Is Flan Healthy? (3 Tips For Weight Loss)

One of many popular dishes in Mexico and the United States is Flan. If you love eating Flan but are concerned if Flan is healthy and fits in your lifestyle, this article is for you. Find out what goes into making Flan, and how to stay in shape while eating this classic Mexican dish.

One version of Flan, popular in Mexico, is Flan Napolitano. This version adds cream cheese to the preparation. Flan Napolitano is a traditional, and popular Mexican dish made at home, but you can find it at many grocery stores and restaurants. Flan is basically a type of custard with caramelized sugar.

Although Flan is delicious, is it actually healthy?

Flan is not necessarily healthy since it’s high in fat and sugars, although it has a suitable range of calories. However, it should be consumed in moderation.

Here are three steps that explain the calorie amount in one serving of Flan and the ingredients that go into making Flan Napolitano the traditional way, and how to stay in shape while eating this classic Mexican dish.

1. What Goes Into Making Flan?
2. How Many Calories Does One Serving of Flan Have?
3. How To Lose Weight While Eating Flan

Now that we know our three steps, let’s get into the details that will help you stay in shape while enjoying some delicious Flan Napolitano.

Tip 1. What Goes Into Making Flan?

Flan is a dish that can be prepared in many different ways. In this article, we talk about what goes into making Flan Napolitano.

Traditional Flan asks for sweetened condensed milk, eggs, milk, or cream and flavoring such as vanilla, orange, or coffee. For Flan Napolitano you’ll add cream cheese and make a caramel sauce, using white sugar.

Flan is is a simple, yet flavorful and satisfying dish since it gives you fats, proteins, and carbs.

It is also versatile and easy to be customized to your liking. Which we will further discuss in this article. You can use different ingredients to make this dish leaner but still flavorful.

Since it’s a popular dish in Mexican cuisine, you can find it in many authentic Mexican restaurants all over Los Angeles and Southern California.

Now that we know what Flan is, let’s take a look at the nutrition facts and see how many calories go inside one serving of Flan.

Tip 2. How Many Calories Are in One Serving of Flan?

If you live an active and healthy lifestyle, it’s important to understand how many calories you need to consume on a daily basis.

Let’s take a look at the nutrition facts. As you can see, one slice of Flan Napolitano has 170 calories with a macronutrient ratio of 27 grams of carbs, 7 grams of protein, and 2 grams of fat.

This is not bad at all for a dessert, as there are low fats and a moderate amount of carbs.

The key to dieting is getting a nice balance of macronutrients, as well as having an active lifestyle.

Staying healthy and fit is all about calorie or energy balance, which means that you can still eat your carbs and stay in shape. The calories are actually not too high in this dish and can be easily incorporated into your daily calorie intake, as long as you are not over-eating and are working out.

It is important to understand how many calories you need to eat in a day and to make sure not to overeat on your total accounted calories for the day.

A good rule of thumb for dieting is keeping a nice balance of macronutrients. A great ratio is sticking to 30% carbs, 40% protein, and 30% fats.

This is why we recommend you try to make this dish at home and substitute certain ingredients to make an even healthier version of Flan. Instead of white sugar, you can use brown sugar or coconut sugar, you can also skip making the caramel sauce entirely, and use fruits instead. If you’re vegan, you can use condensed coconut milk, and agar-agar instead of eggs.

Although the carbs are a little higher in this version, I can guarantee you that carbs are not all that bad. They tend to have a bad rep because carbs can cause water retention and bloat. However, carbs also give you the energy to burn, you just have to make sure you exercise enough. What to watch out for in this dish is the high sugar content with a whopping 26 grams of sugar per slice. That’s pretty high.

If you are ordering this dish at a restaurant, or are invited to a private event, ask for fruits on the side if available. And only stick to one slice.

Tip 3. How To Lose Weight While Eating Flan

You can easily over-eat unhealthy, processed foods that are high in fats and carbs, especially when something is as delicious as Flan. Overeating is usually the quickest way to get out of shape.

As we have mentioned in section two of this article, it’s important to understand how many calories you need to eat in order to lose weight and stay in shape.

Before we get into those tips, however, let’s go over how you can figure out your daily caloric needs and see how much of each macronutrient you should be consuming.

There are a few factors that determine your daily calorie intake. Such as weight management, weight loss, or weight gain. Other factors that play a big role, are your gender and your height.

So, how do you know how many calories you should be eating in a day?

The answer is through trial and error and finding a calorie range that allows you to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week.

However, a good place to start is to multiply your body weight by 12 or to use an online TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) calculator.

Your TDEE relies heavily on how active you are and how much movement you see in your day.

If you’re someone who loves to eat a lot while staying fit, then the activity is the key to a balanced lifestyle that allows you to eat whatever you like, such as Flan, and stay in shape.

Once you know your calorie intake based on your weight and height, you can then decide how much you want to decrease it. If you want to lose 1 to 2 pounds per week, we suggest you start with 100 calories less than what you are currently consuming and see if you notice a difference within a week.

It is suggested, however, to not decrease the calorie intake below 1,200 per day for women, or below 1,500 calories per day for men.

If you don’t see any changes in your weight, decrease your calorie intake by another 100 calories and see how that works.

Most likely, you don't have to drop your calorie intake too low, as you’ll get a pretty low number to start, with this dish.

So, how do you stay in shape or even lose weight eating Flan?

As you can see, one slice of Flan Napolitano has only 170 calories with macros, with 27 grams of carbs, 7 grams of protein, and 2 grams of fat. You can just add this into your day and subtract this from your total daily calorie intake.

So just do the calculation of whatever calorie range that you find and split up your calories by following those macro guidelines.

After you’ve figured out how many calories you need to consume daily, you need to make sure that you exercise regularly and build muscle throughout every week.

Building muscle, allows you to burn calories at rest, which means you can eat more and still lose fat.

This is the daily goal of working out and is what keeps you healthy as your metabolism increase.

So if you love eating Flan the traditional way, you have to make sure your activity level is higher than usual, especially if you want to lose weight.

Keep in mind that weight loss is the concept of calories in vs. calories out.

Although working out and building muscle takes priority, having a consistent cardio schedule can help with expediting the fat loss process as it raises the energy expended throughout your week.

There are two types of cardio that you can do in your week that will speed up the fat loss results. Those two types come from LISS (Low-Intensity Steady State) cardio and HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training) cardio.

What you want to aim for is to burning around 1,000 kcals of cardio every week through means of either LISS or HIIT.

LISS is cardio that comes from walking or a brisk walk, you should be able to have a conversation while still building up a sweat.

HIIT cardio is intervals of a very high-intensity movement, such as sprints, battle ropes, or kickboxing movements aiming to quickly raise the heart rate.

The benefit of HIIT is allowing yourself to burn calories in a shorter amount of time.

Working out allows you to be more flexible in your diet and lifestyle, which is so important if you want to sustain a lean body and stay healthy while eating Flan.

THERE IT IS!