The key to volumetrics eating is to consume as much as you can with as few calories as possible. That means eating large quantities of low-calorie and high-fiber foods, such as vegetables, fruits and whole grains, and smaller quantities of high-calorie, low-fiber foods such as white bread, mashed potatoes and doughnuts. The goal is to lose weight by eating fewer calories but still feeling satisfied after your meals.
History
Developed by Barbara J. Rolls, Ph.D., chair and professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at Penn State University, The Volumetrics Eating Plan is an extension of the original Volumetrics Weight Control Plan, also developed by Dr. Rolls. While researching human eating behavior and the causes of obesity as the director of the university's Laboratory for the Study of Human Ingestive Behavior, Dr. Rolls narrowed her research interests down to finding food strategies for weight management by understanding the psychological and environmental effects on food choices and the amount of food people eat.
Function
Designed to help you manage your weight, volumetrics eating focuses on satiety, or the feeling of fullness you achieve when you've had enough to eat. On the Volumetrics Eating Plan, you choose high-volume, low-calorie foods so that you fill your stomach and feel satisfied with fewer calories. For instance, there are 78 calories in 1/4 cup dried apricots, but for the same number of calories you could eat a full cup of fresh apricot halves. The fresh apricots have more more volume and will take up more room in your stomach so that you will feel fuller than if you ate the 1/4 cup of dried apricots.
Significance
When your stomach starts to feel full, it sends a signal to your brain through the vagus nerve that you are no longer hungry and can stop eating. When you eat high-volume foods, your stomach fills up more quickly than if you eat low-volume foods, so that message gets to your brain sooner. You are much more likely to feel full after eating a larger quantity of food. Following a volumetrics-style diet, you learn to choose high-volume foods over low-volume foods that contain approximately the same number of calories.
Features
Soups and salads are the foundation of volumetrics eating because they are watery foods that fill you up but don't contain a lot of calories. Other basic foods in the plan include fresh whole fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean meat, poultry and seafood and low-fat dairy products. Volumetrics eating discourages foods such as crackers, chips, nuts and chocolate that are dense in calories compared to their volume.
Considerations
Although volumetrics eating is all about eating high-volume, low-calorie foods that contain a lot of water, and drinking water can help you feel full, you won't feel full just drinking water. In a University of Nebraska review of volumetics eating, Dr. Roll points out that hunger and thirst are two different mechanisms in the body, and each is satisfied differently. Thirst is satisfied by fluids and hunger is satisfied by food.
Member Comments