Episode 379: Fibermaxxing: Is It Legit? Everything You Need to Know About Fiber
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Move over, protein. There’s a new wellness obsession in town and her name is FIBER.
In this episode, Erin talks about the rising trend of “fibermaxxing” and why it’s more than just a catchy Gen Z trend. You’ll learn how fiber fuels your gut microbiome, supports short-chain fatty acid production, and impacts everything from hormone balance to inflammation.
But it’s not as simple as loading up overnight. Erin explains the distinct differences between soluble, insoluble, and resistant starch fibers, why variety is key for a resilient, diverse microbiome, and how to add fiber-rich foods and functional fiber supplements without triggering digestive distress.
Start slow, stay consistent, and prepare to reap the benefits!
In this episode:
Why “fibermaxxing” is more than just a TikTok trend, and how to use it to actually improve gut health
The hidden ways your gut microbiome shapes immunity, mood, hormone balance, and even your detox capacity
How different types of fiber, like soluble, insoluble, and resistant starch, work alongside polyphenols to feed good bacteria
Erin’s favorite strategies for upping your fiber game without the gas, bloating, or IBS flare-ups
Why eating 30-40 different plants each week is the simplest path to a stronger microbiome
Resources mentioned:
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So the microbiome, the collection of bacteria that live in our guts, are doing a lot of jobs from tip to tail to keep us well and to keep us healthy. And that health really depends on diversity. In order for the microbiome to do all these jobs and to have proper function, it needs to be diverse. So there needs to be many different types of beneficial bacteria and a lot of of them. Unfortunately, lack of diversity is a huge problem in modern day westernized guts, the ones that you and I are walking around with.
Welcome to The Funk’tional Nutrition Podcast, spelled with a K because we do things a little differently around here. I'm your host, Erin Holt and I've got 15 years of clinical experience as a functional nutritionist and mindset coach, creating a new model that I call Intuitive Functional Medicine™ where we combine root cause medicine with the innate intelligence of your body. This is where science meets self trust. Your body already knows how to heal and this show is going to show you how. If you're looking for new ways of thinking about your health, be sure to follow and share with a friend because you never know whose life you might change.
Move over protein. We got a new wellness obsession in town and her name is Fiber. Today we're going to talk about fiber. Never have I ever thought that talking about fiber would be like sexy. I've been talking about fiber for a long time.
I've been a nutritionist for 15 years now. A lot of fiber talk. Never did I think it was going to be like, ooh, like a sexy new trending thing. But those Gen Z wellness influencers, they done made it sexy by calling it fibermaxxing. Fibermaxxing two X's. So this is a social media wellness trend. Maybe you've seen it and the trend is basically just increasing fiber intake through meals and stacks. Pretty good, you know, like not crazy yet.
Not crazy yet. And from what I've seen, it seems framed as a positive abundance minded habit. Right? We're loading up on foods. It's not what we can't eat, it's not what we're restricting, it's not what we're pulling out, it's what we're focusing on. Fiber. Rich plant foods, fruits, veggies, legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and also sometimes supplementing with functional fibers. This would be like fibers that you take in powder supplement form like psyllium, husk or sun fiber. And the goal with this trend, as I've seen it, is you do want to hit or even exceed fiber guidelines.
So that's where the maxing comes into play, we want to max out those guidelines. So typically the recommendations are 25 grams a day for women, 38 grams a day for men. And some influencers are pushing this up to 50 grams a day. So almost doubling the fiber requirements. Now, as somebody who has been in the gut health microbiome restoration space for a long ass time, I actually think that this is pretty good with some caveats. So if somebody is seeing this trend and people are talking about how they're using this fibermaxxing to improve their digestion and you're seeing this and you're like, I've got digestive issues. If you're like 7, 70% of the population, maybe I should try this fiber thing. Let's talk through whether or not that's a good strategy for you.
I'm not here to fear monger. I'm not going to be like just because this is a wellness influencer trend, it's bad. I'm not going to tell you that fiber is bad. It's not. But fiber can definitely exacerbate digestive symptoms. So the goal of this podcast today is to A help you understand why fiber is so important, B, give you some different food and supplement sources of fiber, and C, talk through some really good strategies for you. Like, if you do want to attempt this, cool. Why? But we're going to start with understanding why you're doing what you're doing.
