Volumetrics Eating Plan Review

The Volumetrics Eating Plan is written by Barbara Rolls a leading authority on weight management and eating behavior at Penn State University. She is best known for her work on “energy density” which is simply calories per given weight of food. What’s so important about energy density you ask? It is the key to understanding how you can eat more and weigh less. Sound too good to be true?

Volumetric Diet Plan
The Volumetric diet plan is all about eating low energy density foods. Since we eat about the same amount of food per day, filling up on low cal, high volume foods will curb your hunger as you lose weight. Hence the term Volumetrics! It’s an eat more, weigh less strategy. So what are these low density foods that are going to make you lose weight? Before I get to that let’s talk first about how to calculate energy density. First look on the nutrition facts panel and locate the number of calories per serving as well as the serving size. For example looking at a can of chick peas in my kitchen I see that it has a serving size of 125 grams and and 124 calories per serving. This gives an energy density of about 1. This is good as foods with an energy density less than 1 will help you lose weight. Foods such as crackers, that have an energy density of 4.5 have four and half times as many calories as the chick pea example. This is not so good and you need to careful about portion control here.

How to eat more weigh less
So here now is the secret to losing weight. Eat more unprocessed fruits and veggies! Fruits and veggies have a low energy density and are great for weight loss because they contain a lot of water per weight. The more water a food contains the lower the energy density. Lowering the fat content will also lower the energy density, but it will not have as dramatic effect as water does. As an example, grapes weigh in at only 50 calories per cup but the dried version, raisins, weigh in at 400 calories per cup! The lesson here is that the more refined and processed a food is, the higher the energy density and the more likely we are to gain weight. Please see my earlier post on what happens to the calorie content of corn as it gets dried pulverized and fried. Corn’s calorie content for a 4 ounce serving sky rockets from 90 calories for boiled corn to 627 calories for corn chips!

The energy density concept highlights what we have known all along about weight loss. More fruits and veggies, less refined products are the key to sustainable weight loss. To get you started on your “weigh” to weight loss, Volumetrics offers 125 low energy density recipes packed with veggies and fruits. In a field littered with false promises of quick and easy weight loss, Volumetrics delivers. It’s a well written, well organized book that offers practical and effective strategies for weight loss.

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