How to eat to lose weight? Nutritionists recommend that a reduced-sugar diet plus dietary fiber is the key, and eating right will get you twice the result with half the effort!

From the end of the year to the beginning of the New Year, it is basically a season for growing meat, with dinner parties and year-end parties one after another! The coming Chinese New Year will be the time for eating meat and fish. How can we lose weight and reduce fat after this period? Nutritionists recommend that a reduced-sugar diet and dietary fiber supplementation are the best ways to lose weight and reduce fat!

Quick understanding of sugar reduction diet and carbohydrate ratio

What is a reduced sugar diet?

Many people have a wrong understanding of the sugar-reducing diet. They either often mistake the sugar-reducing diet for a ketogenic diet, or they eat it in a very unbalanced way, which greatly reduces the effectiveness! This column will introduce to you how to reduce sugar intake and how to combine foods to achieve twice the result with half the effort!

Sugar is carbohydrates, and a sugar-reducing diet is a diet that reduces carbohydrates! Carbohydrates account for about 60% of the calories we consume in our daily diet, so any diet that reduces carbohydrates is a low-sugar diet!

Many studies in the past have pointed out that a low-sugar diet can help stimulate fat metabolism, increase insulin sensitivity, etc., so a low-sugar diet has been the most popular weight loss diet in recent years!

How to grasp the proportion of sugar-reducing diet?

The calories from carbohydrates in a reduced-sugar diet account for about 20-30%, which is 30-40% less than usual. This can be achieved by boys and girls eating 2-3 bowls less rice per day, 1-2 palms more of meat, and not drinking any sugary drinks. It is gentler and easier to implement than a ketogenic diet!

A sugar-reduced diet often results in insufficient dietary fiber, leading to intestinal flora imbalance or constipation, which affects metabolism

A sugar-reducing diet requires reducing the proportion of carbohydrates, which leads to avoiding the intake of "whole grains", "root vegetables" and "fruits" and resulting in insufficient dietary fiber intake!

The current dietary fiber intake is about 13-14 grams, which is far lower than the 25-35 grams recommended by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. If the dietary fiber provided by fruits and whole grains is deducted, there may be less than 10 grams left, which will seriously affect the intestinal flora ecology.

Insufficient dietary fiber can easily lead to constipation problems. A survey shows that the constipation rate of extreme sugar reducers is as high as 50%. This phenomenon is called "low-carb constipation" or "keto constipation"! These problems interact with metabolism, thus further affecting the effectiveness of fat loss!

Therefore, those who are reducing their sugar intake must consume enough dietary fiber to improve intestinal flora and constipation problems!

"Don't forget, a healthy gastrointestinal tract is the only way to stay slim."

The effects and mechanisms of dietary fiber in reducing weight and fat

Many studies have shown that adequate dietary fiber helps reduce fat, and the mechanism is roughly as follows

Dietary fiber prevents the absorption of sugar and oil

In 2009, scholars conducted a study on indigestible maltodextrin and found that consuming indigestible maltodextrin would increase the fat content in feces, which means that supplementing this type of dietary fiber can reduce fat absorption!

In addition, studies have also pointed out that dietary fiber can slow down the decomposition of starch in food and lower the GI value, so adding dietary fiber powder to meals can reduce the absorption of carbohydrates and fats and help lose fat!

Dietary fiber adjusts the intestinal flora and stimulates blood sugar and blood lipid metabolism

Dietary fiber is the food source for intestinal probiotics. Probiotics produce short-chain fatty acids in the intestines and stimulate the secretion of intestinal hormones. Studies have found that taking dietary fiber supplements can increase the level of intestinal hormones in the body, further stimulate the sensitivity of cells to blood sugar in the body, and reduce the effect of fat synthesis.

Dietary fiber helps suppress appetite

Intestinal hormones not only promote metabolism, but also reduce appetite, and increase satiety because dietary fiber can absorb water. A 2015 study found that indigestible maltodextrin can regulate satiety-related hormones in the blood, such as glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), peptide YY, etc., and the subjects also said that supplementing with dietary fiber can increase satiety and reduce the desire to eat.

Therefore, people who want to lose fat by reducing sugar in their diet must consume enough dietary fiber to help us quickly achieve our fat loss goals through the above three mechanisms! In addition, supplementing dietary fiber can also improve bowel movements by adjusting intestinal flora, stimulating intestinal peristalsis and absorbing water!

It is recommended that people who reduce sugar intake take additional dietary fiber supplements

However, because people who are reducing their sugar intake often cannot consume enough whole grains and fruits, dietary fiber supplements are also a good choice!

Common dietary fiber health materials

Common dietary fiber health ingredients include chicory fiber (inulin), indigestible maltodextrin (fibersol-2) and fructooligosaccharides (fructooligosaccharides).

Because chicory fiber (inulin) and indigestible maltodextrin (fibersol-2) are easily soluble, colorless, and tasteless, and have the most empirical research, they have become the most common dietary fiber health ingredients on the market. Functional teas and fiber powders often use these two dietary fibers as a compound formula.

Nutritionists recommend how to choose dietary fiber supplement powder

The dietary fiber content of functional tea drinks on the market is about 10-15 grams. You can choose this type of drink to replace sugary drinks. But if you don’t like drinking tea, or want to supplement dietary fiber in other ways, you can also choose dietary fiber powder.

The dietary fiber powder available in the market is about 6 grams. You can use the colorless and tasteless characteristics of these dietary fibers to add dietary fiber powder to dishes, soups, and beverages to increase the dietary fiber content, so as to make up for the problem of insufficient dietary fiber intake during the sugar reduction period, and it can also help reduce the absorption of sugar and oil. Nutritionists also recommend ways to choose dietary fiber powder:

– Choose to add health ingredients that can promote metabolism and weight loss

The purpose of eating low-sugar foods is mostly to lose weight and promote metabolism, so when choosing dietary fiber supplement powder, you can choose one that has added other ingredients that can promote metabolism (such as peptone, garcinia cambogia extract), etc., which can take into account multiple effects at once.

– Choose products with experimental proof and health food certification

Efficacy is closely related to dosage, and if it is not experimentally verified, it may be ineffective. Therefore, nutritionists recommend that when choosing, first choose dosages that have been proven by experiments!

The easiest way to identify it is the health food certification mark! Nutritionists use the adjustment of gastrointestinal function as an example, and say that taking one packet (about 6 grams) of dietary fiber powder every day can significantly increase the number of probiotics by 4.5 times within 8 weeks, and adjust the ecology of the hundreds of trillions of bacteria in our body. For functional tea, you should drink 1-2 cans a day, and the probiotic flora can be adjusted in 4 weeks.

These products with experimental certification can make us more secure when purchasing products!

Finally, nutritionists still recommend that everyone should focus on diet first, eat more vegetables, and take dietary fiber supplements to reach the recommended intake of dietary fiber, maintain a healthy gastrointestinal tract, and get on track for a slim physique!

This article is from "Good Food Class"

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