Because I think that's really, really important when we are the owners of these human bodies and we're cramming things into our pie holes for a desired effect. Let's have a deep understanding of why we're doing what we're doing. We really can't do blanket statements in health, especially when it comes to food and nutrition. But for the most part, most people should probably be eating more fiber. I am pro fiber. Pro more fiber. So let's talk about why. And just a quick note, we do have a companion guide to go along with this podcast episode on our blog.
So we're outlining specific foods and even recipes to include. Because if I just sat here and read you a list of all of the different fiber rich foods, it would probably get pretty boring. So I want you to have a guide that you can actually use, a little companion to go along with this show. So that will be linked up in the show notes and it's on our blog. P.S. did you know that we have a blog? We do. Ta da. How you like me? Now go check out the blog.
Okay, let's drill into what specifically the gut microbiome does because the fibers are feeding the gut microbiome. That's why we're doing this whole thing. So why do we want to feed the gut microbiome? It modulates the immune system, so the gut runs the immune system. We know this. It also protects against allergy development, food sensitivities, viruses, pathogens. It helps us with gut motility, so how quickly or slowly things move through our gut. It's important for nutrient status like B vitamins, vitamin K, mineral absorption. It helps with weight management, blood sugar control, insulin control.
It's also really important for hormone balance and clearance. It helps us with mood management through that gut brain connection. It helps to regulate inflammation in our body and it also helps us with detoxification. So the more diverse, worse the microbiome, the more chemicals you're able to detox and clear out of your system. We hear so much about microplastics these days, for example, as we should. It's a big deal. It's not just about what we're exposed to, but it's also about how well our body can clear things out. So it's not just the liver that does this, it's also the microbiome.
So the microbiome, the collection of bacteria that live in our guts, are doing a lot of jobs from tip to tail to keep us well and to keep us healthy. And that health really depends on diversity. In order for the microbiome to do all these jobs and to have proper function, it needs to be diverse. So there needs to be many different types of beneficial bacteria, and a lot of them. Unfortunately, lack of diversity is a huge problem in modern day westernized guts. The ones that you and I are walking around with. Low beneficial species is something we see every single day when we're looking at our clients gut panel stool test results. So when we're looking at stool tests, we can see these commensal or keystone bacteria, the beneficial bacteria, the good guys that make up our microbiome.
These are important bacteria that extract nutrients and energy from our diets, maintain gut barrier function, so help to prevent leaky gut. They keep our guts healthy and strong. They produce vitamins, they protect against colonization by pathogens. Pathogens. And certain examples of these bacteria that we're looking at would be Bifidobacterium, lactobacillus, akkermansia, fecal bacterium, Prostnitzi, roseburia. And we are seeing these keystones, these key players of our guts, of our microbiomes, low frequently. Like every single day. We're Seeing this on stool tests.
So it's very, very, very common. And when people are asking the question like why is asthma so much more common these days? Why are allergies so much more common, or food sensitivities or autoimmunity or chronic illness? Why is inflammation so much more common? Why is mast cell activation, histamine issues so much more common? It becomes easier to answer that question. It becomes easier to understand why all of these conditions are so much more prevalent today. When we realize how much the bacteria within the microbiome do for us in our overall health and how much they are suffering, we frequently refer to this as deficiency dysbiosis. Dysbiosis meaning an imbalance, deficiency meaning they're low, they're deficient, they are lacking abundance and diversity as well. And there's multiple reasons for this. Deficiency dysbiosis and this lack of diversity in some of these reasons go over all the way back to birth. So how we were born can really set the pace or set the standard for our microbiome, whether we're born via C section or vaginal, also whether we were breastfed or bottle fed.
And that's because human breast milk contains oligosaccharides, which is a very specific type of prebiotic that feeds bifidobacteria. One of those keystone players that I mentioned, whether you grew up and live in a rural environment or a more urban environment can influence your microbiome childh antibiotic use, present day antibiotic use, how frequently you use antibiotics, other medication use like NSAIDs or PPIs, exposure to toxicants. We mentioned plasticizers like BPA that can influence the microbiome. Lack of sleep has a big influence on your microbiome. And then of course our modern diet, and this is where we pick back up with the fiber conversation, because it's fiber that is what is feeding the microbiome, the bacteria within the microbiome essentially. And our modern day diet is pretty fiber deficient. It's pretty low in fiber. When we look at the fact that we're eating a very highly processed diet, a lot of the fiber is processed right out of the foods.
