Is Risotto Healthy? (5 Tips For Weight Loss) 

One of many popular Italian dishes is Risotto. If you love Risotto but want to stay in shape, or lose weight, this article is for you. Find out what goes into making this popular Italian dish and see whether, or not this delicious Italian dish can fit into your lifestyle.

Risotto is a classic Italian dish that has originated in the Arborio region of Italy. It is a creamy rice dish, made with arborio rice, which is responsible for its creaminess due to a higher amount of amylopectin starch. It can be served as a side dish or a main dish. 

Although Risotto is delicious, is it actually healthy?

Technically, Risotto is a healthy dish, as it offers a balance of all three macronutrients, which translates to a suitable range of calories.

Here are five steps that explain the calorie amount in one cup of Risotto and the ingredients that go into making Risotto the traditional way, and how to stay in shape while eating this classic Italian dish. 

1. What Goes Into Making Risotto?

2. How Many Calories Are in One Cup of Risotto?

3. How to Make a Healthier Version of Risotto at Home

4. How to Stay in Shape Eating Risotto

5. How to Increase Your Activity Level While Eating Risotto

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

Tip 1: What Goes Into Making Risotto?

The traditional way of making Risotto is cooking arborio rice with chicken stock, butter, white wine, parmesan, peas, salt, and pepper. 

Risotto 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 or diet restrictions, which we will further discuss in this article

Since it’s a classic dish in Italian cuisine, you can find it in many Italian or American restaurants all over Los Angeles and nationwide.

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

Tip 2: How Many Calories Are in One Cup of Risotto?

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

Let’s take a look at the nutrition facts. As you can see, one cup of Risotto has 410 calories with a macronutrient ratio of 54 grams of carbs, 14 grams of protein, and 13 grams of fat. 

Although, Risotto is relatively high in carbs it still has a good ratio of all three macronutrients. 

If you burn more calories than you consume, then you will find yourself in a “caloric deficit” which is the only way fat loss can occur. 

Staying healthy and fit is all about calorie or energy balance, which means that you can still eat your fats and carbs, and stay in shape. The calories are actually not too bad 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. 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. 

The key aspect is 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. 

This is why we recommend you try to make this dish at home and substitute certain ingredients to make an even healthier version of Risotto.

In the next section of this article, we will show you how to make a healthier version of Risotto, when you prepare it at home.

Tip 3: How to Make a Healthier Version of Risotto at Home

Risotto is easy to make, is budget-friendly, and doesn’t require many ingredients.

Here we show you how to make a healthier version of Risotto.

Instead of chicken stock, you can use vegetable stock. In addition, you can substitute butter for olive oil, and you can add more veggies, such as mushrooms, spinach, and green asparagus. 

Now that we know a little bit more about the nutrition facts of traditional Risotto and how to make a leaner version, let’s take a look at how you can, stay in shape, lose weight while eating Risotto. 

Tip 4: How to Stay in Shape Eating Risotto

You can easily over-eat unhealthy, processed foods that are high in fats and carbs, especially when something is as delicious as Risotto. 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.

To stay healthy and in shape, we need to first go over your daily caloric needs and figure out how many calories you need in a day, as well as figure out how much of each macronutrient you should be consuming.

Eating Risotto, which is customizable and filled with whole, fresh ingredients, is a great dish if you are looking to stay in shape. However, if you are ordering this dish at a restaurant, ask if you can add vegetables and protein such as shrimp or white chicken if the restaurant offers that option. 

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.

Within your TDEE lies a subsection, which is called TEPA (Thermic Effect of Physical Activity) which accounts for 15-30% of your entire day’s worth of calories.

This means, you are in control of 15-30% of how much you can eat, which is a huge portion of calories.

If you’re someone who loves to eat a lot while staying fit, then being active is the key to a balanced lifestyle that allows you to eat whatever you like, such as Risotto, 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.

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

However, 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.

The key here is to find foods that keep you full longer and still deliver a balanced amount of macronutrients. 

You don’t want all of your calories simply coming from carbs or fats, you want there to be a balance coming from carbs, protein, and fats.

So, just calculate whatever calorie range you find, and split up your calories by following those macro guidelines. 

Tip 5: How to Increase Your Activity Level While Eating Risotto

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 really the goal of working out and is what keeps you healthy as your metabolism increases.

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

We talked about the importance of understanding how many calories you need to eat in a day but now it’s time to shift the focus on why calories and building muscle go hand in hand. 

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

If you live a sedentary lifestyle, then it’ll be much more difficult to lose weight and you’ll start to see that the number of calories you need to eat daily in order to shed fat is very low.

That’s why it’s important to increase your activity level at least 3 - 4 times a week if your goal is to get lean. 

The other factor that you can control is how much muscle you currently carry.

Building muscle allows us to burn calories at rest which means we can burn more calories by just living life.

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.

The fastest and most efficient way to build muscle is to learn how to do some resistance training.

