The psyllium diet is a weight loss method built around eating psyllium rich foods or taking psyllium seed husk powder for increased soluble dietary fiber in your diet.
Psyllium fiber expands to between 30 and 50 time its original size in your stomach. This has the added effect of help you kill your hunger pains so that you can get full eating less.
In your diet that means relief from constipation, a faster metabolism and many more health benefits you can't do without psyllium.
The Psyllium Diet
The psyllium diet is where you take psyllium before a meal or when you start to feel hungry.
Mix 1tsp (5g) of psyllium husk powder with 200mL of water, milk, or juice. Since psyllium will soak up water content inside your body rehydration is strongly recommended.
Other sources of psyllium
For psyllium there options other than dietary supplements that you can consider like Brand X cereals enriched with psyllium fiber such as: Kellogg's Guardian Original (Psyllium Content: 12g per 100g serving size), Orgran Multigrain Os with Quinoa (Psyllium Content: 2g per 100g serving size), Kellogg's All-Bran Buds (Psyllium Content: 2.7g per 100g serving size), and Nature's Path SmartBran (Fiber Content: 43g per 100g serving size including soluble dietary fiber from psyllium seed husk). Note that these are only a few examples of psyllium enriched breakfast cereals. That just goes to say that if it is fiber enriched, it is highly likely to contain soluble dietary fiber from psyllium.
Psyllium fiber can also be found in food products such as instant noodles, Udon, and some soups with increased fiber content.
Using what you know about food with psyllium fiber could prove helpful when looking for other sources of psyllium than powdered dietary supplements.
Health benefits of psyllium
Psyllium has traditionally as cough medicine as well as in supplements to aid in dieting.
Psyllium husk is rich in dietary fiber. Once water content is absorbed, fibers in psyllium are said to expand to 30 to 50 times in size. Eating fiber before a meal is said to make it easy to control your appetite helping you get full eating less.
Taking psyllium on an empty stomach may help prevent unnecessary snacking.
Better control over blood sugar
Psyllium is roughly 90% dietary fiber. In particular it is rich in soluble dietary fiber said to help stabilize your blood sugar levels preventing spikes in blood sugar that cause body fat to increase. Pinning down your blood sugar is not just important to diabetics but to dieters as well.
Sugar increases the insulin level in your body. When insulin levels rise, excess glucose is sent to all parts of your body used as energy by your muscles and even stored away in your liver. Large spikes in blood sugar level cause mass amounts of glucose to energy your blood steam leaving your body the only option of storing energy away as fat.
To prevent increases in body fat it is dire that you keep your blood sugar level from spiking. Psyllium soluble dietary fiber helps keep your blood sugar from increasing too much dampening the sugar on insulin levels. This in turn may help you keep from putting on body fat as well as make it easier to lose weight.
Constipation relief
Dietary fiber in psyllium helps relieve constipation.
Being constipated all the time can lead to unwanted weight gains. Getting rid of constipation early on helps keep you weight loss program on track and the weight off just by not being constipated.
Constipation causes body waste to build up making it easy to gain weight.
Piled up bodily waste products back up due to constipation and get sent out through you bloodstream negatively affecting your metabolism.
Psyllium fiber absorbs large amounts of water that get carried out of your body in the same way that it helps relieve your constipation not to mention giving your metabolism a boost.
Lower cholesterol
Soluble dietary fiber in psyllium lowers your cholesterol.
Psyllium fiber absorbs bile acid before it is use to make cholesterol. By carrying out harmful bile acid outside your body, it can greatly reduce cholesterol levels over time.
By helping you control your cholesterol better psyllium may help obesity related disease and arteriosclerosis.
Side effects and setbacks of the psyllium diet
Psyllium expands to 30 to 50 times in size inside your body. While expanding it sucks up valuable fluids. Like other high fiber diets, one set back is potential dehydration.
While practicing the psyllium diet proactive hydration replenishing fluids lost is highly recommended.
Pure psyllium is 90% dietary fiber. Most people won't be able to drink it with only a glass of water. Mixing with vegetable juice or milk might help.
