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A 35-year-old man from Henan successfully lost 11 kg in just over 2 months by replacing his main meals with boiled and chilled potatoes combined with protein, vegetables and exercise. Doctors emphasize that the key lies in resistant starch and overall calorie control.
Henan A 35-year-old man surnamed Zhang decided to change his eating habits after a physical examination revealed fatty liver, gout and other health problems. He started consuming boiled and cold potatoes (aloo) in place of his main meal every day.eggs Chicken breast and vegetables, reduced weight from 83 kg to 72 kg in just two months, successfullose weight 11 kg. He laughingly said that the effects were most pronounced in the first week, with “about a pound (0.5 kg) of weight loss a day.” One doctor revealed the key to a man surnamed Zhang’s success in losing weight by relying on potatoes: “Let them cool before eating.”
According to Dahe newspaper, Zhang Nan remembered that she looked in the mirror one morning in mid-August this year and found that her face was becoming rounder and rounder, and her belly was full of fat. In addition, there were many abnormal indicators in the physical examination report, which made him determined to lose weight. He learned a method from popular science videos to cool boiled potatoes before eating them, thus replacing the daily main meal.
Mr Zhang eats six egg-sized potatoes every morning and evening, steaming them and then cooling them in the refrigerator. He eats eggs and milk for breakfast, and lots of vegetables and about 200 grams of chicken breast for dinner. Other eating habits haven’t changed much, but I deliberately control my oil and salt intake, reduce heavily flavored foods, and emphasize 20 to 30 minutes of muscle strength training every night.
“I changed my main meal to potatoes the first night and my weight lost 0.3 kg the next day.” Zhang Nan said that the effect was especially obvious in the first week, and then her weight also decreased at a rate of 0.2 to 0.5 kilograms per day, which gave her more motivation to persist.
However, eating cold potatoes every day is inevitably monotonous. The solution he discovered is to dip it in a pot of dried chili. “It will taste better if it is dipped in a pot of dried chili.” But the biggest challenge is not the taste, but the tendency to feel hungry. He said that after finishing his meal at around 7 pm, he was feeling very full at this time, but before 11 pm, he started feeling hungry.
About a month and a half after losing weight, Zhang Nan still encountered a period of stagnation. There was no change in his weight for five consecutive days, but he did not give up and maintained his original eating and exercise habits. After five or six days he finally lost weight again.
Why do cold potatoes help in weight loss? Zhang Shefeng, director of the endocrinology department of Henan Provincial Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, explained that the key lies in “resistant starch.”
Zhang Shefeng pointed out that potatoes basically contain resistant starch. After cooking, most of it will be converted into simple starch which is easy to digest. However, after cooling, some of the starch will convert back to resistant starch. This type of starch is absorbed slowly in the small intestine and is not converted to glucose in the blood as rapidly as normal starch. Therefore, it helps maintain blood sugar stability and control weight.
