Fibre isn't just for pensioners

Date at eight. Nothing proper to eat since lunch, the douche scheduled for seven, a countdown running in your head. Plenty of bottoms know this evening by heart.

Fibre, by contrast, sounds like health spas and crispbread. Yet it's one of the most useful topics hardly anyone among us talks about. If you want to be spontaneous, you need a gut you can rely on. And that reliability rarely comes together the night before. It builds over weeks, from what's on your plate every day.

You can't plan it the night before

For many, prep runs backwards: a date is coming up, so it's fasting, douching and, if in doubt, a second round. That can work. But it turns every evening into a project and puts all the attention on the final hours – even though most of it happened long before.

Your gut is a creature of habit. How firm your stool is and how predictably you need the toilet depends heavily on what it got in the days and weeks before. Fibre is the building block most people think about least.

The German Nutrition Society (DGE) recommends at least 30 grams of fibre a day for adults. Many people in Germany fall short. White bread, pasta, delivery food and the office sandwich fill you up but deliver little fibre.

Soluble and insoluble: two types, two jobs

Fibre is the part of plant foods that the small intestine doesn't break down. It travels on and changes the consistency of what's in your gut. Roughly speaking, there are two groups.

Soluble fibre binds water and turns gel-like. It's found in oats, pulses, apples and linseed, for example. Part of it is broken down by bacteria in the large intestine.

Insoluble fibre doesn't dissolve in water but gives the contents of your gut volume and structure. Typical sources are wholegrains, bran, nuts and the skins of vegetables and fruit.

You don't need to tell them apart. Most plant foods deliver both, just in different ratios. What counts is the mix across the day.

Where the 30 grams come from

Instead of counting grams, make swaps at a few fixed points in your day:

• Breakfast: oats instead of toast, with berries and a spoonful of ground linseed.
• Bread and sides: wholegrain instead of white flour, brown rice or wholewheat pasta at least a few days a week.
• Pulses: lentils, chickpeas, beans, ideally several times a week. As a curry, in a salad, as hummus with veg.
• Vegetables: a decent portion with every main meal, skin on where possible.
• Snacks: a handful of nuts or an apple instead of a chocolate bar.

Increase slowly, drink more

The most common mistake is ambition. Double your fibre overnight and your belly will tell you: bloating, fullness, rumbling. Breaking down fibre in the large intestine produces gas, and your gut needs time to adjust to the new amount. Small steps over two to three weeks work better. First breakfast, then bread, then pulses.

Water matters just as much. Fibre that swells needs fluid in particular. Eat more fibre while drinking little and you're more likely to get the opposite effect. The DGE suggests around 1.5 litres of fluids a day as a guide, more when training or in the heat.

What feels unfamiliar after three days is often just everyday life after three weeks.

If you take medication regularly and change your diet significantly, check in briefly with a pharmacist. If your bowel movements change noticeably over a longer period, there's blood, or pain persists, that belongs with your GP, not in a meal plan.

Get Ready Drops

Not a nutrition tip, but part of the Prepare phase in the Cycle of Intimacy®: Get Ready Drops are capsules for bottoming prep. They swell in the gut and form a gel that binds loose residue into a compact mass. Going to the toilet becomes more complete – without douching. They're designed as a regular routine: for the first one to two weeks, three capsules twice a day with a large glass of water, then two to three capsules a day. Bottoming on your schedule.