How Do Low Carb'ers Get Enough Fibre?

Hey guys,

So I see a lot of guys that were former fatties go on low carb, moderate/ high pro and fat diets to shed the fat.

The problem I am racking in my head is, where the heck do you guys get your fibre sources from? I see a lot of diets posted here and majority of them do not mention any/ enough sources of vegetables.

I’m counting all calories - and fruits and vegetables are counted as carb sources for me…incase you were wondering.

To give you an example - if i eat a true low carb diet - my shits become irregular.

Anyone?

Some vegetables, I would count as carbs, as you suggested. Think leafy green veggies and that is where you’ll get your fiber such as spinach, collard greens, kale, etc with minimal impact on your overall carb count.

If you’re not getting enough fiber, just pick up a sugar-free Metamucil or similar product. Make sure you drink a ton of water with them however or you will just make the problem worse.

fiber is over and underrated. How did ancient man get enough fiber before grains? he must have been just fine.

eat veggies, some fruit and some nuts daily and you’ll get more than the avg american.

also up your fat intake, it helps soften the poos

when I decided to lower my carb intake I ate loads more vegetables, so I was getting MORE fibre. I just assumed everyone was the same.

What kind of diet are you doing where you don’t eat vegetables? That seems a little strange

^ Some low carb diets (Atkins, induction phase) allow only a certain amount of vegetables like mushrooms, carrots, onion because they have a higher carb count but almost freely allow leafy green salads and higher amount of other leafy greens. If you wanted to have say cauliflower for dinner, you would only be allowed a very small amount - for me it was about 1/2 cup.

As far as fiber being over or underrated as mentioned above, I don’t think that telling someone that is constipated that he shouldn’t be helps much. Constipation is one of the top complaints among people switching to this eating style. If you go from eating a lot of processed food or tons of starch and sugar and switch to a rapidly different way of eating, it will affect your digestive tract and colon. It takes time to adjust so do what you need to to make yourself more comfortable.

Increasing your fats will help also.

[quote]jehovasfitness wrote:
fiber is over and underrated. How did ancient man get enough fiber before grains? he must have been just fine.

eat veggies, some fruit and some nuts daily and you’ll get more than the avg american.[/quote]

All of the above.

Also, probiotics > fiber. (ie. when you’re digesting food properly, there’s little need for insoluble fiber like psyllium husks to help push everything along)

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think the fiber in vegetables are “usable” and they won’t spike insulin, so I’m not sure why you would count fiber grams towards your carb intake.

[quote]jjackkrash wrote:
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think the fiber in vegetables are “usable” and they won’t spike insulin, so I’m not sure why you would count fiber grams towards your carb intake. [/quote]

You’re right; fiber isn’t counted towards your carb intake if you’re following an Atkins type diet. You would subtract that from the overall carb count. Not sure about other low carb programs so I can’t comment on those. Ideally, you would eat more foods higher in fiber and a lower carb count so that you can eat more and also minimize elimination problems.

[quote]chillain wrote:

[quote]jehovasfitness wrote:
fiber is over and underrated. How did ancient man get enough fiber before grains? he must have been just fine.

eat veggies, some fruit and some nuts daily and you’ll get more than the avg american.[/quote]

All of the above.

Also, probiotics > fiber. (ie. when you’re digesting food properly, there’s little need for insoluble fiber like psyllium husks to help push everything along)

[/quote]

I really do generally agree with this statement, however, some people (especially women) still have issues with digestion. Guess some people just need a little extra help.

Generally speaking vegetables are friendly to all humans and the more the better.
Many ignorants give eating advice that are not healthy.
If you personally Must lower all carbs intake look for celery, cucombers any vegetable wich is real low in calories.

Carbs are not all equals. Avoiding bad carbs is smart for all humans, white bread, refined products, added sugar, corn syrup all chemicals names…

Generally eat things without ingredients list. They have the right to hide the truth and they do.

Really low carbs is not healthy it should be short term for anyone to be healthy.

BHappy,

You really don’t seem to have a good understanding of what a low carb diet is. It isn’t calorie related and it is expected that your carbs come from a decent source. There is nothing that isn’t healthy about eating salads and spinach and veggies that are generally lower in carbs. You are trying to avoid huge spikes in insulin. Some vegetables such as carrots and onions lead to a greater response so you try to limit those to start off.

