The Big Diet Secret
Learn to eat smarter for weight loss
Counting calories is the simplest and most reliable way to lose weight. If you count accurately and stick to the calorie level your body needs to lose weight, you will drop pounds.
Unfortunately, one calorie will not fill your stomach as quickly as another. The single most important factor when losing weight is to keep your stomach full. If you can do that, you'll have a highly increased chance of being successful at weight loss and at weight management.
I learned the this common sense principle on my own. Eat more food, but eat fewer calories. Since then, I've come across several books that support this idea and give good advice about how to use it to lose weight. Each calls it by a different name, but in the end, it's all the same principle.
Eat more food, eat fewer calories
When I began counting calories, the first thing that caught my attention was how often my little daily splurges cost me BIG calories. Also of note was how I began substituting lower calorie items for those splurges and how much more food I was able to eat during a day as a result.
Examples of ways to cut calories and eat more food
Little Debbie™ snack cake = over 200 calories
OR
Apple @ approx. 100 calories + Kiwi @ 46 calories + 1/2 Cup of Light Peaches @ 50 calories = approx. 196 calories
3 Musketeers candybar (advertised as "45% less fat") = 260 calories
OR
Grapefruit @ 64 calories + 2 Pineapple Slices @ 60 calories + 1 Cup of Grapes @ 100 calories = 224 calories
For LESS calories you get to eat a LOT MORE food and you get a lot more nutrition too.
Recommended books to help you eat more and cut calories
The Volumetrics Weight-Control Plan : Feel Full on Fewer Calories
Volumetrics discusses many ideas that match the same principles I've learned on my own weight-loss journey. I picked up the book for the menu plan, because I wanted to incorporate more variety into my diet. I had found, as I'm sure many people do, that I relied on too many of the same foods day after day to meet my calorie needs.
I recommend the book, because it explains in detail the reasons why satiety is so important when trying to lose weight or to maintain a weight. The menu plan is sensible and easy to follow or substitute.
Barbara Rolls, Robert A. Barnett
Trade Paperback
336 pages
Harper Paperbacks
December 31, 2002
ISBN No. 978-0060932725, 0060932724
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Barbara Rolls, PhD, and co-author Robert Barnett present Volumetrics, a long-term, sensible approach to weight loss based on the breakthrough concept that you can feel full while eating fewer calories.
Dieters everywhere have the same complaint: they're hungry all the time. Now this revolutionary book, based on sound scientific principles, can help you lose weight safely, effectively, and permanently without those gnawing pangs of hunger.
With Volumetrics, leading nutritionist Barbara Rolls, PhD, has devised a plan to give people what they've always wanted: a way to lose weight while still feeling full and satisfied. By concentrating on energy density (the amount of calories in a given volume of food) and its relation to feeling replete, Rolls and co-author Bob Barnett guide the reader towards a more rewarding and manageable lifetime approach to eating - one that doesn't include deprivation. Unlike many fad diets, their ideas are based on a solid body of scientific research, revealing the many factors that determine how much we eat, and hence how much weight we gain. From this research, Rolls and Barnett have created a clear program with tasty recipes, menus, and eating recommendations that can help anyone lose weight safely and effectively.
The Volumetrics Weight-Control Plan introduces the concept of "energy density" -- concentration of calories in each portion of food. Here you'll learn how to avoid high energy -- dense foods, and how such different nutritional factors as fat, fiber, protein, and water affect energy density and satiety. You'll discover which foods, eaten under which circumstances, allow you to consume fewer calories and still be satisfied. And you'll get to know the hidden calorie traps, seemingly innocuous foods that can sneak unwanted calories into your body. Finally, the authors offer 60 sensible, tasty and easy recipes, plus an integrated program of exercise and behavior management that can be sustained over a lifetime.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Barbara Rolls, Ph.D., professor and Guthrie Chair of Nutrition at Penn State, is past president of the Obesity Society and has served on the advisory council of the National Institutes of Health's Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. She is the author of Volumetrics, three professional books on food and nutrition, and numerous academic articles.
She holds the endowed Guthrie Chair of Nutrition at Penn State, has been president of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity and the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior, and has served on the advisory council of the National Institutes of Health's Institute of Diabetes and Digestion and Kidney Diseases. She is the author of three professional books on food and nutrition and more than 170 academic articles.
Coauthor Robert A. Barnett is an award-winning journalist who specializes in food and nutrition. He is the author of Tonics (HarperPerennial, 1997), coauthor of The Guilt-Free Comfort Food Cookbook (Thomas Nelson, 1996), and editor of The American Health Food Book (Dutton, 1991).
The Flavor Point Diet : The Delicious, Breakthrough Plan to Turn Off Your Hunger and Lose the Weight for Good
Let me say right off that I haven't tried the Flavor Point diet, nor read the book. I saw the author do an interview with CNN, and as he discussed the high points of his approach with this diet, I saw a few correlations with things I've learned on my own.
If The Flavor Point Diet includes planned meals that are healthy and nutritious, it's bound to allow you to eat fewer calories and feel fuller. But then again, any good diet should do the same. Because the big secret to losing weight is to learn how to eat smarter and healthier, and to learn how to make better choices.
David L. Katz, Catherine S. Katz
Hardcover
304 pages
Rodale Books
December 2005
ISBN No. 1594861625
FROM THE PUBLISHER
What if there were a weight-loss diet that allowed you to eat your favorite foods and be completely satisfied, without ever counting calories or restricting food groups again? What if this diet was supported by scientific research from the prestigious Yale Prevention Research Center and was clinically proven to help you shed excess pounds quickly and safely, improve your blood sugar, lower your blood pressure, and reverse other key markers of chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease?
That diet is here! From Dr. David Katz, acclaimed director of Yale's Prevention Research Center, ABC News' chief medical correspondent and O Magazine's nutrition columnist, comes THE FLAVOR POINT DIET, a mouthwatering, groundbreaking diet drawn from cutting-edge science that maximizes your eating pleasure, optimizes your health, and guarantees permanent weight loss. By combining foods selected by flavor, this research-based breakthrough method tricks your brain into being satisfied all day long, so you don't eat when you don't need to. Following "flavor themes" by week, day, meal and dish, you'll learn to reach the Flavor Point—the moment at which you feel completely full and deliciously satisfied—sooner, so you can shed pounds faster! Just follow the delectable step-by-step menu plan and you'll lose up to 32 lbs in 12 weeks.
Boasting 12 weeks of menu plans, over 150 new recipes, and testimonials (with before and after photos) from Dr. Katz's clinical studies, the book also offers substitution lists, helpful tools, dozens of tips on how to adapt the plan to fit each reader's personal tastes and lifestyles, and a complete blueprint for using the scrumptious new method for life. Plus,there's no need to prepare alternate meals for the rest of the family—it's nutritionally healthy for all, even for kids!
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
David L. Katz, MD, MPH, is one of the nation's foremost authorities on nutrition, weight control, and the prevention of chronic disease. He is co-founder and director of Yale's Prevention Research Center, medical correspondent for ABC News, nutrition columnist for O, The Oprah Magazine, and the author of a syndicated health/nutrition column for the New York Times. He lives with his wife, Catherine, and their five children, in Connecticut.
Catherine S. Katz, PhD, is a neuroscientist by training, and has made significant scientific contributions to the area of olfaction and its link to memory and learning. She is also an expert cook whose culinary talents have been featured in O, The Oprah Magazine; Child Magazine; Men's Health; Women's Health & Fitness; and several books.