Everyone knows that when you’re trying to lose weight, there is a big emphasis on eating a healthy, balanced diet. It’s helpful to base your meals on staple items that are healthy that you can eat in many different ways like brown rice.
Brown rice is a high-fiber food that helps you feel fuller longer, so it’s a great food to eat if you’re trying to lose weight. To learn more about the weight loss benefits of brown rice and how to incorporate it into your life, keep reading.
What are the benefits of eating brown rice?
You’ve heard that brown rice is recommended as part of a healthy, nutritious diet. There must be a reason why so many people eat brown rice when they are trying to lose weight and eat healthily.
Here are a few of the most common benefits of eating brown rice:
Nutrient-dense
In addition to being high in fiber, brown rice is packed with high levels of essential vitamins and minerals that are beneficial to your overall health.
Many people do not get enough fiber in their diet, so brown rice is a great way to increase your daily intake. Fiber is so important to help your body process and eliminate food appropriately. It can also help lower your cholesterol and minimize your risk of heart disease and diabetes.
Feel full longer
Because of the high levels of fiber and other nutrients, brown rice is a great food for weight loss because it helps you feel full longer. This is helpful because it can teach your body to eat the correct portion size and realize that healthy foods like brown rice will fill you up in much smaller quantities than other foods.
Brown rice takes longer for your body to break down during the digestive process, so you also won’t be tempted to hit the snack cabinet 30 minutes after your meal.
Cost-effective
If you’re trying to lose weight on a budget, you know that it can be difficult to keep your grocery bills down when you’re trying to meet your weight loss goals. Brown rice is a great addition to a healthy diet because a large bag of brown rice only costs a few dollars and will last you several meals.
Versatile
When you’re on a diet, often you’ll get sick of eating the same few things all the time. There are so many different ways you can eat brown rice, so you’ll never get bored.
Brown rice tastes great on its own, but it will also take on the flavor of the sauces and spices you prepare it with. You can mix brown rice into a stir fry with meat and vegetables, serve as a side dish with your favorite meal, or whip up a delicious, savory casserole.
Is brown rice better for you than white rice?
When it comes to eating for weight loss, brown rice is definitely better for you than white rice. The reason for this has to do with the way that brown rice and white rice are processed and what that means to their nutritional makeup by the time it ends up on your plate.
Here are a few ways brown rice stacks up better than white rice when it comes to your health:
More nutritious
White rice and brown rice start out similarly, but that’s where the similarities end. In order to make white rice, the rice goes through a process that removes two of the outermost layers called the bran and the germ. These two layers contain all of the vital nutrients and fiber of the rice.
Brown rice has intact bran and germ, which is why it is so high in fiber and full of vitamins and minerals like zinc, magnesium, iron, B vitamins, and more.
Low-glycemic index
If your blood sugar is a concern, you definitely want to swap out your white rice for brown rice. Brown rice is a low-glycemic index food, which means that it does not cause your blood sugar to rise after you eat it. White rice on the other hand is known to spike blood sugar.
Brown rice is a much smarter choice to help you keep your blood sugar controlled. Eating brown rice instead of white rice on a consistent basis can help lower your risk of diabetes because it is rich in fiber and magnesium, which help keep insulin levels low.
Gives you more energy
Brown rice is a much better choice than white rice if you need help keeping your energy level up throughout the day. Whether you need the energy to chase your kids around or power through a tough workout, brown rice can help you eliminate that mid-afternoon slump or crash.
Because brown rice burns so much slower during the digestive process than white rice, it helps you maintain sustained energy levels throughout the day. White rice, because it has a much simpler makeup, burns quickly in the body and gives you only a short burst of energy followed by a crash.
How can I lose weight by eating brown rice?
While eating brown rice alone won’t make you lose weight, it certainly can help. The most effective way to truly lose weight is to focus on staying in a caloric deficit. This means that you should strive to burn more calories in a day than you consume.
The simple concept of a caloric deficit is the key to breaking through plateaus to finally lose weight and keep it off. It’s important to track your food intake and be mindful of portion sizes. Everything you eat should be relative to your activity level during the day to make sure you don’t overeat.
While you should focus on making sure your overall diet is healthy and includes nutritious foods like brown rice, you will lose weight over time regardless of what you eat as long as you stay in that caloric deficit. Focus on healthy levels of activity and appropriate portions of healthy, whole foods and you will meet your weight loss goals.
