One important thing is that you don’t have to pick one or the other. I plan to take psyllium for IBS plus eat oats (high in soluble non-fermenting fiber) for the microbiome benefits and improved cholesterol benefits. Both should help with weight loss (in similar ways) and cholesterol (oats will help more because the fiber they contain ferments into substances that also reduce cholesterol, but both will reduce cholesterol via the bile removal method).
Insoluble fiber doesn’t help with any problems that I have, and excerbates my IBS, so I plan to (weakly) avoid it. So I will continue eating foods high in insoluble fiber if they’re good for me in other ways (oats) or tasty (pineapple), but I’ll avoid concentrated forms (wheat bran) and foods high in them that I don’t like anyway (whole wheat).
One other thing I didn’t think to mention in the post above is that I used to think of fiber as one category, so if I was eating something “high fiber” like vegetables or oats, I wouldn’t take psyllium since “I’m already getting fiber”, and then I’d feel worse. Since reading this, I’m taking psyllium with my oats and it improved the experience a lot (since the psyllium helps counteract the irritating effects of the insoluble fiber in oats).
One important thing is that you don’t have to pick one or the other. I plan to take psyllium for IBS plus eat oats (high in soluble non-fermenting fiber) for the microbiome benefits and improved cholesterol benefits. Both should help with weight loss (in similar ways) and cholesterol (oats will help more because the fiber they contain ferments into substances that also reduce cholesterol, but both will reduce cholesterol via the bile removal method).
Insoluble fiber doesn’t help with any problems that I have, and excerbates my IBS, so I plan to (weakly) avoid it. So I will continue eating foods high in insoluble fiber if they’re good for me in other ways (oats) or tasty (pineapple), but I’ll avoid concentrated forms (wheat bran) and foods high in them that I don’t like anyway (whole wheat).
Oh I see, that makes sense. In retrospect that is a little obvious that you don’t have to choose one or the other :)
One other thing I didn’t think to mention in the post above is that I used to think of fiber as one category, so if I was eating something “high fiber” like vegetables or oats, I wouldn’t take psyllium since “I’m already getting fiber”, and then I’d feel worse. Since reading this, I’m taking psyllium with my oats and it improved the experience a lot (since the psyllium helps counteract the irritating effects of the insoluble fiber in oats).