Digestive health is as important as your overall health, but not everyone is aware of the part that fibre plays. Fibre helps you to feel fuller for longer, improves your blood sugar levels and cholesterol, keeps your bowel movements regular and even prevents some diseases. It’s found in fruit, vegetables, legumes, and grains, and can be broken down into three kinds: soluble, insoluble, and resistant starch.
Soluble fibre puts your stomach in “go slow” mode, making it slower to empty, keeping you fuller for longer. Insoluble fibre, on the other hand, encourages regular bowel movements while keeping your bowels healthy. And, finally, resistant starch is utilised by the large intestine, helping to produce good bacteria and improve your overall bowel health. This sounds like all good stuff you’d like to benefit from, right? Here are just five more of the many benefits of adding fibre to your diet.
1. It Aids in Weight Loss
Without making any other dietary changes, or any exercise adjustments, you may find that fibre helps you to lose weight. By introducing fibre-rich food to your diet, you feel fuller for longer and are less likely to snack on sugar or fat-laden goods in between meals. Fibre works by binding fat and sugar together through the digestive tract, which lowers the calories your body actually uses. Knowing you could lose weight is reason enough to consider adding more fibre-rich food to your diet.
2. Improve Bowel Functions
Not everyone is blessed with regular bowel movements, and often this can be down to your diet, and a little bit of genetics as well. If you were to increase your fibre intake, you might just find you pass stools more frequently, while benefiting from them being softer and bulkier as well.
3. Reduce the Risk of Heart Disease
Studies have shown that just seven grams of fibre every day can reduce your risk of getting heart disease by as much as nine percent. Fibre works by absorbing excess cholesterol, and this means that it makes its way through your digestive tract rather than into your arteries.
4. It Helps you to Detox
Many people who cleanse their bodies do so with different health products, smoothies, and juices. However, fibre can help you to detox effortlessly. It eliminates toxins, soaks up harmful fats, and moves those toxins through your body very quickly. Why cleanse when you can introduce fibre-rich food into your diet and detox naturally?
5. Strengthen Your Bones
Soluble fibre has been known to be beneficial for the health of your bones. Eat your fill of soybeans, asparagus, oats, wheat, and even leeks, and benefit from better bone density.
Fibre is so easy to include in your diet, but many people are still not getting enough. Eat plenty of fruit, vegetables, legumes, and grains, and reap the rewards of a healthier digestive system and a healthier you.
