Is Spinach Good For Weight Loss? Health Benefits & How To Eat 2024

What do your mum and Popeye the sailor man have in common? They both wanted you to eat spinach. Turns out not only can spinach help us fulfill our fiber and nutritional requirements, but it can also help you lose a lot of that vacation weight we have been promising to sweat out in the gym.

Weight loss can seem a little complicated with all the weight-loss diets and food supplements floating around, but the equation for weight loss has always been simple: eat fewer calories and burn more, and spinach is one of the best vegetables to do just that. 

Is Spinach Good For Weight Loss?

Lifestyle modifications are a cornerstone for losing weight. Nearly all strategies to help you lose weight revolve around a well-balanced diet coupled with other lifestyle changes.

Raw spinach is technically 91.4% water, 2.9% protein, 3.6% carbohydrates, and 0.4% fat. It is also rich in fiber, with a 100 g serving meeting around 9% of our recommended dietary allowance^[1] for fiber while contributing only 23 calories.

This means that a relatively large volume of this weight-loss food can be included in the daily diet as compared to high-energy, low-volume food items.

Spinach should be a permanent part of our diet, especially if weight loss is a target. Benefits of spinach for weight loss include:

Fewer Calories

The weight loss equation, no matter the strategy, remains essentially the same. We need to take in a lesser amount of calories than we burn every day. We do this daily basis over a period of weeks or months, and voila, suddenly, our body is summer-ready.

As we just mentioned, a 100 g serving size of raw spinach contains only 23 calories! That’s equal to just a ten-minute walk at a comfortable pace or five minutes on an exercise bike in the gym! It even has fewer calories than other vegetables, such as broccoli, which contains around 34 calories in a 100 g serving. 

Makes You “Feel” Less Hungry

Multiple studies show that eating extremely low-calorie spinach induces satiety and makes you feel “full.” This results in an overall decrease in the total food intake, which further leads to, you guessed it, weight loss.

It does this by increasing the level of hormones that make us feel full such as cholecystokinin, glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), and leptin. It also reduces the levels of the “hunger” hormone, ghrelin, in our body and adds 2.8 grams of dietary fiber to our diet. 

Less Fat Absorption

Spinach reduces fat absorption from our intestines. Increased levels of fat in our small intestine send neuro-hormonal signals to our brain that the stomach is full and that further food intake should be stopped, thus reducing calorie intake and causing satiety. It turns out spinach for weight loss is pretty handy; who knew?

Benefits of Eating Spinach Everyday

Spinach or Spinacia oleracea L. (as the smart people call it) is not only a rich source of fiber. It also has multiple other good health benefits.

Besides the obvious nutritional benefits (which are many), spinach also helps in preventing cancer, preventing obesity, and decreasing cholesterol levels. Seems too good to be true, right? Well, there’s more.

This leafy green vegetable is also helpful in managing diabetes. With these benefits, one could safely assume that EVERYONE would be eating spinach regularly, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

According to a study, other leafy greens such as cabbage and broccoli were consumed in greater quantities as compared to Popeye’s favorite.

Anticancer

An estimated 19 million people globally get cancer every year, with around 10 million people facing an early demise because of cancer.^[2] The influence of diet on this uncontrolled growth of cells in our body is well documented.

Diets that are rich in dark green leafy vegetables (like our friend Mr. Spinach) are known to prevent and reduce the occurrence of various cancers.

Studies have shown that spinach helps prevent breast, colon, and esophageal cancers. It has been shown to be particularly effective in preventing breast cancer. Women who frequently include spinach in their diet (greater than 52 servings per year) are 45% less likely to get breast cancer.^[3]

So, dear reader, if you have a history of cancer in your family, it might help you greatly if you put spinach on the stove or in the blender more often.

Helpful For Diabetics

Millions worldwide suffer from diabetes, and millions more get it every year. Spinach has a compound called “Thylakoids” in significant quantity. These thylakoids are known to help manage diabetes by decreasing blood glucose and mitigating insulin resistance in multiple animal and human studies.^[4]

Antioxidant

Spinach is rich in minerals (magnesium, potassium, and iron) and essential vitamins, including vitamin K, vitamin A, folate, and vitamin C.^[5] Spinach is richer in antioxidants as compared to many of its green leafy cousins, so it is safe to assume that it is better at preventing long-term and chronic diseases.

Regular antioxidant intake also makes us feel more energetic in our daily routine. Spinach is also helpful in reducing inflammation which not only helps prevent adverse health conditions but also helps in fighting ongoing diseases.

How To Include Spinach In Your Weight Loss Diet?

Here are five ways you can consume spinach in your healthy diet:

1. Put it in a blender with water and yogurt to have a fresh spinach smoothie on the go after your morning workout.
2. Toss spinach in a salad along with other fruits, vegetables, and toppings. Replace your salad lettuce and cabbage with a spinach salad. 
3. Confused about eating that pizza in the break room? Pile on some spinach on that pizza slice and not only feel less guilty about it but fill up on your vitamins and minerals for the day.
4. Hear me out: Make a spinach kebab. Weight loss diets can get monotonous sometimes. Change it up by adding some spinach to minced meat and making a spinach kebab.
5. Add spinach to a sandwich and fill up faster.

Summary

There are multiple benefits of spinach for weight loss. Adequate consumption of spinach can help you fill up many of your required minerals and vitamins for the day. 

Spinach is rich in iron and helps those suffering from iron deficiency (especially women). Spinach is a good source of fiber. Try out a 7-day spinach diet and see if you feel a difference in your overall health.

From cancer, obesity, diabetes, and chronic inflammatory conditions to anemia, spinach has numerous health benefits. This leafy vegetable might be one of your best dietary additions to help you lose belly fat and stay healthy!

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