Count Fiber Grams ~ Not Calories!

Here's a nugget of health advice ~ to prevent or improve heart disease, diabetes, or obesity ~ make those grams of fiber add up every day!

Fiber revs up your metabolism, helps stabilize blood sugars, optimizes what goes on in your intestines and reduces food cravings ~ and all you have to do is eat enough of it!

So gone are the worries that you'll weaken and eat a sack of Oreo's, or how you'll ever figure out complicated food exchanges ~ or that you have to keep counting calories.

The trick, I hear, is to eat 40 grams of fiber every day, and your body chemistry calibrates the rest.

I tried it out yesterday. It was enlightening. First of all, you won't find much fiber in fast food ~ so there's a benefit right there. It's mainly in fruits, nuts, vegetables and legumes (beans), but you have to eat a lot to tally 40 g ~ another benefit. Lastly, once you get six or seven grams of fiber under your belt (literally)for the day, you don't crave foods that offer NOTHING nutritionally.

So ~ I started with a serving of oatmeal mixed with a chopped apple. That's 9 g right there. (Most apples have 5 g of fiber, which probably is how the adage, "an apple a day" came about.)

A handful of almonds later on added another several grams, and for lunch I had two bowls of a soup that I had made the day before with chopped beets, cabbage, carrots and onions ~ so about 7 g for each bowl ~ or 14 g total.

Going into the afternoon, I had already had more than 20 g of fiber and I noticed that I felt pretty good. The other thing I noticed was I really craved more of the good stuff ~ so another apple was much more appealing mid afternoon than fiberless saltines or something sweet.

So as you "nickel and dime" your way along in terms of grams, you find it's really not that difficult to get to 40g at the end of the day ~ if you're eating the right stuff. Though you have to eat often and a lot (of good stuff!!) to get there, it's not so hard because your body naturally craves it.

Take this as a mantra for two or three days: "Focus on forty!"

Let's see what happens!