A Case for Soluble Fiber - Keto, Low Carb, any Diet, even Carnivore
por {{ author }} Siouxie Boshoff sobre Mar 01, 2025
When weight loss is happening (per the scale), there’s one of two things occurring inside the body:
Either excess water is being eliminated (as seen when most people go carnivore or keto initially) OR the fat cells in their bodies are either shrinking or “melting” away like when people start using their own body fat for fuel.
Both of these are very good things, and part of the process in repairing a broken metabolism and “losing weight”. Except for one HIGHLY OVERLOOKED simple detail.
Even the very best diet plans don’t work for many long term. They stall out, feel like crap, seem to get sicker, and can even fall apart—despite doing ALL the right things.
I was that person. Many times.
I am of the belief that an “obese” body will not give up the weight until it is healed enough to navigate these processes of weight loss safely. This is a primal mechanism, in my opinion.
Why do some people get sicker when they lose any significant weight?
Some people (and I’m willing to bet most people) have a toxic burden that far exceeds anything close to a safe level of toxins. This is a result of a lifetime of toxic exposures. BPA, phthalates, PFAs, seed oils, heavy metals, environmental toxins, chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, the list goes on.
The human body is actually a brilliant masterpiece with thousands of built-in protective mechanisms. When a toxin is detected, the body has several methods and pathways of dealing with it in an effort to keep the host from dying of overburden. Lymph, liver, kidneys, elimination through the bowels and urine, sweat, etc.
But, when those systems can’t handle the toxic load, one of these mechanisms is to sequester the toxin into a fat cell (thereby removing it from the blood stream) so it can’t hurt us.
Absolutely brilliant. Except for one thing. More toxins, more fat. More toxins, more fat.
I have a condition called lipedema which resulted in secondary lymphedema. In simple terms, my lymphatic system is broken. It doesn’t have the usual pathways to pick up toxins from my blood stream, shuttle them to my lymph nodes to be cleaned up, and then eliminated through the urine without a lot of help.
As a result, over the past twenty years, any time I started losing any significant weight (and drs are always writing “obese” or “morbidly obese” on my charts), I would get sick. Not a little sick either. And I would stall out. Every. Single. Time.
Why some people can’t lose weight even when they do EVERYTHING “right”.
Our current convenience culture and the glut of garbage “foods”, toxic personal care products, plastic textiles, and everyday chemically-made household items, have made the burden so high for most people that melting these fat cells is actually a liability.
So, this clever protection mechanism goes into overdrive, keeping the fat cells in place to stably contain these toxins.
For me, there was always a threshold on weight loss, and no matter what I did or how clean I ate, my body just would not give up the fat. I blamed it on lipedema. It’s a loose connective tissue disease that affects the way our body stores fat, and started at puberty for me almost overnight.
I was working with a coach at one time who has a background in microbiology, and I remember telling him how betrayed I felt by my body, and he said the most remarkable thing. He said, “What makes you think ‘she’ is trying to hurt you? What if she is actually protecting you?”
Most women with lipedema are labeled “obese”, yet as a whole, we rarely get diabetes, or have the other markers “obese” people have. It baffles many physicians.
But the reality is that as the fat cells in my body melted, they released so many toxins, my body would just shut down any signaling to lose fat.
Protection mechanisms in overdrive.
But a water-logged body, swollen from inflammation and circulating glucose, and an extreme level of fat accumulation will wear over time. This mechanism of protection signals all kinds of hormonal and cellular activity that presents itself as systemic chronic inflammation.
A body that is overburdened will not give up the fat and fluid that is protecting it from all the poison that would otherwise be circulating in the bloodstream.
So, is the answer to stay fat and let the body do its thing?
Definitely no.
That hurts in so many ways (mental self-image aside). Joint pain, inflammation, fatigue, dry eyes, mobility impairment, uncontrolled fat cells turning to hard nodules and pushing against nerves throughout the body. At times, I was at a chronic pain level of a 7 with 10 being the worst. All of my vitality stripped away over time. I’ve navigated all of it in my quest to find something that felt close to normal.
Can an overburdened body let go of the these fat cells that are holding all these toxins and actually lose weight safely?
I think so. BUT, it’s a delicate process that requires balance.
Eliminate the fat, and remove the toxic burden AT THE SAME TIME.
*I have found that the most effective way for my body to lose weight AND HEAL at the same time is by severely restricting all sugar and most carbs, prioritizing good fats (I even snack on butter), and eating high quality animal based protein (mostly steak). This puts me in ketosis at a therapeutic level, and keeps my blood sugar under 100. This was only half of the answer though.
I have followed most of this for over a decade, but never successfully for any length of time. Eventually, I would go down hard. So sick, I could barely function. Every organ and pathway responsible for processing and eliminating toxins would flare up, needing all kinds of support.
What does soluble fiber have to do with all of this?
