Why Fibre is Important to Healing

You have probably heard those commercials that tell you fibre is important to your digestive needs, but have you looked into why?

Because I have Rheumatoid Arthritis and I was overweight and wanting to loose a few pounds (or 2 or 3, ok 80), I got curious and looked into it to see what those commercials meant.  I know they used to teach stuff like this in biology and foods, a.k.a home economics, but I'm not sure what they cover in school now.  Last I heard about my local high school was that foods and sewing no longer existed in the curriculum, which is sad.  I mean where are our youth supposed to learn how to cook in this fast food nation?

Unless you cook for your family at home then they probably wont.  But in todays world of 2 income families on the fast track to white picket fences, or maybe the goal is just a roof over their heads… regardless, from what I read families are spending less and less time at home, meaning they are eating more food on the run instead of around the table.

Fibre is more important now than it was in the past, because the fast food nation is not getting any in those cardboard meals pretending to be burgers.  Those disks pretending to be bread have little to no fibre content.  Meaning that they simply pass though your body, fooling your stomach into thinking it was full for a few hours.  But your stomach fights back, hungrier than ever, because not only was it fooled the first time, it was denied nutrients and fibre.  This is part of a vicious cycle that leads to overeating.

The article Fibre - Its Importance to Our Health by Ross Bridgeford - EzineArticles.com Expert Author explains the details beautifully.  A summary would be:

• Fibre is necessary for digestion.  
• Fibre is found in the foods that we eat, that are not processed or processed very little from their natural states (think not fast food and not food that comes out of a box like KD, otherwise known as fresh fruits, vegetables, grains and meat).  
• Soluble fibre passes into the blood stream and on into the rest of the body to help move toxins back into the digestive tract for expulsion, hanging onto things like cholesterol along the way.  
• Insoluble fibre adds bulk to your stool to help move the waste from meals out of your body, soaking up toxins and water along the way.  

This article from the Mayo Clinic supports the above information and goes further to suggest daily recommended value and how to fit more fibre into your day.

I've already talked about the importance of water in your daily life.  Combining fibre and water are important to digestion and waste elimination for a few reasons.  Toxin elimination takes place in 5 ways if you'r a male, 6 if you'r female.  Those ways are:

• Bowels
• Bladder
• Skin through sweat
• Breathing
• Voice
• Menstruation

This article from ND Health Facts called Elimination of Toxins explains these processes in more detail.  All of these functions rely on water and fibre to work properly, as well as vitamins and nutrition.  Boosting your water and fibre intake will relieve constipation and make you more regular.

I drink green smoothies most days and receive some fibre from those, but when my medications throw things out of whack I also add Benefiber for extra bulk.  Some prefer Metamucil, the choice is yours, it's your kitchen.

Adding more fibre to your diet is also important to avoid the Herxheimer Reaction, also known as the "Healing Crisis".  Fibre helps in that it assists toxins out of the body faster by making you regular, the Herxheimer Reaction is caused by toxins stalling out in the toxin elimination process and not actually leaving the body but still circulating in the body's systems after being released by increasing the water intake, wrecking havoc and causing pain.  If I had known this important fact when I started on my healing journey I could have saved myself allot of pain.  Knowing it now has helped me:

• adjust to new medications faster, especially if they have adverse side effects like diarrhea or constipation,
• helped me to eat more nutritious foods which helps me feel fuller longer = read as no overeating,
• And as mentioned above, helped me move toxins out of my body, which I think is helping to reduce my RA.  There have been other contributors to my decrease in pain, but I do think this helps, everything is connected

This topic could go on for days, please take some time to look up fibre on the internet, ask your doctor questions, whatever it takes to learn more about your body and how you can start helping yourself.  Adding fibre is a relatively easy thing to do and can lead to a healthier diet, you just need to be willing to make small changes every day.  Add apples one week, carry carrot sticks in your lunch instead of chips… start off small, but do start something.  The only side effect to this is health, and who doesn't want that.

If you find a good link, then please let me know by adding a reply below, I am always looking for more information.  Enjoy your weekend.