Healthy Food Choices for the High-Calorie Diet

Video Transcript

MICHELLE COOPER: Next, we're going to talk about a high-calorie diet. There may be times when people actually have to consume a high-calorie diet for one reason or the other. This does not mean--high calorie does not have to equal poor nutrition. Basically, what you want to do is eat the same healthy diet that you've been eating but eat more of it. Also, you want to make sure that you choose calorically dense foods. Sometimes it is hard to eat that much food. And so in order to do that, you want to look at the caloric density of food. An example of that would be a cup of grapes and a cup of raisins; the same quantity but different quality. You'll be getting a lot more sugar and a lot more calories from the raisins than you would from the grapes. Also, you can eat more raisins without filling up fast like you would with the water-filled grapes. Thirdly, foods that are in the protein group are usually not only high in protein but high in fat as well which would contribute to the calories. Another thing you may want to do is add a supplemental milkshake to your diet to get high calories in. You can add protein to those milkshakes just like the ones that you see behind me. And lastly, if it's too hard to get all the caloric needs that you need to have a high-calorie diet in three meals, feel free to supplement those meals with three snacks as well, just make sure they're healthy ones. So in eating a high-calorie diet, make sure that high calorie doesn't equal poor nutrition. Eat the same healthy diet with just larger serving sizes. Number two, go for caloric density. Make sure that the foods that you're eating are going to give you the most calories that you can get. Thirdly, if you need to supplement with shakes, feel free to do that or add these as your in-between-meal snacks. Sometimes it's hard to get all the calories you need in three meals so go ahead and break it up into three meals and three snacks.