For some of us, even a 30-minute brisk walk may not be on the cards; regardless of the time of the day or night. If you still want to shed some pounds, but don’t know how, switch your diet to barley, brown rice, buckwheat and Oatmeal for refined grains, as switching to brown rice may give you the same effect that you would otherwise get from a 30 minute of brisk walk, suggests recent studies.

One such studied, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, indicated that substitution of whole grains for refined grains in the diet for eight weeks increased calorie loss, by reducing calories retained during digestion and speeding up metabolism.

The fibre in brown rice caused a loss of around a 100 extra calories per day

The findings suggested that people who ate a diet with whole grains, which matched the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for fibre, lost close to an extra 100 calories per day, due to a combination of increased resting metabolic rate and greater faecal losses.

“This study will help to quantify how whole grains and fiber work to benefit weight management, and lend credibility to previously reported associations between increased whole grains and fiber consumption, lower body weight and better health,” said the first author of the study Phil J. Karl from Tufts University’s health sciences campus in the US.

“We provided all the food to ensure that the composition of the diets differed only in grain source,” stressed senior author Susan B. Roberts.

The weight loss was due the effect the fibre had on the digestibility of other food calories.

The research provided food to participants for eight weeks and may help explain how whole grain consumption is beneficial for weight management. The team conducted an eight-week randomised, single-blind comparative studies with 81 men and women between the ages of 40 and 65.

In the first two weeks, all the participants ate the same type of food, and individual calorie needs were determined. After two weeks, the participants were randomly assigned to consume a diet that included either whole grains or refined grains. Throughout the eight weeks, the researchers measured weight, metabolic rate, blood glucose, faecal calories, hunger and fullness.

The study found that those who ate whole grains had an increase in resting metabolic rate and faecal energy losses compared to those who ate refined grains. The extra faecal energy losses were not due to the extra fibre itself, but from the effect, the fibre had on the digestibility of other food calories.

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