Rice is a staple food that has been and continues to be consumed by many communities all around the world with Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South America among the largest consuming regions (1). A study published in 2011 stated that more than 50% of the world’s caloric intake was derived from grains, with the top consumed grains being rice, wheat, and maize (2).
Another study published in 2016 noted that wheat, rice, and maize were the most planted and produced grains in the world (3). Two more recent studies supported these claims by stating that these three grains were each cultivated on approximately 200 million hectares around the world and that they accounted for over 90% of the world’s cereal production (4, 5).
Scientific research has shown that a diet that is rich in good-quality carbohydrates can help with long-term weight loss and management, especially in people with excessive body weight (6). With so much rice around and with it being so affordable and easily accessible, can you do a rice diet to help with weight loss?
Read on to learn more about the rice diet results and whether adopting such a meal plan could be the key to your long-desired body goals.
Before we get into whether or not this eating plan works, what exactly is the rice diet?
This eating plan was formulated in the late 1930s as a treatment for renal failure, aka kidney failure (7). Initially, the diet consisted almost entirely of fruit and rice, but eventually, breads and treats were permitted. Basically, to partake in this diet you must:
When this diet was first introduced, it had some failures but was mostly a success. While 25 people in the eating program died and 60 others didn’t see any noteworthy improvements to their health, 107 patients showed significant improvement in terms of blood pressure, total blood cholesterol, heart size, and retinopathy.
This success led to the rice diet being adopted by many doctors of the time. Those doctors proceeded to recommend the eating plan to patients who were suffering from illnesses such as nephrotic syndrome, hypercholesterolemia, diabetes mellitus, atherosclerosis, and obesity – all with varying levels of success (7).
Over time, the rules of the rice diet have changed with the addition of more vegetables and beans, but does it truly work for weight loss?
Read More: The Mediterranean Diet: Benefits, Facts And Tips
While the rice diet results may have been outstanding back in the late 1940s, we wouldn’t be quick to recommend this meal plan to someone who is looking for a healthy diet for weight loss.
With ever-growing knowledge of the human body and how the foods we consume affect it, it is widely known that only eating one type of food isn’t good for you.
If you’re not convinced, here are some scientifically backed advantages and disadvantages of choosing such a meal plan.
Want to build an attention-grabbing bubble butt, blast away fat that’s stored in all the wrong places, spring-clean your diet, turn back the clock on your skin, skyrocket your self-confidence and shatter your insecurities? Check out the BetterMe app and set this plan in motion!
Proponents of this eating plan will say that this diet can help improve your health and help with weight loss – as was seen back in the 1940s. However, this has no recent scientific backing whatsoever.
In more than 70 years since this diet was introduced, no scientific research has been conducted that can back the claims that only eating rice with minimal consumption of protein and fat and limited intake of fluids will help boost your health or improve your health. It was designed to meet the specific needs of people with kidney failure at the time, but it’s not a healthy balanced diet meant for a healthy person.
So what are the disadvantages of such an eating plan?
When the diet was first introduced, people weren’t supposed to consume more than 2,000 kcal a day. However, over time, changes were made and today the diet comes in three phases where the calorie count starts at 800 kcal a day and ends at 1,200 kcal a day.
This calorie intake encompasses everyone into one group and disregards all factors that influence individual calorie intake such as age, sex, environmental temperature, amount of physical activity, pregnancy, hormonal status, and dieting behavior (8).
According to the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, adult men and women require respective daily calorie intakes of 2,000 to 3,000 and 1,600 to 2,400 (9). When it comes to losing weight, Harvard Health advises that women shouldn’t eat less than 1,200 kcal a day and men should not go below 1,500 kcal (10).
As this diet recommends 800 kcal a day for an adult human, it’s clear to see just how inadequate and restrictive it is.
According to the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a healthy diet is made up of 5 main core elements (9):
The World Health Organisation adds that a healthy diet should (11):
You’re also encouraged to drink a lot of water and limit your alcohol intake.
All these guidelines work together to ensure you eat enough calories in a day and consume different micronutrients from all kinds of foods, thereby keeping your immune system strong.
A review published in Nutrients in 2020 suggested that the adequate consumption of carbs, proteins, and fats helps the body produce enough energy to keep you active and alive. In addition, these macronutrients and the micronutrients in healthy foods help keep you safer from illnesses such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases, diabetes, obesity, and cognitive impairment (12).
However, while the rice diet has the limited sodium intake of a healthy diet covered, it fails in all other areas. As seen above, rice appears to be the only carbohydrate that is allowed on the eating plan.
The consumption of fats and protein is highly restricted and only some fruits are allowed. Eating like this for an extended period of time will lead to malnutrition, which comes with a slew of health issues.
One of the main things that makes people fall off a weight loss diet is the amount of effort that goes into the meal plan. The diet may look simple enough at first – only rice and some fruit with some vegetables and beans for protein later on – but if you want to follow this meal plan in the long term, it can be quite hard.
