Chapatis a Day to Lose Weight: How Many You Should Eat?

In most parts of India, chapatti is considered in the main course. In many states, these are chapattis are incorporated in at least 2 meals of the day and in some even 3 times a day.

Being an important part of main course food, does chapatti help us in losing weight or is responsible for weight gain? 

I’ll give you a satisfying answer to this question so you can decide what is right for your weight loss plan.

Chapatti has carbohydrates which are the main source of energy for our body. 50-6-0% of our energy should be obtained from carbohydrates per day.

Whether carbohydrates are good for us if we want to lose weight?

Carbohydrates are of two types:

• Simple carbohydrates
• Complex carbohydrates

Simple carbohydrates are unhealthy because they allow your sugar levels to spike up and the main reason for weight gain is including simple sugar in your diet.

For both weight loss and balanced diet complex carbohydrates are considered to be the best.

Low glycemic index food is at the top of the game for weight loss. Low carbohydrates diet is advised for weight loss.

Is Chapatti a simple carbohydrate or complex carbohydrates?

It depends on the glycemic index which means when you consume carbohydrates how much sugar does it spike in your blood and how much time it takes to get converted into glucose.

Roti comes in the middle of this index. This index ranges from 0-100 where:

• Below 55 is referred to as low glycemic index which is good for our health. Broken wheat (daliya) lies in this range of the index.
• Whole wheat chapatti lies under the range of 56-69 which is considered OK for health.
• Refined flour (maida) lies under the range of 70-100 which is considered bad for health.

Conclusion – Chapatti is not bad for health so it can be incorporated in your meals if you want to lose weight.

Calories in a chapatti

Calories in a chapatti depend upon its size and weight. Average calories in a chapatti can be considered as 100 it may vary from 70-150 in some of them depending on their weight and size.

The average calorie intake for women should be 1500 calories per day. If she is having 3 meals a day and eating 2 chapattis per meal then 600 calories for the day are obtained from the chapattis only.

So if you even cut chapattis off in one meal it will help you create a calorie deficit of 200 calories and if you consume only one meal with 2 chapattis then you can create a deficit of 400 calories a day. For losing weight significantly a woman needs to create a calorie deficit of 500.

Now it varies from person to person if he/she wants to cut the calories from their chapattis or other sources off carbohydrates.

Nutritional Facts of Chapattis

Chapatti is not only a great source for carbohydrates but has many other nutritive qualities which makes it suitable to be included in the main course and can also be incorporated in the diet plan in weight loss plans.

Other nutrients are listed below:

• Calories – 100
• Carbohydrates – 22g
• Fiber – 2.3 g
• Protein – 3g
• Fat – 0.4 g

Micronutrients – B complex groups vitamins, iron, calcium, phosphorus, and potassium.

Some important tips

• Do not have chapatti in all your meals of the day. Consuming wheat will make you lethargic. Try to incorporate other grains in your diet plan for carbohydrate sources too. Alternatives can be oats, poha, gram flour, etc.

• Do not eat more than two chapattis in one meal. Eating more than 2 chapattis can result in fat deposition in your body.

• Try to incorporate multi grains in your diet. For example: you can mix the wheat flour with other grains like gramflour, millets, etc. please note that mixing more than 3 grains will make your diet heavy and difficult for digestion. 

• Focus on the preparation quality. Prepare fresh dough and knead it nicely until the air in it disappears. It would be for the best if you let the dough rest for 10-15 minutes but don’t store it for more than 6 hours.

• To aid the digestion you can mix some digestive ingredients in it like Carom seeds (Ajwain), roasted cumin powder (jeera), etc. It will make it easier for your stomach to digest heavy meals.

• Have your dinner 2-3 hours before sleeping so that it can be digested properly.

Other important factors on which weight loss depends while following these criteria:

• Gender:

Men need more calories than women since their body built and activity level is greater than that of women.

• Calorie intake:

High-intensity workout requires high-calorie intake to provide energy for your workout sessions.

• Activity:

Low activity levels require less calorie intake because glycogen stores are usually full in your body so the excess carbohydrate will be converted into fats.

• Digestive power:

If your digestion power is good then you would be able to digest multi-grains easily but if this is not the case then consuming wheat chapatti would be considered as the best option.

• Age group:

Age factor here refers to one’s body functions. It is natural that a child and young person have good digestion whereas a person above the age of 40 years has comparatively low digestion ability.

The activity level of the elderly is lower than that of children and young people. There are many other factors related to age.

So elderly people should intake less number of calories then young and children.