Is rice good for weight loss, or is it the first thing to cut? A celebrity fitness coach says most Indian households are pulling the wrong lever — and that the food was never the problem.
Dhamkee doesn't give medical or nutrition advice. This post reports what a qualified professional said on Instagram — their original post is embedded below, in full.
Rice is not what is making you gain weight. A fitness coach's position is that fat loss comes down to how much you eat and how consistently — not to removing rice, bread or any other food you like.
Ask most Indian families what they gave up first and the answer is rice. It is the food that gets blamed, halved, replaced with brown rice, then quietly reinstated a month later. So is rice good for weight loss, or is it the thing standing in the way?
Siddhartha Singh, a fitness coach with fifteen years in the industry whose clients include Tamannaah Bhatia and Kangana Ranaut, addressed it directly on Instagram — and his answer is not about rice at all.
View this post on Instagram
Post by @officialsiddharthasingh, embedded with credit.
Rice is not making you fat
His opening line is the whole argument: rice is not making you fat, and bread is not the problem either. He puts fat loss down to how much and how consistently you eat — not to removing your favourite foods.
Cut the rice and the weight will follow.
Fat loss usually comes down to how much and how consistently you eat, not to removing foods you like. Keep it simple. Eat normal food. Control portions.
Why cutting rice feels like it works
Removing a staple does usually drop the number for a week or two, which is what keeps the belief alive. But his point is about the mechanism: it is the quantity that changed, not the grain. Swap rice for something else in the same volume and the same thing happens, which is why the effect rarely lasts once normal eating resumes.
It is also why the rice question and the roti question and the bread question all have the same answer. None of them is the variable.
What he says to do instead
Three things, in his words:
- Keep it simple.
- Eat normal food.
- Control portions.
Notice what is missing: a food to eliminate, a substitute to buy, and a deadline.
The line worth keeping
Rice isn't making you fat. Bread isn't the problem either.
Siddhartha Singh, fitness coach
Rice is not an optional item here. It is lunch, it is what the rest of the meal is built around, and in a lot of households it is what everyone else is eating. Advice that starts by removing it asks one person to cook separately, forever — which is usually why it fails, not because anyone lacked discipline.
The portion framing is more workable precisely because it does not require a separate meal. The same thali, a smaller mound of rice, more dal and sabzi in the space it leaves. Nobody else at the table has to notice.
Worth pairing with what goes alongside it: is poha good for weight loss covers the protein question at breakfast, when to eat curd for weight loss covers the dahi on the side, and which yogurt is best for weight loss weighs dahi against Greek yogurt on protein and price. The full section is Indian diet for weight loss.
And if you have been eating this way a while and the scale has not moved, that is a different question with a different answer.
Questions people also ask
Does rice make your belly fat?
Not by itself, on his account. He says rice is not making you fat and puts the outcome down to quantity and consistency instead. Where fat sits on the body is a separate question — see does cycling reduce belly fat.
Rice or roti — which is better for weight loss?
His post does not compare them. It names rice and bread together and says neither is the problem, which suggests the comparison is not where the answer lives.
Is brown rice better than white rice?
He does not address brown rice. His argument is about portion and consistency rather than the type of grain.
How much rice should I eat?
He does not give a quantity, only that portions should be controlled. A dietitian who can assess you is the person to ask for a number.
Shaina writes for Dhamkee. She is a mother of two who runs, practises yoga, and cooks — usually before the rest of the house is up. She is not a nutritionist or a doctor and does not play one here. On this blog she reports what qualified professionals have said publicly, and points you to them. More about how we work.