Operation Austere August has come and gone. From August 3rd through August 31st, I ate essentially nothing other than beans and rice for all meals. To avoid a Vitamin C deficiency, I’d throw in some vegetables once in a while.
For the first couple of weeks, I ate generic white or brown rice from Walmart. To make things more exciting for the back half of the experiment, I raided Whole Foods and bought “exotic” rice for a pot pourri of colorful options with variegated textures and flavors.
I coupled the rice with black beans, pinto beans, great northern beans, lentils, and occasional sprinkles of green beans or mung bean sprouts. For additional flavor, I’d routinely use a light sodium soy sauce, tumeric, black pepper, and salt. Sometimes I’d add salsa. As an occasional treat, I paired my rice with baked beans, which had the only added sugar I consumed during Austere August. I enjoyed the contrast of salty soy sauce on rice with the sweetness of baked beans.
Sometimes, I would mix the beans and rice together, and other times I’d keep them separated. As to portions, I generally weighted my bowls toward more beans, less rice. My research and experience led me to conclude that beans had a higher nutritional value and a greater satiety factor than rice. With beans offering more bang for the buck, they got priority!
During Austere August, the Instant Pot was my best friend. Thanks to YouTubers, I was able to learn appropriate amounts of water and cooking times for both rice and beans. I found the variations of cooking times for beans to be interesting. Black beans, for example, take a lot longer to cook than pinto beans. Who knew?
But enough about all that! What are the results? By eating nothing but beans and rice for 29 days and engaging in moderate exercise, my weight dropped from 168lbs to 153lbs. That's about half a pound of weight loss per day. Amazing!
More amazing still is how easy the beans and rice diet is. I didn’t have to mess around counting calories, food preparation was a breeze, and it was ridiculously cheap. I ate for about one dollar a day. No expensive or complicated diet and exercise plan was required. My exercise consisted of jogging 3.5 miles, 2 – 3 times a week; lifting weights for 20 – 30 minutes, 2 – 3 times a week; 5 minutes of abdominal work 3 – 5 times a week; walking the dogs and doing yard work.
Did I ever feel hungry? No. Beans have lots of fiber and are very filling. And yet, the calories are low. The beauty of the combination is that the typical cup of beans is about 250 calories and the typical cup of rice is about the same. That’s a big portion with a low calorie count and virtually no fat! I could eat as much as I wanted, but thanks to feeling satiated, I typically had no desire to stuff myself, anyway.
Did I feel drained? No. On most days, I felt more energetic than usual. Beans and rice are easy on the digestive tract. I went from having stomach aches almost every day in the prior month of exuberance to hardly any when I ate only beans and rice. I slept better. I also had far fewer headaches.
In conclusion, Operation Austere August was a smashing success! By eating only beans and rice I saved money, lost weight, and it was a piece of cake! In fact, I’m so enamored of beans and rice that I’m planning on rotating beans and rice into my usual weekday salad lunch regimen. Rather than salads five days a week, I’m going to try a ratio of 3 days beans and rice to 2 days salads.
With Love,
P. Gustav Mueller, author of The Present