Pasta is a traditional Italian food made into a dough with just water and durum wheat. The dough was traditionally formed into various shapes then cooked in boiling water.
Pasta contains essential nutrients such as iron and Vitamin B but most importantly, weight-reducing fiber. One cup of whole grain wheat pasta can provide you with almost 25 percent of total daily fiber requirements for even greater weight loss.
According to many nutritionists, eating pasta decreases your chances of becoming obese. But what is best, most people like the idea of pasta helping with better weight management. Current surveys show that more than 24,000 people eat pasta to lower both their body mass and waist to hip ratio. And research shows that pasta truly does contribute to a healthy body mass index (BMI).
Italian research shows that pasta is especially healthy when consumed as a part of a Mediterranean diet. This is a type of diet that is high in vegetables, olive oil and fish. Large intake is the main marker for this kind of diet adherence.
This article will help you understand the health benefits of eating pasta for weight loss, and at the same time, keeping your waistline as slim as possible. The diet should be part of any weight-loss program mostly because of the nutrition value it provides.
Before we dive into the health benefits of pasta, one tip to bear in mind is that the best and healthiest type of pasta diet is that which relies on the whole grain variety. Besides keeping your waistline slim, pasta also provides the following benefits to our body.
Health benefits of eating pasta:
1. Some pasta meals can have a lower meal glycemic index (GI).
According to researchers and nutritionists, when combined with other foods like cheese, beans, and fish, pasta meals have a lower GI than when eaten alone, i.e. a pasta based meal plus other ingredients equals a lower GI. This is especially true If those foods are high in protein as is the case with the foods we’ve listed above. If you choose varieties of pasta that have a lower GI such as gluten-free or whole grain pasta, you’ll lower the GI of your meals even more. Low GI diets were found to improve blood sugar levels, aid in greater weight loss, and reduce your risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
2. Pasta is beneficial to people suffering from diabetes when made from whole grains.
3. Pasta reduces the risk of breast cancer.
Pasta that was fortified with folic acid can lower your risk of breast cancer because folic acid deficiency is known to be a great risk factor for breast cancer. A study published in Hereditary Cancer in Clinical Practice found that higher intake of folic acid lowers this risk significantly, and what better way to meet your folic acid requirements than with a pasta meal. Women of child-bearing age should be especially prudent with their folic acid intake as this group of women is known to be susceptible to folic acid deficiency. The Office on Women’s Health suggests that women take between 400 and 800 mcg of folic acid daily for optimal health.
4. Pasta reduces Alzheimer’s risk.
Researchers also found that carbohydrate-rich foods like pasta reduce a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. Pasta may also increase the lifespan of those already suffering from this common neurodegenerative disease. However, this relationship between carbohydrates and Alzheimer’s is not well understood. A possible explanation could lie in the fact that our brains feed on glycogen as its main source of energy and that metabolic disorders affecting glycogen are known to be a risk factor for Alzheimer’s. To reduce your risk of this neurodegenerative disease, make sure to keep your intake of pasta and other carb-rich meals at moderate levels.
5. Pasta provides beneficial carbohydrates which are the body’s main source of fuel.
In addition to the above-mentioned health benefits, pasta is nowadays considered a better source of nutrients than most top diet pills because it helps in weight loss when combined with regular exercising and watching calories. Pasta increases fat burning by providing your body with enough energy to exercise and to boost all metabolic functions, including basal metabolic rate. When you choose pasta enriched with beta-glucan fibers or whole grain pasta, you will also get a meal that can suppress your appetite. If you’re following a vigorous exercise program, eating pasta meals will provide you with plenty of easily-digestible energy to boost your exercise performance.
Pasta as a weight-loss miracle:
At first glance, pasta diets may seem like some sort of a modern craze but in a real sense, they are one of the most important diets for weight loss. What’s best about hem is that they are inexpensive and easy to make compared to other less effective diets.
For women especially, the main focus in losing weight is slimming the waistline that is possible with a pasta-based diet. Below are some explanations how pasta can help slim the waistline.
- Pasta is said to be highly satiating for a carbohydrate-rich food. Pasta will make your stomach feel full, and chances of taking mid-day snacks will be low. Snacking is one of the many reasons why we gain excess weight, especially around the waistline.
- Pasta is fairly low in both fat and calories so it goes without saying that by eating pasta daily, you’ll be taking in fewer calories than when eating fried and high-fat foods. In short, this is the best type of diet to keep your calories intake in check.
- Pasta contains complex sugars that the body takes more time to digest compared to simple sugars. This characteristic ensures that your blood glucose levels are normal and your appetite controlled.
To reap the best from your pasta diet, you need a proper diet plan. That is if you can stick to this diet plan in the long run. This pasta is considered best options if your goal is to burn fat and get a thinner waist:
- Whole wheat pasta
- Pasta gluten – it has more proteins but less carbs
- Pasta with vegs – they mix the benefits of wheat and plant nutrients.
The above are the main three types of pasta that you can choose from while making a pasta diet plan. Read on to understand these pasta diet plans.
In a single day, you need to eat three essential meals; that is breakfast, lunch, and supper. Thanks to pasta, you can eat all three meals with satisfaction, and you need not skip any of these meals to lose weight. This is mainly because, as we have seen above pasta has a high satiety index.
You don’t need to have pasta as the only meal to lose weight or have a slim waistline. You can include other diets in your plan for better results. Remember that your body still needs a lot of other nutrients that you need to obtain from other food sources.
All that you need to do is stick to the pasta diet while keeping your fat intake low. After you have lost the desired weight, you will undergo something called a stabilization phase that will allow you to go back to the initially balanced diet. At this stage, you can continue taking pasta diet but on alternate days of the week.
You will also need plenty of fruits and vegetables to make sure that you maintain the newly acquired weight.
Pasta is a general term, and I am therefore going to simplify it for you by giving you the healthiest and popular pasta foods available on the market today. You can make pasta a best diet plan and recipe with any of the following pasta food.
- Spaghetti
- Shells
- Noodles
- Fettuccine
- Linguine
- Tortellini
Congratulations for making it this far. To reap the benefits of a pasta diet, you need first to fall in love with this diet. Once this is done, you will have an easy time losing weight as well as having a slim waistline.
