Weight Loss
Weight Loss: How many chapatis can you have in a day?
Dieting never means overeating of one kind of food or giving up on another kind completely. It is all about eating a well balanced meal.
Summary : 60 Second Read
In this article you will find useful tips on how many chapatis to include in your meal plan and some of the determining factors for deciding upon the number of chapatis.
Carbs, protein and fat are known as macronutrients, which means our body needs them in large quantities to carry out different functions in the body. First of all, you need to finalise your daily carb intake. On the basis of that you can decide how many chapatis you can have in a day.
A small 6-inch chapati contains around 71 calories(source). So, if your lunchtime calorie intake is 300 calories, you can have two chapatis that will be 140 calories and the remaining can come from vegetables and salad that you eat with the chapatis. Remember that not only chapatis, but even the vegetables and fruits you consume also contain some amount of carbs.
In short, how many wheat rotis can you consume in a day actually depends on your calorie intake. Having 4 chapatis in a day is considered optimal for weight loss.
Some useful tips
- Don’t include rotis in all your meals. Eating wheat throughout the day can make feel tired. Try and include other healthy grains in your diet as well. It is good to have two rotis with a bowl of rice, a bowl of dry vegetables and bowl of curd at night. You can also have missi roti or dal roti at night as they have more protein in comparison to normal roti.
- Prepare Multigrain roti to include more nutrients. Always mix flour while preparing dough. However, don’t mix more than 3 – 4 flour at a time, as mixing more than that can make it heavy on your stomach for digestion.
- Focus on preparation to improve digestibility. Make sure that you knead the dough nicely and let it rest for 10 – 15 minutes. As much as possible, try to prepare fresh dough every time. Storing the dough overnight or more than 5 – 6 hours is not recommended.
- Add Herbs / Spices / other ingredients. Add herbs, spices and ingredients like ajvaine, jeera powder and other similar ingredients to increase the digestibility of the rotis.
- How many rotis in a meal. Your dinner plate should be mix of Fibre which comes from seasonal veggies, salad, steamed vegetables, grilled / cooked sabzi, visible Fat, Protein which comes from lentils, legumes, beans, eggs, lean meat , fish etc, probiotic and complex Carbs which comes from roti, rice, daliya, upma etc. Ideally not more than two rotis should form part of any meal.
Other important factors
- Gender : Men tend to eat more than women so naturally they will have more rotis in the diet.
- Activity level : People who tend to work out regularly will have more calorie intake as compared to someone with lesser activities. More calories intake means more rotis in the diet. However, make sure you increase other ingredients proportionally.
- Younger people have better digestibility as compared to older people. As you grow older, the need to have a balanced diet is even more.
