Fit Communications

No, this isn’t about one of those ludicrous diets that proclaims “Eat all you want of your favorite foods and still lose weight!”

U.S. News & World Report’s cover story for March 7 is about “Volumetrics”–the eating plan developed by Dr. Barbara Rolls of Penn State. In a nutshell, Rolls discovered that people tend to eat about the same weight of food every day, and that equal weights of food tend to produce equal satiety. In other words, eating a certain volume of, say, potato chips, produces about the same satiety as eating an equal volume of fruit, vegetables, whatever. But as you already know, the portion of chips has a whole lot more calories and many fewer nutrients than the fruit.

Foods can be categorized by their energy density–calories divided by weight. Water and fiber reduce density, so, for instance, 100 calories’ worth of raisins (a dry food) is much more dense than 100 calories’ worth of grapes. The portion of grapes is also much larger, hence producing greater satiety.

The concept is simple but explaining it is tough. Read the article.

I read Rolls’s original book, The Volumetrics Weight-Control Plan, several months ago and thought it made a great deal of sense. I’ve tried to incorporate her principles, which merge nicely with my other dietary goal of eating more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.

The funny part is that the aforementioned book was published in 2000 to–as far as I can tell–little or no fanfare. It certainly never reached the levels of publicity enjoyed by Atkins or the Zone or the South Beach diet books. I suspect it wasn’t well publicized. When I borrowed the hardcover from the library, I almost didn’t open the book because (embarrassing confession here) the cover was so ugly. Obviously, not much effort was put into marketing the book.

Just recently Volumetrics has begin getting lots of publicity because Rolls’s second book, The Volumetrics Eating Plan: Techniques and Recipes for Feeling Full on Fewer Calories, was just published. I’ll buy it. And I highly recommend the first one.

Mom was right–you need to eat your veggies!

Here’s the first paragraph from an article on the American Institute for Cancer Research website:

Increasing the Amount of Vegetables, Fruit in Diet Remains the Leading Weight-Loss Strategy in U.S.

WASHINGTON–According to a new survey of dietary behavior commissioned by the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR), 4 in 5 weight-conscious Americans turn to salads, vegetables and fruits when trying to shed a few pounds.  The fact that a clear majority of Americans are still adopting this old-fashioned, common-sense approach, even amid a low-carb marketing craze, is encouraging news to health experts concerned about the state of nutrition in the U.S.

If you’re interested, you can also download from the same site an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) backgrounder titled "Plant foods and weight management: the science behind energy density" (see my Jan. 5 post "red, green, and blue food").