Abundance, not deprivation

Posted on Sun, 6 Mar 11

Imagine dietary advice that required you to eat more to lose weight. Abundance and plenty instead of starvation and deprivation. Well you can, and it is remarkably effective.

Advice to eat less goes against your biological instinct, risking hunger and starvation is intuitively unpleasant and potentially life threatening. There is a simple, yet underrated solution; eating more low-energy, nutrient-dense foods.

Eating larger, more satisfying, portions of low energy dense foods (particularly fresh fruits, vegetables, soups, salads, and whole grains cooked in water) has been shown to be a very simple and far more successful strategy for weight loss than diets aimed at limiting food intake. These foods help control your appetite and are naturally low in calories.

A side effect of eating low energy dense foods is that they increase your intakes of several important micronutrients because they are also naturally the most nutritious foods available.  Lower energy, more nutrients. A great trade off.

References

1. Rolls BJ, Roe LS, Meengs JS. Portion size can be used strategically to increase vegetable consumption in adults. Am J Clin Nutr. 2010 Feb 10. [Epub ahead of print]

2. Kral TV, Kabay AC, Roe LS, Rolls BJ. Effects of doubling the portion size of fruit and vegetable side dishes on children's intake at a meal. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2010 Mar;18(3):521-7.

3. Rolls BJ. The relationship between dietary energy density and energy intake. Physiol Behav. 2009 Jul 14;97(5):609-15.

4. Ledikwe JH, Blanck HM, Khan LK, et al. Low-energy-density diets are associated with high diet quality in adults in the United States. J Am Diet Assoc. 2006 Aug;106(8):1172-80.