The volumetrics diet was developed by Barbara Rolls PhD and has been successfully helping many people lose weight for many years. The whole premise of the diet is to allow people to eat as much as they want, to get full and stay full longer, and to eradicate the feelings of deprivation and hunger that seem so common in many other diet plans.
It’s been shown that most people will consume about 3 pounds of food daily. This diet will show you how you can get more nutritional value and fewer calories just by choosing different foods for your daily intake of 3 pounds. The result? You eat more food, and feel full and happy, while losing weight. It seems like a miracle but in reality it’s just common sense.
If you choose to eat 3 pounds of cookies, for example, rather than 3 pounds of fruits and vegetables you will gain weight. You will feel just as full when eating the 3 pounds of fruits and vegetables but instead of filling up on foods with virtually no nutritional value you will be filling up on foods that are good for your body and have fewer calories…you will lose weight.
This eating plan doesn’t divide food into groups or have food groups that are off limits. What it does is teach you to eat foods that are low ‘energy density’. That means that they have fewer calories in relation to how much you can eat. High energy dense foods have a lot of calories in a small amount of food…think candy bar.
Obviously, if you go with low energy dense foods you can eat more of them and not take in more calories. For example, you will be able to eat a lot more fruits and vegetables (low energy density) than you would be able to eat pies, cookies, or ice cream (high energy dense) to get the same number of calories.
One of the cornerstones of this diet plan is that you eat foods that have a high water content such as fruits and vegetables, many of which are up to 95% water based. This will allow you to eat a lot more food without taking in a lot more calories…more bang for your food buck!
Another aspect of this diet is to eat a lot of lean protein such as in lean meat and fish. And remember when I said this diet wasn’t about deprivation? Well, you can still eat cookies, candy, and ice cream but now that you understand the concept of energy dense foods you will naturally want to eat them less often and eat less of them when you do have them…which will lead to fewer calories you will be taking in.
The volumetrics diet has been around for many years and has helped many people easily achieve their weight loss goals. The best part is that once they achieved their desired level of weight loss they had a much better chance of keeping the weight off since they were learning better ways to eat. This lifestyle change makes all the difference in the world when it comes to keeping the weight off…forever.