The Volumetrics Eating Plan

Do you want a diet plan that lets you eat as much as you want to, whenever you’re hungry, not have to sacrifice any one food group, is well balanced nutritionally, easy to follow, and inexpensive, and also happens to reduce weight without being a gimmick, fad or require taking drugs? If you answered yes then you’ll want to check out the Volumetric Eating Plan.

Volumetric in laymen’s terms simply means ‘to measure volume’. The Volumetric Diet, based on the principles of satiety (hunger), works by enhancing your feelings of fullness at the same time as taking in fewer calories. You will not only lose weight but have a healthy and nutritiously balanced diet plan as well. On this plan you will be able to eat your usual amounts, or even more, by eating foods that are higher in water content and lower in caloric content. So even though you will feel full all the time, most of it will be moisture content.

The creator of the Volumetric Diet, Dr. Barbara Rolls, is the real deal. Dr. Rolls is highly respected with a doctorate in nutritional research, the prestigious Chair of Nutrition at the Pennsylvania State University, has twenty years of experience in the field of nutrition and published over 200 related medical articles. She has compiled the knowledge from her life’s work into a practical, well written book called “The Volumetrics Eating Plan (2005) where she details how her system works. Foods are rated by their energy density. Energy density (ED) is the amount of calories (per gram) per serving. This is calculated in the same way as Caloric Density, which is another term used with some diet, such as the Okinawa Diet. Then think food volume = water content. So you eat foods that are low in calories but high in water content to take up a lot of space thereby making you feel full.

Food is categorized on a scale from low to high depending on the energy density - low being fruits, non starchy vegetables and soups, high encompassing sweets, cracker, oils, and butter. The lower the amount of energy density in a food the more of that particular food you can eat because it has less calories. Are you all with me so far? Please pay attention now because among all the sham diets out there this little gem is a safe, effective and inexpensive alternative.

Other principles of the Volumetrics Eating Plan include drinking water with every meal because the water further dilutes the calories. Drinking water alone to reduce weight does not work because although you get full, with no nutrients to absorb from the water, you will still feel hungry. Eat whole fruit rather than drinking a glass of fruit juice. Reduce your caloric intake by five hundred to a thousand daily and you can expect to lose 1-2 lbs. per week.

Exercise is a must, her recommendation being 30-60 minutes of moderate movement every day. The Volumetric Eating Plan is one of good ones and will be as effective as you can work it.