Mushrooms offer a lot of health benefits, and they make a tasty addition to your meals–like this recipe for Polenta and Quinoa with Mushroom Sauce. But mushrooms are more than just healthy, they’re also great for weight loss as well! You’ll find that eating them could very well be a great way to shed those last few pounds…
Health Benefits of Mushrooms
Remember that mushrooms contain a lot of important vitamins and minerals that your body needs.
For example, when you cook mushrooms, you get a number of the amino acids that is found in meat. When you pair mushrooms with the right grains, you get complete proteins that will help to build muscle.
If you want minerals, you’ve found the right food. Mushrooms are rich in iron, niacin, riboflavin, potassium, copper, selenium, as well as zinc. All of these nutrients play important roles in your health, so getting them from mushrooms is a good way to stay healthy.
Finally, you get a lot of fiber from mushrooms. Fiber is excellent for cleaning out your intestinal tract of all the toxins and garbage floating around, but it’s also highly filling.
But how do mushrooms help to promote weight loss?
The M Diet
The M Diet is one that has been endorsed by celebrities like Katy Perry and Kelly Osbourne, both of whom have credited their amazing figures to the little fungi.
The diet is fairly simple: replace one of your daily means with a meal consisting entirely of raw mushrooms. It lasts for just 14 days, during which time you eat mushrooms just one meal per day, and you are supposed to be able to lose weight from your stomach, hips, and thighs, but without losing any inches off your bust.
If this diet was actually truly as effective as it claimed, it would be the #1 diet for every woman in the country. However, the science behind the claims is fairly lacking, and there have been no studies done to prove that the diet actually works like it says it does.
Why would the M Diet work?
- Mushrooms are high in fiber, so eating ONLY mushrooms fills you up and stops you from being hungry for many more hours.
- Mushrooms give you a good deal of minerals and proteins that activate your metabolism.
However, the fact that mushrooms are not complete proteins (only containing some of the necessary amino acids) means that they aren’t muscle-building foods. They MAY be able to help you lose weight, but there’s no proof to back up the claims.
Why You Should Eat Mushrooms for Weight Loss
The truth of the matter is that eating mushrooms–raw or cooked–is a good way to increase weight loss, even if you don’t lose as much weight as the M Diet claims you will.
Mushrooms are very filling, so you will not be hungry for hours after you eat a meal with mushrooms added. The fiber will keep your digestive system healthy, and you’ll find that it will promote a faster metabolism.
Mushrooms are also VERY low in calories. You’ll find that a heaping plate of mushrooms can have fewer calories than a bowl of salad, so you fill up with almost no calories added to your meal. You still fill up your stomach and feel nicely full after your meal, but you’ve only consumed 100 to 200 calories–and that’s with a bit plate!
Eating mushrooms for weight loss may not be the latest diet trend, but truth be told it is a great way to start losing weight and balancing out your diet!
