If you are on a low-carb diet, you might be concerned about getting enough fiber to keep your digestive tract healthy. In most cases, adding more fiber to a low-carb diet improves the overall health profile of the diet and may even help boost your weight loss.
Low-Carb Diets
Low-carb diets emphasize eating protein and fat over carbohydrates. Carbohydrate consumption on these diets is typically limited to 20 percent of your daily calories or less, around 20 to 100 g of carbohydrates per day. Some low-carb diets use the glycemic index to help determine which foods to consume, while others focus strictly on restricting the total grams of carbohydrates you eat each day. On some low-carb diets, the amount of fiber in a given food is subtracted from the total grams of carbohydrates to obtain a value of net carbs, which you use to figure out how much of a particular food you can eat.
Fiber
Fiber is a type of carbohydrate the body does not digest; it passes through the digestive tract intact. The two main types of fiber are soluble and insoluble fiber. Soluble fiber occurs in oatmeal, nuts, seeds, beans, legumes and some fruits and vegetables. Soluble fiber becomes a viscous gel in the digestive tract and helps slow digestion and lower cholesterol levels. Insoluble fiber is in whole grains, vegetables and wheat bran. This type of fiber bulks up stool and speeds up digestion. Most of the foods highest in fiber are highly restricted on a low-carb diet, so if you're following this type of diet, you may not get the recommended 20 to 35 g of fiber per day.
Considerations
When you don't get enough fiber in the diet, you may become constipated. This is a common complaint of people on low-carb diets. In the long term, low fiber intake can lead to intestinal problems such as diverticular disease. Fiber can also regulate blood sugar levels, so a diet lacking in fiber may deprive you of this benefit. In addition, fiber helps reduce hunger and improve weight loss, so adding it to your diet should not impact the rate at which you lose weight.
Increasing Fiber Intake
If you are on a low-carb diet and want to increase your fiber intake, choose high-fiber carbohydrates to fill your small daily carbohydrate allotment. Vegetables and beans are good choices, as they are high in both fiber and nutrients. You may also choose to take supplementary fiber such as psyllium husk or flaxseed.
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