Low density foods with high water content provide a sense of fullness allowing you to eat more food and still reach your weight loss goals.
Nutritionist Barbara Rolls, PhD devised a weight loss plan that involves eating more. The eat more, not less concept has been around in various weight loss programs, but Rolls stressed the importance of filling up on low density foods with a high water content. A Penn State study proved her point when they found that dieters who ate a cup of soup or a salad before their meal consumed less total calories. The Volumetrics Diet plan allows you to feel full without depriving yourself.
How the Volumetrics Diet Works
The Volumetrics Diet plan consists of eating a lot of foods low in calories, fat and protein. Low density foods, like non-starch vegetables, fat free milk, broth, fruit with high water content, fiber, fish and lean protein. The idea behind the Volumetrics diet is that by eating a salad before your meal will fill your stomach and make you eat less of the main course. Because lettuce has very few calories, you’ll be saving calories with this simple trick and you will still be able to eat the foods you enjoy, in smaller amounts.
The Volumetrics Diet plan focuses on foods that take up a lot of space in your stomach without adding a lot of extra calories.
Managing Hungeron the Volumetrics Diet
The important part of making the Volumetrics Diet work is to make sure you are getting enough calories to keep your metabolism fired up. Filling up on soup and salad alone isn’t going to help you lose weight or get healthier. There are no forbidden foods on the Volumetrics Diet plan, but be sure to fill up on fiber and protein in for best results.
Feeling Full on the Volumetrics Diet
Satiety, or fullness, is the opposite of hunger. There is a satiety index that gives measurements of hunger and satiety for common foods. According to the satiety index, the higher the number the better the food is for your weight loss success. Bread, potatoes and lentils, for example, rank high, while croissants and chocolate rank low on the satiety scale.
By filling up on high satiety foods, you’ll be able to feel full and satisfied longer while taking fewer total calories, allowing you to lose weight.
Making Sense of the Volumetrics Diet
Rolls claims that by creatively managing hunger and diluting calories you will successfully reach your weight loss goals. The Volumetrics diet plan is rated one of the best diet plans available because it is a no-nonsense plan, it isn’t a fad diet and it doesn’t promise a quick fix for long-term weight loss. It makes sense to fill up on lighter foods to reduce your total calorie intake, and as long as you don’t over-restrict your calories; the Volumetrics Diet is a safe bet for managing weight loss.
