Weird Reaction to Rice

[Aleph82]

I've been doing the McDougall diet for the past 3 months and have had great success. Over 70 pounds gone already! My diet strictly follows McDougall guidelines and I take it a step further by incorporating the tedious task of counting calories. Everything is going very well, but I have consistently experienced a weird reaction rice, a staple of the diet, and I was wondering if anyone else might know what's going on.

Whenever I eat a rice dish, almost always brown rice, it fills me up very quickly and then about an hour or so later I experience a quick onset of almost nauseating hunger. Drinking water helps a little but a slight feeling of hunger and nausea still lurks in the background. The only surefire way of getting rid of it is to a) eat something else b) exercise. It doesn't ever seem to be a problem when i do an even split of the meal's calories with rice and something else that is starchy (like legumes), but the hunger does make it problematic to eat foods I enjoy where the principal source of calories comes from rice, like stir fry. Does anyone know what's going on?

Relevent stats:

Age: 33
Sex: Male
Current weight: 280 pounds
Height: 6'3
Current daily caloric intake: 1500 if resting, 1800-2000 if I exercised. 4 meals a day.
Fasting blood sugar levels are in the 90's, but I do have mild hypertension.

[frozenveg]

I have not heard of a problem with rice, although each of us has different starches that fill us up, while others claim that they are much less satisfied with them. You didn't mention any other starches. Do you eat white and sweet potatoes, winter squash, other grains? And if you do, I'm assuming you don't get so hungry with them?

I do want to observe that for someone of your size, you are eating a pretty small amount of calories, which could easily explain your hunger. I am 5' 3', and I was consuming between 1600 and 1800 calories per day while I was losing (I now eat slightly fewer calories, since I don't need as many any more). My exercise is quite mild, so I figure it hardly factors in my intake. You may be hungry because you aren't getting enough food--starches especially--in the first place. So eat! 70 pounds in 3 months is an incredible weight loss. I know men lose more easily than women, but--wow!--that is a lot. Congratulations to you, and keep up the good work! But don't let yourself go hungry--go ahead and eat if you are hungry.

[Katydid]

You may simply be a fast digester. Try throwing some edamame, black beans or tofu into your stir-fry and see if that slows things down a bit.

Kate

[Ehleighen]

I also get very hungry pretty soon after rice. And my ankles and feet swell with fluid too. I think for me, it just raises my blood sugar too much. but that's just an assumption. so I don't eat rice very often for those reasons. I know my husband spiked to about 244 an hour after eating plain rice with some steamed veggies.