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One Small Change
Contributing writer Joe Kita dares to make one little, healthy change every month. Past experiments include giving up caffeine, napping daily, and stretching like it's your job.
One Small Change
Are You Eating Enough Fiber?
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When I started this experiment on February 1, I weighed 179.5 pounds—the heaviest I’ve been since college. Since I don’t believe in diets and a particularly snowy winter was limiting my efforts at exercising more, I opted for what seemed an incredibly easy solution: eating an additional 14 grams of fiber every day.
According to the National Fiber Council, by doubling my daily fiber intake I could expect to ingest 100 fewer calories per day. (Fiber’s bulk naturally fills you up, so you eat less.) This equates to one pound lost every 35 days or 10 pounds dropped per year, assuming everything else remains constant. Not as fast as you might desire for summer Speedo season, but impressive nonetheless since no other changes are required—no extra sweat and no dieting.
One Small Change
The Fiber Forum: You Ask, We Answer
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While it seems that everyone understands carbs, fats and protein, fiber somehow escapes us. Maybe it’s because it’s the plumber of nutrients, working in husky coveralls in the dark bowels of the system to keep our pipes clean. No need to pay it any heed as long as it’s working. But since I undertook this month’s One Small Change of eating 14 extra grams of fiber per day in an attempt to lose weight, lots of questions have come up. This is intriguing stuff. Here are some additional things I’ve been wondering about or have been asked by you:
One Small Change
Tired of Oatmeal?
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I’m fed up with oatmeal—literally. I’ve been eating a heaping bowl every morning for the past 3 weeks in an attempt to get a jump on the additional 14 grams of daily fiber that research says is needed to lose weight. Oatmeal, especially the organic steel-cut kind, is one of the most nutritious foods on the planet, but no matter how hard I’ve tried to dress it up (almonds, raisins, blueberries, bananas, apples, a snazzy bowtie…) it remains oatmeal. While it’s satisfying for the body, it just doesn’t do much for my palate.
One of the tenets of weight loss is to never embark on a diet that you can’t sustain for the rest of your life. And for me, oatmeal every morning falls into this category. I mean, why do you think God created huevos rancheros?
One Small Change
Fibbing About Fiber
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As I try to lose weight this month by doing nothing more than eating 14 grams of additional daily fiber, I’ve been reading a lot of food labels. And I’m finding that some products I never expected to contain any fiber actually hold a shocking amount. For example:
- Fiber One Key Lime Pie Yogurt (5 grams per container)
- Skinny Cow No-Sugar-Added Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwiches (5 grams per sandwich)
- Propel Body Peach Mango Water (6 grams per 20 ounces)
So what am I doing choking down steel-cut oats, bulgar wheat and mung beans? Apparently, all these products have more roughage than even such fibrous hall-of-famers as Sunsweet Prune Juice and Metamucil (both of which offer a comparatively measly 3 grams per 8 ounces.)
How can this be? How can a bottle of water be so laden with fiber—unless they're counting the container?
One Small Change
Fill Your Breakfast with Fiber
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Judging from the size and looks of consternation (constipation?) on the faces of most Americans, it should be obvious that as a nation we are not getting enough fiber. In fact, some will argue it’s a moral as well as dietary deficiency. Fortunately, I’ll only be addressing the latter dilemma this month as I try to lose my winter gut by doing nothing more than eating 14 additional grams of fiber per day. You heard right. No extra workouts, no dieting, no other changes. My life will proceed as normal except for some extra birdfeed.
One Small Change
Eat More Fiber to Lose Weight
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If, like me, you still haven’t lost the weight you gained from eating so many Christmas cookies but, nonetheless, have just ordered a dozen boxes of Girl Scout Cookies, then the apocalypse could indeed be upon us. But suppose, just suppose, that there was a way to turn yourself into a Thin Mint™ without giving up your Do-si-dos™? No doubt, you’d say Thank U Berry Munch™. But I digress. (Does it sound like I’m obsessed?)
Not long ago researchers at Tufts University reviewed every study they could find on fiber consumption and weight loss. What they discovered was even more miraculous than those delicious Peanut Butter Patties™. (Have you tried them frozen?) Specifically, the researchers determined that study participants who ate an additional 14 grams of fiber per day—about twice what they had been eating—consumed 10 percent fewer calories overall without even trying.
One Small Change
A Charitable Resolution
This past year I made 12 small changes in my life for the sake of this monthly blog. These ranged from the indulgent (napping for 20 minutes daily) to the nearly incontinent (drinking 120 ounces of fluid every 24 hours to stay fully hydrated.) Some of these small changes stuck with me (like eating real food and stretching regularly) but others I’ll never revisit (like giving up caffeine and drinking 120 ounces of fluid every 24 hours). But no small change has proven more perplexing and personally troubling than the one I undertook this month.
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"I rarely got hungry. Whether I was just eating a bowl of steel-cut oats in the morning or snacking on fiber-rich foods throughout the day, I never got the urge to go elbow-deep in a bag of Bickel’s or squat in a corner with Ben & Jerry."
—test subject Joe Kita in "Are You Eating Enough Fiber?"
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