How to Lose Weight without Being Hungry

The one thing dieters probably fear the most is the deprivation and hunger they think they must endure if they want to lose weight. There is a misconception that to shed pounds one must starve or skip meals. Nothing could be further than the truth. The secret to losing weight without going hungry is to make the right food choices. You need to choose foods that are low in calories but can satisfy your stomach so you don't become hungry. The Tufts University Health and Nutrition Newsletter cites a New Zealand University of Auckland study that may shed some light on how to do this.

The researchers divided male participants into three groups. Each group was put on a diet with different fat percentages (their total daily calories were composed of 60, 40 or 20-percent fat) but no calorie limits. The men were told to eat as much they wanted from the food choices they were allowed.

As expected, the men eating the 20-percent fat diets lost weight because they were consuming fewer calories. Fat contains nine calories per gram compared to four calories per gram for carbohydrates or protein. Therefore, the more fat a food contains, the more calories it will have. However, in spite of the lower calorie diet, the men in this group were not at all hungry.

What the researchers discovered was that the men in the low-fat group unconsciously compensated by choosing foods that weighed the same as the men in the higher-fat groups and, therefore, were not hungry.

What this suggests, says Tufts University, is that the weight of the food you eat may play a more important role than fat or calories in satisfying your hunger. In other words, you may not need to eat high-calorie or high-fat foods to feel full but your stomach has to feel the weight of a certain amount of food.

Tufts says that there are several other studies suggesting that people tend to eat the same weight of food daily, regardless of the fat or calories that the meals contain. It's almost as if your stomach has an internal scale with a pre-determined weight that has to be reached for you to be satisfied and not hungry.

This may explain the rationale behind such advice as drinking a glass of water and having a bowl of soup before eating to cut down on your appetite. It may also explain why people can go on a low fat diet and yet gain weight if the majority of their food choices come from starchy food that is highly processed and low in fiber. You can eat many slices of fluffy white bread before you feel full while eating two slices of whole wheat multi-grain bread already makes you feel like you swallowed the whole loaf. Eating high fiber foods like oatmeal helps you eat fewer calories (seven ounces of oatmeal only has 120 calories) without going hungry.

Weight-to-calorie ratio.
If you are trying to lose weight, Tufts University suggests choosing food based on their weight-to-calorie ratio. You want to eat food that weighs a lot but has few calories and avoid food that is light in weight but hefty in calories.

Fruits and vegetables are the big winners in the heavy weight-low calorie department, according to Tufts University. They weigh a lot because of their fiber and water content and yet do not have many calories. For example, one cup of cantaloupe or 'melon' weighs 5.5 ounces but only has 56 calories. A cup of cooked kangkong or spinach weighs six ounces but only has 42 calories. Now, compare that to six cups of buttered popcorn that only weighs three ounces and contains 420 calories or, even worse, one ounce of potato chips that has 152 calories (if you ate four ounces, you would be inviting 608 calories to feel at home in your fat cells). That's what I call "small but terrible".

Most snack food doesn't weigh much but sure have many calories. This means you can eat a lot of them without feeling full and without realizing it take in many excess calories that you don't need. Most cookies weigh ½ ounce and contain 50 calories. Eat six cookies and you only have three ounces of weight but you've racked up 300 calories. 1.5 ounces of a chocolate bar contain 220 calories. A small croissant only weighs two ounces but has 230 calories. According to the New Zealand University study, food that is light in weight but high in calories is probably the worse kind of food to eat if you are trying to lose weight. It's sort of like 'double jeopardy' - you are still hungry but you have already eaten many calories.

Choose lower-fat choices of the same weight food.
There can be a world of difference between the caloric consumption of two people eating the same weight and type of food. How is this possible? Easy, if you consider the way the food is cooked or prepared. Here are some examples (all of them weigh 3.5 ounces). Boiled potatoes have 62 calories compared to French fried potatoes with 328 calories. Boiled bananas have 159 calories compared to 259 if you prepare them 'turon' style (wrapped, sugared, and fried). Sardines in tomato sauce contain 127 calories while sardines in oil have 372. Tuna flakes in brine have 95 calories while tuna flakes in oil have 309. You get the picture.

Avoid the "light weight-high calorie" way of dieting.
I know many people who don't want to eat regular sized meals because they think that if their stomach feels heavy, they are eating a lot of calories. Therefore, they think that by eating something light like crackers, they will lose weight. What they don't realize is that just because a food is light doesn't automatically mean it contains few calories. One could easily eat nine crackers (420 calories) and still not feel full because nine crackers only weigh three ounces. Believe it or not but you could have a satisfying meal of ½ cup steamed rice, inihaw na bangus (the size of a deck of cards), a cup of kangkong, and a cup of cantaloupe for less calories. This complete meal would weigh a satisfying 18.5 ounces and only "cost" you 378 calories. By making the right food choices, you can cut down on unnecessary calories without starving yourself and feeling deprived.

Continue reading here: Why Some People Can Eat Whatever They Want and Not Gain Weight

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