If really low carbs aren’t healthy, I wonder what Shelby Starnes has been doing wrong all of these years? There are some people with diabetes and hypoglycemia, among other illnesses, that can’t eat large amounts of fruits or certain vegetables.

[quote]BHappy wrote:
Generally speaking vegetables are friendly to all humans and the more the better.
Many ignorants give eating advice that are not healthy.
If you personally Must lower all carbs intake look for celery, cucombers any vegetable wich is real low in calories.

Carbs are not all equals. Avoiding bad carbs is smart for all humans, white bread, refined products, added sugar, corn syrup all chemicals names…

Generally eat things without ingredients list. They have the right to hide the truth and they do.

Really low carbs is not healthy it should be short term for anyone to be healthy.[/quote]

thanks for sharing your vast wisdom.

Perhaps we should define what low-carb is specifically before making a general statement.

it’s pretty simple dude.

put some spinach or mushrooms in your eggs in the morning. add some pineapple on the side.

chicken salad for lunch, w/ some avocado or something

roasted green beens for dinner.

just grind up some flax-seed, chia seed or have some phylium husk twice/day.

easy, cheep, effective.

[quote]Jackie_Jacked wrote:
^ Some low carb diets (Atkins, induction phase) allow only a certain amount of vegetables like mushrooms, carrots, onion because they have a higher carb count but almost freely allow leafy green salads and higher amount of other leafy greens. If you wanted to have say cauliflower for dinner, you would only be allowed a very small amount - for me it was about 1/2 cup.

As far as fiber being over or underrated as mentioned above, I don’t think that telling someone that is constipated that he shouldn’t be helps much. Constipation is one of the top complaints among people switching to this eating style. If you go from eating a lot of processed food or tons of starch and sugar and switch to a rapidly different way of eating, it will affect your digestive tract and colon. It takes time to adjust so do what you need to to make yourself more comfortable.

Increasing your fats will help also.
[/quote]

Constipation is not only about fiber. Other factors:

water (mentioned)
walking - to work food through digestive system
magnesium
digestive enzymes
probiotics (mentioned)

As long as fiber is 10 - 15 g per day, I’d look at those other factors before increasing fiber.

If you’re dieting, you’re not gonna shit that much anyway.

But… yeah, spinach.

[quote]Jeffrey of Troy wrote:

[quote]Jackie_Jacked wrote:
^ Some low carb diets (Atkins, induction phase) allow only a certain amount of vegetables like mushrooms, carrots, onion because they have a higher carb count but almost freely allow leafy green salads and higher amount of other leafy greens. If you wanted to have say cauliflower for dinner, you would only be allowed a very small amount - for me it was about 1/2 cup.

As far as fiber being over or underrated as mentioned above, I don’t think that telling someone that is constipated that he shouldn’t be helps much. Constipation is one of the top complaints among people switching to this eating style. If you go from eating a lot of processed food or tons of starch and sugar and switch to a rapidly different way of eating, it will affect your digestive tract and colon. It takes time to adjust so do what you need to to make yourself more comfortable.

Increasing your fats will help also.
[/quote]

Constipation is not only about fiber. Other factors:

water (mentioned)
walking - to work food through digestive system
magnesium
digestive enzymes
probiotics (mentioned)

As long as fiber is 10 - 15 g per day, I’d look at those other factors before increasing fiber. [/quote]

Agreed. I was responding to a post earlier about fiber, specifically, so that’s the point that I addressed. Not purposefully neglecting any other things noteworthy of discussion. All of your points are valid and I would suggest all of them to someone that was having issue and use all of them myself.

The solution (if allowed by the selected diet) is celery. One or two stalks of celery with your meal will solve the problem.

If you’d like to experiment, eat nothing but a huge steak and see the results. Then the next day eat a huge steak with 2 stalks of celery.

I never really put much thought into it. I never found fiber a necessity, even when I was living on a 100% whole milk diet. Everything just seemed to sort itself out.

Probably has to do with that list above.

(Granted, that’s not low-carb, but it is fiber-free.)

On the top of “probiotics”, what types would you recommend? I’ve been taking DanActive for the past while…however i just found out in Canada - that they are getting sued for false advertising. Basically they have to remove anything that says it helps. Makes me question the effective of it…plus it has like 15g of sugar per bottle…