Ready to feel full by eating fewer calories?
By Lori Skurbe, RD, MPH, CDE, Prime Surgicare Bariatric Dietitian
When it comes to losing weight and keeping it off, calorie density counts. In order to lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you eat and drink.
To maintain your weight loss, you need to keep your caloric intake low enough to sustain weight loss.
To keep calorie counts low, people usually think they need to eat only tiny portions of foods and they are destined to be starving all the time.
This does not have to be the case if you know how to eat foods
that are low in calories but high in volume!
Eat these low calorie and high volume foods
Mainly plant-based foods are low-calorie and high volume. And there are many delicious options available!
Two recommended foods that I will focus on in this article are non-starchy vegetables and fresh fruits.
Non-starchy vegetables
Non-starchy vegetables (leafy greens, broccoli, carrots, green beans, summer squash, brussels sprouts, etc.) are the lowest calorie food group (about 25 calories per cup raw or 1/2 cup cooked).
Non-starchy vegetables are high in water and fiber content (and provide many essential vitamins, minerals and antioxidants), which provide bulk–without the calories.
High fiber foods impart a sense of “fullness” and take longer to digest, so you get full quicker and stay full longer.
Example:
5 French fries have about 50 calories.
Fifty (50) calories worth of raw vegetables (like broccoli) is about 2 cups.
Both have the same number of calories but offer very different amounts of food.
Which side dish would fill up your plate (and your belly) more, without adding a lot of calories to your diet?
Fresh Fruits
Some people think fruit is not good for you due to natural sugar content.
Fresh fruit does contain sugar, but fruit is also rich in fiber, water, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, making it a super healthy food.
A serving of fresh fruit is the size of a tennis ball, 1/2 of a large banana, 1 cup of melon cubes or 1 cup of most berries. A serving of fresh fruit provides about 60 calories.
You can eat about 1.25 cups of fresh strawberries as a snack for about 60 calories or you could have about 6 almost weightless potato chips for about 60 calories.
Since your goal is to eat calories that will fill you up, the chips are not going to accomplish this goal.
Dr. Seun Sowemimo talks about the value of food density on his YouTube channel.
Calorie Density is Ideal for Weight Loss Surgery Patients
Bariatric surgery patients (WLS) get full very quickly during the first year after surgery, but often report they can eat more once they are about two or more years post-op.
One of the ways WLS patients can help control their appetites, eat a more plant-based diet and lose or maintain weight, is to eat high volume, low-calorie foods, such as fresh fruit and vegetables. Make sure you get your healthy protein foods in first (such as beans, lentils, tofu, fish, seafood, poultry and fat-free dairy) and then go for fresh fruits and vegetables.
Seven Tips to Fight Back Against Weight Regain
Perfection Not Required
As with all things in life, no one expects you to be perfect all the time.
I encourage our bariatric surgery patients to strive to stay on task 85 to 90 percent of the time.
This way, you are not living a life focusing on deprivation.
Rather, the majority of the time, you are using the tips and tools in your weight loss and weight management arsenal that will keep your weight in check.
If you are 100 pounds or more overweight and have tried traditional weight loss and fitness programs without success, a surgical weight loss solution may be the final solution you need to achieve substantial weight loss.
Call our Bariatric Success Program coordinators at (732) 982-2002 to learn more or attend one of our New (Future) Patient Seminars that I co-host along with Prime Surgicare medical director Dr. Seun Sowemimo and board-certified bariatric surgeon Dr. Bennet Togbe at CentraState Medical Center in Freehold.