#fibermaxxing

for rice, i'd recommend also mixing things like lentils/edamame/quinoa etc. for more fiber boost, especially if you don't like brown rice (valid) and want to stick with white. kylie sakaida, a nutritionist youtuber i really like, has a good video on this, delivered via liam/the_plant_slant, who is also really good about curating high fiber recipes. this is the video i mean.

for pasta, i really love protein pastas and red lentil pastas. i don't really love chickpea pasta. barilla's protein pasta is great and you can't taste a difference; i also love brami's protein pasta. those pastas are made from a mix of chickpeas, lentils, peas, and beans, but they also have some wheat, so they're not gluten-free. my fave red lentil pasta is ancient harvest.

now, here's what i mean about these swaps setting you up well to hit your macros. on average, a serving of everything i just talked about will give you 5 grams of fiber (obviously in approximation and depending on serving size) so if you can work these things into every meal, that's 15 grams of fiber per day; you're halfway to your goal already just with these meal components.

your meals should be made up of other pieces that have fiber: veggies like spinach, broccoli, cabbage, peas, brussels sprouts, beans, lentils, kale, etc. should just always be a component of these meals. resign yourself to having every lunch and dinner, at minimum, include a serving of these veggies. a cup of broccoli at lunch gets you another 5 grams; a cup of beans at dinner gets 10 grams and bam, you're at 30.

breakfast can get trickier, but there's where chia seeds come in. just start throwing chia seeds in whatever fruit/smoothie/yogurt/oatmeal you're having. 2 tablespoons of chia seeds are about 10 grams of fiber. you're not going to taste them or notice them in a smoothie; they'll get kind of gooey in yogurt or overnight oats. they are essential and, again, will give you that boost you need right off the bat. and that's not even considering the fiber you'll get from fruits, especially berries. you can easily start your day off with a breakfast that has 15-20 grams of fiber; i did that this morning with my strawberries and cream overnight oats.

this is all just very basic meal composition. the key is to find things that you really like and start incorporating them in your daily meal routines. this isn't a diet; don't think of it like a thing you're trying out. this is the way you should eat, and it should all be done in a way that you enjoy and will continue doing. i hate kale, fuck kale; you won't catch me eating kale. everything kale does, spinach can do, so that's what i eat. i fuck up brown rice in my rice cooker 5 times out of 10, so i've been getting packets of microwavable brown rice and it takes that stress factor out of it for me.

if you don't eat a lot of vegetables because you don't want to spend a lot of time cleaning and chopping up vegetables, buy them cut up in bags that you can steam in the microwave. do whatever you can to just get the vegetables in your body; no one is judging you or your culinary skills. is your favorite comfort meal boxed mac and cheese? good news; goodles mac and cheese is just as easy as the blue box, just as tasty, and it's made from high fiber plant proteins!

there are a lot of tricks like this. there are lots of snacks, too, to turn to if you feel like you're not getting there with your meals; this is getting way too long so i'll hold off, but i'll post a list of snack brands that have decent-to-great fiber content another time.