Resistant Starch for Weight Loss

Resistant Starch.. A Good Carbohydrate?

What if you can eat some carbohydrates without them being digested?

Did you know not all of the starch / carbohydrates we eat gets absorbed?

Enter resistant starch (RS).

What is Resistant Starch (RS) ?

This type of starch is called resistant starch and is resistant to digestion. Starches are long chains of glucose that are found in grains, potatoes and various food. Sometimes a small part of it passes through the digestive tract unchanged. Resistant starch (RS) behaves more like dietary fiber than carbohydrate, as it is not broken down into simple sugars in the small intestine.

It functions almost like soluble fiber and studies in humans show that resistant starch can have powerful health benefits.

How do you get resistant starch (RS) into Your Diet?

You can get them two ways. Either from food or supplement with them. This includes raw potatoes, cooked and then cooled potatoes, specially prepared then cooled rice, raw plantains, green bananas, various legumes, cashews and raw oats.

So Can It Be Good For Weight Loss?

Resistant starch has fewer calories than regular starch and may increase feelings of fullness and help people eat less. Eating less usually helps weight loss. That is if, you don’t add calories to your meal from other foods and you are in a caloric deficit.

If you are watching your nutrition, replacing some of your existing carbohydrates with RS, doesn’t it makes sense that it would aid weight loss?

If you influence lower blood sugar levels, reduced appetite plus enhance your digestion, you are enhancing your overall health on major levels. By improving insulin sensitivity and lowering sugar, you decrease major risk factors for some of the world’s most serious diseases, including metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s Disease.

Can You Make Rice Better for You?

O yeah!

Scientist have found a simple way to cook rice that could cut the number of calories absorbed by the body by more than half, potentially reducing obesity rates.

So far, they have found this is the best way to increase the Resistant Starch in rice.

How Do You Make It?

Add a teaspoon of coconut oil to boiling water. Then, they added a half a cup of rice. They simmered this for 40 minutes, or just boil it for 20-25 minutes instead, the researchers noted.

*Most importantly, they refrigerated it for 12 hours!

This procedure increased the RS by 10 times for traditional, non-fortified rice.

There Are 4 Different Types of Resistant Starch

Not all resistant starches are the same.

• Type 1 is found in legumes, seeds, grains and seeds resists digestion because it is bound within the fibrous cell walls.
• Type 2 is found in some starchy foods, including raw potatoes and green (unripe) bananas and raw plantains.
• Type 3 is formed when certain starchy foods, including potatoes and rice, are cooked and then cooled. The cooling turns some of the digestible starches into resistant starches via a process called retrogradation.
• Type 4 is man-made and formed via a chemical process.

Depending on how foods are prepared, the amount of resistant starch changes.
For example, allowing a banana to ripen (turn yellow) will degrade the resistant starches and turn them into regular starches.

Green banana flour and plantain flour are also excellent sources of RS, and there may be benefit to including multiple sources (specifically alternating your source rather than relying on a single resistant starch for weight loss).

One of the main reasons why resistant starch improves health, is that it feeds the friendly bacteria in the intestine and increases production of short-chain fatty acids.

Look At These Health Benefits

• Improved insulin sensitivity
• Lower blood sugar levels
• Reduced appetite
• Various benefits for digestion
• Has several beneficial effects on the colon.  It reduces the pH level
• Potently reduces inflammation (inflammatory bowel diseases)
• Helps various digestive disorders
• Can lead to beneficial changes that should lower the risk of colorectal cancer
• Increases the absorption of minerals in Animal studies
• Short-chain fatty acids that aren’t used by the cells in the colon travel to the bloodstream, liver and to the rest of the body, where they may lead to various beneficial effects
• Boosts immune system – may boost growth of probiotics

In the past few years, thousands of people have experimented with resistance starch and seen major improvements by adding it to their diet.

Resistant starch may also help you drop unwanted pounds by shutting down hunger hormones.

Animal studies have found that resistant starch prompts the body to pump out more satiety-inducing hormones.

Meals with resistant starch trigger a hormonal response to shut off hunger, so you eat less.

Turn Up The Furnace~

One study found that replacing just 5.4% of total carbohydrate intake with resistant starch created a 20 to 30% increase in fat burning after a meal.

How Much Do You Eat?

Adding just 1/2 to 1 cup of cooled resistant starch-rich food per day can do the trick.

Studies indicate that the benefits of resistant starch may be seen when consuming around 15 to 30 grams daily.

Cooling either at room temperature or in the refrigerator will raise resistant starch levels. You are better off if you don’t reheat. That breaks up the crystals, causing resistant starch levels to be drop.

Look for fortified foods:
A growing number of commercial foods have been bolstered with Hi-maize, the brand name of a resistant starch powder made from corn. You can use it in baking (and lower calories) by replacing up to one-quarter of traditional flour in any recipe without affecting taste or texture (King Arthur Hi-maize Natural Fiber, Or, look for packaged products that include Hi-maize, as another easy way to boost your intake.

Resistant starch is bulky, so it takes up space in your digestive system. And because you can’t digest or absorb it, the starch never enters your bloodstream.

That means it bypasses the regular fate of most carbohydrates, which get stored as body fat when you eat more than you can burn.

Two more ways resistant starch can help you drop unwanted pounds:

1.) It Ups Your Calorie Burn

Unlike some types of fiber, resistant starch (RS) gets fermented when it reaches the large intestine. This process creates beneficial fatty acids, including one called butyrate, which may block the body’s ability to burn carbohydrates. “

This can prevent the liver from using carbs as fuel and, instead, stored body fat and recently consumed fat are burned,” explains Janine Higgins, PhD, nutrition research director for the University of Colorado’s Adult and Pediatric General Clinical Research Center.

One study found that replacing just 5.4% of total carbohydrate intake with resistant starch created a 20 to 30% increase in fat burning after a meal.

2.) It Shuts Down Hunger Hormones

Animal studies have found that resistant starch prompts the body to pump out more satiety-inducing hormones.

A meal with resistant starch triggers a hormonal response to shut off hunger, so you eat less. Research shows that you don’t reap this benefit from other sources of fiber.

If your weight loss is currently halted, have high blood sugars, digestive issues or if you simply want to try and see how it can work for you then, you may not have anything to lose by trying resistant starch for weight loss.

Want To Incorporate Resistant Starch In Your Diet?

Aim to get your resistant starch from whole foods like potatoes and under-ripe bananas, not a supplement. It’s a good idea to gradually increase the amount of resistant starch if you’re not eating much resistant starch currently. This will help avoid uncomfortable digestive issues like bloating, gas and constipation.