"Resistance" to Fiber?

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mylittlerainbow
mylittlerainbow Posts: 822 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I've been in maintenance for about 3 weeks now. During the weight reduction phase, I was pretty regularly constipated - despite the 60-72 oz of water I drank each day, at least 4 servings of vegetables, exercise for at least 30 minutes a day, Benefiber every day, lentils and black beans and nuts and seeds and dried fruits and so on. Started each day with 12 oz warm water with the juice of a lemon in it, which had been recommended years ago when I was pregnant. I was mostly avoiding fat, which I know help with this issue, but I was focused on losing the weight then.

As I started transitioning to maintenance, to the above I added 1 tbsp chia seeds, 1 tbsp ground flaxseed, and 1 tsp cumin on top of everything else, plus increased exercise to 60 minutes per day, plus a reasonable amount of healthy fat. This worked like a charm for me for a while, but now I'm back to almost where I was before. Is this something to which your body builds up a resistance/habituation so that you need more and more fiber all the time? I know that's true of some things you do or you take, but I would think a certain amount of fiber would be what you would need daily, period, and not always increasingly more.

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  • MaltedTea
    MaltedTea Posts: 6,286 Member
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    Have you chatted with a nutritionist about this challenge?

    If you're logging your foods judiciously then they may be able to see areas where you can modify your current eating habits (and still avoid constipation).
  • mylittlerainbow
    mylittlerainbow Posts: 822 Member
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    I had not thought of that. Thank you.
  • RelCanonical
    RelCanonical Posts: 3,882 Member
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    How many grams of fiber are you getting a day? Might be best to talk with a doctor about it. But, too much fiber also causes constipation.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,419 Member
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    So, how much fat are you getting in maintenance? That really can be meaningful (speaking as someone who's had IBS-C diagnosed in the past). Are you at something in the range of 0.35-0.45g fat daily per pound of bodyweight?

    The things that matter for me (most of which you're already hitting) are:

    * Fiber (balance of soluble/insoluble might matter, but I haven't had to experiment much with it)
    * Water
    * Fats
    * Exercise, especially middle-moving exercise

    Based on other discussions here, some other things I've seen matter for folks are:
    * Magnesium (if potentially deficient, but don't trust MFP to give you accurate numbers!)
    * Probiotics and prebiotics (I eat lots of fermented foods and veggies, so I get these, but haven't had to manipulate either one intentionally to improve my results; others say they have).

    Just some thoughts. Hope you find a solution: Constipation, especially high-fiber-intake constipation, can be miserable.
  • elfin168
    elfin168 Posts: 202 Member
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    Do not know about the fibre but strongly suggest you quit the lemon in water. The acid in the lemon juice can do serious damage to your teeth over time.. irreparably damaging the enamel. Google acid erosion if you dare
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,419 Member
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    elfin168 wrote: »
    Do not know about the fibre but strongly suggest you quit the lemon in water. The acid in the lemon juice can do serious damage to your teeth over time.. irreparably damaging the enamel. Google acid erosion if you dare

    True of a *huge* range of common beverages, including dozens of flavored waters, soda/pop, sports drinks, flavored teas, juices . . . .

    This link doesn't always function properly in all browsers because it has embedded blanks, but cutting & pasting it should work:

    https://www.ada.org/en/~/media/ADA/Public Programs/Files/JADA_The pH of beverages in the United States

    The pH of lemon juice is in the 2 to 3 range, so about the same as many of these beverages. However, putting lemon juice in water results in a more neutral (less damaging to teeth) pH via dilution.

    So, there may be better choices for teeth than lemon water, but it's not uniquely terrible - far from it. FWIW, the ADA considers things with pH above 4 to be "minimally erosive". Obviously, different amounts of lemon juice vs. water will have different effects, but it seems pretty likely that if one is putting a small wedge/slice of lemon at pH 2 in a full 8-12oz glass of water, that pH is increasing materially (never above 7, of course).

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