8 Small Things You Can Do Today to Live Healthier
Recent science shows that small lifestyle changes (and a little fun) are all it takes to improve your health. We talked to prominent doctors, crunched the data, and found a few high-payoff tweaks.
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Fight Fiber with Fiber
A study in the journal Obesity found that every ten-gram increase in subjects' consumption of soluble fiber over the course of five years was associated with a nearly 4 percent reduction in the accumulation of visceral fat, a type of belly fat linked to a host of health problems, including type 2 diabetes. Soluble fiber (found in oats, beans, and some fruits and veggies) can reduce the absorption of sugar and cholesterol into the bloodstream.
5 Fiber All-Stars
Get in more fat-burning soluble fiber with these foods.
Black beans: 1 cup = 4 grams of soluble fiber
Brussels sprouts: 1/2 cup = 3 grams of soluble fiber
Pear: medium = 2 grams of soluble fiber
Prunes: 1/4 cup = 1.5 grams of soluble fiber
Instant oatmeal: 1 packet = 1 gram of soluble fiber
From the
May 2015 issue of
O, The Oprah Magazine
