Is Chicken 65 Healthy? (3 Tips for Weight Loss)

Originating from a hotel from Southern India, Chicken 65 got its unique name from being the 65th menu item that was a popular dish among guests!

Chicken 65 has come a long way since and is now enjoyed food by people from all over the world!

It can be served as a main course cuisine or an appetizer and is actually super quick and easy to make at home as well. 

You may be wondering, is Chicken 65 healthy? 

Chicken 65 is not healthy food because the recipe calls for the chicken to be deep-fried making it a highly caloric and fat intensive food. However, making homemade Chicken 65 can make this unhealthy food into a healthier option that provides more protein with less fat per serving. 

In this article, we will be covering some tips on how you can incorporate Chicken 65 into your diet while still maintaining a successful weight loss journey:

1. Understand the Nutrition Behind Chicken 65 

2. How to Make Healthier Homemade Chicken 65

3. Incorporate Lower Calorie Foods Into Your Diet 

Tip 1: Understand the Nutrition Behind Chicken 65

Chicken 65 is typically made using chicken thighs cut into cubes and then deep-fried to give it a crispy exterior.

Seasoned with several various spices, chicken thighs have a bit of spice that pairs great with onions, curry, and rice.

However, because of the deep frying method, Chicken 65 is not really considered a healthy food. 

For the typical Chicken 65 dish, there are around 470 calories with 30 grams of protein, 32 grams of fat, and 11 grams of carbohydrates. This food is extremely high in fat and can be a very difficult food to fit into your diet.

Usually, you want to aim for a 1:3 fat to protein ratio, but in this case, it is 1:1 which makes it not the ideal food.

However, you do not need to completely avoid Chicken 65!

Instead probably just eat ¼ a serving of Chicken 65 and eat other foods that are available on the table.

Stock up on the vegetables and other lean sources of protein such as steamed fish, or grilled chicken.

If you pair rice with your Chicken 65, make sure you do not eat too much, because eating too much rice can add a lot of additional carbohydrates and calories into your daily intake.

Tip 2: How to Make Healthier Homemade Chicken 65

Whenever you have the option of eating homemade food versus takeout, you want to stick with home-cooked meals because you know exactly what is going into your body.

Not only that, but you can also make easy and quick adjustments that are tailored towards your diet.

Another benefit of making homemade meals is that it can teach you how to intuitively eat and understand nutrition better.

By learning the calories and nutritional information behind each ingredient, you will start to be able to estimate approximately how calorie-dense food is. 

That way, when you are eating out, you know how to portion size your meals or which nutrient-rich foods to order when you are trying to eat in a calorie deficit. 

Cooking your own homemade meals also is a very cost-efficient task that is an excellent habit to incorporate into your life.

For those who are extremely busy and believe that they don’t have time to cook, meal prepping is an excellent option to save time and money! 

Preparing your meals ahead of time saves you so much time and prevents you from snacking or eating fast food because you have your own delicious and healthy homemade food waiting for you at home.

I hope I’ve convinced you of the many benefits of making home-cooked meals.

Chicken 65 is one of the simpler and quick recipes that you can easily make at home! Here are a couple of replacements and things to keep in mind when making your healthier Chicken 65:

The Meat

When trying to decide which meat to use for chicken, the lowest calorie and highest protein option is chicken breast.

Chicken breast is super low in fat and is a great food to incorporate when you are trying to lose weight! 

Some people do not like chicken breast because it is too tough, but if cooked correctly it can still taste juicy and delicious.

However, if you prefer another alternative, chicken thighs work well too, but they have more fat making it higher in calories overall.

You can definitely eat chicken thighs, but you will probably have to eat less to not end up eating too many calories.

The recipe also calls for skinless meat, so make sure you use skinless chicken to avoid adding additional calories and fats to your meal. 

Frying Method 

As we saw earlier in the nutrition section, Chicken 65 is really high in fat and calories and this mainly comes from the fact that it is deep-fried in oil. 

Oil is one of the most neglected hidden calories when you are trying to lose weight.

To put this into perspective, one tablespoon of olive oil has around 

One of the best and my favorite alternatives to greatly reduce the number of calories and make it much healthier is to air fry your Chicken 65.

If you do not have an air fryer, this is a great investment and is one of the most delicious and convenient ways to cook meat!

This gives your meat the same crispy outside and juicy inside texture very similar to regular frying methods.

Tip 3: Incorporate Lower Calorie Foods Into Your Diet

As we discussed earlier, the typical Chicken 65 dish is not an ideal food to eat when you are on a diet because it is high in calories and fat.

However, with the modifications discussed in Tip 2, you get a much lower calorie dish that you can incorporate into your diet. So why is it important to eat lower calorie foods when you are on a diet?

The only way to actually lose weight and fat is to eat fewer calories than your TDEE, or commonly known as your Total Daily Energy Expenditure.

Your TDEE consists of your calories burned from daily activities, the calories you burn at rest, and the amount of energy it takes for you to eat and digest food.

As long as you eat at a calorie deficit or fewer calories than this number, you are guaranteed to lose weight.

It is actually pretty easy to figure out your specific TDEE!

All you need to do is search up a TDEE calculator that asks you to put in your weight, height, and gender, and it will give you an approximate number of how many calories you burn on a daily basis.

Keep in mind that this number is only an approximate so you will need to make adjustments that are specific to you.

This is why eating higher calories food does not mean you will not lose weight, but it makes it a lot harder because you can not eat as much in order to reach your goals.

You can choose to eat one chocolate chip cookie or you can eat a whole big salad for the same amount of calories.

The goal of your diet is to incorporate healthy and enjoyable foods that keep you full so that you aren’t going to bed hungry every day.

Undereating by too much can lead to overeating in the future if you have too restrictive of a diet. 

CONCLUSION 

Remember, although nutrition is a huge factor that influences weight loss, it is important to pair this journey with exercise as well.

Especially strength training.

Several years of research on the benefits of weight training have shown that individuals that do some sort of consistent resistance training at least 3-5 times a week have shown not only a great amount of weight loss but are also able to keep the weight off! 

The secret to this phenomena is that strength training leads to a build-up of muscle.

Not only does your body recomposition into a more fitting and athletic-looking aesthetic, but having more muscle also increases your resting metabolic rate which essentially means you burn more calories at rest! 

Now that we know the importance of muscle we need to make sure we stay on track with our workouts.

Consistency and longevity are the two key factors when building muscle so there will be some commitment involved.

We understand that not everyone has access to a gym membership or feels comfortable starting off in such an intimidating environment.

Although I would strongly recommend that everyone should get a gym membership, don’t worry we got your back!

You can either go to the gym or build one for yourself.

It really just comes down to 3 pieces of equipment that you need to do most workouts.

These three are the workout bench, dumbbells, and gym flooring.

Check out our recommended gear page to see our best picks for these pieces of equipment here. 

https://www.aspirefitnesswalnut.com/home-workout-equipment

If a home gym is not for you then getting a membership somewhere works too.

As long as you are starting your muscle-building journey, we’re happy! 

Stick with it for the long run and you’ll see how amazing the results can be. 

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