Avoid Holiday Overindulgence

Want to lose weight and still enjoy those holiday feasts? Before sitting down to eat your festive meal, one simple step can dramatically increase your feeling of fullness, leading to a significant reduction in calories consumed.

Not only can you reduce your caloric intake, but this simple step can also reduce after-meal blood sugar levels, helping circumvent one of the harmful consequences of eating a large meal.

What’s the Secret?

It’s not a big secret anymore, since new developments in appetite control have placed a bright spotlight on the use of highly viscous soluble dietary fibres (plant-derived polysaccharides) to help people achieve and maintain their ideal body weight.

When taken with water, this fibre blend expands in the stomach to form a gelatinous mass. As a result, it slows stomach emptying, produces a sensation of being full, and exerts powerful effects reducing the level of compounds that stimulate appetite, while at the same time increasing the level of compounds that block appetite.

How Does It Work?

Much of the published clinical research on highly viscous soluble dietary fibres has been performed using a proprietary blend of three soluble fibres: glucomannan from konjac root, alginate from a seaweed, and xanthan gum from a legume. These fibres work synergistically to produce a higher level of viscosity, gel-forming properties, and expansion with water, than with the same quantity of any other fibre alone.

The blend is able to bind roughly 600 times its weight in water–about 20 times greater than most other common soluble fibres such as psyllium. It creates this mass by binding water, so it does not produce any negative side effects.

The development of highly viscous soluble fibre as a weight-loss aid and blood-sugar regulator is largely the result of intense scientific research at the University of Toronto, led by Dr. Vladimir Vuksan–one of the most respected and recognized experts on the role of diet in diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.

Hundreds of different fibre combinations have been tested in laboratory, animal, and human studies. Clinical studies have shown highly viscous soluble dietary fibres to have the following benefits:

• reduce appetite and promote effective weight loss
• increase the level of compounds that block appetite and promote satiety
• decrease the level of compounds that stimulate overeating
• reduce postprandial (after-meal) blood glucose levels
• increase insulin sensitivity
• improve diabetes control
• lower blood cholesterol

Fibre blends are available in granular form, in meal replacement formulas, as capsules, and in zero-calorie, appetite-control drink mixes. The recommended dosage for appetite control is 3 g to 5 g, five to 15 minutes before meals.

Keep your appetite in check and consume fewer calories without diminishing your enjoyment of that holiday meal. What you get is all the pleasure without the guilt–a great trade-off.