Mia Lane
The rice diet promises something that may seem strange to many in times of low-carb trends: letting the pounds tumble with lots of carbohydrates. Here you can find all the information about the rice diet and its advantages and disadvantages it has.
Rice is one of the most important staple foods in the world and is the main part of the diet for around half of the world’s population. Rice is also extremely popular in this country – whether as part of Asian cuisine or as a basic building block for the domestic saucepan. However, not everyone swears by it. For advocates of a low-carb or no-carb diet, the food is not an option, or only to a limited extent, since it consists largely of carbohydrates. Many assume that carbohydrates make you fat or at least make it much more difficult to burn fat. But is that true or can you lose weight with the rice diet?
What is the rice diet?
In the rice diet, rice becomes the main component of the diet. With a rice-based diet lasting several weeks, rapid weight loss is said to be possible – and without the unfulfilled longing for carbohydrates.
The inventor of the rice diet is Dr. Walter Kempner, who used the dehydrating effect of rice in patients with high blood pressure and diabetes in the 1930s.
This is how the rice diet works
The rice diet is a mono diet – a diet in which you mostly rely on a single food. The principle of the weight loss method is therefore very simple: Each meal consists primarily of rice (with side dishes). The daily limit is between 850 and 1,000 kilocalories – this is how the excess pounds should fall off quickly. In principle, you can use all sorts of rice in a rice diet and thus at least bring some variety into the menu. Unpeeled wholegrain rice, for example, is recommended.
The rice diet follows a multi-week plan. In the first few days of the diet, meals consist almost entirely of rice. Later they are supplemented with vegetables, fruit and then also with fish, and meat. If you are strict about the diet, you also have to be careful about the amount of rice: Each meal should consist of 60 grams (dry weight) of rice.
Rice Diet: The Four-Week Plan
Week 1: The first week of the rice diet is the so-called “detox week”. It is culinary not very varied – because only rice may be consumed. Salt is forbidden. A day of your choice may be enriched with fruit in the first week.
Week 2: Once the first week is over, the second week is already much easier to carry out. In addition to a fruit day (day 1), you can eat vegetables and use skimmed milk products as a side dish. As a reward, there is meat, fish, or eggs with rice on the last day of the week.
Week 3 and 4: In the last two weeks of the rice diet, salt can be used again in careful doses. Meat and fish are also allowed – as are nuts.
What is forbidden during the whole time are sweets and alcoholic beverages. Even coffee junkies have to do without their beloved drink during their diet.
Benefits of a Rice Diet
Rice is a well-tolerated and very filling food. Compared to other carbohydrate-containing foods such as bread or potatoes, rice fills you up faster and for longer. This works against ravenous hunger attacks, which can make things much more difficult for those who want to lose weight with many other diets – with a rice diet, the feeling of an empty stomach is absent. In addition, the rice diet is relatively inexpensive to implement and requires only foods that are not difficult to source. Both the rice and the other components of the diet (vegetables, fruit, meat, fish) are available at regular prices in all supermarkets. Another plus is that rice is fat-free, making it the perfect low-fat diet.
Rice also has a dehydrating effect. This also has the consequence that the first kilos are lost relatively quickly – but it is water and not fat that you lose.
Disadvantages of the Rice Diet
Every mono diet also always harbors a certain risk of an unbalanced diet and thus an associated lack of nutrients. This also applies to the rice diet. Rice often has elevated levels of arsenic, so a rice-only diet can lead to increased levels of arsenic. Muscle loss can also occur since the body gets its energy from muscle proteins first when there is a calorie deficiency.
Conclusion
In principle, it is quite possible to lose a few kilos with the rice diet – if only because of the high-calorie deficit. A calorie maximum of 1,000 calories per day is a drastic reduction. For comparison: A woman between the ages of 25 and 51 needs about 1,900 calories a day, for men about 1,900 calories a day
