In this article:
As an online coach who has worked with hundreds of women, as well as being someone who struggled with my own gut health for years, I’ve realised that sometimes the things that make the biggest difference are actually the simplest.
For such a long time, gut health felt really confusing to me. I think so many of us are told about all the foods we should remove from our diets, but one of the biggest shifts I made was focusing less on what I could cut out and more on what I could add in – and one of those additions was fibre.
fibre plays a role in so much more than just digestion. It can support your gut health, help keep you fuller after meals, indirectly support more stable energy levels and help you feel your best.
So, what actually is fibre?
The easiest way I explain fibre to clients is that it’s a type of carbohydrate that our body can’t fully break down and digest. Those bacteria are a huge part of why I started caring so much about not just the amount of fibre I was eating, but also the variety of fibre sources I was getting.
What foods are high in fibre?
I think people often hear “eat more fibre” and instantly think of bland cereals or prunes, but there are so many amazing foods that naturally contain fibre.
Think beans, lentils, chickpeas, oats, nuts, seeds, avocado and berries to name a few! One of the biggest things that helped my gut health was focusing on getting a wide variety of plant foods across the week rather than eating the same few foods every single day.
The biggest shift for me was changing my mindset from restriction to addition. Instead of thinking “what do I need to remove?”, I started thinking “what can I add to make this meal better?”
But one thing I always remind clients is that more isn’t always better straight away. If you currently eat a low fibre diet and suddenly massively increase it overnight, you might actually feel more bloated. Your gut needs time to adapt, so small changes done consistently are usually what work best.
Final thoughts
If there’s one thing my own gut health journey has taught me, it’s that healthy eating doesn’t have to be about restriction. Sometimes the biggest improvements come from nourishing your body and adding more of the good stuff in. Fibre doesn’t need to be complicated – small, realistic habits that you can actually stick to will always beat trying to do everything perfectly.