Well, a lot as it turns out.
While I was diving deep into obesogens (forever chemicals that get stored in fat and actually harm normal metabolic functions) and toxins, I stumbled across a story that captivated me.
A woman named Karen Hurd had an 18 month old daughter who was highly exposed to a pesticide that almost killed her. Literally. Her daughter was crawling and playing on a carpet that had been heavily treated with a “safe” pesticide just weeks before the seizures started. The medical staff had no solution, and her little girl was written off as destined for liver failure and a very short life expectancy.
Luckily, Karen had a background in the military where she was familiar with neurotoxins and biological applications in warfare, so she was able to connect her daughter’s symptoms with this chemical exposure. She did a deep dive on how the body handles overwhelming toxicants, and isolated a simple, but brilliant mechanism with a surprisingly simple solution.
Soluble Fiber.
If you look up the benefits of soluble fiber [1a], you’ll get the following response:
Digestive Health:
- Slows down digestion, reducing bloating and gas
- Adds bulk to stools, preventing constipation
- Promotes a healthy gut microbiome
Heart Health:
- Lowers cholesterol levels, particularly LDL ("bad") cholesterol
- Reduces inflammation in the arteries
- May lower blood pressure
Blood Sugar Control:
- Forms a gel-like substance in the stomach that slows down the absorption of glucose, preventing blood sugar spikes
- Helps manage diabetes
Weight Management:
- Promotes feelings of fullness, reducing calorie intake
- May help with weight loss
Other Benefits:
- Improves bone health by enhancing calcium absorption
- May reduce the risk of certain cancers
- Supports a strong immune system
Sounds great, but what does this have to do with toxins?
Follow me on this, because I believe it is a missing link in succeeding at keto, carnivore, and so many other weight loss protocols.
See that first point under “Heart Health”? Lowers cholesterol levels, particularly LDL (“bad”) cholesterol.
Yes, that one.
I know we need cholesterol and I follow the science on cholesterol and health. So, is this a platitude or something way more significant?
How Soluble Fiber Reduces "Bad" LDL Cholesterol
Soluble fiber reduces the amount of cholesterol in the body by binding to bile acids in the intestine, preventing their reabsorption and causing them to be excreted from the body in stool, effectively lowering the amount of cholesterol circulating in the bloodstream. [2a]
So, what does this actually mean?
Let me explain.
Bile Acid as an assist to the Detox Pathway
Bile acids play a significant role in absorbing toxins by essentially acting as a natural detergent that helps break down and remove waste products, including toxins from the body, primarily through their function in the small intestine during digestion; they facilitate the absorption of fats and fat-soluble vitamins while also aiding in the removal of toxic metabolites and xenobiotics (aka foreign chemical toxins).
Mic drop.🎤
THIS was the KEY to allowing my body to lose weight more safely.
Here’s the catch though.
Bile is made in the liver, and then stored in the gall bladder until the next meal. When you eat a meal—any meal—your gall bladder releases bile acid to help break down fat, etc. BUT, if you don’t have soluble fiber with that meal, some will still be eliminated, but up to 90% of that bile recirculates and is stored in the liver again.
However, when there’s soluble fiber added to a meal (and you only need 5g to stimulate this whole process), it BINDS to the bile, forcing all of it (toxins and all) out with your next elimination. Every time.
Karen Hurd saved her daughter from stage 4 liver damage and imminent death with soluble fiber.* Yes, she used higher doses than the 5g, but her 18 month old daughter was dying. The decline stopped almost immediately, and over the next weeks, the healing began in earnest. I am notoriously big on happy endings.
Her daughter has since grown into a healthy adult and defied all the medical odds. Soluble fiber. Huh. So simple.
I’m not a medical doctor. But I’ve read dozens of studies on this entire process, and it resonated with me on why it was so hard for me to find anything close to normal, especially with lipedema. I’m still healing, but normal is here, and I’m working on thriving now.
As a side note, this is not to say that everyone needs soluble fiber.
In a normally, mostly healthy person, the reabsorption of bile is also a normal function when the bile acid is able to clean up, sort, and allow the body to use what it needs. It gets recirculated and goes back to the liver.
But, I am of the mind that if strict keto, zero carbs or carnivore is not yielding the benefits we see in so many, maybe, just maybe, the body is too overburdened to let go of the fat safely?
Maybe it’s not all about needing to poop, and more about cleaning up the mess that our modern culture has thrust on our bodies.
For the curious, this is why I included soluble fiber in my gummy bear formulation and our caramels. The unsung hero that felt essential for me. A couple of caramels or snack bag of gummies after a meal, and voila! My tasty dose of soluble fiber after each meal.
Cheers to Soluble Fiber, the underrated ingredient that just may be a quiet hero in our health and metabolic journey.
*This is in no way intended as medical advice. These statements have not be evaluated by the FDA and are not intended as medical advice.
