How to Weight Loss with Desi Ghee? An Effective and Powerful Diet Plan
Desi ghee does not help you lose weight, but you do not have to give it up either. One teaspoon has about 45 calories, so keeping to a teaspoon or two a day lets you enjoy it, parathas included, while still losing weight.
Hello, existing and new readers. If you have stumbled upon my website for the first time, I would like to introduce myself.
My name is Ayesha Nasir, and I am a certified clinical dietitian. And today, I’m back with yet another article centered on weight loss with desi ghee.
Weight Loss with Desi Ghee
The topic today is one of the most famous cooking essentials that are present in every Desi household. If you haven’t guessed it yet, I am talking about Desi Ghee.
How Desi Ghee is Made?
Desi ghee is made by a process of melting regular butter. Once the butter has separated into milk solids and liquid fats, these milk solids are removed leaving only liquid fat. This enables the ghee to have lesser amounts of lactose than pure butter. Having less lactose makes ghee easier for some people with lactose intolerance, but it does not help with weight loss, because ghee has as many calories as other fats.
Want a plan built around this? Ayesha Nasir, Registered Dietitian, builds diet plans around your reports and the food your family already cooks.
Can you lose weight with Desi Ghee?
A lot of my clients often complain about having to compromise on parathas in their diet. Because let’s face it, if there’s one thing we Pakistanis love, it’s our Desi ghee parathas. Well, let me put you all at ease by saying, you can lose weight without having to boycott parathas.
You might have come across one of my clients’ videos, called Abdul Rauf. He lost about thirty kilograms of weight within 2 months. And his diet plan consisted of a paratha that he would normally consume in his breakfast.
Diet plan with Desi Ghee
Now I will share a diet for those of you out there who prefer to have a heavy breakfast to kick-start their days. Such a breakfast will include a paratha so that their inner wants are also fulfilled whilst simultaneously following a diet plan. If you’re not a fan of desi ghee, here is a diet plan without it.
Pre-breakfast
Let’s start with pre-breakfast. Early morning as soon as you wake up, you should make a habit of drinking one cup of hot water that you prepared the night before by adding one teaspoon of zeera (cumin) or dar cheeni (cinnamon). Make sure you take this on an empty stomach.
Your hot water can also include a wide range of other nutrients all of which have their own set of benefits, such as chia seeds or cinnamon, depending on your preference.
Breakfast
Within 30 minutes of drinking this water, you will have your breakfast. This will include a 7-inch DVD-sized paratha made of whole wheat. When preparing your paratha, add two teaspoons of Desi ghee to it and make sure to cover both sides.
One brand of Desi ghee that I would suggest here is that of Chiltan Pure. Their Desi ghee is very healthy and is pure in its composition. I would also suggest that you pair your paratha with one egg, fried in a minimum amount of oil.
Evening Tea
Then comes tea time. While making tea, be sure to use as little milk as possible. Tea is essentially caffeine and its purpose is to wake you up not to load you up on liquid calories that are hardly even satiating. Also, skip out on the sugar, or use honey in its stead.
Noon Snack
If you take this breakfast around 8-9, you will not feel hungry till at least 12, once the moon timestamp has been reached, consume 7 skinned almonds and pair this with a cup of green tea without sugar.
Lunch
Around 1-2, it will finally be time for lunch. Try to consume lentils (daalein) in your lunchtime as these contain protein and are highly satiating, meaning you will not feel the need to eat more till dinner time.
One great option here would be to make chana Chaat (chickpea salad). One common mistake to make here is to include too many grams of chickpeas (chana) into your salad and a lesser amount of vegetables like tomatoes and onions.
I would suggest that use black beans instead of white beans here. If you have used ½ cup beans/chickpeas in your salad, make sure to fill the other half with vegetables. Be careful about your ratios as this slight change can mean the difference between weight loss and gain.
In addition, do not add potatoes or pees to your bean salad and try to include fresh vegetables in your salad instead of cooked ones. If you do not want to eat a salad, another option would be to make a lentil soup.
This can be made of either moong (green gram lentil) or masoor (red lentil). Take 3 tablespoons of the lentil and make a thin soup out of it. However, if you are not in the mood for lentils at all, there is a third option.
You can make 3 homemade kababs made of daal and chicken, fried in the minimum amount of oil i.e. one teaspoon to one tablespoon of Desi ghee.
Evening Snack
At around 5 pm, it will finally be time to eat some fruit. This is important because fruits add fiber to your diet and help your digestive process. Some fruits that you eat include 1 apricot, 1 apple, 1 peach, or 4 plums.
Dinner
Then comes dinner. For this meal, make it a habit of eating some fixed proportion of salad. This adds fiber to your meal and fills up your stomach making you feel more satiated. Also, it also takes you more time to finish a meal that is laden with salad and this helps you feel fuller.
If you can’t eat salad, eat 2-3 medium-sized cucumbers. In addition, add 200 grams of grilled chicken or Bar B Q chicken along with one cup of low-fat yogurt.
Late night drink
If before sleeping, you feel hungry, add a tablespoon of ispaghol and add it to water to drink. This is ideal because when you sleep your stomach digests the food you have consumed. Ispaghol helps with this process.
Some advice
A final word of advice would be to use Desi ghee in moderation. Although it is healthy and serves a range of benefits, it is still made up of saturated fat which can be fattening when taken in excess amounts. So make sure you measure your portions accurately to effectively maintain your journey to weight loss with desi ghee.
Who Should Eat Desi Ghee?
Kids need some fat for growth, and a little desi ghee can be part of that, but it is not essential. A child’s height depends mostly on genes and an overall balanced diet, not on any single food. For PCOS, which many girls in Pakistan have, what helps most is a balanced diet, regular activity and a healthy weight, so ghee is best kept to small amounts. It’s also a great ingredient that aids your journey to weight loss with desi ghee.
When to use Desi ghee?
All cooking done before 4 pm should be done using Desi ghee. However, post 4 pm, use olive oil to make your food as that is easier on digestion. It is also a great source of healthy fats as compared to its alternatives. Try not to use more than 1 tablespoon for weight loss with Desi ghee at one point in time.
Desi ghee can be used by heart patients but its quantity needs to be regulated. It gives you some vitamin A, but it is also high in calories and saturated fat.
However, if you are a heart patient, consult with your doctor about the use of Desi ghee beforehand. In addition, lactose-intolerant patients are also advised not to limit the amount of Desi ghee in their diet.
Conclusion
Now was this diet plan very scientific or confusing? Does it sound difficult to accomplish? No. It is a very flexible diet plan full of various alternatives. And most of all, it allows you to keep eating Desi ghee parathas.
Although you can achieve weight loss with desi ghee by being smart with your food intake, for optimum results you must combine this prescribed use of Desi ghee with 3-4 days a week of physical exercise. Do not expect that you can lose weight without having to move a muscle.
Our bodies are built to adapt to changing patterns in eating and no matter how you alter your diet, eventually, your body will reach a plateau which will only be overcome by combining different methods of weight loss.
Frequently Asked Question
Ghee is not the villain it gets made out to be, though a spoon is somewhere around a hundred and thirty calories and almost nobody measures it. Keeping it and accounting for it works better than swearing off it, and that is what a personalised diet plan does.
Sources: NHS: Fat, the facts.