And so we find fibers in a lot of whole foods, a lot of plant foods, fruits, veggies, legumes, grains, nuts, seeds. This is what provides a lot of fiber. So if you're not getting a ton of those in your day to day life, then you're probably low in fiber. And then we are low in the foods that feed the microbiome.
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Let's really examine the two main categories of foods that nurture and nourish the gut microbiome and the first one I was already talking about it, it's fiber are indigestible carbohydrates. So they're indigestible because they escape digestion in the stomach, in the small intestine and they go right to the colon. We have insoluble fibers, soluble fibers, prebiotics and then resistant starches and we really should get a wide variety of all of them. Insoluble fibers are called insoluble because they don't dissolve in water and they pass through our digestive system pretty close to its original form. So it kind of acts like a brush, which is good because it's helps to essentially pull and clear things out of the GI tube. Sometimes insoluble fiber can be a little too aggressive for those with inflamed GI tissue. If you just have some stuff going on with your gut.
I will also say we hear fiber, fiber, fiber for constipation. Sometimes too much insoluble fiber can make constipation worse. Soluble fibers tend to be a bit more tolerated with some exception. We'll talk about that later on. But soluble fibers dissolve in water, they form a gel like substance. And so it tends to be a little bit gentler than the insoluble fiber. Pectins, gums, mucilages and some prebiotics. A lot of these are soluble fibers.
And then we also have resistant starches, which is like a third class of fiber as well. And then we have polyphenols. And polyphenols doesn't enter the chat as much when we're talking about this fibermaxxing trend because polyphenols are not the same as fiber. They're non carbohydrate modules. And these are the chemicals that really give plant foods their color. So we find them in a lot of black, blue, red, purple, brown, green foods. Think about your pigment rich foods like cacao, cocoa powder, coffee, black tea, red wine, elderberry, currants, pomegranates, blueberries, cherries, plums. You know, think about when you cut something down the middle, is it the same color on the inside as it is the outside? Those are going to be high polyphenol rich foods.
We can also see this in different types of spices like curry and ginger and cumin and cinnamon as well. And these are wonderful because they provide a lot of health benefits. They upregulate the body's antioxidant systems, but they're also not absorbed by the upper gut. So about 90 to 95% of polyphenols reach the colon. And once they're there, since that's where our bacteria live, our bacteria can consume them and use them for food. So we love fibers because they are prebiotic. They act as prebiotics, we know and love probiotics, but these come before them because they actually feed the good bacteria. And polyphenols are not fiber, but they have prebiotic like effects because they also help to feed our good bacteria.
So let's discuss how these prebiotics work. Well, first things first, you eat the foods with the prebiotics in them, and then it goes to the colon again. For something to be classified as a prebiotic, it cannot be absorbed in the stomach or the small intestine. It can't be absorbed in the upper gut. It has to escape digestion and make its way all the way down to the large intestine. And that's where the majority of the gut microbiome resides. So once it's there, these bacteria ferment the prebiotic fibers. So it acts as a substrate or it acts as a food source for at least one of the beneficial commensal bacteria that live there.
And when it does this, it changes and improves the microbial environment toward a healthier composition. And in doing so, it can improve the whole body's health, not just gut health. Consuming these prebiotics essentially modulates, positively modulates the ecosystem. And when we can positively impact the gut's ecosystem, that has health benefits beyond just the gut. When we eat a diet high in these prebiotic fibers, it increases the beneficial bacteria, the good guys, and it decreases the pathogenic bacteria. That's one of the positive shifts that happen. Like I said, our bacteria ferment these foods and when they ferment them, they produce short chain fatty acids. So I sometimes think of short chain fatty acids like bacteria poop.
So bacteria eat the fibers and then they produce or poop out short chain fatty acids in. Short chain fatty acids have localized effects in the gut. Because it's the primary fuel source for our colon cells, we need them to maintain the integrity of the intestinal barrier. So short chain fatty acids are critical to prevent leaky gut from happening. Butyrate in particular has really anti inflammatory effects in the gut. And it can also help to decrease abdominal pain, fecal urgency. So like that feeling like you have to go and you have to go right now, it can decrease visceral hypersensitivity in IBS patients. So we know with IBS there is this hyper reactivity to things happening in the gut and it can contribute to a lot of abdominal pain.
