TikTok’s Viral Fibermaxxing Craze Boosts Weight Loss and Curbs Cravings Naturally
Learn how much fiber you need to eat and what tasty foods can help get you there
If you follow nutrition trends, you may have noticed that the popular “prioritizing protein” eating plan has given way to a new favorite: maximizing your dietary fiber intake. This viral TikTok trend is also known as “fibermaxxing,” and it’s an easy way to boost satiety and help melt stubborn pounds. Keep reading about the health benefits of this new movement and how eating more fiber for weight loss can pay off big time.
What is fibermaxxing?
At the heart of this fiber-fueled philosophy is the challenge to maximize or strategically increase your fiber intake in every meal and snack throughout the day. That might mean sneaking extra veggies into pasta sauce, adding fiber-rich spinach to a protein smoothie, dumping beans or lentils into beef stew or topping your usual yogurt with fruit, nuts or seeds.
Fibermaxxing is a grassroots movement with lots of fans, ranging from registered dieticians to top doctors. Yale-trained Dawn Harris Sherling, MD, an obesity medicine specialist and former instructor in medicine at Harvard, says, “As for so-called fibermaxxing, I am a fan of the fiber found in whole foods and I think you’d be hard pressed to find any health care professional who isn’t.” (Though, she’s not a fan of fiber additives in ultra-processed foods so the label can claim “high fiber.”)
Woman's World Answers
Many of us could benefit from a high-fiber diet
“Fiber is one of the more necessary substances needed for a healthy gut microbiome,” says top gut specialist Vincent Pedre, MD, author of Happy Gut. “And it also happens to be one of the nutrients that is most deficient in the American diet.”
In fact, more than 90 percent of people in the US are lacking fiber. He adds, “the average American eats anywhere between 10 and 15 grams of fiber per day and a woman needs around 25 grams per day, so already most people are under-eating fiber.”
How fibermaxxing improves gut health
There’s a lot of fuss about fiber, considering it essentially passes through our body unabsorbed. However, what it does during its travels through our digestive tract is what’s notable. Fiber is a complex carbohydrate that can’t be digested and is found within plant-based foods such as whole grains, fruits, veggies, beans, legumes, nuts and seeds.
“Fiber is food for our microbes that live in our guts. And different microbes prefer different foods, so what we eat affects what kinds of bacteria and how many of them flourish in our guts,” explains Dr. Sherling. In short: “Fiber is calories for our microbes—not us.”
5 ways fibermaxxing boosts weight loss
A study in the Journal of Obesity & Weight Loss Therapy found that getting more fiber causes microbes linked to a healthy weight to surge by up to 2,847 percent. There are several ways fiber can help you lose weight. Here are just a few…
It balances blood sugar levels
How? By slowing digestion, which slows a meal’s blood sugar spike. “If you eat an apple, you are getting the fibers with the sugars and digestion is slower. This causes your blood sugar rise to be slower, making you feel less hungry for longer,” says Dr. Sherling. “But if you drink apple juice, the fiber isn’t there and it passes through digestion more quickly. This raises and crashes blood sugar, causing you to be hungry sooner.” For this reason, high-fiber foods tend to have lower glycemic indexes, related to better blood sugar and weight management.
It reduces inflammation
When “good” gut bacteria feast on fiber, they trigger a chain reaction that makes short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) that lead to countless health benefits. The most researched SCFA is butyrate, proven to reduce inflammation and boost metabolism.
It works like all-natural Ozempic
“When gut microbes are being fed their fiber meals, they help release hormones like GLP-1—the hormone that the popular weight-loss drugs like semaglutide are based on—that tell us we don’t need to eat yet,” says Dr. Sherling. No wonder people like this Reddit user call fiber-rich Metamucil “poor man’s Ozempic.”
It promotes healthy digestion
Fiber not only helps promote a healthy gut lining to protect against leaky gut syndrome, it also keeps waste moving. As a result, the body doesn’t hold on to extra bloat or waste that can give the appearance of weight gain.
It curbs stress eating
Fiber, and the healthy guts it supports, help regulate hormones and boost mood, making people less likely to stress eat. In fact, up to 95 percent of our feel-good serotonin is made in the gut, not the brain.
Where did the fibermaxxing trend come from?
Fiber isn’t new to weight loss. In fact, fibermaxxing can be rooted in the weight-loss trend known as “volumetrics,” made popular by world-renowned food scientist Barbara Rolls, PhD, of Penn State University in the 1990s.
Volumetrics challenged people to eat the largest volume of food for the fewest calories. That meant loading meals with fiber-rich and water-rich fruits and vegetables. (Think cabbage salads, celery sticks, fruit smoothies and air-popped popcorn.)
And while volumetrics focused on reducing calories for weight loss, fibermaxxing now factors in a more nuanced understanding of the science of slimming: one that includes the gut microbiome, insulin sensitivity and satiety hormones like GLP-1s. Consider fibermaxxing the next generation of fiber practices.
How to safely increase your fiber intake to aid weight loss
Ready to try fibermaxxing for yourself? Use these doctor-approved steps:
1. Start slowly
Dr. Pedre says, “the American way is: if a little is good, then a lot must be even better. But with fiber, it’s better to phase it in. If you do it too quickly, it’s actually going to bind everything up, and you can get really severely constipated.”
2. Increase by 5 grams daily
That said, Dr. Sherling offers some encouragement. “Our microbes grow fast. So how many fiber-rich foods we are eating can be increased on a day-to-day basis.” Consider adding 5 extra grams of fiber per day from your normal baseline to get to a daily goal of around 25 grams.
3. Stay hydrated
Water keeps fiber moving through your system to avoid cramping and constipation, so don’t skip this step.
4. Consider intermittent fasting
Giving your body a break from digesting food—and allowing gut microbes time to rebuild gut lining—can help you get the most out of your fibermaxxing efforts.
“There’s even a circadian rhythm to our gut microbes,” says Dr. Pedre. This break between eating is linked to longevity and other health benefits for women. “If you go into the intermittent fasting research, you start seeing that once you fast for 14 to 16 hours, you activate a pathway in the cells that is basically a clean sweep. So it’s the Fountain of Youth for cells.”
The best high-fiber foods for weight loss
When it comes to fibermaxxing, healthy, high-fiber foods include:
- Whole grains like oats and quinoa
- Fruit like berries and pears
- Vegetables like artichokes, peas and broccoli
- Beans and legumes like Navy beans and lentils
- Nuts like almonds and pistachios
- Seeds like flax and pumpkin
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