Three Easy Ways To LoseLow energy-density lesson:
Choose watermelon over cheese as a healthy snack.
Here are some practical weightloss tips gleaned from recent findings of obesity researchers:
Eat Low Energy Density Foods
Low energy-density foods have a low calorie-perounce ratio. Think, for instance, a wedge (286 grams) of watermelon (86 calories) compared with the same amount of cheddar cheese (1,146 calories). Some research suggests that a diet rich in low energy-density foods is not only more filling, but healthier, too. In a 2007 study, researchers at Pennsylvania State University found that women who ate a diet based mostly on low energy-density foods like fruits, vegetables, and broth-based soups felt less hungry-and lost more weight-than women who focused on cutting fat from their diets. Research by Barbara Rolls, Ph.D., director of the study and author of The Volumetrics Eating Plan (Harper Collins, 2005), has shown that diets that include a lot of low energy-density foods are also rich in vitamins and micronutrients.
Control Your Portions
Portion size counts, but it may be easier to keep track of your portions if it's spelled out for you. When researchers at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, had half of a group of 130 obese patients with type 2 diabetes use a portion-control plate for six months, 17 percent of them lost 5 percent of their body weight. Of the group that didn't use the special plates, only 5 percent lost a significant amount of weight.
You can buy a portioncontrol plate or you can try drawing reasonable portions on a place mat, using it as your guide. "After a while, you start to visualize it automatically," says Bastyr's Taylor.
You can buy a portioncontrol plate or you can try drawing reasonable portions on a place mat, using it as your guide. "After a while, you start to visualize it automatically," says Bastyr's Taylor.
Add Healthy Variety
Some of the best insight into weight loss comes from the National Weight Control Registry, a database comprising some 5,000 people who've maintained a loss of at least 30 pounds for a year or more. A study of registry participants showed that "maintainers" consume a fairly limited array of foods. "It seems to be a universal phenomenon that if people have a lack of variety in a meal, they will eat less," says Hollie Raynor, Ph.D., R.D., the study's lead author and an assistant psychiatry professor at Brown Medical School. "Variety stimulates the appetite."
Yet too dull a diet can also be a problem: It's more tempting to binge when you feel you're missing something.
The happy medium:
Vary your intake of fruits and vegetables and other low energy-density foods, but limit high energy-density foods . "The problem is that the variety people usually have in their diets is not from fruits and vegetables," says Raynor, "but from a zillion flavors of ice cream, potao chips, and cookies."
