Fibre & the gut¶

Loaded by step 7 · Reads sys_digestive_, sys_bowel_ · Owns the fibre target and the ramp rule

25–30 g of fibre a day, from food. Not from a supplement, even where the client already takes one — a fibre supplement in health_supplements is recorded and left alone, not built around.

Fibre is doing three jobs at once here: it blunts the insulin response to the starch portions, it feeds the microbiome, and it is most of what makes a portion-controlled menu feel like enough food. A menu that hits its macros and misses its fibre will be abandoned inside two weeks for reasons the client will describe as willpower.

Where it comes from¶

Hitting 25–30 g is not difficult once the menu is built from whole foods, but it does not happen by accident either. Rough contributions per portion:

Group	Fibre per portion
Legumes	6–8 g
Vegetables	2–3 g
Fruit (whole, with skin)	2–4 g
Wholegrain starch	2–3 g
Nuts, seeds, ground flaxseed	2–3 g

Five vegetable portions, two fruit, three wholegrain starch and one legume portion reaches roughly 28 g without trying. Take out the legumes and it drops to about 21, which is why legumes appear in most builds regardless of the protein arithmetic.

Fermented foods¶

Include a fermented food most days: yoghurt with live cultures, kefir, sauerkraut, pickled vegetables in brine rather than vinegar, miso, tempeh .

These pair with the fibre rather than substituting for it — the fibre feeds what the fermented food delivers. Where health_supplements already includes probiotics, the food still goes in the menu; the supplement is the client's business.

The ramp rule¶

Do not put a low-fibre eater on 30 g of fibre tomorrow

The result is bloating, wind and abdominal discomfort, the client concludes the menu makes them feel worse, and they are right.

Read the current intake from nut_ffq — the frequency of legumes, wholegrains, vegetables and fruit — and from nut_typical_day.

Current intake looks like	Start at	Then
Legumes and wholegrains most days	25–30 g	Hold
Some vegetables, refined grains, legumes weekly or less	~20 g	+5 g a week to target
Little of any of it	~15 g	+5 g every two weeks to target

In practice this is done by holding back legume and wholegrain portions in weeks one and two, replacing them with lower-fibre members of the same group, and saying so in Notes for you. The portion counts do not change — the foods filling them do. Water intake matters more during a ramp, not less; see Hydration.

Reading the digestive answers¶

Section 3 asks about digestion in eleven separate yes/no fields. They change the menu in specific ways.

Field	`"Yes"` means
`sys_digestive_bloating`	Ramp fibre slowly. Cook cruciferous rather than serving raw. Drop sugar alcohols, including erythritol. Consider holding legumes to one portion a day at first.
	`sys_digestive_wind`
As bloating. Legumes soaked and well cooked; rinsed tinned legumes are better tolerated than home-cooked dried.
`sys_digestive_constipation`	Fibre to the top of the range, water to the top of its range, ground flaxseed daily. Do not add a laxative or suggest one.
	`sys_digestive_diarrhoea`
Ramp slowly and stay at the low end. If persistent, this is a red flag before it is a menu question.
`sys_digestive_reflux`	Smaller evening meal, finish eating earlier in the window, keep the evening meal low in fat. The no-starch dinner already helps.
	`sys_digestive_nausea`
Smaller, more frequent meals. Do not stretch the gaps to 5 h.
`sys_digestive_appetite`	Read alongside `nut_appetite`. Low appetite argues for calorie-denser options within the same portion counts.
	`sys_digestive_portions`
Reinforce the 80% rule and the pace guidance. Handle gently — see Scope & limits.
`sys_digestive_pain`	Not a menu adjustment. Note it and refer if persistent.
	`sys_digestive_vomiting`
Red flag.
`sys_laxatives` = Daily/Weekly	Note it. Do not build around it, do not tell the client to stop. Refer.

sys_gi_urgent — blood in stool, black stools, unexplained vomiting, unintentional weight loss, difficulty swallowing — is a stop condition and nothing on this page applies. See Red flags.