And that short chain fatty acid butyrate helps to reduce all of this. It can enhance motility in the colon. So if you've got a sluggish gut, if you deal with constipation, incomplete bowels, butyrate can really help with that. And it also helps to prevent food sensitivities by making sure that we have an appropriate response to food proteins. So the short chain fatty acids are a pretty big deal in the gut. And if we have any leftover, if our bacteria are fed so well and they're so rich and diverse that they're producing an abundance, abundance of short chain fatty acids, more than the colon cells needs, then they can kind of spill over and even have systemic effects throughout the whole body. They can help to lower inflammation, they can increase insulin control and sensitivity. So it has quite a profound effect on metabolic activity and it can even upregulate mitochondrial function.
But if we're not getting enough fibers in our diet, functional fibers and prebiotics in our diet, then we're not appropriately feeding the healthy microbes. And when those are low, they're not producing enough short chain fatty acids, and then this has a pretty profound negative health effect.
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Okay, so have I made the case for why fiber is good? Why fiber gets two thumbs up? Now we have to talk about diversity. So fiber diversity, dietary diversity. We already established that diversity is good for health. We want diversity in our bacteria, but they require diversity in our diet because different types of bacteria, bacteria eat and ferment different types of fiber. So I'll give some examples for my gut nerds who really like to drill into the specifics. Acacia gum that is found mostly in supplemental form that helps to feed Lactobacillus and bifidobacteria. We have fructo oligosaccharides called FOS for short because it's a very long word. Inulin is in this category.
This can be found in supplemental forms but also in foods are that like garlic, onions, leeks, artichokes, chicory root, burdock, dandelion root, asparagus, lentils, chickpeas, pinto beans and fos. Helps to feed bifidobacteria, fecal bacterium and Ackermansia. And those guys are pumping out the short chain fatty acids that we just talked about. We have galacto oligosaccharides or gos. GOS for short. Again, you can buy this as a supplement. It's also found in legumes like chickpeas, lentils, kidney beans, soybeans in the brassica family, broccoli, fennel, green beans, beets, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, onions, oats and gos. Or gos feeds bifidobacteria in fecal bacterium.
We have glucomannan, which is found in cognac root or most likely in supplement form is how you would get it. That helps to feed Lactobacilli. We have lactulose found in milk or in supplement form that helps to feed Lactobacilli bifidobacteria fecal bacterium achermansia. We've got partially hydrolyzed guar gum or phgg. This is found in supplement form only and that feeds bifidobacterium and other butyrate producing species. We'll talk about partially hydrogelized guar gum in a little bit because this is is one of my favorite fibers because it's so well tolerated by a lot of different people. So we use it a lot in practice. And then finally we have xylo oligosaccharides, which is found in oats, rice husks and corn.
You can also find it in fiber form and that helps to feed bifidobacteria. So in practice, when we're working with clients, we do a lot of gut restoration, we do a lot of microbiome restoration, and we are using these different types of fibers, like a little bit more prescriptively almost. And we're really leaning on food first. But we are using functional fibers in different forms based on what we see on somebody's stool test to really help to reestablish and to increase the beneficial species. That may be low, but if you don't have a stool test sitting in front of you, if you're like, I don't know if my bifidobacterium is low, higher in the middle, I have no clue. The best thing you can do is really aim to eat a lot of plant foods. The more plant foods you eat, the more diverse those plants are, the greater chance you'll have at feeding all the different microbes and the greater diversity you will create and cultivate in your gut ecosystem. And even if you're somebody, I really want you to pay attention to this.
Like, if you drifted away, if you're multitasking, come back to me now. Even if you're somebody who eats a lot of plants, you're like, I eat a lot of plants all day, every day. It's really important to look at. Is it diverse? Is the plant matter you're consuming diverse? Because many of us get stuck in the rut of eating like the same 5 to 10 veggies over and over. When you go to the grocery store, you're like, these are the things that I get. When you go to the farm store, you're like, these are the things that I get. And so at first glance, it might appear to be a very healthy diet, but most of us can really, really work on our diversity. I've been talking about this for years and years, and it does have to be plant Diversity, animal diversity, consuming animals.
