Fibre and lifting: the two boring habits doing more for you than anything else

We talk a lot about training hard, hitting protein targets, getting steps in. But two things keep coming up in the research that don't get nearly as much credit as they deserve: eating enough fibre, and lifting something heavy a couple of times a week. Neither one is sexy. Neither one will get you likes on Instagram. But two studies published in the last year back up exactly why I keep banging on about both.
The fibre gapHere's a stat that should make you stop and think: most people are eating roughly half the fibre they should be getting. A big 2025 umbrella review in Clinical Nutrition — pulling together meta-analyses covering over 17 million people — confirmed just how much that gap costs you. Higher fibre intake was consistently linked to lower risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, colorectal cancer, and dying earlier in general (1).
A separate 2025 study out of RMIT University added something I hadn't really thought about before: not all fibre does the same job. Lead researcher Professor Raj Eri made the point that "soluble vs insoluble" is too basic a way to think about it — the actual structure of the fibre determines what it does for you in the gut (2). Basically, the fibre in an apple and the fibre in a banana aren't doing the same work.
What I'd actually do about it:

• Add one fibre-rich food to a meal you already eat every day. A handful of beans on your lunch, an extra piece of fruit at breakfast, swap white rice for brown.
• Don't overhaul your whole diet overnight. Most adults need to roughly double their current intake to hit the recommended 25–35g a day — that's a gradual build, not a weekend fix.
• Variety matters more than people think. Different plants, different fibre types, different benefits.

The strength training sweet spotHow much actual lifting do you need to do to move the needle on how long you live? A June 2026 study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, led by Harvard researchers, tracked more than 147,000 adults for up to three decades (3).
The headline: people doing 90–119 minutes of resistance training a week had a 13% lower risk of dying from any cause than people who did none — plus meaningfully lower risk of dying from heart disease and neurological conditions. The bit I actually love about this study is that the benefit levelled off past about two hours a week. You don't need to live in the gym. The people with the lowest mortality risk of all combined a decent amount of cardio with 60–119 minutes of strength work weekly.
Even the lead author, Dr Yiwen Zhang, was clear that 90–120 minutes isn't some magic number to hit — it's just evidence that consistent, moderate resistance training is doing real work in the background, whether or not you ever care about your one-rep max.
What I'd actually do about it:

• Two or three 20–30 minute sessions a week, covering legs, back, chest and core, is genuinely enough to land in the benefit zone.
• It doesn't have to be a barbell. Bands, dumbbells, bodyweight — the study didn't find that equipment mattered, consistency did.
• More isn't automatically better here. Past a certain point you're not getting extra longevity for your extra hours in the gym.

Take-home message

• Most of us are under-eating fibre by roughly half — small, consistent swaps close that gap faster than a big diet overhaul.
• Not all fibre is equal — variety of plant foods beats fixating on one "superfood."
• 90–120 minutes of resistance training a week is linked to a 13% lower risk of dying from any cause — and you don't need more than two hours to get most of the benefit.
• Combining strength work with regular cardio beats either one alone.
• Both of these are dose-responsive, not all-or-nothing. Something is always better than nothing.

If you're not doing some form of resistance training currently, or your fibre intake is an afterthought, this is your sign. Small, boring, consistent changes — that's genuinely what the evidence keeps pointing to.
References

1. Clemente-Suárez, V.J. et al. The impact of dietary fiber consumption on human health: An umbrella review of evidence from 17,155,277 individuals. Clinical Nutrition, 2025.
2. Eri, R. et al. Beyond soluble and insoluble: A comprehensive framework for classifying dietary fibre's health effects.Food Research International, 2025.
3. Zhang, Y., Lee, D.H., Rezende, L.F.M., Ma, Y., Giovannucci, E. Long-term resistance training with all-cause and cause-specific mortality: assessing dose-response and joint associations with aerobic physical activity. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2026.