New Delhi: Weight loss can be challenging for some people. No matter how much you workout or follow a low calorie diet, excessive fat that envelopes the abdominal region, can give you really a hard time to shed. Known as visceral fat, this form of fat can silently accumulate within the body raising the risk of metabolic disorders and sometimes even heart attack. The likelihood of developing visceral fat increased with age, however, a combination of exercise and diet can reduce visceral fat storage in the body. According to a study, there is a particular food that can reverse or undo visceral gain within weeks.
Shed visceral fat with diet
According to a 2007 study, dietary chickpeas were seen reversing visceral adiposity, dyslipidaemia and insulin resistance in rats – that developed these conditions due to a high-fat diet. For this study, rats were given a high-fat diet, normal diet and high-fat diet with chickpeas over an eight-month period. Experts discovered that a single serving of chickpeas or pulses in a day is good enough to induce weight loss while promoting satiety. The authors also noted that chickpeas and pulses can work well to induce weight loss without the need for cutting down on other food.
High-fibre diet and weight loss
High-fibre foods are particularly deemed beneficial for weight loss as they promote satiety – controlling appetite to lower calorie intake. Where, chickpeas are a rich source of soluble fibre, it also helps maintain a healthy gut bacteria balance- which is an important marker that influences body weight significantly. Additionally, soluble fibre helps lower bad cholesterol levels as it binds LDL (low-density lipoprotein) molecules within the digestive tract and drags them out of the body.
On the nutrition front, chickpeas are rich sources of the following:
Also, chickpeas are believed to contain way more proteins than eggs, and this macronutrient has a thermic effect on the body during digestion. Which roughly means that the body is more likely to burn calories during digestion.