If you do that, that's good for other reasons, but it doesn't really affect the microbiome in the same way. So plant diversity is clean when it comes to the microbiome. So I want you to think about it like this. Plant food diversity equals microbiome diversity and that is a good thing. It's the diversity in diet that feeds a wider range of micro and ultimately nourishes the microbiome. So focus on eating a lot of different types of multicolored whole plant foods and fibers. I always tell people to aim for 30 to 40 different species every single week. And you are.
If you can do that, then you're really covering your diversity bases. Again, I want you to head over to our blogger Rooney if you want some more specifics with this and you want to be like walked through the process and get some different ideas. But I do have some more pro tips for you right now that I want you to hear. If you're attempting to add more fibers and more prebiotic rich foods, my recommendation is to start low and go slow. Some initial bloating is pretty normal when you first start introducing fibers and fermentable foods into your diet. It's just your body's way of adjusting. You know, you kind of have to adjust to the increased fermentation that's happening in your intestine. So some gas, a little bit of bloating is totally normal.
It shouldn't be a painful experience. If you're noticing symptoms beyond just a little bit of gas, then you might need to take a step back and increase your fiber intake slowly. So rather than jump from like maybe, I don't know, 9 grams of fiber a day all the way up to 30, work incrementally. And that's what I mean by start low and go slow. And this is most notably true for folks dealing with IBS or sibo. You might just not be able to tolerate that much fiber all at once. And that's for increasing fiber rich foods in the same is true if you are going to be adding supplemental functional fibers. Same deal.
It's actually probably, probably more true in this case. So you want to start with a low dose and slowly increase and that is going to reduce your chances of symptoms like bloating, distension, gas pain. Now if you do have IBS or you've been told you have IBS and you're used to experiencing a lot of digestive discomfort, I would recommend probably staying away from the fos, the, the inulin type fructo oligosaccharides because those tend to be the most problematic for folks with ibs. They can create a lot of gas. IBS patients don't really do great with a lot of gas formation, so just be mindful of that. As I mentioned before, phgg, partially hydrolyzed guar gum. It's also known as sunfiber. You can get it as sun fiber.
That is typically pretty well tolerated by IBS patients. Even some of our other sensitive Sally's. When it comes to gut stuff, the dose for phgg as a way to enhance the growth of bifidobacteria and other butyrate producers is 6 grams a day. So you might not want to come out of the gate hot at 6 grams. Maybe you start with 2 grams and you work your way up to that 6 gram dose. And that's true for any of this stuff. If you're sensitive, always start low and then you can always build yourself up. In the literature, the dosing of some of these prebiotics can be pretty darn high to get the net effect that we're looking for.
So fructooligosaccharides, for example, we want anywhere between 4 grams to increase bifidobacteria. 10 grams if we want to also increase fecal bacteria and prostnitzi. 15 grams if we want to increase bacteroides or clostridia for galactooligosaccharides. Two and a half grams a day can increase bifidobacteria. Five grams can increase both bifido and fecal bacteria prostnancy. So if you're on the more sensitive side of things, start on the lower end of this and slowly build yourself up. And I would also recommend experimenting with one type of fiber at a time if you're taking it in supplemental form because you can get products that have multiple types of fibers. But I would just kind of knowing that your body might react to some fibers differently, I would probably just choose one at a time time.
Other ways to supplement with soluble fiber would be ground flaxseeds, slippery elm powder, psyllium husks, oat bran, chia seeds, pectin. All of these are things that you can tinker around with and even combine if you're doing well with one like layer on some other ones and rotate them out and just get a wide variety of fiber for all of the reasons we just discussed. So all in all, increasing fiber foods, I give it two thumbs up. Adding supplemental forms of fiber. Definitely give it two thumbs up. I like this trend. I like fiber maxing. Just do it with a smart head on your shoulders and if you've tried all of these different strategies and you're still like I can't tolerate any fiber, reach out to us.
It might be time to do a gut panel or even a sibo breath test and really uncover what the heck is going on in your gut and are there things that need to be addressed. Rest to get you feeling your personal best and we can help you out with that. So reach out to my team. I'll link up the application to work with us in the show notes and I will check you guys next week. Try not to poop your pants in the meantime.
Thanks for joining me for this episode of The Funk’tional Nutrition Podcast. Please keep in mind this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. If you got something from today's show, don't forget, subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and keep coming back for more. Take care of you.