How to use Prunes for Weight Loss

Losing weight is far bigger challenge that it seems, but incorporating fat burning foods in your diet can boost your efforts significantly. Prune, also referred to as dried plum, is one such super-food for weight loss. It is sweet, sticky, chewy and a good source of soluble dietary fibre.

[Read: Best Weight Loss Fibres]

According to the World's Healthiest Foods, a 42 gram serving of prunes provides between 10 percent and 15 percent of the daily value for dietary fibre. It increases the time for food to leave the stomach and delays the absorption of glucose, making one feel fuller for long. Moreover, prunes keep your digestive system working correctly to aid weight loss.

Dietary Guidelines to Use Prunes for Weight Loss

A publication from Northwestern University suggests that reducing caloric intake to the 1,500-calorie range will enable most people to lose weight. Classified under the dried fruit category of the USDA Dietary Guidelines, half-a-cup serving of dried prunes fulfils two-thirds of your fruit requirement for the day and you only need one and half cups of fruit if you're eating between 1,500 and 1,800 calories a day.

You can use prunes in addition to the snacks. One way of consuming prunes for weight loss is combining it with meats. It is advised to combine prunes, nuts, raisins and whole-grain cereals for a healthy wight loss mix which also fulfils your requirement for monounsaturated fats and fibre. Some of the suggestions on how to use prunes in combination with foods include – with grilled lean pork chop, diced prunes with bread crumbs, with lean meat, chopped prunes into yoghurt, a prune in half a cup of low-calorie ice cream and for chicken stuffing.

[Read: Ways to Burn your Belly Fat]

Prune Juice Diet for Weight Loss

Prune juice diet for weight loss involves drinking prune juice and nothing else, which makes painful for foods to pass. The juice diet encourages evacuation of the bowels often due to the high fibre and enzymes. Lack of caloric consumption and frequent passing of watery stools aids weight loss.

Prune juice in excess (drinking more than 4 ounces at a time) can be ineffective and sometimes harmful. Once weight loss is achieved, the body slows down and become lethargic as a response. The weight may return as the body tries to bring itself back to working order. Sometimes, prune juice diet may irritate colon and intestines.

The Bottom Line

If you are including prunes in your weight loss diet chart, make sure you eat them in small portions. Prune diet proves effective and natural to help body shed unwanted weight only when appropriately coupled with a balanced diet, exercise regimen and motivation.

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