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We can eat as much as we like and yet shed a few pounds with the Volumetrics diet. Here, we explain how the principle operates and what you should pay attention to.
Do you dislike keeping track of your calorie intake? The Volumetrics diet may then be exactly what you need to drop a few pounds! In contrast to other diets, Volumetrics (Latin for “volumetrics”) enables you to eat as much as you like while still losing weight. Professor of nutritional science at Pennsylvania State University Barbara Rolls created the idea.
What is the Volumetrics diet?
With this kind of diet, you only pay attention to the energy density of a food and do not concentrate on kcal or calorie, fat or carbohydrate reduction. This shows the ratio of a food’s energy content to its weight. The Volumetrics menu includes everything with a high volume, satisfying stomach filling, and low calorie density. Need a good example? In addition to being much lower in calories, 100 grams of lettuce are significantly more filling than 100 grams of chocolate. Additionally, if you feel full sooner, you eat less food overall.
This strategy enables us to eat only 1,200 to 1,300 calories per day without feeling hungry because of the low calorie density. A diet based on the Volumetrics diet, according to expert Rolls, can sustainably cause weight loss of one to two pounds per week.
How can I tell the calorie density of a food?
The main obstacle of Volumetrics will probably be choosing the right foods and organizing meals appropriately for newbie weight reduction enthusiasts. Fortunately, the formula for calculating energy density is rather easy to understand: just divide the item’s calorie count per 100 grams by the weight of the food. For instance, an apple has approximately 52 calories per 100 grams. 52/100 equals 0.52, or 52/100. Consequently, an apple has an energy density of 0.52.
But what does this value mean exactly? In the Volumetrics diet, the energy density of a food is assessed as follows:
- Low: 0 to 1.5 kcal/gram.
- Medium: 1.6 to 2.4 kcal/gram
- High: 2.5 kcal/gram and above
From this we can already guess that foods with a low energy density up to 1.5 kcal/gram should be most frequently on the menu.
What exactly can I eat with the Volumetrics diet?
Put a lot of fruit and vegetables on your plate if you want to lose weight using Volumetrics. You can fill up on these foods, which have a low energy density (“calorific value”) and a high volume, and forget about your hunger:
- Whole-grain products, such as pasta and bread.
- Vegetables with a high water content, such as lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and kohlrabi
- Fruits, for example bananas, apples, cherries, strawberries
- Lean meats, such as chicken and lean ham
- Skim milk products, such as low-fat cheese
- Tofu
- Low-calorie muesli without added sugar
And what should I do without to lose weight?
In order to maintain a diet, you shouldn’t absolutely prevent yourself from doing anything. The nice thing about a Volumetrics-based diet is that it potentially allows for unlimited food consumption, provided that the following foods are only consumed in extraordinary circumstances:
- Full-fat products (for example, full-fat cheese and milk).
- White flour products, for example wheat toast
- Eggs
- Sweet and salty snacks
- Alcohol
- Baked and deep-fried foods
- Fast food
How can I replace these foods on the Volumetrics diet?
Barbara Rolls is also aware that it can occasionally be challenging to forego high-calorie goods in favor of low-calorie ones with a high water content when it comes to ordinary baking and cooking. Her advice: Butter, cream, and eggs can be substituted with milk, egg whites, or yogurt. If oil is used, it should be used sparingly; Rolls suggests healthy vegetable oils like canola oil.
How useful is the Volumetrics diet?
Filling the stomach is only one of the numerous elements that influence how full humans feel in general. Therefore, not everyone will benefit from the Volumetrics diet. Critics claim that the absence of essential fatty acids may result from the reduced meat diet. Overall, though, the idea offers a balanced diet, so long as you mix up your menu with the allowed foods.
Of course, it still helps and is vital to have a strong commitment to eating in accordance with the concept in the long run. This is due to the stomach’s rapid adaptation to bigger amounts of food. However, if we switch back to another nourishing idea after a while, it’s possible that the hunger will return much more intensely and we may overeat once more. The yo-yo effect is sending its best!
You want more tips for your health and for losing weight? Losing weight on the stomach is also possible, as we reveal in this article! We also explain the food combining diet and how losing weight by walking works.
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