Carbohydrates are crucial to the normal functioning of the body. However, not everyone gets to burn off their calories usually, and as a result, too many carbohydrates can result in the opposite of good. If you are trying to lose weight right now and struggle with balancing your carbohydrate intake, it’s a good time to begin looking at whether potatoes or rice are hurting your diet.
These two are commonplace both in the West and the East, and if you do not know what you are dealing with, you may be gaining weight because of these staples.
There is plenty of science behind the recommendation that people who want to start losing weight should start scanning how many calories they get from their macronutrients per day – especially carbohydrates. Since carbohydrates are among the easiest to over-consume daily, it is also equally important to check how you cook your staples and how much of them you consume within a day.
Which Is Healthier Rice or Potatoes?
It appears that in the battle of being healthy, potatoes win over rice in many aspects. A cup of white rice provides 200 calories of energy. You get the same amount of energy by consuming four small potatoes.
If you like eating potatoes with the skin, that’s added fiber and nutrients, too. On the other hand, white rice has already been processed to the point that it is no longer the entire grain, and therefore, it has lower amounts of nutrients and dietary fiber.
If we put a 200-calorie serving of potatoes and rice together, you will get four grams more dietary fiber from the potatoes than the white rice.
Since weight loss is complex and needs many factors to align, you can start losing weight properly; you must be more selective of what you eat.
Based on the information, eating more potatoes can help you more with your weight loss goals because it has more fiber and is more nutritionally dense. As for how much carbohydrates these staples provide, they are almost equal to 45 grams, but some factors affect the overall healthiness.
Let’s say that you need to cut down on your fat intake as well. If you eat dishes like cheesy potatoes or mashed potatoes more frequently because you avoid rice, you can end up with more calories from other ingredients such as butter and bacon. Remember – belly fat develops from different nutrients, and fat intake can also harm your weight loss efforts.
Which Is Higher in Carbs Rice or Potatoes?
As discussed earlier, they are almost equal with just a two-point difference between potatoes and rice. If a serving of potatoes provides around 200 calories, you will get about 45 grams of carbohydrates from the potatoes alone.
A single cup of cooked white rice will give you around 43 grams of carbohydrates. If you have diabetes, you probably know that these figures aren’t very encouraging because people with diabetes need to reduce their fat intake, carbohydrate intake, and caloric intake.
This being the case, our recommendation would be to rim your carbohydrate intake overall throughout the day and eat better sources of nutrients so your blood glucose doesn’t spike.
Reducing the impact of diabetes can have a positive domino effect on your entire body. Diabetes causes problems in every available organ, including the skin, so it’s critical to mediate it with the proper food selection and portioning.
Carbohydrates can also affect the heart in many ways. Those who suffer from both diabetes and heart disease are more likely to suffer from mortal complications than those who can control both. In short, it’s not a good sign when you have both hypertension and diabetes, and you run a higher risk of dying younger.
How Many Potatoes or How Much Rice Can You Eat a Day?
The answer depends on your physical condition, health, and energy requirement. A professional athlete who can burn off 3,000 calories per day may need to consume up to 5,000 calories to stay alive and retain any physical gains from all that physical stress. A person who mostly sits around and does no physical activity may feel hungry all the time but would have very minimal calorie requirements because he does not physically exert himself.
In the case of white rice and potatoes, one to two servings per day should be sufficient to get good results with weight loss. However, there is a stern warning for those who are switching diets and modifying their meals. Our bodies are slightly different, and some bodies respond to diet changes better than others. If your body is used to consuming 4,000 calories per day, suddenly cutting your calories to 2,000 or less will likely send your body into shock. Shock is never a good sign, and it is also inconsistent with what you want to do, which is long-term weight maintenance.
Rewinding to the problem of portions, you won’t gain any additional weight if you consume the right amounts of either white rice or potatoes. If you want more nutrition, potatoes have them, especially on the skin. However, if it is caloric moderation that you are after, you need to moderate how much you eat, too.
Eyeing your portions is not helpful and will cause errors in your calorie counting. Instead, you need to carefully portion your meals so you can get more or less your target caloric count for the day.