You need to use weights and build muscle by doing a variety of workouts that isolate each muscle group specifically. 

Although it can be intimidating to get in shape, as it will be hard to learn and might be discouraging at the beginning, it’s definitely worth it in the long run for both your health and fitness. 

All you need are a set of dumbbells, such as these adjustable dumbbells and a reliable treadmill such as the Bluefin Fitness Treadmill that tracks your calories and you’re on your way to controlling the number of calories you burn. 

Regarding working out with dumbbells, it’s important not to add too much weight too soon because that could result in injury if you are unfamiliar with the correct body positions. It is better to start small and then increase the weight level. 

Here is a workout plan we’ve created for women and men, where you can get started if you are someone who hasn’t ever done a resistance training regimen.

So defnitely make sure to check it out and learn the workouts online or through a trainer.

WOMEN

Day One (Full Upper):

• Weighted Crunches: 3x35 

• Lateral Raises: 4x15

• Lat Pulldowns: 4x12

• Knee Push-Ups: 4x20

• Seated Shoulder Press: 4x20 

• Dumbbell Row: 3x10

• Dumbbell Fly: 3x10

Day Two (Back/Hamstrings/Biceps):

• Hammer Curls: 3x10

• Bicep Curls: 3x10

• Hamstring Curl: 4x15

• Stiff Leg Deadlift: 4x15

• Cable Row: 4x15

• Lat Pulldowns: 4x12

• Assisted Pull-Ups: 3x10

Day Three (Legs/Butt/Abs): 

• Leg Lifts: 3x35

• Weighted Crunches: 3x35 

• Jump Squats: 4x20

• Glute Kickbacks: 4x20 each leg

• Glute Bridge: 4x20

• Goblet Squats: 4x20

• Squats: 5x5

MEN:

Day One: Chest, Shoulders, Triceps, Abs (Push Day) : 

• Cable Crunches: 4 sets 15 reps 

• Triceps Rope Push Down: 3 sets 15 reps

• Lateral Raises: 3 sets 15 reps

• Shoulder Press: 3 sets 10 reps

• Dumbbell Press: 4 sets 12 reps

• Bench Press: 3 sets 10 reps

Day Two (Legs & Abs):

• Weighted Toe Touches: 4 sets 25 reps

• Weighted Sit-Ups: 4 sets 25 reps

• Jumping Squats With Resistance Bands: 5 sets 20 reps

• Glute Bridges With Weight: 4 sets 20 reps

• Stiff Leg Deadlift (Romanian Deadlift): 4 sets 15 reps

• Weighted Walking Lunges: 2 sets 20 steps

• Goblet Squats: 4 sets 20 reps

Day Three: Back & Biceps (Pull Day):

• Hammer Curls: 3 sets 10 reps

• Bicep Curls: 3 sets 10 reps

• Seated Cable Rows: 4 sets 15 reps

• Dumbbell Rows: 4 sets 10 reps (Each Side)

• Lat Pulldowns: 4 sets 12 reps

• Assisted Pull-Ups: 3 sets 10 reps

We recommend working out at least three times per week in the beginning, since the resting days in between are important to build muscle. 

You can also do a combination of resistance training and LISS (Low-Intensity Steady State) cardio or HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training) cardio, to improve your heart health and maximize fat burn. 

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.

We recommend having 80% of cardio coming from LISS while 20% comes from HIIT for optimal fat loss throughout the week. 

LISS is a much more reliable source of consistent movement and does not require rest as it does not shock the Central Nervous System the way HIIT can.

Calories are direct sources of energy that fuel your everyday life, so you need to make sure that you utilize them efficiently throughout your day. 

The best way to do this is to build muscle and to also move more throughout your day. 

60-75% of energy expenditure comes from your basal metabolic rate (BMR) which is how much your body burns if it did nothing all day. (NASM)

10% of energy expenditure comes from the thermic effect of feeding (TEF) which is the calories you burn from digesting different foods. (NASM)

15-30% of energy expenditure comes from the Thermic Effect of Activity (TEA) which is movement such as working out and aerobics. Source (NASM) 

To sum it up, up to 30% of our energy expenditure can come from movement and activity so this is a huge portion of our weight loss journey that you can actively control.

The more movement the better and, to utilize and burn those calories, you should be moving all you can.

It’s crucial to understand the importance of diet and workout to enjoy foods like Risotto. 

If you are new to working out, building muscle will happen relatively fast, so this is great news for anyone looking to get in shape.

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. 

So, next time you’re wondering how you can lose some weight, remember that you need to build some muscle and track your calories to your specified amount. 

Make sure to stick with it for a long time and understand that fitness is a lifelong journey that takes time to cultivate.

Calories are direct sources of energy that fuel your everyday life, so you need to make sure that you utilize them efficiently throughout your days. 

If you put calorie tracking, muscle building, and actively moving more together, things such as a cup of Risotto won’t get you off track because the formula provides so much leniency for you to shed some fat.

THERE IT IS!

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