Given the opportunity, rice can be a very versatile ingredient, but you must mix it and have it with other things in order to benefit from its full potential. The foods that are allowed in the meal plan can only do so much and with time, you’re bound to crave the forbidden foods that can make you fall off the plan.
Proponents of this eating plan claim that you’ll see rice diet results almost immediately. They go as far as to claim that you may lose anything between 8 and 10 pounds in just a week.
However, these claims don’t seem to have any scientific backing to them.
In addition, a loss of 8 to 10 pounds in just 7 days is a dangerous if not impossible feat. The CDC states that a person should aim to lose 1 to 2 pounds per week (13). Anything faster than this is considered to be unhealthy and unsustainable and is also less likely to be fat loss but more water and muscle loss.
BetterMe app will kick you out of the mental funk, shake off your extra weight, rid you off your energy-zapping habits, and help you sculpt the body of your dreams. Intrigued? Hurry up and change your life for the better!
Seeing how unhealthy and restrictive this meal plan is and how unfounded the claimed rice diet results seem to be, we cannot in good faith give you tips to help you go on this diet.
However, what we can do is give you some tips for maintaining a healthy balanced diet for weight loss:
The recommended calorie deficit is 500 to 1,000 kcal less than your normal intake. Use the BetterMe app to track how many calories you consume a day for a week. Find the average number and subtract 500 from it. This should be your new deficit and what you should eat for weight loss.
As the Dietary Guidelines state, grains are an essential part of your everyday diet (6). Rice is just one grain out of many and while you can still have your white rice, make sure that a large chunk of your diet also includes whole grains such as quinoa, black, wild, or brown rice, oats, bulgur, farro, and millet.
Don’t be tempted to replace this eating plan with a brown rice diet. While brown rice is a good complex carbohydrate, you must still have more than one type of carbohydrate in your diet.
Not only are they rich in immune-boosting micronutrients, but many vegetables, especially leafy greens and non-starchy vegetables, are low in calories. This means you can eat a large amount of them without going over your calorie limit. They’re also rich in fiber, which helps with satiety. This means that you’ll stay full for longer after eating them, making you less likely to overeat later and helping reduce your overall calorie intake.
Read More: Is Rice Fattening: Examining The Myths, Misconceptions And Nutrition Facts
This is particularly important if you’re working out for weight loss. Protein is the building block for muscle and the more muscle you have, the higher your resting metabolic rate will be, which helps with calorie burning. Protein also helps with satiety, which helps keep your calorie intake in check. Make sure some of your protein comes from plant-based sources such as beans, lentils, and tofu, in addition to some from lean animal meats, fish, and poultry (unless you’re vegetarian or vegan).
Water prevents dehydration and helps with weight loss as it may act as an appetite suppressant. It may also temporarily increase your metabolism, which slightly increases calorie burning for a short while.
This is a more modern version of the original rice diet. Unlike the older version that only allowed rice and fruit, the more modern version allows for other grains and more vegetables plus beans. While this version is less restrictive in terms of what you can eat, the recommended calorie intake is still far less than an adult should consume.
The main rule is rice should be the staple grain in the eating plan. All other rules change depending on who recommends the meal plan.
Not necessarily. Specific foods don’t burn belly fat. However, as part of a balanced, reduced-calorie diet, foods that are high in protein or fiber can promote satiety, which helps you feel full for longer and makes you less likely to overeat later. If this helps reduce your overall calorie intake without you feeling hungry or unsatisfied, it can help with both fat and weight loss.
You should practice portion control, watch your calorie intake, eat more fruits and vegetables to help with satiety, work out and eat more protein to help with muscle growth and satiety, and add other grains, especially whole grains, to your diet.
If you’re wondering whether rice is fattening, there are no straight answers. While simple carbs such as white rice are often believed to be associated with weight gain, some studies on the consumption of white rice and weight gain have suggested that this may not necessarily be the case after finding no correlation (14, 15, 16). Weight management is influenced by many factors, and overall diet is more important than any one food or food group.
Most of the rice diet results that are seen online seem to have no scientific backing to them. Generally, the diet is not one that could be considered healthy for the majority of the population as it isn’t balanced and doesn’t provide adequate amounts of all the nutrients that we need.
If you want to lose weight, we suggest that you turn to a nutritionally balanced calorie deficit diet and exercise rather than this meal plan. These are the only two things that are most likely to help you lose fat and keep it off in the long term.
This article is intended for general informational purposes only and does not serve to address individual circumstances. It is not a substitute for professional advice or help and should not be relied on for making any kind of decision-making. Any action taken as a direct or indirect result of the information in this article is entirely at your own risk and is your sole responsibility.
BetterMe, its content staff, and its medical advisors accept no responsibility for inaccuracies, errors, misstatements, inconsistencies, or omissions and specifically disclaim any liability, loss or risk, personal, professional or otherwise, which may be incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and/or application of any content.
You should always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or your specific situation. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of BetterMe content. If you suspect or think you may have a medical emergency, call your doctor.