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It’s quickly and easily digested while also being cheap, easy and versatile. When they’re literally eating every 2-3 hours they really don’t want to feel full, bloated or very satiated so it’s great for them to add even thousands of calories to the day every day.
- Good macros, especially for endurance sports
- Relatively cheap
- Easy to prepare
- Can be stored in Tupperware, perfect for meal prepping
- Doesn’t make you bloated
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There’s no healthy/unhealthy foods (generally speaking) - Certain food makes you reach your dietary goals. Also isolating a single food and calling it healthy/unhealthy is dumb because you can pair rice with plenty of veggies and lean meat and make a complete, nutritious balanced meal.
The calorie intake requirement for a “fitness influencer” aka someone on performance enhancing drugs is likely going to be a lot higher than a natural lifter.
The typical average gym goer is likely trying to lose weight and is on a 2k calorie a day diet while your PED taking fitness channel persona might be trying to eat 3-4k calories.
Remember the cardinal rule, if they are selling you a workout program, a diet plan or their version of protein supplements they are doing this for a living and there is a 99% chance they aren’t natural even if they claim they are. It is borderline impossible to stand out from 100s of other influencers who are all on the juice while being natural. Your dietary requirements may be very different from theirs.
Still nothing wrong with rice. The average person gets their energy 50-70% from food and 30-50% from snacks and from drinks. It’s not the food that is the issue! Notice the food programs rarely if ever include getting massive amounts of energy from snacks and drinks. (unless they are selling you a fitness drink)
https://www.scielo.br/j/rpp/a/sbxgbqrmVgxqC7rTNTzd6qs/?lang=en&format=pdf
0.6 snacking
My thought process: “I want a cheap carb that isn’t processed to go with this seasoned boneless skinless chicken breast.”
Sometimes I’ll buy a bag of potatoes and microwave them with my chicken. Sometimes I’ll prep a half-dozen servings of rice and toss them in the fridge. Occasionally, I’ll look to different beans.
In addition to everything that’s been mentioned here, it is easily scalable. When you are bodybuilding, you are constantly alternating between eating in a caloric surplus, deficit and maintenance. With rice you can easily reduce/increase your portion size without worrying about changing your recipe or creating unnecessary waste.
I dunno why this keeps popping up but rice isn’t unhealthy. In almost all Asian countries and Latin American countries, rice is eaten with almost everything. The issue is America doesn’t know something called portion control.
I’ve been eating rice and beans with almost everything most of my life and I’m extremely healthy. They’re not considered high complex carbs like sweet potato, but it isn’t donuts and bleached white bread
Also, brown rice isn’t healthier than white rice, brown rice might have a lot of fiber but it also has more arsenic; this is also the reason you should always wash your rice a few times before cooking it. Other than that, rice is effing awesome. My favorites are Wild American, Basmati, Jasmine and purple Korean grains.
P.s. the ones that are saying rice is “cheap” and “doesn’t keep you full”, is because they buy the crappy, cheap rice. The best type of rice is organic, grown in California, Japan or S.Korea. Yes it’s expensive but it’s worth it and better quality.
Good luck and I hope you buy yourself some good quality rice!
Rice isn’t unhealthy, it’s just easy for some people to over eat. And it’s a carb, so people get bent out of shape over it.
With that said, “fitness guys” eat it because it’s a carb, which plays a role in muscle growth
Rice is not unhealthy. It’s actually a really clean source of complex carbohydrates and calories. It’s not a significant source of protein but it’s still a source nonetheless. It’s cheap, easy to prepare, and it’s definitely great to throw in a can of beans or lentils with and mix in with a can of cream of chicken soup. Yum!
How is rice unhealthy? It’s an amazing source of B1, B3, B5 vitamins and minerals like manganese and selenium. Brown rice counts as a whole grain as does wild, purple, and red. White rice is easy to digest and lower in fibre which can make it a better choice for replenishing glycogen stores.So no matter the colour of rice you get benefits :)
Rice (and carbs in general) being unhealthy is a misconception. Balanced macros include carbs. Carbs give the body energy, so people who workout a lot need some measure of carbs in their diet or their body burns the muscle it’s trying to build.
Rice makes it easier to hit your calorie quota and is a simple source of carbohydrates (Which your body does need). Nothing more or less than that.
It’s not unhealthy per se but it lacks any worthwhile nutritional value.