Cheers For Fiber

One surefire way to move along your weight loss progress is by the addition of fiber to your daily diet. Fiber, while found in many everyday foods, takes much longer for your body to digest than say, Wonder bread or cheese puffs. It slows down the digestion of the food you eat, giving you that full-feeling longer than those foods of little substance.

Something else that fiber doesn't make your body do is spike your blood sugar. When eating foods such as chocolate cake, coffee ice cream, french fries and any other 'this is so bad but its so good' food, your body doesn't have to work very hard to digest it, so it sends a bunch of energy towards getting it through your body as quickly as possible. In layman's terms, its called the sugar high. But after eating a box of Reece's Pieces, an hour later you feel tired and sluggish, known as the crash. Ever wonder why at 3pm you become incredibly tired at your desk? Perhaps it was the iceburg lettuce/bacon bits/garlic crouton salad you consumed, or the side of fries with your club sandwhich on Italian bread. Your body has just digested the food you put into it, and now it feels deprived because the digestion process was so fast and furious.

Eating fiber does the opposite. Your body takes it's sweet ole time to process an apple with peanut butter, or whole wheat pasta, or 4 almonds. This means you need less food to feel satisfied, and since it takes longer to work its way through your system, you don't need more food for longer. Your blood sugar doesn't go haywire, and your metabolism has to work harder to digest fiber, which means you are burning more calories than those vending machine pretzels.

So look at the fiber content in your foods and try and work it in whenever possible. Adding spinach to your eggs in the morning or your lunch time salad, eating an apple a day, or purchasing some high fiber cereal will all help you crave less food throughout the day and lend a hand to whittling your waist. Plus, it keeps you regular!