Or add a few tablespoons of unprocessed wheat bran to your favorite cereal.
Add crushed bran cereal or unprocessed wheat bran to baked products such as meatloaf, breads, muffins, casseroles, cakes and cookies. You can also use bran products as a crunchy topping for casseroles, salads or cooked vegetables.
Switch to whole-grain breads. These breads list whole wheat, whole-wheat flour or another whole grain as the first ingredient on the label. Look for a brand with at least 2 grams of dietary fiber per serving.
Substitute whole-grain flour for half or all of the white flour when baking bread. Whole-grain flour is heavier than white flour. In yeast breads, use a bit more yeast or let the dough rise longer. When using baking powder, increase it by 1 teaspoon for every 3 cups of whole-grain flour.
Eat more whole grains and whole-grain products. Experiment with brown rice, barley, whole-wheat pasta and bulgur.
Take advantage of ready-to-use vegetables. Mix chopped frozen broccoli into prepared spaghetti sauce. Snack on baby carrots.
Eat more beans, peas and lentils. Add kidney beans to canned soup or a green salad. Or make nachos with refried black beans, baked tortilla chips and salsa.
Eat fruit at every meal. Apples, bananas, oranges, pears and berries are good sources of fiber.
Make snacks count. Fresh and dried fruit, raw vegetables, and low-fat popcorn and whole-grain crackers are all good choices.
High-fiber foods are good for your health. But adding too much fiber too quickly can cause intestinal gas, abdominal bloating and cramping. Increase fiber in your diet gradually over a period of a few weeks. This allows the natural bacteria in your digestive system to adjust to the change. Also, drink plenty of water. Fiber works best when it absorbs water, making your stool soft and bulky. Without the added water, you could become constipated.
Digestive Health
Human health is like the health of an automobile. Just as high octane gasoline is not sufficient to provide a high-performance car with full power and efficiency if an engine tune-up is badly needed, likewise, no matter how nutritiously we eat... we will not experience wellness and energy if our individual cells (the microscopic engines of our body) and our digestive system engine are in need of a tune-up. Engine sludge degrades the performance of cars and humans.
When it comes to figuring out if you're digesting things properly and eating healthy, Dr. Mehmet Oz says that you should rely on your senses in the bathroom. For starters, have you ever thought about the importance of what your bowel movement sounds like when it hits the water? Listen up! "You want to hear what the stool, the poop, sounds like when it hits the water. If it sounds like a bombardier, you know, 'plop, plop, plop,' that's not right because it means you're constipated. It means the food is too hard by the time it comes out. It should hit the water like a diver from Acapulco hits the water [swoosh]." The next thing Dr. Oz recommends is looking at your stool—c'mon, you've done it before! You should look twice—look at the shape and then, the color. "It should be an S shape and you want to make sure the color's normal because the color of the poop tells you a lot about how you made it," Dr. Oz says. "You don't want pieces. Food is a medicine for you. It helps you. If the stool is in pieces by the time you finished digesting your food, you don't have enough of it left to poop out in the right way and probably it's hurt the colon that has to process it.” At the end of the day you can analyze your body really effectively by looking at what comes out of your body. Here's a pop quiz. What part of your body is most similar to your brain? The surprising answer is your small bowel, where most digestion occurs. "That's the saying, you know, you've got blank for blank," Dr. Oz jokes. "But the thing about the small bowel is it has primitive messenger chemicals that tell the bowel how to work. If your bowel's not happy, those same chemicals influence your brain." In this bowel the green stuff is bile, material in the process of being digested. Dr. Oz says it's important to listen to what your bowel tells you. "A lot of times you don't pick up on the subtle clues," he says. "It will tell you that you feel washed out or tired or a little bit of cramping. Or, you know, if you wake up in the morning and just don't feel like yourself, you probably had something allergic that you didn't clue into."
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Not going "number two" enough? New health guidelines suggest we should drink about eight glasses of water a day, about 64 ounces, and get 25 grams of fiber to stay regular and healthy. World-renowned heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz says that if we can work on
our fiber and water intake, our digestive systems could dramatically improve. "High fiber comes in vegetable form: artichokes, lima beans, soybeans," he says. "You can get fruits that have lots of fiber like grapefruit, blackberries and raspberries."
Another fantastic source of fiber is whole grains. Dr. Oz says that eating whole grains isn't just the latest craze—they offer multiple benefits to your health. You may have already heard about the health benefits of whole wheat bread and oatmeal, but now doctors say other whole grains like spelt, bulgar and quinoa can reduce cholesterol and high blood pressure and even help prevent heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. They say that whole grains help flush fat and cholesterol out of your system and provide powerful antioxidants that help you stay healthier, look younger and live longer. The USDA just recently recommended eating at least three servings a day. One of Oprah's favorite whole grain choices is steel cut oatmeal for its crunchy texture. Dr. Oz says steel cut oatmeal and other whole grain foods are high in fiber—great for digestion. "[Steel cut oatmeal] doesn't have a lot of calories, and it drags the food [you eat] along so it can't become like putty—until it gets to the very end," Dr. Oz says. "Whole grains are an insoluble fiber, so it pulls water with it and it binds to all the other stuff you're eating that may not be so good for you. It gets the whole bolus moving on."
Foods rich in magnesium like beets, raisins, dates and soybeans are important because they get your bowels moving! The more natural, the better, says Dr. Oz. "The easy part of this message is all of these foods come out of the ground looking the way they look when you eat them," he says. "That's the only thing you have to remember. 'Does it look the way it looked when it came out of the ground when I eat it? There are no white bread plants!"
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